From Germany to Georgia: Perspectives on War

Talking to a German of some mental and philosophical acuity last week, he advised me that perhaps I’d better not mention to the average German that I had anything to do with Iraq. “Why?“ I asked. He said many Europeans think Americans are the equivalent of Nazis in Iraq, and that Guantanamo is like a concentration camp.

Isn’t that the thickest Irony that Americans are seen by Germans as Nazi-like??? Interestingly, he confessed readily that Europe would be run by the Nazis now if it weren’t for Americans, but lamented that his father lost 10 years of his life as prisoner of Americans in that same war. Your father came home healthy and whole though, didn’t he?” I asked.

So here I am in Ft. Benning. In-between seminars today, I caught a conversation between an older Iraqi translator gentleman(now an American citizen) and a Lady Lt.-Colonel. She was about to re-deploy to Afghanistan but when he found out she had served in Baghdad, he gushed forth with “Thank You Thank You Thank You” for her work in his country.

I talked with this lady Lt.-Colonel (whose name I did not catch) about that and she too saw much beauty in the Iraqi people. The whole experience was heart-warming and again I wished positive was more popular...


Taken by a soldier March 2004.