LANCE CPL. JOHN GUARDIANO has an oped in the Wall Street Journal on Saddam’s capture. Excerpt:
Our comfort level with the Iraqi people grew considerably in the coming weeks and months as we assumed effective governing control of Al Hillah and the surrounding province. We came to realize that the gratitude and affection we experienced on that first day was far from fleeting and ephemeral. It was instead deeply rooted in the people’s recent collective conscience. . . .
I was therefore not surprised to see ordinary Iraqis cheering Saddam’s capture and firing rifles into the air. What has been surprising is the negative media coverage and the shameless exploitation of the war for partisan political purposes that I’ve seen since returning from Iraq in September.
“It’s almost as if what we did over there never happened and doesn’t matter,” one of my staff sergeants told me. But what we did, and what the U.S. military is still doing, does matter, as the Iraqis whom I was privileged to know and befriend will tell you.
You keep hearing this sort of thing from returning soldiers and Marines.