Well the election is over and Jeff is back in the Green Zone - he called from Baghdad today and we talked for the first time in 6 days.

He was pretty impressed with the election and the peoples attitudes. The polling place that his squad guarded had 1,800 voters. He said it was like a holiday (accept for the 3 gun fights a couple of days before the election that took place about 200 yards down the road). On Sunday people were singing and showing off their blue fingers.

He was very impressed with how the people reacted to the American Soldiers - they were friendly and happy and could not have been nicer. He said the average citizen that voted thinks the insurgents are in their words "crazy people"

He was also impressed with the Iraqi food - most of the time they were working when the American food trucks came by so they ate Iraqi fresh bread and cream cheese. He could not say enough about it. When the local store ran out of bred - they paid an Iraqi kid to go down the street and get them fresh bred.

He said the buildings they stayed in had Iraqi people living in them and they could not have been nicer.

So his over all impression was that it seemed like more people came out to vote there than come out to vote here in the states. This was the first time that he sounded like he thought this might work over there.

He was impressed with how the Iraqi police enforce curfew (which I think he said was at 6 PM - when they saw a car driving after curfew they shot it (the car) which would then stop.

He was also impressed with how clean the neighborhood was that their polling place was in - I guess where he normally lives the people live like pigs - (throw garbage out their windows etc etc) but this place was very nice - old men played backgammon and most spoke English. They would talk to the soldiers and thank them for being there.

It was just nice hearing from him after worrying about what would happen during the elections. It looks like President Bush pulled another rabbit out of his hat.

I think the average American underestimates the power of the ability to vote. I happen to believe that if people can vote and have an economy where the citizens can work and not live in poverty - things will sort themselves out.

I happen to be in East Germany on dog business a few weeks before the wall came down. I was in Liepsig on the night that 7,000 East Germans demonstrated. It was an amazing once in a lifetime spectical.

Tonight I stopped an Iraqi-American who had out of date tags. Through his broken English and thick Iraqi accent, he told me that he also voted over here (and had an inked finger to prove it). He said that he believes things are definitely going to be going in a positive direction if the President(?) who is expected to win wins.

I out a pretty cool photo of my son Jeff on the table of contents. It was taken while he was guarding a polling station in Baghdad last weekend. http://leerburg.com/table.htm

Think God for men like your son who is over
there protecting us. We do not know how
good we have it till someone tell us
about things over there. Thank you Jeff
for everthing and my God bless you and
look out for you.
Randy,Elaine&Barto

To expand on the above opinion:

As a Canadian, I can't thank
you enough.

Bless you, Cynthia

I got an email today from Baghdad - it was from a paratrooper that I sent Binoculars to. They came from Karmen's Company (they donated 12 pair).

This paratrooper was on overwatch - this means he was up on a roof watching the market below. Because of the binoculars he was able to spot an adult male in an alley pass a grenade to a kid who then went into a building with the intention of going to the roof to drop the grenade on Americans below.

Both the adult and the kid were captured. This is just one incident where these binoculars helped save American's lives.

Karmen and her company (Zimmer) has my sincere thanks.

See how one act of kindness can save hundreds misery?

Way to go Karmen!!

One person DOES make a difference!! Go Karmen!

I got a call from Baghdad today. It was unexpected. I knew Jeff was moving to a new Foreword Observation Post last week but he could not say where or when. I found out on the Internet that it was to Sadr City - which is one of the slums of Baghdad.

The good thing is that they have not been mortared yet and the the food is 1,000 times better than where he came from. He said that the contracting firm of KBR (I think that stands for Kellog Brown and Root - may be wrong) is handling the food here and not the US Army.

Jeff said these KBR food people are great - he has bread thats not stale - that he had steak that was as good as back home and htey have ice creme - he just came from chow and had Pizza, Fahitas, and three milk shakes.

He could not understand how the US Army gets the same amount of money for food as these private companies and the food where he is now is way way better than the food he had to eat at Ft Bragg.

So the next time we hear in the news about people bitching about these contracting companies wasting money on feeding our troops - its not all true. My hat is off to them.

Other than that Jeff could not tell me what he is doing - bu at least he has phones - last week they told him there were no phones where they were going.

He told me about the PT they do. I am amazed at the amount of PT the 82nd has paratroopers do in a war zone. One thing about it - he will be fit when he comes back to Ft Bragg and has to go back to jumping out of airplanes again.

Well at least he's eating well--that's good news.