Death of the Seventh Imam

The Shiite Muslims have an annual festival commemorating the death of their seventh and last Imam, the descendent of Mohammed. And since the Sunni's get all worked up about Shiite festivals, we were supposed to stay in the camp. I just didn't work out that way. Apparently returning a laptop, a 9mm, and sending some money Western Union for some Iraqi to get a US green card was more important that the lives and safety of 20 American soldiers. But it did make for an interesting ride.

Regardless, all's well that ends well, and nothing of any importance whatsoever happened. Hopefully tonight will be quiet, and there won't be any fundamentalist secretarian violence in this part of town tonight. Here we are risking our lives to help these people build a country, and all they can think about is fighting each other.

Actually the story about the Iraqi needing us to send money Western Union to the Department of Immigration could turn into quite the story. He's been helpful to us, and a price was put on his head for his cooperation with the US forces. So he applied for political asylum and somehow the application was processed by a Sergeant Major. Part of the process was to pay a fee of $120 and he gave the Sergeant Major the money quite some time ago. Well, the money seems go have gotten lost in someone's pocket, so some guys fronted him the money and sent it tonight, which was the deadline. If the Sergeant Major doesn't pay some people back, there may be a criminal investigation into the stolen money. We'll see what happens as I get more info.

Oh, and we have a state of the art phone center here, with no long lines, and plenty of phones. Only the satellite uplink is down most of the time. (Sorry Linds, I tried!) Well, that's enough for one night.

Later Everyone

Trey