Cross posted on Daily Kos
Brief history:
My mother was renting a summer house last year near a military base. She befriended several of the soldiers in a local restaurant. She became friends with one in particular who wanted to write to people “stateside” while in Iraq.
For obvious reasons, I will not identify where my mother was living at the time or the base this soldier was assigned to.
She told him I would love to be a pen pal so he and I have been exchanging emails for some time now. This is the first one I’ve received from him with any real information about what is going on in Iraq.
My reaction:
U.S. Military cannot provide our troops with drinking water?
U.S. Military cannot provide our troops with adequate plumbing facilities?
E coli in the drinking water?
How are our brave men and women of the armed forces supposed to fight the global war on terror living in these sub-standard conditions?
We know many soldiers do not have adequate body armor. Now we learn they don’t have clean drinking water either.
Well Eve,
My life here is verry different than I ever wxpected to be living that is for sure. I dont even know where to start. I also dont want you to feel bad for me when I tell you some of this stuff. First of all we hardly ever have hot water. That is when we still have water because they have to truck all of our water in from the local villages. Next the septic system here is set up for about half of the people that use it. That leads to the weak link which happens to be in the bathroom that is in my section of the berthing. You know what that means. That means that when she is full the overflow comes up our sinks and spreads poo all over the floor. Also with the water they test it and every time it comes up with ecoli. They had three kinds of bottled water here for us and two of the three kinds have bacteria in them. The last thing that bugs me about this place is there is all kinds of mold on the walls where we sleep. There is mold right next to my head throught the whole night.The whole civil war thing is not affecting us yet except for the mail. We cannot go and get the mail because of that crap.
I am sorry that I am rambeling but I have to cut myself off right now I could go on all night long!!!!
Given the circumstances I think that we have pretty high spirits!!!
I will write later
Your Friend in Iraq,
There’s nothing I can add.
In spite of everything, he writes their spirits are high. Makes you want to weep.
Can you imagine George Bush living with shit all over the floor?
The whole miserable situation speaks for itself.
