With allies in enemy ranks, GIs in Iraq are no longer true believers

[maddezmom]

BAGHDAD: Staff Sergeant David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.

"In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place," he said. "There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome."

But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber's body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.

"I thought, 'What are we doing here? Why are we still here?' " said Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. "We're helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us."

His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness.

more:http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/27/news/delta.php

[wakeme2008]

1. Sounds like Vietnam more and more... The Barber that cut your hair by day

worked with the VC at night, and one night was killed carrying a bomb into the compound.

[David__77]

3. Just what I was thinking.

People tend not to like their country "helped" via occupation.

[LynnTheDem]

2. Dear Ssg; Here's the thing...

We INVADED a nation of peoples who hadn't done, hadn't been doing, one damn thing to anyone, least of all to us.

The "bad guys" you were hunting & killing, along with the inevitable "collateral damage" were defending their country, their home, against the INVADERS.

Are you really surprised to find they don't like you?