IAVA - Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America - Letters from Baghdad (Kevin Kjellerup)

Although the ceremony was simple and I thought that I didn't feel much different, being married to you is the greatest thing I have ever done. You have always supported me and I am in awe of your strength. While possessing a kindness of heart I have never before witnessed, you rarely display a weakness of any kind. Thank you for choosing me and deciding to stay with me. I will love you forever. I hope to see you soon.

It is strange to be here. It is actually an attractive-looking city. Interesting architecture and lovely people....the ones who don't want to shoot us anyway. We will be starting our mission in a couple of days. We will be patrolling throughout a sector about 4-5 miles square in the northern part of the city from the Tigris River toward the east. We talked to a few of the soldiers we will be relieving today and they told us it isn't too bad. Sometimes they have to physically move people and show their weapons, but it is usually just crowds of people greeting them and they mean no harm.

The good news is that as a platoon sergeant, I won't be going on the patrols. Instead, I will drive out occasionally to bring soldiers out to check points or bring food and water to the check points. I have seen a couple of fire fights in the city during the evening but nothing too close to us yet.

We are actually living in the Ministry of Finance building right now and the guys have been finding a bunch of money (actually worthless now) and souvenirs. For example, this is letterhead from the Ministry of Finance. There was a statue of Saddam out front but the soldiers here before us tore it down and cut off the head. There used to be a three story mural of him on the back of the building--which faces an overpass. The soldiers had to destroy the mural because people would drive by on the overpass and shoot at the mural. No shots have been fired at us or the soldiers we will be replacing on patrol yet, so things should be pretty safe here from now on.

We are all doing fine, but miss home tremendously. We are now in an auditorium right on the Tigris River and we are doing security around an area call Medical City. For those back home, tell them it is sort of like covering the University of Minnesota Medical School complex in regards to size. For our friends in Florida, imagine the whole Florida State campus from Gaines Street to Tennessee and from the soccer stadium to the Capitol.

We hear gun fights every day and night, but none are very close to us so we haven't been in real danger. We are actually doing some good work by making people feel secure enough to go to the hospital and it seems like we have moved into the changing of heart and minds stage. Some work in being done to get the interim government on its feet and rebuilding infrastructure. My hope is we will come home soon.

We have been at this location since May 3^rd. I got your first package on May 4^th, but haven't gotten any others since. In case you haven't heard, the address here is different (hence some of the delay in mail). We have been promised phones some time within the next couple of weeks. They are a ways away so we will shuttle guys every couple of days. I look forward to hearing your voice, as I fear I am starting to not be able to hear it in my head. Sometimes I can hear it as I watch the sun set into the river and I am reminded of sitting together at the lake in the early evening. It keeps me going a bit longer.

As it is taking so long to get mail, I suspect I wouldn't get any more packages unless you have prepared and ready to go. If not, it won't be necessary to prepare more. We can get quite a bit on the local economy here. Sgt Robichaux saw some of the guys from Delta Company today and although they too are tire and ready to go home, they are okay, but aren't getting much mail either, so I suspect it's a wide-spread problem. No doubt I will get everybody's packages already sent, but I'm afraid I'll be home before we get any that are not already sent or sent very soon.