A Few Bad Apples

[dcan]

Amen. Having lost friends while there I can completely understand the emotions that can drive something like that, when you can shake hands with someone and 30 minutes later they are trying to kill you. But the fact remains that doing what they did endangers everyone else and causes massive harm to what we've accomplished. It's already being compared to Abu Ghraib. We had to teach everyone that even when manning a gate they were representing the entire US culture and strategy in the region. All eyes are on you at all times. It's a huge responsibility.

A few months before I arrived the whole Muhammad cartoon fiasco had exploded. The people absolutely flipped. I can recall getting those same looks sometimes just from relatively minor local stuff, like the rumours always put out that our sunglasses could see through women's clothes and all turret gunners were perverts mentally raping their wives and daughters. But that's what you get when you have a tribal culture with rampant illiteracy in a country in the bottom 7% of poverty in the world.

Stay safe bud. Almost home. :patriot: