Emails From Iraq

I've decided to write this column in support of our brothers and sisters having to serve in Iraq. It will be an ongoing piece of the situation in Iraq as seen through the eyes of one soldier by the name of Keith. Pagans United (www.pagansunited.com) began a project to send packages to our brothers and sisters in Iraq and in doing so we came across Keith who corresponds with us daily about the life and the people serving in Iraq. You will get an inside track of what it is like, the thoughts that run through his mind and how his spirituality as a Pagan works with his job as a Soldier at war. Along with his emails, we will be posting pictures so that you can see, as well as, hear what it is really like there and how this one soldier feels about our involvement there and about the happenings here at home. This first one, we received today and it really touched many of us. I'll let you decide for yourself. I will have a section on our forum for comments and messages to the troops in Iraq if you care to post your thoughts.

From: "Keith" <
Date: Wed May 4, 2005 9:12 am
Subject: From Baghdad.......Days of Bitterness

So I have the day off. Every day becomes a blur lately and though there are many around me, I feel a profound loneliness. Its not anyone's fault, but it happens when one walks this road. I look on reports, watch the news and the body count rises. Sometimes in the darkest hour of the night I wonder am I next. The opponents find new and inventive ways to cause havoc and murder. They take innocents as often as they take soldiers. The methods I see get crueler and crueler by the week. To what end I wonder? The pictures I see of the death hit harshly when I think about it for too long. I try to keep it bottled into the back of my racing mind, and it works to haunt me when I stop to think for more than a minute. There is no anger, only bitterness. To keep a measure of sanity, I get the gallows humor, knowing that I could die and trying not to care too much about it. Back home, family doesnt understand, nor do I dare to try to make them understand. Would I allow them too much information so they could share in my nightmares? That would be a cold hearted thing to do....so I bury it deep untill those moments where I am alone in my room and no one there to keep my mind off the madness. The high leadership of our country says our time tables of dealing with other "Axis of Evil" will take longer, but that we can still win. I ask, what are we winning? I know it is supposed to be a justice seeking for the lives we lost on 9/11....but how long will it take? And who really benifits? So what is the answer? Do I continue to stay numb? Do I hurt on pupose just to feel anything at all? Should I buy into the madness with zeal and blindly go for the sake of patriotism? Oh, never will I fail in my duty as I am honor bound to continue my oath. But the questions haunt me daily. I cry out to the Goddess for forgiveness at what machine I help to run. I call to the God for strength and hope that the tattered remains of honor are justified. But mostly I pray to forgive myself when I wake in the morning and look into staring eyes in the mirror. I love the nation which I have served for so long, but where does that leave me when all is burnt to the very essence of truth. This is the real war...the seeking of truth in a nation divided. Still the body count continues to rise. Still mothers cry for thier sons and daughters brought home draped in solomn flags wondering why it wasnt someone else who had to bear the ultimate sacrifice. Again my thoughts border on sedition and again I risk it to think freely. Another day will pass and the madness within me will crave for another run outside the wire just so I can say I was contributing to eventual peace, even though it could end me there. Some days I actually believe in what we are doing, but then I keep wondering why the resistance against policy continues to thrive. What will be left of spirit when I return? I have more responsibilities than I care to have. To meet those responsibilities I have to stay a slave to the machine that has grinded my spirit down. So will I return again for the sake of those responsibilites? When does it end. Yes, Im bitter today. No there isnt much to do about it. There is no glorious victory here. There is only blood on the streets, the ahses of bunr bodies in the air, and the tears of those who have lost loved ones streaming down faces of pain. This is what I thought about for the last 24 hours. Ive slept only in bits and pieces.... Tommorow I will go back and ready up for another run and I will do it hell or high water because there are brothers in arms that depend on me to do it. If Im lucky, I wont have to pull the trigger, or piece together whats left of a friend. That would be a lucky day to me. So far luck has held, but I wonder how long it will last. And I hate....myself for divided loyalties. Hoping I can find peace one day. That is the true meaning of the Butcher's Bill.