A word from Sergeant Thul
Sergeant David Thul writes from Iraq to update us on the status of the library that has been stocked with gifts from Power Line readers:
Scott-We are of course grateful to Sergeant Thul and his colleagues for their service and sacrifice, and to all of our readers who have joined us in expressing our gratitude in this small way. Typical of the latter is John Cooper, who writes today from Rosman, North Carolina:The Power Line library system, both the main and the branch offices, are still going strong with donations coming in almost every day. We now also have a growing selection of DVD movies and books on CD. In fact we have about reached the limit of the number of books we have room for, so I would like to pass the torch to the Marine officer who wrote to request some books as well. As a gesture of goodwill from Soldier to Marine, I’m sending LTC Horvath some of my favorites as well.
Sorry I’ve been out of contact for a while but we’ve been pretty busy during Ramadan. Amazing how the jihadis have twisted what is supposed to be a month of simplifying your life to focus on the spiritual, and turned it into a time to get bonus points for killing unbelievers in the name of Allah. As usual the national news reports we see are overwhelmingly negative, but from where I stand the situation is no worse today than two months ago. In fact there are some positive developments happening here that you probably won’t here about in the MSM. First, over 33,000 soldiers last fiscal year did the same as I did last month-we reenlisted in the Army.
According to my math, that means that 75 percent of the soldiers who were eligible to reenlist last year did so. The next time you hear on the news that morale is low in the military and the situation in Iraq is hopeless-remember that actions speak louder than words. Second, as a result of the great conservative library we have here now, interest in the upcoming election has been very high among the soldiers in my unit.
Some of my men are voting for the first time, and they are excited about it. Several soldiers, myself included, have discussed the possibility that after this deployment we may need to continue serving our country at home by running for office. Although the military has strict rules about discussing politics while in uniform, I can say in a general sense that the majority of the guys I talk to want us to stay in Iraq until the job is done.
There’s one group of politicians that want to let us keep fighting the War on Terror overseas, and one group that wants us to run home with our tail between our legs, ashamed of what we have done. For myself, I have been deployed overseas for two of the three years since my daughter was born, and would like nothing more than to be home with my family. But it is because of my family that I feel the need to stay here, so that my kids won’t end up over here a decade from now, trying to finish the job that my generation started. Support the Troops and let us stay.
SGT Dave Thul
MN National Guard
Hi y'all--Also typical of the latter is this message that we received tonight from MaryAnn Sandstrom:I mailed 23 lbs. of books to LTC Horvath this morning. I had packed them into a box I had around the house, but the P.O. said the flat rate only applied to one of their pissy little Priority Mail boxes. So I sent the books Media Mail for $9 and change. The clerk thought it should get there about the same.
I sent The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer, The Last Lion by Manchester (both volumes), The World Crisis by Winston Churchill, Treason by Ann Coulter, a 4-volume set of American Literature, Current Diagnosis 1995 (a medical book), A Patriot's History of the United States by Larry Schweikert...
...and a big handful of cheap cigars used as "packing material."
John
Rosman, NC
Just a quick note from Ohio...
This week I sent two boxes of books from the Edward Parrish Chapter Colonial Dames XVII Century. Our society is made up of descendants of colonists who arrived in America prior to 1701. We firmly believe in our nation, under God, and our Constitution. We support our president, our troops and our veterans.Thank you for your wonderful blog.
Sincerely,
MaryAnn Sandstrom, President
Edward Parrish Chapter CDXVIIC
