[US Soldiers stationed in Iraq] Identical letter scam

[Grojlach]

Perhaps anyone here read the following letter lately, containing some positive news about the way the U.S. soldiers were regarded in Iraq?

I have been serving in Iraq for over five months now as a soldier in the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as the "Rock." We entered the country at midnight on March 26; a thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from 10 jumbo jets (known as C17s) onto a cold, muddy field in Bashur, Northern Iraq. This parachute operation was the U.S. Army's only combat jump of the war and opened up the northern front. Things have changed tremendously for our battalion since those first cold, wet weeks spent in the mountain city of Bashur. On April 10, our battalion conducted an attack south into the oil rich town of Kirkuk, the city that has since become our home away from home and the focus of our security and development efforts. Kirkuk is a hot and dusty city of just over a million people. The majority of the city has welcomed our presence with open arms. After nearly five months here, the people still come running from their homes, into the 110-degree heat, waving to us as our troops drive by on daily patrols of the city. Children smile and run up to shake hands and in their broken English shouting, "Thank you, Mister." The people of Kirkuk are all trying to find their way in this new democratic environment. Some major steps have been made in these last three months. A big reason for our steady progress is that our soldiers are living among the people of the city and getting to know their neighbors and the needs of their neighborhoods. We have also been instrumental in building a new police force. Kirkuk now has 1,700 police officers. The police are now, ethnically, a fair representation of the community as a whole. So far, we have spent $500,000 from the former Iraqi regime to repair each of the station's electricity and plumbing, to paint each station and to make it a functional place for the police to work. The battalion has also assisted in re-establishing Kirkuk's fire department, which is now even more effective than before the war. New water treatment and sewage plants are being constructed and the distribution of oil and gas are steadily improving. All of these functions were started by our soldiers here in this northern city and are now slowly being turned over to the newly elected city government. Laws are being rewritten to reflect democratic principles and a functioning judicial system was recently established to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the rule of law. The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored and we are a large part of why that has happened. The fruits of all our soldiers' efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned to school. This is all evidence that the work we are doing as a battalion and as American soldiers is bettering the lives of Kirkuk's citizens. I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well.

This particular letter appeared in many newspapers; however, they were all acribed to different (!) soldiers, while the letters were exactly identical.

Like, for instance,
Pfc. David Deaconson, appearing in the Register Herald
Spc. Nathan Whitelatch, in the Daily Courier
Sgt. Gargas Jr. in the UticaOD
PFC Adam C. Connell, in the Boston Globe
Sgt. Shawn M. Grueser in the Daily Mail
...And these are just the ones I could come up with with a simple Google-search, and not counting the newspapers across the globe who don't have any online content.

Anyways, one particular newspaper found out about it when they received two identical letters signed by resp. one Spc. Joshua Ackler and one Spc. Alex Marois:

Many soldiers, same letter

Newspapers around U.S. get identical missives from Iraq

WASHINGTON -- Letters from hometown soldiers describing their successes rebuilding Iraq have been appearing in newspapers across the country as U.S. public opinion on the mission sours.
And all the letters are the same.
A Gannett News Service search found identical letters from different soldiers with the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, also known as "The Rock," in 11 newspapers, including Snohomish, Wash.
The Olympian received two identical letters signed by different hometown soldiers: Spc. Joshua Ackler and Spc. Alex Marois, who is now a sergeant. The paper declined to run either because of a policy not to publish form letters.
The five-paragraph letter talks about the soldiers' efforts to re-establish police and fire departments, and build water and sewer plants in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where the unit is based.
"The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored, and we are a large part of why that has happened," the letter reads.
It describes people waving at passing troops and children running up to shake their hands and say thank you.
It's not clear who wrote the letter or organized sending it to soldiers' hometown papers.
Six soldiers reached by GNS directly or through their families said they agreed with the letter's thrust. But none of the soldiers said he wrote it, and one said he didn't even sign it.
Marois, 23, told his family he signed the letter, said Moya Marois, his stepmother. But she said he was puzzled why it was sent to the newspaper in Olympia. He attended high school in Olympia but no longer considers the city home, she said. Moya Marois and Alex's father, Les, now live near Kooskia, Idaho.
A seventh soldier didn't know about the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it published in the local newspaper in Beckley, W.Va.
"When I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said: 'What letter?' " Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the phone conversation he had with his son, Nick. "This is just not his (writing) style."
He spoke to his son, Pfc. Nick Deaconson, at a hospital where he was recovering from a grenade explosion that left shrapnel in both his legs.
Sgt. Christopher Shelton, who signed a letter that ran in the Snohomish Herald, said Friday that his platoon sergeant had distributed the letter and asked soldiers for the names of their hometown newspapers. Soldiers were asked to sign the letter if they agreed with it, said Shelton, whose shoulder was wounded during an ambush earlier this year.
"Everything it said is dead accurate. We've done a really good job," he said by phone from Italy, where he was preparing to return to Iraq.
Sgt. Todd Oliver, a spokesman for the 173rd Airborne Brigade, which counts the 503rd as one of its units, said he was told a soldier wrote the letter, but he didn't know who. He said the brigade's public affairs unit was not involved.
"When he asked other soldiers in his unit to sign it, they did," Oliver explained in an e-mail response to a GNS inquiry. "Someone, somewhere along the way, took it upon themselves to mail it to the various editors of newspapers across the country."
Lt. Col. Bill MacDonald, a spokesman for the 4th infantry Division that is heading operations in north-central Iraq, said he had not heard about the letter-writing campaign.
Neither had Lt. Cmdr. Nick Balice, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla.
A recent poll suggests that Americans are increasingly skeptical of America's prolonged involvement in Iraq. A USA Today-CNN-Gallup Poll released Sept. 23 found 50 percent believe that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over, down from 73 percent in April.
The letter talks about the soldiers' mission, saying, "one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from ten jumbo jets." It describes Kirkuk as "a hot and dusty city of just over a million people." It tells about the progress they have made.
"The fruits of all our soldiers' efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, many more people in the markets and shops, and children have returned to school," the letter reads. "I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well."
Sgt. Shawn Grueser of Poca, W.Va., said he spoke to a military public affairs officer whose name he couldn't remember about his accomplishments in Iraq for what he thought was a news release to be sent to his hometown paper in Charleston, W.Va. But the 2nd Battalion soldier said he did not sign any letter.
Although Grueser said he agrees with the letter's sentiments, he was uncomfortable that a letter with his signature did not contain his own words or spell out his own accomplishments.
"It makes it look like you cheated on a test, and everybody got the same grade," Grueser said by phone from a base in Italy where he had just arrived from Iraq.
Moya Marois said she is proud of her stepson Alex, the former Olympia resident. But she worries that the letter tries to give legitimacy to a war she doesn't think was justified.
"We're going to support our son," she said. But "there are a lot of Americans that are not in support of this war that would like to see them returned home, and think it's going to get worse."

