The Narnia 3 Blog

My nephew just returned from a tour with the Marines in Iraq. He wrote some of his thoughts from his experiences and passed them along. He writes about the reality of what is actually happening in Iraq; things that the media, in the main, ignores.

My Experience in Iraq

By Cpl. Jonathan Farr

First, let me say that I have grown from my experiences in Iraq. I believe there is an job to do and we are not finished yet, There are a lot of good things that have been accomplished in Iraq, such as: Schools built, towns repaired, and protection offered to the people.

The problems are complex but simple. The people are very poor. It is hard for us to understand how poor until you see it first hand. When we would enter a village, children would crowd around us - they would just appear, almost out of nowhere. We would hand out crayons, pencils, candy and water. Once when we were on patrol, a young boy jumped out in front of my Humvee holding two chickens. He wanted to trade one for a bottle of water. We didn’t know what we would do with a chicken, so we gave him the water and he kept the chicken. That is a big problem in the area we were in. Because the people are so poor, the insurgents come in and offer money to anyone who would dig a hole and put an I.E.D. (Improvised Explosives Device ) in. They do it because they need the money to feed their families. However, if they don’t do what they insurgents want, they are threatened with violence. Their family will be hurt, children killed, women raped. It is very difficult for the people and that’s where we come in. If we hear about that kind of activity, we go in and protect the people.

The Media - The insurgents watch the same programs on TV that we do. When the news shows our missions, they don’t help us. When they show some new device that we have to help us find insurgents or that protects us, the insurgents use that information against us. They only want to show the bad news and it is turning our own country against us and the job we have to do. We need the support of our country so that we can get the job done as soon as possible (ASAP). When the insurgents see the harm they cause us, in the field, they are encouraged to do the same thing again and again.

Iraqi Help - The attitude of the people is changing. When we go into a village, we talk to the Elders and they have been giving out information to help us protect them.

There was one time that I was on patrol with my group and we talked to the Elders and they told us about some activity in one of the fields. We went down the road single file. I was driving the Humvee with the .50 Cal., to provide security. As we traveled up this road, we noticed something strange about the field. Red flags went up and we were on edge. All of us were looking for signs. We noticed the field was burned in a pattern: the grass was burned for 50 yards and it repeated about every 300 yards - this would be used to time our speed. Then we noticed women and children watching us from the roof tops in the village. Just then we heard the interpreter yelling. “I.E.D., I.E.D.!” We immediately dropped back to a safe distance and called E.O.D. (Explosives Ordnance Disposal ) They came out and set it off. It left a six foot by six foot hole in the road.

Our interpreter is 18 years old and he has been helping us since he was 16 years old. He told us the reason is because Saddam had his family tortured. He was a great guy and he saved our lives that day, me and the 15 others that were in our group.

I am honored to have done my job over there and when called to go again, I will go and do my job to the best of my abilities. These people need us, right now, and to leave them to fend for themselves is like opening the gate to the sheep and letting the wolves come in.

I’m not going to try and get political. All I know is what I saw and what I did. As a Marine, I’m trained to do a job when America calls. All I ask is for support and the tools to do the best job I can. If we get that, we can get the job done and come home. Thank you for your prayers and letters.

Cpl. Jonathan Farr, USMC