I felt it very necessary for the first blog to be the true message that every Iraqi wants to tell the American soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors, and American public. That message is simple, it is thank you. We thank you for everything that you have endured in bringing up liberation and bringing us a chance to move forward for tyranny and oppression. After the decades of misery the Iraqi people had really given up all hope that anyone would come to help them but then one day we saw those stars and stripes waving in downtown Baghdad and everyone knew what that flag represented. ...
I was recently at a cafe in Baghdad with a small group of close Kurdish friends and relatives. We were eating kabob and sharing a hookah when we heard a single explosion several blocks away. We jumped up and started moving towards where it came from and we knew we were headed in the right direction because I saw one of the 'ABC' station reporters heading in the opposite direction. My cousin went up to the man and grabbed him and said, "Where the hell do you think you are going, you want a story? Well you found one, go and film what you all want to write about."
So the reporter started following us over as he really didn't know what to do after this 6' 3" Iraqi just grabbed him and practically dragged him with us. We arrived to find a small group of Iraqis trying to help these two wounded U.S. soldiers who were injured from an apparent IED. The other soldiers weren't quite sure what to do when they saw these Iraqis calling for the police to come over and when they saw this older women in all black ripping a piece of her clothing and soaking it with water that she was carrying to try in comfort this soldier. Two medics came over and took over from there and then one of their commanding officers I guess drew a perimiter and told everyone to leave the area.
The immediate buzz amongst the people was, "I hope the soldiers are alright" and "God willing the perpetrators will be ravaged in the hell fire." I looked over to the reporter and saw what appeared like he just saw a ghost, as I guess he had never seen injured people after a bomb. I told him, "Now turn your camera on since you didn't at the site of the attack and report from Iraq. We are Iraq, now report!"
As soon as he turned his camera on a small group gathered around his camera screaming in Arabic, "That was not us! Death to the terrorists! God bless America!" I attempted to translate as much as I could to the camera in english as the group was chanting this in Arabic, but to no avail I said none of this in the reporting later that night from Iraq.
Hat tip: LGF comments
