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A letter from a National Guard Blackhawk pilot in Iraq
May 23, 2007

A tired and disgusted Iowa soldier fired off an e-mail a few days ago, telling family and friends how things are going in Iraq.

A Blackhawk helicopter pilot, Chief Warrant Officer Jim Funk has flown more than 80 combat missions since he arrived there in October.

He described his Boone-based unit’s successes after 5,000 hours of flying out of LSA Anaconda, a huge American base north of Baghdad. He talked about the tragedies he and his fellow Iowans have witnessed and his worries of becoming complacent as he goes on mission after mission.

Morale?

We’re treading water, the Ames man told the people closest to him. We continue to kick **** on missions and take care of each other, even though we know the American public and government DOES NOT stand behind us.

Ohhhh, they all say they support us, but how can you support me (the soldier) if you don’t support my mission or my objectives. We watch the news over here. Every time we turn it on we see the American public and Hollywood conducting protests and rallies against our ‘illegal occupation’ of Iraq.

His greatest frustration? The performance of the people who deliver the news to the American people.

I’ll let him say it, in his own words, in the letter, which found its way to me:

Hello media, do you know you indirectly kill American soldiers every day? You inspire and report the enemy’s objective every day. You are the enemy’s greatest weapon. The enemy cannot beat us on the battlefield so all he does is try to wreak enough havoc and have you report it every day. With you and the enemy using each other, you continually break the will of the American public and American government.

We go out daily and bust and kill the enemy, uncover and destroy huge weapons caches and continue to establish infrastructure. So daily we put a whoopin on the enemy, but all the enemy has to do is turn on the TV and get re-inspired. He gets to see his daily roadside bomb, truck bomb, ******* bomber or mortar attack. He doesn’t see any accomplishments of the U.S. military (FOX, you’re not exempt, you **** also).

Let’s give you an example. A couple of days ago we conducted an air assault. We lifted troops into an area for an operation. The operation went well and our ground troops killed (insurgents) and took several prisoners, freed a few hostages and uncovered a weapons cache containing munitions and chemicals that were going to be used in improvised bombs.

The next morning I woke up and turned on AFN (Armed Forces Network) and watched the nightly news (NBC). Nothing, none of that reported. But the daily car bomb report was reported, and the file footage was not even from the event. There was a car bomb in the Sadr City area and your news report showed old car bomb footage from another part of town from some other time.

So we really set the enemy back that night but all the enemy had to do was turn on the news and be reassured that the enemy’s agenda (objective) was still going to be fed to the American public.

We, the soldiers, keep breaking the back of the enemy. You, the media, keep rejuvenating the enemy.

How hard would it be to contact the PAO (public affairs officer) of the 1st CAV, 36th CAB, 25th ID or the Marines and ask what did you guys accomplish today - good and bad? How about some insurgent blooper videos? Now that would be something to show on the evening news.

Media, we know you **** the George Bush administration, but report both sides, not just your one-sided agenda. You have got to realize how you are continually motivating every extremist, jihadist and terrorist to continue their resolve to kill American soldiers.

It’s a punch in the nose to the news media from Funk, 39, a full-time employee of the Iowa National Guard.

Why did he write it?

I am just tired of busting my **** over here and coming home every night and turning on the TV (Armed Forces Network) and hearing how we are failing miserably, he told me in an e-mail.

You may agree with what Funk has to say. You may not.

Many in my business certainly won’t. But Funk is a soldier, fighting a war, who has earned the right to be heard.

Chief Warrant Officer Jim Funk, an Iowa National Guard Black Hawk helicopter pilot from Ames, has been serving in Iraq since October. He wrote a letter to friends and family blasting American media coverage of the war.

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By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: March 4, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 4 — American troops opened fire on a highway filled with civilian cars and bystanders today, American and Afghan officials said, in an incident that the Americans said left 16 civilians dead and 24 wounded as they fled the scene of a ******* car bombing in eastern Afghanistan. One American was also wounded.

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Rahmat Gul/Associated Press
Afghans shouted anti-American slogans Sunday to protest the deaths of civilians.

The Reach of War
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Noorullah/European Pressphoto Agency
A ******* car bombing was part of the violence, the United States military said.
The shooting set off demonstrations, with local people blocking the highway, the main road east from the town of Jalalabad to the border with Pakistan.

And there were differences in some of the accounts of the incident, with the Americans saying that the civilians were caught in crossfire between the troops and militants, and Afghan witnesses and some authorities blaming the Americans for indiscriminately shooting at civilian vehicles in anger after the explosion.

The United States military said the unit came under fire after a ******* bomber detonated his explosive-laden car near their convoy “as part of a complex ambush involving enemy small-arms fire from several directions.”

The marines, who were on patrol near Jalalabad airfield, returned fire, and the civilians were killed and wounded in the crossfire during the battle, according to a statement from the military press office at Bagram airbase near Kabul.

“We regret the death of innocent Afghan citizens as a result of the Taliban extremists’ cowardly act,” Lt. Col. David Accetta, a military spokesman, said in the statement. “Once again, the terrorists demonstrated their blatant disregard for human life by attacking coalition forces in a populated area, knowing full well that innocent Afghans would be killed and wounded in the attack.”

Yet some of the wounded interviewed in the hospital by news agencies said the only shooting came from the American troops. A hospital official, who asked not to be named, said all the wounded were suffering from bullet wounds and not shrapnel from the bomb explosion.

Hundreds of Afghans blocked the road and threw rocks at police officers in protest afterward, with some demonstrators shouting “Death to America! Death to Karzai,” a reference to President Hamid Karzai, The Associated Press reported.

The shooting is a setback for American forces in Afghanistan, who have been working to contain the continuing insurgent attacks, in particular roadside bombs and ******* attacks, and win the support of the people with reconstruction and development projects. Deadly riots shook Kabul last May after American troops were involved in a fatal car crash and then opened fire on the crowd.

Among the dead this morning were a woman and two children in their early teens, said Dr. Ajmal Pardez, the provincial director of health, speaking by telephone from the Jalalabad city hospital. He said the hospital received 10 dead and 25 wounded people from the incident, with four people in critical condition, he said.

After the ******* attack, the American soldiers treated every car and person along the highway as a potential attacker, though none of the people showed hostile intent, Muhammad Khan Katawazi, the district chief of Shinwar, told The Associated Press.

“They were firing everywhere, and they even opened fire on 14 to 15 vehicles passing on the highway,” said Tur Gul, 38, who was standing on the roadside by a gas station and was shot twice in his right hand. “They opened fire on everybody, the ones inside the vehicles and the ones on foot.”

Some of the wounded interviewed by The Associated Press said the soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on passing cars and pedestrians on the busy main road.

“When we parked our vehicle, when they passed us, they opened fire on our vehicle,” said 15-year-old Mohammad Ishaq, who was hit by two bullets, in his left arm and his right ear. “It was a convoy of three American Humvees. All three Humvees were firing around.”

In other fighting, two British soldiers were killed on Saturday in southern Afghanistan, the British Defense Ministry said today. The men were involved in heavy fighting that has raged for three days in the town of Sangin, said Col. Tom Collins, a NATO spokesman in Kabul. Townspeople have fled the town and abandoned their shops as Taliban insurgents and British troops stationed there have been trading artillery and rockets, according to a resident of the area.