- WASHINGTON -- Letters from
hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been
appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the
mission sours.
-
- And all the letters are the same.
-
- A Gannett News Service search found identical letters
from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry
Regiment, also known as "The Rock," in 11 newspapers, including
Snohomish, Wash.
-
- The Olympian received two identical letters signed by
different hometown soldiers: Spc. Joshua Ackler and Spc. Alex Marois, who
is now a sergeant. The paper declined to run either because of a policy
not to publish form letters.
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- The five-paragraph letter talks about the soldiers' efforts
to re-establish police and fire departments, and build water and sewer
plants in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where the unit is based.
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- "The quality of life and security for the citizens
has been largely restored, and we are a large part of why that has happened,"
the letter reads.
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- It describes people waving at passing troops and children
running up to shake their hands and say thank you.
-
- It's not clear who wrote the letter or organized sending
it to soldiers' hometown papers.
-
- Six soldiers reached by GNS directly or through their
families said they agreed with the letter's thrust. But none of the soldiers
said he wrote it, and one said he didn't even sign it.
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- Marois, 23, told his family he signed the letter, said
Moya Marois, his stepmother. But she said he was puzzled why it was sent
to the newspaper in Olympia. He attended high school in Olympia but no
longer considers the city home, she said. Moya Marois and Alex's father,
Les, now live near Kooskia, Idaho.
-
- A seventh soldier didn't know about the letter until
his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper
in Beckley, W.Va.
-
- "When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he
said: 'What letter?' " Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the
phone conversation he had with his son, Nick. "This is just not his
(writing) style."
-
- He spoke to his son, Pfc. Nick Deaconson, at a hospital
where he was recovering from a grenade explosion that left shrapnel in
both his legs.
-
- Sgt. Christopher Shelton, who signed a letter that ran
in the Snohomish Herald, said Friday that his platoon sergeant had distributed
the letter and asked soldiers for the names of their hometown newspapers.
Soldiers were asked to sign the letter if they agreed with it, said Shelton,
whose shoulder was wounded during an ambush earlier this year.
-
- "Everything it said is dead accurate. We've done
a really good job," he said by phone from Italy, where he was preparing
to return to Iraq.
-
- Sgt. Todd Oliver, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne
Brigade, which counts the 503rd as one of its units, said he was told a
soldier wrote the letter, but he didn't know who. He said the brigade's
public affairs unit was not involved.
-
- "When he asked other soldiers in his unit to sign
it, they did," Oliver explained in an e-mail response to a GNS inquiry.
"Someone, somewhere along the way, took it upon themselves to mail
it to the various editors of newspapers across the country."
-
- Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald, a spokesman for the 4th infantry
Division that is heading operations in north-central Iraq, said he had
not heard about the letter-writing campaign.
-
- Neither had Lt. Cmdr. Nick Balice, a spokesman for U.S.
Central Command in Tampa, Fla.
-
- A recent poll suggests that Americans are increasingly
skeptical of America's prolonged involvement in Iraq. A USA Today-CNN-Gallup
Poll released Sept. 23 found 50 percent believe that the situation in Iraq
was worth going to war over, down from 73 percent in April.
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- The letter talks about the soldiers' mission, saying,
"one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from ten jumbo
jets." It describes Kirkuk as "a hot and dusty city of just over
a million people." It tells about the progress they have made.
-
- "The fruits of all our soldiers' efforts are clearly
visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the
streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned
to school," the letter reads. "I am proud of the work we are
doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well."
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- Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., said he spoke to a
military public affairs officer whose name he couldn't remember about his
accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent
to his hometown paper in Charleston, W.Va. But the 2nd Battalion soldier
said he did not sign any letter.
-
- Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter's sentiments,
he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his
own words or spell out his own accomplishments.
-
- "It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and
everybody got the same grade," Grueser said by phone from a base in
Italy where he had just arrived from Iraq.
-
- Moya Marois said she is proud of her stepson Alex, the
former Olympia resident. But she worries that the letter tries to give
legitimacy to a war she doesn't think was justified.
-
- "We're going to support our son," she said.
But "there are a lot of Americans that are not in support of this
war that would like to see them returned home, and think it's going to
get worse."
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- ©2003 The Olympian
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- http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031011/frontpage/121390.shtml
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- Comment
From Mike
10-13-3
-
- I have seen two different sorts of letters that have
been supposedly coming from individual soldiers involved in operations
in Iraq. One set basically tends to go on about how lousy the conditions
are over there and how badly things are falling apart. The second set basically
tells about how well things are going over there and tends to paint a rosy
picture of what's going on.
-
- Now, having been in the military myself I know for a
fact that different people in different units can have wildly different
ideas of just what is happening. Also it needs to be noted as well that
what different units are experiencing can be wildly different. Nevertheless,
I was somewhat suspicious because if things were actually anywhere near
close to being as screwed up on as massive a scale as the first set of
letters was claiming, then those who were painting a rosy picture were
arguably living in denial, and vice versa.
-
- Lo and behold, what should appear this morning but the
article I have forwarded below. It seems that some enterprising individual
or a group of them is going around writing rosy letters about what's going
on and sending them to various newspapers around the country.
-
- In the process of doing so, they are signing names to
those letters of people who did not write them. While the soldiers contacted
by the newspaper said they agreed with the sentiments in the letter (not
surprising or they could be brought up on charges) several were mystified
that such letters were attributed to them.
-
- Thus, it would appear that what we have some sort of
government pro-war propaganda campaign being conducted for the benefit
of the home front. I wonder how much money they're spending on this little
prpaganda campaign? Don't you feel so much better now that it looks like
our government is lying to us again?
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