Thursday, March 06, 2008

An American who happens to have been born somewhere else

I can't remember where I first read this, I think either at Kevin's or the Geek's, but it's true. Here's one of them:
It took a full 14 years before Jamaleldine finally -- and radically -- changed his views on the Americans. It was on June 6, 2005, in the middle of the Iraq war, when he showed up at the US Army recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enlist.

And the second time he was wounded:
It's really one of the most remarkable stories I've read of action in Iraq. When Jamaledine was shot, there were no medevac helicopters in the area. There were Apaches. But the Apache is a two seater--no room for cargo, or wounded. When the call went out--by a soldier who was himself wounded--that Jamaledine needed to be evacuated immediately, one of the Apaches landed on the scene and had him strapped in. This meant the co-pilot had to "hang on outside" for the trip back to the base. Both of the crew were risking their jobs, but they got Jemaldine out. The Apache's crew then rejoined the battle, with the co-pilot sitting in a pool of blood for the rest of the night.

This is something that needs to be pointed out to pointed out to the brain-dead jihadis and the 'mothers' who want their kids to become shahid: you may love death, you miserable beings, but we love life, including the lives of our troops. Who'll put their own ass on the line to save one another.

When asked what he considers his personal contribution to peace to be, Jamaleldine says that, first of all, he killed terrorists, thereby preventing them from setting any more bombs. How many terrorists? "A few." Second, he says, he and the other scouts applied so much pressure that, within a few months, the fee for setting bombs had jumped from $50 to $500 per bomb, making life more difficult for the enemy. Third, says Jamaleldine, they took weapons out of circulation that would otherwise have been used against the civilian population. Fourth, they captured some of the people behind the attacks, thereby weakening the network of terror. Finally, he adds, they managed to win over normal Iraqis, the peaceful ones, and convince them to cooperate.

Specialist, if we ever meet, the drinks are on me.

1 comment:

Mark said...

If you do get a chance to buy him some drinks let me know, I'll pay half.