My son (Jeff) went through Basic Training, Advanced Infantry School and Jump School with several other young men who are currently serving with the 82nd Airborne in Baghdad.

These men have been split up as they serve in different companies. Their work does not really allow them to keep in touch with one another.

David Perkins is one of Jeff's best friends. Perkins had finished 3 years of college in North Carolina where he lives (1 1/2 hours from the home of the 82nd Airborne at Ft Bragg). He dropped out of college to go to war. He plans on going back and finishing after his work in the military.

Here is the first email I got from Perkins - it came this morning:

Ed

How are you, I hope you are doing well. I am at Camp Honor with “A” Company. I received your care package, thank you very much. I have been wondering how Frawley and Harris have been doing. It is hard to keep up with everyone and even harder to keep up with time here, it goes by so fast, time seems to all melt together. I haven't been in any fire fights, all my Platoon is doing is guarding a checkpoint that goes into the embassy. It sucks, its so boring , but at least I am safe. It just sucks to train to fight the bad guys and never getting a chance to.

I hope everything back home is going good for you and I hope to hear from you soon.
Perkins


I would prefer that board members read and not post to this thread. I will continue to add to it as I hear from the men.

Let me define happiness for you. Happiness is having a 1 hour phone conversation with your son who is in Baghdad after not hearing from him in 5 days.

I know this has nothing to do with dog training and I tell friends that I write about Jeff because it is a release. I (right or wrong) sometimes find myself getting pissed that the general public forgets that there are families everywhere who have sons, daughters husbands and wives in Iraq. I know that the members of this board are deeply concerned but it helps to write.

With this said - when Jeff calls I take notes. I find myself so excited that I am afraid that I will forget what he says. So I take notes. I read the notes later – they help bring me back to the moment.

Tonight I got 6 pages of notes. I told Jeff what I am doing and that’s why I make him repeat things. It surprises me that he has the patience to accept my asking him to repeat different things. He does it with the maturity of a grandfather explaining things to a grandchild – like he wants to make sure I get it straight.

An example tonight was his work schedule and how it has changed. He tried to explain what he did and why he had not called in 4 days. He went through it and I took notes. I knew I did not know all the military abbreviations for what he was doing but I wrote them down anyway. We then talked for an hour and at the end I felt guilty (for keeping him up it was 2:30 AM after a patrol when he called ) and I told him I did not understand everything about his work and I would like to clarify it in our next phone call. Rather than say OK Dad – he said what don’t you understand? I can go through it again now.

He has another patrol to make at 7 AM. How do you do this? He would rather talk and explain his work schedule than sleep.

Tonight was the first time he wondered about working three weeks straight 24/7 without a day off for $1,100.00 a month. He mentioned that contractors make $200,000.00 a year and thought that was pretty appealing - you see he does not own a vehicle and the thought of $200,00.00 goes a long way with a 19 year old.

His Uncle is a contractor in the green zone and will visit him this Sunday. Jeff will give his Uncle a CD with photos that he has taken since Dec 7th. His Uncle is coming home to the States next week and will mail it to me. I will post the photos.

Jeff was pretty proud that several photos would be of him being lowered into tunnels that they are finding. They use the body ropes I sent (see my other posts). His SSGT made a harness for Jeff and they daisy chained body ropes to lower in into tunnels to check where they went.

I shake my head at this and have no comment. But when I talked to one of my best friends tonight ( a narcotics officer I worked with for 10 years ) he reminded me that had this been 30 years ago it would be me being in the tunnel and its hard to argue those facts.

Jeff and I talked about the suicide bomb last Monday. He had been on foot patrol the night before and was sleeping when it went off. He said the bomb was so big that it shock the entire marble and concrete palace building he lives in like an earth quake.

He said he has been through 4 suicide bombs since getting there on Dec 7th (which killed more than 40 people) and this was by far the biggest. It knocked every spec of dust off his walls and ceiling along with a lot of things on shelves. It was way way way bigger than mortars hitting the roof. He told me this was the bomb that killed 10 and wounded 50 and left a 4 foot deep hole that was 11 feet long. The motor that hit 3 feet outside their FOB (foreword observation post) last week barely cracked the cement.

We talked about what he needed and he said he and his platoon members only eat one meal a day because they work so much. He told me they would rather try and sleep than walk to the cafeteria and eat. The army has a palate of MRE's outside their building that they scrounge from. The best thing they like the most is the reconstituted strawberry milk shakes. I asked him if he wanted me to sent hot chocolate and he said “no” – they don’t have hot water where they live.

I asked if there was anything I could send and he said “no”. It’s like he accepts their position and does not want to bother me with sending things. So I can only guess - but the milk shakes are something that I will look into.

We went on to talk about his patrols - on his mounted patrols - patrols in Humvee’s he likes to be the guy in the turret. There is a gun they say has the 240 that shoots grenades like a machine gun (any veterans out there can correct me) But this is something Jeff prefers. I guess it’s a visual thing with him being able to see the crap before it happens.

So there is more I can write but it’s getting late. I have gotten emails from fathers of other military members whose sons are having a bad time after they get home. I cannot tell you how my heart carries the weight of these emails. The letters are disturbing because I look in the mirror and live with the people who write them.

