"We hope the Americans will stay in Iraq forever."

Tobiasly · 06-03-2003, 01:37 PM

For those who didn't read my long narrative in the other thread, I was stationed about 5 miles from An Nasiriyah (where those POWs were captured). Most of our interactions with civilians was the bedouin nomads who had set up camp nearby.

I'd say that 95% of them were rather pleased with our presence. That's no scientific poll, and surely not representative of the entire population, but I was pretty surprised at how many of the average locals were happy to see us.

There was one family (mom, dad, son, and some other guy) who we stopped at a checkpoint, and they had an Iraqi mortar tube sight in their vehicle. We detained them, flex-cuffed their hands behind their backs, and took them in. After a little questioning, we determined that the kid just found it somewhere and picked it up as a cool toy.

All of this took a couple hours, after which we let them go. We didn't mistreat them, but we weren't very friendly either (we wanted to get the point across that picking up military gear was a bad idea). But when we released them, both men approached me, shook my hand, and told me they were glad we were here. Then one gave a thumbs-up and shouted "George Bush!" excitedly.

I'm not sure what all they're putting on the tube back home, but that was a pretty good representative of our typical interaction.

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06-03-2003, 01:37 PM	#5
Tobiasly hot Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Jeffersonville, IN (near Louisville) Posts: 892	For those who didn't read my long narrative in the other thread, I was stationed about 5 miles from An Nasiriyah (where those POWs were captured). Most of our interactions with civilians was the bedouin nomads who had set up camp nearby. I'd say that 95% of them were rather pleased with our presence. That's no scientific poll, and surely not representative of the entire population, but I was pretty surprised at how many of the average locals were happy to see us. There was one family (mom, dad, son, and some other guy) who we stopped at a checkpoint, and they had an Iraqi mortar tube sight in their vehicle. We detained them, flex-cuffed their hands behind their backs, and took them in. After a little questioning, we determined that the kid just found it somewhere and picked it up as a cool toy. All of this took a couple hours, after which we let them go. We didn't mistreat them, but we weren't very friendly either (we wanted to get the point across that picking up military gear was a bad idea). But when we released them, both men approached me, shook my hand, and told me they were glad we were here. Then one gave a thumbs-up and shouted "George Bush!" excitedly. I'm not sure what all they're putting on the tube back home, but that was a pretty good representative of our typical interaction.

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