I recently took another tour of the countryside of central Iraq and seen some rather interesting things that, for me anyway, showed that some very real progress is being made here and we are winning. I think the single most important thing was that the local people tried and succeded to save Americans from coming into harms way.

We had gone to an area I was not real familiar with and had the chance to go into a rather large village. There we took up our defensive posture and as usual, soon had children gathering around our heavily armed vehicles and trying to communicate with us. In this particular village I noticed an abscence of black clothing usually worn by all or most Iraqi women. I also saw alot of colorful head scarfs, very western style purses, colourful blouses and some jewelry. The children seemed pretty much as they always are except quite a few boys had bicycles. And the bicycles were all brightly decorated with ribbons, mirrors and colored tape.

The people all came out to see us and most of the younger people waved or smiled at us. The village was near a very large body of water and was therefore rich in plantlife and foilage. It reminded me of many areas of my own part of the world in southern California.

Near the end of our visit to this village we were given information about a possible threat to our patrol and one of our possible routes back to the FOB. Of course we could have just avoided it to save oursleves but the threat to any persons had to be investigated and confirmed or denied. So we set out to find this danger.

As we neared where it was said to be, we passed by a very large Iraqi cemetary. I have never seen an Iraqi cemetary and was very iterested in seeing one up close. We sent out an element to locate the danger and they did. It seems that some persons decided to try and blow up some Americans and had placed explosives along a possible route. We reacted as we were trained to and secured the area to ensure the safety of the local Iraqi populace and sent for the most valuable asset in Iraq, EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal). I don't know what these guys and gals get paid but it's not enough.

I sat back in my gunners hatch and watched as EOD got closer and closer to the threat, that's their job, and kept hoping they would find nothing. I do not look foward to ever seeing another American getting peppered by an explosion or worse. They were on site for as long as it took to find and disable the threat, which they did with some explosives of their own.

But soon after the initial explosion we saw someone from EOD put on an armoured suit and start to clear the area with themselves. It was pretty tense for all of us, I can't imagine what that guy or gal in the suit must have been feeling. There was no new BOOM!! and we eventually head back to the FOB.

We had only been on the road for about ten minutes when some more Iraqi citizens stopped us to warn us of another threat. This one was also identified and disabled. One interesting thing happened while we had stopped to listen to the citizens. I was acting as the turret gunner in our vehicle and was told to "check six" for a group of people to the rear of our posistion. ( The term "check-six" means to make sure the area behind you is safe) As I turned my weapons system I saw about eight women in the distance moving towards a canal that we had stopped nearby. They just stepped into the canal and filled their jugs with water then walked back the five or six hundred meters to their home. When I think of all the things we have in America I just can't help wondering how we take it for granted as we tend too. I often times see the people of Iraq living just as they did a hundred years ago and so many of us just can't have it easy enough.

In all I got a very good feeling about the attitude of the local people and feel that most of them don't want to see any more bloodshed. Unlike the Media, that just seems to thirst for it and the headlines it generates. It seems like whatever good things we accomplish here the press only wants to publish the worst possible things.

Recently some of us soldiers were watching CNN and it's handling of the "Katrina" situation in New Orleans, and can't help but wonder if the press can see anything positive in the reaction to a natural disaster, instead of trying to blame people for what is usually considered an act of God. We see it for ourselves everyday here in the Sunni triangle, the thousands and thousands of good deeds done by American soldiers every day just doesn't sell like blood.