www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031011/frontpage/121390.shtml
WASHINGTON - Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as United States public opinion on the mission sours. 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. The paper declined to run either because of a policy not to publish form letters. 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. 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. It describes people waving at passing troops and children running up to shake their hands and say thank you. Its 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 letters thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it, and one said he didnt even sign it. 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. A seventh soldier didnt know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, WVa. 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. Nick Deaconson, at a hospital where he was recovering from a grenade explosion that left shrapnel in both his legs. 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. Weve done a really good job, he said by phone from Italy, where he was preparing to return to Iraq. 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 didnt know who. 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. 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. Nick Balice, a spokesman for United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla. A recent poll suggests that Americans are increasingly skeptical of Americas prolonged involvement in Iraq.
|
http://csua.com/feed/