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Images from Iraq
It’s business as usual for soldiers far from home on the holiday
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Between the tangled razors of uncertainty, Iraqi children peer out from their stony perch, smiling without reservation at a camera directed toward them.
A group of soldiers clad in fatigues form a tight circle. Their faces beaming with ambivalence punctuated by half smiles.
An eyeless man with a poised gun pointed skyward melds into the jagged landscape of a wall splattered with the paint of destruction.
These are indelible images created by Naples resident Michael Blount, a sergeant in the Florida Army National Guard now serving in Iraq.
Today is Thanksgiving and it is unclear what Sgt. Blount’s mission will be today.
He can’t tell us what he’ll be doing — not because of the classified nature of his duties but because he doesn’t have time to write.
He is busy.
He is in a war zone.
There are thousands of men and women today like Sgt Blount that will, with any luck, sit in their government greens around a table and make the best of a holiday feast, even if the chow they receive is little more than the standard fare.
Something to eat other than the dust of the Iraqi desert. Something more quenching than a canteen filled with yesterday’s water.
Thanksgiving offers us a chance to spend time with family and friends. And to be thankful for the soldiers who continue to do difficult jobs in a hostile country thousands of miles away.
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