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The Boo Radleys (II)
(This story began here. Previous installment here.)
A story you probably didn't hear about - from last week:
BAGHDAD — An armed crowd of more than 80 residents of the eastern Baghdad district of Adhamiyah stormed a prominent Sunni mosque in search of those responsible for the deaths of two area children, representatives of the U.S. Army said Monday.A search of the Abu Hanifa mosque compound by Iraqi security forces after the confrontation yielded more than three dozen detainees and several large weapons caches, according to an Army news release. The mosque has long been suspected of being at the center of the pocket of extremist Sunni resistance housed in Adhamiyah.
<...>
The incident occurred Sunday afternoon after the crowd of angry residents rallied around a local sheik who is the uncle of the two children that were killed, according to U.S. Army spokesmen. No details about the deaths were released.According to Army officials, the crowd “ousted suspected terrorists” from the mosque, though no gunfire was exchanged. Members of the Iraqi army arrived at the mosque and took 13 detainees into custody, according to the U.S. military.
Iraqi security forces then returned twice more later in the evening and early morning the next day to conduct searches of the mosque grounds.
They discovered weapons caches that included explosive devices, dynamite, mortars, rockets and land mines, according to the U.S. military. During the later searches, 28 additional detainees were taken into custody.
The search of mosques has long been a sensitive issue for coalition forces. Although U.S. military intelligence has indicated that foreign fighters have been housed in the Abu Hanifa mosque and in the surrounding areas, no American soldier has ever set foot inside the mosque as part of a search, according to Purcell.
Coalition forces are required to petition Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for permission to search certain prominent mosques, including Abu Hanifa, Purcell said. That permission is rarely granted, he added.
Flashback:
And then I was bumped.
No return flight - stranded elsewhere. But for a good reason - someone else was going on emergency leave, and mine was the earliest available space. For this reason, when you travel in Iraq you bring stuff with you - and I had.
But I wasn't convinced I'd need it just yet. I've got friends (who are sometimes) in high places, and with a quick phone call I had booked myself passage on a cargo hauler. I would, in fact, get home earlier than originally planned.
I could already see the story having the sort of happy ending I find most satisfactory in fiction. It would go something like this:
"Good bye" he said. "Good bye" they replied, and then he flew away.
Not that great an ending, I suppose, but then, the story wasn't much of a story...
so far.
Now: Go see the movie Stardust this week. It's one you'll probably want to see on a big screen, and it probably won't be on them much longer.
Then tell me if it was any good. I suspect it is. But while Bourne Ultimatum, Rush Hour 3, The Simpsons, and every third-rate film released over the past week or so are all widely available on DVD here, Stardust is not.
DVDs available on movie release weekend are one of the many perks of this very strange war.
So is email. A recent one from the youngest member of clan Greyhawk began like this: "well my first day went WONDERFULLY!!"
This is music to her father's ears. If memory serves, she's attended six schools on two continents, and the last move was particularly cruel, coming one year into her high school career.
She's the one who'll be reading The Awakening, by the way. I'm not too concerned about any negative impact on her - she recognizes crap when she sees it.
Back when she was in middle school she debated morons in comments here. She ran circles around them. It was fun while it lasted but now that she's a bit older there's no longer enough challenge in it.
She would kill me, of course, if I were to reprint that whole email.
But hopefully I can get away with including this line:
... the teacher also told us that the people on the board are so angry about the uniforms not being enforced that they want ALL dress code rules to be super enforced. so ALL students must tuck in ALL shirts. and he made me tuck in my suuuuper long shirt. (which i didnt really do i just kinda folded it.) LAME! i undid it as soon as i left.
Her grandma got a copy though. That was grandma's reward for sending me cookies!
From an email exchange with my other daughter:
According to Amazon, the package I sent you should have arrived. So now I needFrom the reply:
1. Reviews of products therein (you can tell me if they suck - I won't cry)
2. Reports on the trip to Bush GardensI definitely thought Stardust was worth checking out. It isn't a kids story, as you'll find out in chapter one. (I read the first chapter online after I had already ordered it). And the movie version of it comes out this weekend (but I suggest reading the book first.) The illustrations in the book looked pretty cool too.
Love,
Dad
I finished the Stardust book. I started to read it the night before last and finished the next night. It was pretty neat. Very interesting and bizarre. It reminded me of a mix of a book you made me read as a kid (that was supposedly your fav? cant remember the title for the life of me but there was a talking dog and a guy that made them look thru a hay stack for a needle...something about a booth?) and the last unicorn.(That other book she referenced was The Phantom Tollbooth.)
Her grandma used to make me read books, too.
Her grandmother's father was shelled on the battlefields of France on the last day of World War One.
Her future husband was in the Army during World War Two, and so were three (correction) four of her brothers ("Plus a bunch of cousins"). One sat out the end of the war in a German Stalag - then served with another brother through Korea and Vietnam.
And at this point in her life her crazy son has gone off to play in Iraq twice, so far.
Where it ain't all fun and games:
BAGHDAD - A sniper shot and killed a U.S. soldier, then lured his comrades to a booby-trapped house where four more troops were killed in a complex attack believed to have been the work of al-Qaida in Iraq, a U.S. general said Sunday.U.S. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, who commands the volatile southern rim of Baghdad and districts to the south, said the use of rigged houses was a new tactic against American forces trying to root out bomb networks in the rural insurgent strongholds.
The soldiers entered the house Saturday in search of the sniper who had killed one of their comrades minutes earlier. One soldier stepped on a pressure-triggered bomb. He and three others were killed and four wounded, Lynch told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
<...>
The deaths raised to 70 the number of Task Force Marne soldiers killed since April 4, about 80 percent from makeshift bombs hidden on roadsides, in houses or planted in the ground, Lynch said.The figures reflect the increased vulnerability of American forces as they have increasingly targeted known militant safehavens and left the safety of heavily fortified bases to deploy in remote outposts and on foot patrols.
"As we surged, the enemy surged," Lynch said. "We do indeed make safety and security our first priority, but we are not going to stop taking the fight to the enemy."
...and that was my first day of school. i was told by one other teacher to tuck my shirt in but i just pretended to until i was well outta sight and then pulled it back out.pretty good start for the school year.
Mrs G,Tell our daughter that dad says he's in Iraq so that NO ONE CAN EVER MAKE HER TUCK HER SHIRT IN IF SHE DOESN"T WANT TO.
The story continues here.