Source: The Olympian

[ 10-11-2003, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Skunk]

Slaps head repeatedly!

I have seen that letter quoted a dozen times but I never paid attention to the author's name. How on earth could I have missed that?

[John D Harris]

So, big Woopty Doo, It seems none of the soldiers in question disagreed with the contient of the letters and the worst said by one was "it looks like"... "Hale" I learned in grade school lookscan be decieving.

[skywalker]

To me the "big Woopty Doo" is that the letters smack of propaganda and IMHO is just plain deceptive.

Mark

[Djinn Raffo]

Originally posted by John D Harris: So, big Woopty Doo, It seems none of the soldiers in question disagreed with the contient of the letters and the worst said by one was "it looks like"... "Hale" I learned in grade school lookscan be decieving.

whoopty doo????? so there lieing to us.. yeah.. whoopty doo..

[The Hierophant]

Geeze, the Bush Administration's propaganda and public ignorance department, oops, I mean, public relations department is really getting lax... Couldn't they have just gotten the soldiers to say "YEEEAH! YEEEAH!! HELL YEEEAH!" on camera isntead of faking an articulate essay and forging (some of) their signatures to it? Forgery and plagiarism are things that are essentially beaten out of every university graduate, so why couldn't the Bush Admin's PR folk think up something a little more clever than this?

[ 10-12-2003, 07:24 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

[khazadman]

How is this any different that the dem doom and gloom machine turning out stories that only point out the negative things happening in Iraq? Oh heaven forbid that the people learn that something good is going on there. And Djinn, what's in the letters is not a lie, it's the truth. It's just some guys fighting the constant rain of garbage put out by the left in this country about their mission.

[Skunk]

Originally posted by khazadman: How is this any different that the dem doom and gloom machine turning out stories that only point out the negative things happening in Iraq? Oh heaven forbid that the people learn that something good is going on there. And Djinn, what's in the letters is not a lie, it's the truth. It's just some guys fighting the constant rain of garbage put out by the left in this country about their mission.

Wouldn't it have been better if the author had simply written a joint letter and asked everyone to sign it if they agreed with it?

The honest approach would have had a good impact - rather than the dishonest one which now calls into question the contents of the letter.

[Donut]

Originally posted by khazadman: How is this any different that the dem doom and gloom machine turning out stories that only point out the negative things happening in Iraq? Oh heaven forbid that the people learn that something good is going on there. And Djinn, what's in the letters is not a lie, it's the truth. It's just some guys fighting the constant rain of garbage put out by the left in this country about their mission.

How naive can you be? Ask yourself why different names are put at the bottom of the letters, ask yourself why they were sent to newspapers in the soldiers' hometowns.

With people like you about I wonder why they bother to hide the lies, you'll believe anything that supports your own viewpoint.

[The Hierophant]

Originally posted by Donut: With people like you about I wonder why they bother to hide the lies, you'll believe anything that supports your own viewpoint.

There are some times I think the same of us 'Lefties' (God I hate the 'RIght' and 'Left' terminolgy!) too though Donut

Seems that everyone mentally makes their own little world to live in. Khazad's world may be a little... 'simpler' than some others, but if it works for him then that's fine.

DOES it work for you Khazad? Are you a happy man?