Tuesday, July 25, 2006

About Speeding

We went into a village this morning to give away some toys and stuff. Most of it was toys. We do that once in a while. I’m sure the locals freak out when we show up because we hardly ever bother them. We like to keep to ourselves and do our routines. When we first got into the village a man appeared with his little girl. As soon as we brought the box of toys out of one of the Humvees I’m sure he knew what we were going to do. In fact, I think he called for his spouse or someone. Word of mouth spread and soon we had a small group of people there. We didn’t want to crowd to get so big that we wouldn’t be able to handle them. We also wanted to make sure that the toys got evenly dispersed so that everyone got something. These people were excited and happy. The smiles were growing on their faces. The women especially came out of their little huts, with face and all. I’m glad that we might have brought some sense of happiness to these people. Doc Ock was pretty depressed today. He is getting written counseling for his speeding incident yesterday. I think he’s pretty lucky. I think they should come down harder on speeders. I’m probably more likely to die in an auto accident than by hostel fire. My roommate, The Big Man, agrees. He says he’s told his driver, Grandpa, that he drives too fast but Grandpa doesn’t stop. The Big Man has finally gotten to the point, like me, where we’re just going to let them get caught speeding or get us into an accident. The Big Man said that he’s just going to say, “I told him.”

4 Comments:

Blogger kbug said...

It must be wonderful to see the smiles of the children and their parents...to know you've made them happy. It's hard for people over here to understand the kind of poverty that most of the Iraqis live in. Americans are so spoiled and don't even realize it...until they go to a place like Iraq. Thanks for giving us a view of life over there.

7/25/2006 7:56 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Sgt. Pete are you out of Beanie Babies yet? Hope all is well over there. You seem to be a bit down lately. Be certain that soon you'll be home with your family and friends. Danielle and Stephanie pray for you and your guys every night and recently I think Daniele has realy begun to understand that the children over there have nothing. Thanks for your efforts and remember there are millions here in the US who are proud of you and what you are doing.
I'm in Chicago this week for the American Association of Cinical Chemistry convention. Its bad enough being away from the wife and kids for a week....your sacrifices are extreme and something we all honor.
Keep on rockin'.
Let me know about the Beanie Babies stock and thanks for touching those little children's lives.

Paul

7/26/2006 7:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you for the pictures and sharing what you are doing to connect with the people of Iraq. Our service men and women are doing a fine job there. To bad the media doesn't take time to let us hear these types of stories. Thanks again for sharing what you can of your day to day events. God bless you and all our service people and their families.

7/26/2006 8:25 AM  
Blogger A Guy on his Journey said...

Thanks guys. It was really nice to see a smile on the peoples faces, especially the adults. The kids are easy to get smiles from. The adults take a little bit more. I'm glad we made them happy and hopefully we made an impression.

As far as the Beanies you shipped to me Paul, I'm still working on them. I have a few left. I mostly save those for the little girls. I'm a gunner so I hardly ever get the chance to hand them out. I'm usually chucking them out of my turret. I try not to spoil the same kids we see every day. I'm always looking out for new ones.

7/26/2006 11:02 PM  

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