In our Ward I help out with Activity Days. Basically this is an after school group for girls age 8-12 (though we only have the 8-10 year olds... there are too many girls in our ward to only have one group!). We have about 14 girls total though we usually end up with about 10-12 that show up! Needless to say...my new Codirector got a baptism by fire when I had to run and pick up one of the girls and she ended up with 10 hyper girls all to herself for a few. LOL Sorry Heather!!
Anyways, because Veterans Day is coming up I envited a dad of one of our girls to come talk to them about the military. This particular dad served in the National Guard in Iraq for 2 years. I have to say I think I enjoyed this more than the girls did! But I think by the time we were through they understood that they should be thankful for all of the blessings they have due to where they live in the world. And thankful for the military that continues to fight for those freedoms today.
Afterword I talked to our guest for a while asking more "Adult" questions that I don't think the girls would have understood, or would have been more graphic than they needed to hear in their young lives. So not everything in this post reflects what the girls learned :) I thought that I would list some interesting tidbits about Iraq that some of you may be unaware of.
1. An average Iraqi day is about 150 degrees F. And their nights run about 115 degrees F. WOW talk about hot...and to think that they haven't even heard about Air Conditioning!!! Yowsa!
2. Our military me and women end up carrying over 40 extra pound of gear around in this heat!
3. Iraq grows loads of watermelon but they have sanctions so they are not allowed to export them.
4. Our military is not allowed to interfere with their police or political people. They are only there to make sure that the Iraqi government has a chance to survive.
5. Terrorists come in from all of the surrounding countries. This includes our Ally Turkey.
6. Turkey pays for some of the most deadly Assisins in Iraq.
7. The Kurds love our military and do all they can to help them.
8. The Kurds have there own military outside of the Iraqi military and have had since before Sadam Hussien. They use their military to police there own land making our militarys job in there reagion easier.
9.The Kurds are not Iraqi. They are Gypsies.
10. Our military does not go near Oil Fields. The only time they have gone anywere near them was to protect the oil lines going out of them from getting bombed.
11. Though our military has had over 800 casualties this last year usually this in not put into perspective. California has over 200 a year and they aren't in a war zone.
12. Iraqis live in mud huts with dirt floors. They do have some "modern" buildings but are afraid to live in them because crooked politicians and police make people that live in them "disappear".
13. the serviceman that I talked to believes that Fox News is the channel that gets the most information correct and has the most reporters in Iraq, though they do mess up as well. He detests MSNBC because they assume our servicemen are evil and try to find the worst information possible to report. He said that he had some of their reporters ask him "how many babies have you killed today?" He was disgusted but still fought to protect them when they were in harms way.
ok, so that is all I can think of at the moment. I just found it enlightening to actually get first hand information from someone who has been to Iraq and doesn't have an agenda as far as the information he shares with me. I personally no longer trust the media (call me paranoid!). So I love it when I'm able to talk to someone who knows first hand. Wish I had more oporunities like this one.
