Saturday, November 8, 2003
From: anonymous@usarmy.gov
Dear Mom,
I can tell from the MoveOn.org e-mails you've been forwarding that you're very worried about my safety and sanity. Seriously, don't bother. Every morning, after the dawn explosion and subsequent body mop-up, I thank God that I'm a member of the mightiest fighting force in the history of the world, helping bring freedom to the Iraqi and American people. I enjoy my daily lie-down in the truck that's carrying L. Paul Bremer's breakfast flown in from Kuwait. Some insurgents shelled the breakfast convoy the other day. Thankfully no one died and only one guy lost an unimportant limb. What really matters is that Ambassador Bremer got his hash and eggs, which was apparently delicious. In the afternoon, we put up razor wire around a high school. According to my platoon's media minder, we didn't kill anyone.
Did Dad get that Lincoln Aviator he was talking about? Kid Rock is giving a concert at the base later this week. I'm not going. He's a moron. Will write again soon. It's another wonderful day in Iraq!
Your son,
PFC Name Withheld for Security Considerations
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
From: concernedmom@moveon.org
Dear Son, First, please note my new e-mail address, dear. I would hate to miss any of your letters.
Second, how can you fight in such an immoral and unjust war? President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq based on forged evidence presented to him by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who in turn cribbed it from a PhD thesis, which was apparently copied in full from a lurid political thriller that the PhD candidate shoplifted from an English-language bookstall at the Frankfurt airport. When I think about the Bush administration and the lies it tells to justify its ill-thought-out neocolonial adventure, I want to rip off my aloe eye mask and scream. Every day, when I read my blogs, I find fresh evidence to justify my position, and then I e-mail this evidence to everyone I know. Why, I'm almost glad soldiers are dying, because that means I'm right!
Of course, your father and I don't want you to die. A new Korean restaurant just opened in Fairlake Hills, where the Panera used to be, and we think you'd really enjoy eating there.
Love, Mom
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Thursday, November 13, 2003
From: anonymous@usarmy.gov
Mom:
Good news! My platoon has found a prostitute who's willing to service us at a nominal fee in exchange for the faint promise of postwar marriage or maybe a nice piece of jewelry. I think I'm going to get extra time with her tonight because I told her I knew the executive producer of American Idol, which is beginning to become popular here. Well, back to fighting a just and holy battle for the future of civilization.
Love,
PFC Name Withheld for Security Considerations
PS: By the way, I reenlisted today! These whiny reservists should really clam it. I'd do anything to potentially die for my country.
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Tuesday, November 18, 2003
From: stoptheimperialistwar@moveon.org
Son:
Again, my e-mail address has changed. Please make a note of it.
I must say that I was sad to hear you'd reenlisted. Here I thought you'd be home for Thanksgiving, but instead you'll be alone and hungry in the desert, serving the whims of a leader who doesn't care enough about his troops to visit them.
Don't you know that the Bush administration, or, as I like to call it, the Bush junta, has only established a foothold in Iraq because it wants to extend the trans-Siberian oil pipeline from Afghanistan to France? Iraq is the linchpin of this strategy, hatched years ago by a lobbying group called the Coalition for Sucking Humanity Dry. Many of the members of that coalition were integral in the Reagan administration's genocidal policies in Nicaragua, and currently serve in high-level positions in the Department of Health and Human Services. I urge you to do a Google search. Most of the key documents are available online. You and your fellow soldiers are nothing more than sad pawns in this ugly geopolitical power game waged by Machiavellian mercantile oligarchs.
Your father and I miss you very much. He had to run to Sam's Club to pick up a chicken for dinner. Keep your head down, and please, no more rape. It's bad for your conscience. By the way, the girl on Judging Amy called off her wedding.
Love, Mom
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Friday, November 28, 2003
From: anonymous@usarmy.gov
To: stoptheimperialistwar@moveon.org
Mom:
I want to tell you something very important because you probably didn't hear about it back in the States. President Bush visited for Thanksgiving! It was incredible. We only had to wait in line outside the tent for four hours, and then, after we signed a letter agreeing to stand and applaud on cue, we listened to his speech and he served us turkey! Our commander in chief was in Iraq for two hours under security so tight that he wasn't allowed to leave the airport, which really made me feel better about my mission. Nothing can stop this mighty army.
