Captain's Quarters Blog


« Three Out Of Four Military Families Choose Bush | Main | WaPo Shows Widespread Disapproval Of Kerry's Mary Cheney Reference »

October 15, 2004
Explaining Why We Fight To Our Children, Part I

The First Mate and I have a friend who has served in Special Forces for over 30 years. The FM has known "Mike" since before he enlisted, and I've been fortunate and honored enough to be a friend to him and his family for over 10 years. "Mike" has served his country in many conflicts, starting with Viet Nam right up to the current conflict in Iraq. I posted a letter from Mike in April, when he worked as a security contractor in Iraq and just after the butchering of four of his colleagues in Fallujah.

Mike has returned from his service in Iraq in the last few weeks and has spent some time catching up with his family. He wrote a moving series of letters to his sons, explaining our involvement in terms his young children could understand. For security reasons, I have removed any references which could identify Mike, and he has blocked out any identifying features in photographs that I will post. I plan on posting Mike's letters in sections over the weekend and into next week. Please keep checking back as I add them to the blog.

I will also be interviewing Mike about his experiences on the Northern Alliance Radio Network show this Saturday, which starts at noon CT. I hope to post more extensive interviews with Mike over the nest couple of weeks.

IRAQ PICTURE LETTER TO MY SON
PART 1 – TERRORISM & RELIGION

Do you know what a terrorist is?

A terrorist is a bad person who deliberately kills good people who have no way of defending themselves. They often try to kill as many people as possible to scare other people into letting them have what they want. The terrorists we are facing today want to destroy our country and take away the freedoms we have. They want to destroy the government of other free countries too, especially Israel. These are two of the main leaders of Terrorism today:

The demons you see above tell other terrorists to spread hatred for America because we represent Freedom and we help people in other countries that also love freedom.

When terrorists do bad things it makes the Devil happy and God sad. But the terrorists today are especially evil because they are actually saying that God TOLD them to do very bad things like fly jet airplanes into the Trade Towers in New York or cause the train wreck in Spain or kidnap and kill innocent people who are trying to help re-build Iraq.


Most of the terrorists refer to God as “Allah” because they claim to believe in a religion called “Islam.” In the Arabic language “Allah” simply means “God” and Islam means “Peace.” Arabic is the universal language in Iraq and other countries that Mommy will show you on the map of Arabia.


Most of the Arabian people believe in the Islam religion. Some people in other countries also believe in Islam, even some in our own country. People who believe in Islam are called ‘Muslims’ and most Muslims are peaceful people and not terrorists.

Daddy works with many Muslims from the cities and countryside of Iraq. True Muslims believe in the first 5 Books of our Holy Bible that were written by Moses pretty much the way we Christians do.
But they also believe in another book called the ‘Noble Qur’an.’ Most Americans pronounce the name of the Muslim book as ‘Koran.’ Daddy has read many parts of the Qur’an (and some Muslim friends have read the New Testament in Daddy’s Bible). Although the Qur’an does not say very nice things about Jewish people, it does not instruct Muslims to kill except in self-defense. In fact the Qur’an states that killing someone who is not a killer is “like killing all of mankind.”

The Muslims that Daddy works with say that the terrorists are committing crimes against their own religion and that Allah (God) will punish them after they die. We are encouraging Muslims everywhere to be bold in condemning terrorism so everyone can be safe and free to practice their religion as they understand it. Unfortunately in Iraq, they have to be very careful about saying such things around certain other Muslims because the terrorists might find out and punish them or kill them in their homes.

Daddy has worked in many countries and lived with people from other religions that believe many different things about God. None of them say it is alright to kill unless you are defending yourself or someone else.

God loves all people. He never wants us to deliberately kill the innocent people He created.

Sphere It Digg! View blog reactions
Posted by Ed Morrissey at October 15, 2004 11:26 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry is

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Explaining Why We Fight To Our Children, Part I:

» http://www.shaneck.com/blog/archives/000500.html from TC - Living it up in the Twin Cities
Captain's Quarters is publishing a series of letters written by a member of the special forces to his children to explain the War in Iraq. You can find Part I here. He will be updating throughout the weekend and when... [Read More]

Tracked on October 15, 2004 12:32 PM

» http://www.ubilibertas.com/archives/000268.php from Ubi Libertas
Courage, Democrats! Help is at hand, in your struggle to understand the complex world we live in. The Captain is running a series of letters written by a Special Forces soldier to his children, letters which explain why the soldier... [Read More]

Tracked on October 15, 2004 6:09 PM

» Children, This is Why We Fight from Cartago Delenda Est
In what will be a continuing series at Captain's Quarter's, Captain Ed publishes the letters that a soldier friend sent to his young children while the friend was in Iraq. They explain for the kids what the war is all about and why we are there. Part O... [Read More]

Tracked on October 15, 2004 7:50 PM

» Explaining the war to our kids... from Mental Hiccups
Captain’s Quarters is posting a series of letters written by a soldier to his young children as a way of explaining to them what their daddy is doing in Iraq and why. [Read More]

Tracked on October 16, 2004 10:43 PM

» Natural Teachers from Teacher's Ramblings
Captain Ed has had 3 posts recently by a Navy Seal, Mike. Mike has been writing letters home to his young sons, explaining what he's been doing and why. [Read More]

Tracked on October 17, 2004 10:18 PM

» Adipex 37.5 from Germany
Hi, thanks for your post... greetings from Berlin, Germany - Thomas [Read More]

Tracked on December 8, 2004 5:43 PM

» Meridia from Meridia
Hi, thanks for your post... greetings from Berlin, Germany - Thomas [Read More]

Tracked on December 8, 2004 5:56 PM



Design & Skinning by:
m2 web studios





blog advertising



button1.jpg

Proud Ex-Pat Member of the Bear Flag League!