A New Perspective

Went to a church group meeting last night that featured a Major from the US Army that has just returned from a year in Iraq. He came to tell us about his experience in Iraq and Kuwait. He is part of a Military Intelligence unit from my area. He actually spent some time working in the Abu Ghraib prison. He was there last October and made the specific comment that neither he himself or any of his unit witnessed any prisoner abuse. His job was to be the 'greeter' at the prison. Capturing units would bring the captured Iraqis to the prison and his unit would take them from there and interrogate them and sort them into 'people of interest' or not. If they found interest in them they would be sent into the main prison population and wait for further interrogation. He told us that all the MI personnel in his unit signed a document promising to "not touch the captured Iraqis". They were not to even touch them at all and signed a paper to that affect!
He told us story after story about his dealings with the average Iraqi person that they came in contact with and they seem to be pretty decent people. They want the same things we want. Food, water, work and a comfortable place to call home. He had many pictures of smiling Iraqi citizens. We don't see much of that through the media these days.
This definitely gave me a new perspective on how things are going over there. I suspected there was more 'good' than the media was showing us. I now have proof. Proof from one of our soldiers.