Words from the front-lines ...

“They hate us over here. I’m in the worst possible place you can be
in this country. I want to come home.”
– Michael J. Stanley Jr., 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry,
101st Airborne Division, Ramadi, Iraq.

“No one told me why I’m putting my life on the line in Samarra,
and you know why they didn’t? Because there is no fucking reason.”
– Specialist Michael Pena, 2nd platoon, Bravo Company,
Rakkasan Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, Samarra, Iraq.

“I don’t know. I suppose insurgents. Trying to get rid of us, I guess.
I guess they hate us because we done blown up half their country.”
– Private Patrice Gittens, Camp Stryker, Baghdad, Iraq,
on who was responsible for mortaring her unit’s base.

“How can we know who is our enemy when we don’t even know why
we’re here?”
– Specialist William Clark, Camp Stryker, Baghdad, Iraq.

“See these oil fires? This is why we’re here, guys. We’re not
defending freedom.”
– Tomas Young, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment,
Baghdad, Iraq.

“I don’t know what the mission is; I haven’t known for a long time.
I’m tired of putting kids in body bags.”
– Sergeant Sherwood Baker, 82nd Airborne Division,
who died protecting the Iraq Survey Group that was
sent to find Iraq’s non-existent WMD.

“We can’t fight this enemy. …
They could be right in front of you and you wouldn’t know it.
They have an enemy. We don’t.”
– Staff Sergeant Emmitt Adkins, 2nd Platoon,
A Company, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry
Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division,
Kandahar, Afghanistan.

“‘I don’t know who my enemy is. It’s a worthless, senseless war,
a war of religion. We’ll never win it.”
– Seth Niederer, Iskanderiya, Iraq.
These were his last words to his mother before he returned
to Iraq and was killed by an I.E.D.

http://www.traveling-soldier.org/7.06.words.php