A 'Good News' Story

[Annie]

Several posters have said they like these, so here's another:

http://noleftturns.ashbrook.org/default.asp?archiveID=4680

Excerpt:

April 9, 2003," [Iraqi Army Lt. Col. Ahmed Lutfi] Ahmed [Raheem] said. "I don’t forget this day."

"I was on my way home to Baghdad after my brigadier boss had told me the war was over and to go home," Ahmed said, describing his last moments as a major in the old Iraqi Army air defense unit he had been with for nine years. "He said it was an order," he added.

"So I walked home from our station in Al Hillah, south of Baghdad, but I didn’t change my clothes," Ahmed said, "And I came to a Marine checkpoint on a bridge in Baghdad. And I still had my uniform on and the Marine sergeant stopped me ..."

"’Where are you going?’ he asked me," Ahmed said in his accented but surprisingly good English.

"And I tell him, ’I am a major in the Iraqi Army and I was ordered to go to my house’" Ahmed said, finishing the backdrop to a life-defining moment he had not seen coming; and on what was supposed to be just a long 50-plus mile walk home to his wife and five children.

The encounter would prove to be a pivotal one for the military veteran because for the next two anxious minutes, Ahmed went through what must be emotions impossible to describe to someone who has never known he was about to die. It was more the result of the 33-year-old’s lifetime of experience with the ways of Saddam Hussein.

Ahmed, though, was actually two minutes away from a rebirth of sorts. "He looked at me for a while and I thought he was going to kill me," Ahmed said. "But he didn’t kill me," he added. "Instead he came to the position of attention and saluted me as an officer," Ahmed said, "And said, ’Sir you can go.’"

"I took a few steps and began to cry," he said, "Because I think, ’Why do I fight these people for ten years?[’”]

"This moment changed me from the inside," Ahmed said. "What he did was kill me without pistol. He killed the old major in the Iraqi Army who fought America from 1993 to 2003.”

Ahmed was advised by a U.S. Army officer to apply at the recruiting center in Baghdad and was ushered into the army a short time later as an "officer candidate." After training, he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the new army having made the cut for promotion from his former rank in the old army....

Found this via: http://www.polipundit.com/2004_07_25_polipundit_archive.html#109072989466540897

Her Commentary:

UPDATE: Something just occurred to me. Doesn't John Kerry belittle and besmirch the courage of all the Iraqi soldiers that are risking their lives daily just by showing up for work, when he says that there is no progress in Iraq and that the whole thing is a big mess? Is anyone in the media going to call him on this? He definitely denigrates the quality and value of the work our own soldiers are doing over there. But then, that is nothing new for him. He got plenty of practice doing that 30 years ago when he called his "brothers-in-arms" war criminals. Maybe that is why it isn't newsworthy. It's just more of the same.
posted by Lorie Byrd at 12:12 AM

 

[UsaPride]

I got goosebumps!! What a great story!
Thanks Kat, you're the best!!

 

[Comrade]

Several posters have said they like these, so here's another:

http://noleftturns.ashbrook.org/default.asp?archiveID=4680

Excerpt:



Found this via: http://www.polipundit.com/2004_07_25_polipundit_archive.html#109072989466540897

Her Commentary:

Great story.

This reminds me of the last series in Band of Brothers, when the Major refuses to accept the pistol of the German Colonel. By surrendering honorably this Iraqi merits the same honor in return.

 

[Annie]

Great story.

This reminds me of the last series in Band of Brothers, when the Major refuses to accept the pistol of the German Colonel. By surrendering honorably this Iraqi merits the same honor in return.

I thought that so cool. End of Civil War too, they let Lee keep his weapon and officers keep their horses!

Brings to mind that whole Marine thing, 'No better friend, no worse enemy'.

 

[UsaPride]

Great story.

This reminds me of the last series in Band of Brothers, when the Major refuses to accept the pistol of the German Colonel. By surrendering honorably this Iraqi merits the same honor in return.

What an awesome scene! I loved Band of Brothers!