in baghdad...

hey... so my brother, Matthew (US Army Intelligence), is in Baghdad at the moment - just got there 2 weeks ago after spending a year in Germany and a month in Kuwait getting accostomed to the desert...(you can see pics of us in Germany here, http://embloggage.blogspot.com/2006/08/deutschland.html).

so he's going to be spending an official year in Iraq. please remember to keep him and all the soldiers in your prayers. he's already going out on his missions, into local houses with a translator, gathering information and drinking large amounts of arabic coffee or tea.

anyway it's going to be a long year - thanks for the prayers!!

here's an excerpt from his last update...

On a serious note, it was quite interesting observing the city streets and the standard of living as we convoyed to our destination. It’s just so saddening. The place is so poverty stricken and obviously war-torn. It’s a mess. The cute little kids (whether they r future insurgents or not) run outside and wave to us, give us a thumbs up, and of course scream (no they don’t ask politely. It’s not part of their culture) for candy! So many of them don’t even have shoes. Trash is strewn about everywhere. Stagnant puddles of nasty muddy water cut through the trash here and there. People drive donkey-pulled carts with like 5 people on the back. Everything just looks so poor it’s hard to describe. Next time I’m out I’m gonna bring my camera. Maybe that can catch somewhat of a glimpse of things here. It’s hard to swallow the fact that the work I do, if successful, will save a few Iraqi lives, but only for a little while longer. The issues here are so deep rooted, complex, and seemingly hopeless. These poor people fear for their lives every day that the bad guys whether it’s shia on sunni or sunni on shia will target them next. Death in the most gruesome of forms is so commonplace for these people to experience and hear, read, or talk about.