After eating a delicious dinner with the president, we had a fun mission to Ramjullah, a type of sortie that we like to call Smash, Grab, and Mutilate. There were a bunch of injuries, of course, because half the Iraqi soldiers we'd trained to fight alongside us quit before the battle, and the other half switched sides in the middle. But our battlefield medicine is so advanced that the worst the guys will have to deal with is limited mobility and crippling depression for the rest of their lives. Besides, as our generals are always saying, the more injuries and deaths we suffer, the better we're doing, because it means the enemy is growing desperate. As one of my buddies lay weeping on a stretcher, holding his guts in with his hands, he said to me, "Boy, that dinner the president brought us sure was tasty."
Your son,
PFC Name Withheld for Security Considerations
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Wednesday, December 3, 2003
From: revolutionnow@msn.com
Son:
President Bush's midnight visit to Iraq was a propaganda move worthy of the Third Reich. Please don't be fooled by his antics. Last night at the Kucinich Meetup, we talked about the Iraqi occupation, or, as we like to call the horror you're wreaking, Vietnam II: The Clusterfuck. They won't print that in the local paper. When I think about the arrogance of this withering empire, I want to weep, and also disband the military, socialize all industry, and send the arrogant Republicans to work on collective farms or to prison camps in Alaska. That's all part of the Kucinich Agenda.
Also, I feel compelled to tell you that I met a man at my Pleiades class. It hasn't yet become sexual, but I feel a very deep connection with him. We stay up late every night trading instant messages. Your father is sweet and well-meaning, but he's definitely not my bashert. I think we all deserve a chance for true happiness at least once in this life, don't you? I hope your platoon enjoys the Rice Krispies Treats.
Love, Mom
P.S. Be sure to respond to my new e-mail address, honey.
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Sunday, December 14, 2003
From: anonymous@usarmy.gov
Mom:
I don't like the comparisons you make to Vietnam. That war was very different from this one, which is about freedom and peace. Just yesterday my platoon went through a village that may or may not have contained some terrorists and insurgents. The colonel very specifically told us not to hurt any women or children unless they made eye contact with us. Within minutes, we'd torched the place to the ground, and then we moved on to the next village, ignoring the cries of the dying-but-liberated.
Later, about 600 of us marched into Tikrit and found Saddam Hussein sitting in a rug-covered hole with a pistol and $750,000. At last, the tyranny of tyranny has ended. May Iraq live free for 1,000 glorious years, as long as it's not under that creepy ayatollah who seems to wield so much power.
Press reports say we conducted the operation without any casualties, but I guess it doesn't hurt to tell you that during the final search, I shot a 10-year-old boy in the face for no reason other than existential fear. After the mission was over, my colonel said to me, "Young man, you've got potential."
Please send more candy and the latest issue of Maxim.
Your son,
PFC Name Withheld for Security Considerations
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Wednesday, December 17, 2003
From: justanothermom@yahoo.com
Son:
Saddam is a convenient straw man for covering up the evils of U.S. war profiteering. Now that we've "got him," the so-called coalition of the willing should meet even fiercer resistance. Soldiers are really going to start to die.
That was on my mind last night when I got a terrifying knock at the door. I was sure that the two black-suited men had come to tell me that you'd been killed in action, like I've long suspected would someday happen. But instead it was just a couple of local police detectives who'd come to question me about the "Death to Bush the War Criminal" sign on our front lawn. Of all the freedoms we've lost because of the USA PATRIOT Act, the most tragic is the ability to indirectly call for the assassination of a sitting president without fear of government investigation. Who knew that 9/11 would have such sad consequences?
I also must admit feeling a brief thrill in thinking that you'd been killed. I love you, of course, but a martyred son would really up my standing in the antiwar community. It might even get me a spot on the speaker's dais for this May's planned march on Washington.
Like all antiwar activists, I mean nothing but harm to this country. We who protest Bush's war will spit on you when you return, because we hate America.
Kisses, Mom
PS: I'm using my old e-mail address, on the advice of my lawyers. Please make a note of it. And we saw Something's Gotta Give last night. It was charming!
Neal Pollack's rock-n-roll novel, Never Mind The Pollacks, was published in October.