I have some thoughts on this – I will write more later about it.

Ed

Mark 19 40mm belt fed auto grenade launcher. Can be mounted on most hard mounts to vehicles, it's an awesome weapon. Can fire 450 rounds of 40mm high velocity grenades ( more range than the 40mm grenades used in the M203 grenade launcher that's carried in combat by your squad grenadier) per min., it's almost like having a mortar platoon in your back pocket when you need it.

I'd sleep better at night knowing my son had one of those close by in injun country. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I just posted a web page with my first photos of Jeff in Baghdad - they came in this morning from his Uncle Frank - Frank is a contractor for the US Government in Iraq

Here is the URL http://leerburg.com/baghdad1.htm

Here is an email from one of Jeffs best friends (PVT Martin Harris) that came today - his comopany - "B" Company 3/325 Air - 82nd Airbirne - has had 8 purple hearts in their first month in Baghdad. Martins company is in the thick of it - they patrol the area of Baghdad where the insurgents pull election workers out of vehicles and murder them in the street - this area had produced 150 purple hearts in October and November


Ed
Hey thanks a bunch for the care package!

I actually just got back from my first real fight where I had to return fire. Its pretty exciting when it happens to you. I was thinking about it after it was over. One of those RPG's could have acctualy used my area as an aiming point - lucky for me that hodjee suck at shooting though.

Well after that first big rash of injuries we havent had anymore and not even a near call for me yet.

Anyways just thanks again for the package I very much appreciate it.

Martin Harris

Ed,
To give you more of a warm and fuzzy, with that weapon Jeff doesn't even have to directly hit his target, he can land only (1) round in a 15meter radius of the enemy and Hodjee will have a bad day, the same goes for more than one person within 15meters of that round, so he could take out mulitple targets with one round, and don't forget if it hits the fan jeff can put out 450 in 60sec, and he doesn't even have to be a good shot! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Here are a few more notes I took in our phone call.

Jeff told me that I did not have to send any more DVD’s that I copied for him and his brother (a diver on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico). He said an Iraqi man in van comes to his barracks building 2 times a week selling DVD’s – they cost $3.00 and they hold 2 or 3 two hour movies. He said they had been filmed with a hand held DVD camera in studios – so every now and then someone stands up in front of the screen as it was being filmed – I will continue to rent and copy DVD’s and send then anyway – Eric does not have access to this and Jeff does like them

The word is that they are still set to come home in March – he is hoping that will be true but does not know the really if it is or is not true. Said he probably will not know until he comes home.

He said the normal rotation was for his battalion to go to Afghanistan in 2006 – I would rather he be in Afghanistan than Iraq any day.


He said he has really only had one day off in 3 weeks – he was talking about how many hours he works for $1,100.00 a month – its not much that’s for sure. He knows that why he is there but at 2AM after a patrol with another patrol at 7 AM - well it takes a little to keep motivated.

The Ssgt that brings his Uncle Frank said that he is going to give Jeff a Cell Phone that we can call from here in the states – he cant call out but we can call him – that will be great of its true – he said our only cost would be the price to call NY city from here. I will believe it when I place my first call.

They share their sector with a National Guard Unit from "STATED EDITED OUT" – there is bad blood between the two units (probably just tired and short nerves)

Anyway they are not allowed to talk with the Guards. There was an incident with one of the paratroopers and a Guard member . Jeff said Guard members are a little jealous because the Iraqi’s are drop dead afraid of Paratroopers – but not of National Guard members. (I think that may be a little unit barvado talking)

Jeff stated that he liked the Strawberry shakes that come in the MREs. If you wanted to send him something useful, you could send him the SlimFast or WalMart diet shakes if he has access to a refrigerator. They are designed to be used in place of a meal. There is no preparation like the MRE shakes(if they are like the old MREs). I drink them everyday and they are loaded with protein and taste pretty good too. They also have a shelf life of a year.

 Quote:

Jeff said Guard members are a little jealous because the Iraqi’s are drop dead afraid of Paratroopers – but not of National Guard members. (I think that may be a little unit barvado talking)

This is absolutely true, I know I have done many a field interogations, and they can tell you what patches are what units, we had one tell us before, when asked why did they stop shooting and drop weapons and walk out, they replied that a lookout called them on a cell phone and told them they were shooting at the "SOME HODJEE WORD" which meant, falling death soldiers, and that they knew that instead of running from the ambush as many guard units do, that the "falling death soldiers" would search unrelentlessly for them, as hodjee put it, "there would be no escape". Ed, Jeff says he doesn't want anything, but over there you never get enough "lickies and chewies", or as grunts prefer "pougie bait" ---starbursts, hardcandy, gum, this time of year is good for sending chocolate, small cans of tuna with crackers (the snack packs) small things that he can take on patrol with him and grab quickly out of his cargo pocket and occupy his taste buds.

Back during desert storm the Iraqi army was terrified of the Marine Corps. A rumor circulated amongst their army that you had to kill someone to become a Marine.

Fortunatley our current group of young brave Leathernecks have done nothing to dispel that myth <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />