Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

FIRST PERSON/OPINION

From a U.S. Army Captain we know, who will remain anonymous, via e-mail:

Thank goodness it’s June, another tax-free month in beautiful Mosul.

Not too much excitement here in Mosul this past week. Had a couple of attacks down in Fallujah, which is where we were originally supposed to be.

I did have a very rewarding experience, though. Each unit has $25K captured currency from the regime that we must use to do projects that will improve the community. The theory is a series of small victories will help us win over the people. So we provided supplies, AC’s, and other necessities to a school and two orphanages.

The COL is huge on these missions, so when we went to the school the COL helped carry stacks of notebooks and chalkboards into the schools. The local Iraqi men were blown away–they could not believe a COL would actually carry anything or do manual labor.

A man said “In Iraq a COL would never lift anything or ever have to.” To which our COL replied “Yeah, I remember how effective they were last month.” You gotta love a guy like that.

As a thank-you for the help, the orphanage invited 15 of us for a retreat. I was one of the ones lucky enough to go. Believe it or not, it was a Catholic orphanage run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. There were 10 female orphans ranging in age from 5-17, and 10 nuns. Half of the nuns spoke some degree of English and all the girls spoke pretty fluent English. Come to find out they have nothing to do with the American order of the Sacred Heart “Go Crusaders!”, rather they are Chaldean Catholics from the biblical land many many moons ago. In this area there are three sects of Catholicism.

During the retreat they discussed with us the history of Christianity in Iraq, which is absolutely fascinating. We retraced the steps of Abraham and Jews through the whole Old Testament. Most of it occurred right where we were standing. Absolutely fascinating! Then we looked at Thomas’ work to spread Christianity through South East Asia and on throughout Asia– again right where we were standing.

Then we examined the political/religious structure of Iraq throughout Saddam’s rule–again fascinating through first-hand accounts.

Then we had lunch: they make a soup than is like egg-drop soup, then falafel (fried beans), then Mosul pizza, then a rice pilaf topped with lamb, snap beans, dorma (the stuffed grape leaves), fruit, and then custard that was out of this world.

We had a mass in their chapel and they insisted it was to be in English–their mass is identical to ours.

The girls insisted that they sing for us, which was amazing. Their songs are almost like Gregorian Chants. Another interesting fact is they do not speak Arabic, rather Aramaic.

At every turn we had tea, which in the Middle East is called Chai. So next time you go to Starbucks and pay five bucks for chai you know where it comes from. They brew it with the leaves in the tea, and sugar at the bottom of the glass. I suggest using floss afterward for the leaves.

All-in-all it was very rewarding experience with a people that were truly grateful we were there.

Other than that. it’s a day-in day-out grind.

Hope all is well back home, and hope to see everyone soon.