In Their Own Words: Stories the Soldiers Tell

After reading the following stories, all I can say is that I am sick of war, sick of Bush, and sick of those who do not seem to care what is happening to our Soldiers overseas. Read some of these stories for yourself:

Soldier Says Iraqi Children Turned Away

Snippet: On a scorching afternoon, while on duty at an Army airfield, Sgt. David J. Borell was approached by an Iraqi who pleaded for help for his three children, burned when they set fire to a bag containing explosive powder left over from war in Iraq.

Borell immediately called for assistance. But the two Army doctors who arrived about an hour later refused to help the children because their injuries were not life-threatening and had not been inflicted by U.S. troops.

Now the two girls and a boy are covered with scabs and the boy cannot use his right leg. And Borell is shattered.

Snippet: A soldier recently returned from the war in Iraq spoke against the military action at a Democratic Party breakfast Saturday.

Staff Sgt. Bradley E. Owens disagreed with the decision to go to war, but he said the military did a good job.

"Some say that it's unpatriotic to question the administration," said Owens, speaking to the Richmond County Democratic Party. "I say it's unpatriotic not to question the administration."

Snippet: Feeling tired and depressed after being away from home for months, young US soldiers in Iraq say they are not peacekeepers and are ready to go home.

"I think I had enough. It's time for us to go home," said Private First Class Joe Cruz, 18, from the Second Brigade of the Army's Third Infantry Division in Fallujah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad.

Cruz, a native of Guam, has been away from his family for nearly one year and said not knowing when he would go home depressed him.

"When I get depressed, I just write a letter. I write a lot. Writing a letter relieves my stress," said the shy soldier. In letters, he tells his mother he is doing fine.

He is lying.

"I wake up in the middle of the night just to look around. I am always half-asleep," said Cruz, one of 4,000 US soldiers assigned to keep the peace in this conservative Sunni Muslim city, which has often been a flashpoint since US troops shot dead at least 16 civilians during protests in late April.