Niki,
Well I had an interesting day. There was a large protest today in the town. About 1000 people, but it had nothing to do with America or the Army. It was students protesting the new Saturday holiday. The Prime Minister decided to make Saturday a day off for all government offices. Basically, the Iraqi weekend used to consist of Friday. So he added Satruday. Problem is Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath, so that upset pretty much every Muslim in Iraq, and you might not know this, but there are a few Muslims here. Anywho, they wanted their weekend to be Thursday and Friday. Thursday is already kind of a holiday anyway here, it is their traditional wedding day, so it makes sense. Anyway, after it was all said and done, me and some of the guys here on the compound got a chance to talk to 3 of the protestors. Ibrahim, Yaz and Jhazan were all students and were really excited about being able to have a protest. That is a freedom the never had before. It was great to sit and talk to some young men about the future of Iraq and stuff (we talked about soccer too). They were great. I am attaching a photo of us from the left is me, Yaz, Jhazan, Ibrahim and SFC Coons (Civil Affairs). It was great to see democracy in action, and the young people excited about making a difference. We gave them the soccer balls. We definately made some friends, they were impressed how nice the "American Soldiers" were. It was cool.Oh well, have to keep working, just wanted to share more of the good stuff you are not going to see in the news.
I love and miss you very much.
Rob
