Mideast Meets West

Editor's Note: OpenDemocracy's "My America: Letters to Americans" series explores the relationship between America and the world in a series of exchanges between Americans and non-Americans from across the globe. Here, Iraqi blogger and mother of three sons, Faiza Al-Araji, writes to Anthony Swofford, ex-U.S. marine and author of the 1991 Gulf war memoir, "Jarhead."

Dear Anthony Swofford,

First of all, I salute you, because you have changed from a United States Marines sniper into a writer who thinks, meditates, and reconsiders his views in a meaningful way.

A sniper? What life is possible for a man who is trained to become a professional sniper at the age of 19? Such a young man, training to be a professional killer! Such a profession demands a person to freeze his mind, annul his thoughts and pull the trigger, without thinking that the person in front of him is also human – with a name, a profession, and a family that loves him.

But the profession of the writer you became means loving man, and praising him as a creature who deserves to live. Such a difference!

I regret that I have not been able to get hold of your book, "Jarhead," but I have read interviews with you on the Internet. As I understand, you didn't want to start your life in the conventional way: studying, looking for a job, getting married. You chose to enlist in the U.S. Marines as a way of looking for the unfamiliar; as an experiment in life, or a manner of dealing with it.

That is exactly what I have done too, since I graduated in engineering from the University of Baghdad in 1976. I was then engaged to be married, and I had to choose between two worlds. I could either get married in the traditional way, like all my friends and relatives; or I could go as a volunteer to Lebanon, where there was a civil war whose victims were Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.

Against all advice, my husband, a Palestinian, and I, an Iraqi, chose to go to Lebanon.

Why? Everyone I knew asked me this, but I was convinced it was the right thing to do. I didn't tell my family; I knew they would have stopped me. I had to tell them I was going to Basra to work in an engineering company. When I said goodbye my heart was breaking, because I was a liar. But my wish to face the experience was stronger than my feeble emotions.

We were sent to al-Damour, a Christian suburb south of Beirut. It was destroyed, abandoned, the houses looted. We started by forming an engineering committee, to rehabilitate the suburb, populated now by the survivors of the bombing and destruction of Palestinian refugee camps.

We restored the houses and repaired the water pipelines, so water was accessible to all houses. Then we worked to reconnect the power, so the lights shone once more. We helped establish a school, kindergarten, sewing workshop, medical center and a bakery. After a few months' work, the suburb had a life, activity, and commercial shops. We left, sure that our presence was no longer needed.

I remember this experience when I receive letters from American soldiers who came to Iraq to fight in the war, trying to convince me of the bright face of their work here. An example of this is a recent anonymous letter by an American woman soldier, describing her unit's campaign to provide school bags for children in rural areas, and asking her friend to buy her some pencils, erasers, sharpeners and rulers for 25 children. She says she feels happy when their military convoy passes through villages. She throws candies to the barefoot children, and she sees happiness on their faces. She tells her friend she thinks they are doing a good job here.

How does this woman think? Her government bombed these villages, killing men, women, and children. Then she arrives, distributing candy to salve her conscience, and America's. If I were in her shoes, surely I would have thought: to make these children happy, we should repair the water, electricity and sewage services. We should re-equip the school. The children's future will not be brightened by driving past in a military vehicle and throwing candy!