Letter from local soldier is read on KFDI
Cornbread impressed with 19-year-old Tamra Holub
Dan Holub of rural Marion recently received an e-mail from his daughter, Tamra who is a corporal with the 369th Transportation Unit of the U.S. Army Reserves from Wichita, and is stationed in Iraq.
The letter was read April 14 by the disc jockey Cornbread on Wichita radio station KFDI.
Listeners requested copies of the poignant letter and the letter was posted on the KFDI website.
Cornbread told Dan Holub through an e-mail he was "in awe of this little girl. I was dumb as a stump at that age and now as a semi-intelligent 37-year-old, I still don't think I understand things as well as this young woman.
"You must be very proud. I hope she gets home safe and soon. You have a success here and she is just beginning her life," Cornbread said.
Here is the letter Tamra wrote to her father from Iraq.
Dated: Monday, March 22, 2004
Dad,
Well, I am no longer in Camp Arifjan, Camp Virginia, or even Kuwait. Right now I am smack dab in the middle of Iraq in the Sunni Triangle.
We convoyed up here (about 30 of us) to set up our company area for when the rest of the unit arrives.
In the midst of downtown Baghdad, I realized something. I am 19 years old and rather than worrying about where the next party is this weekend or what movie I want to see tonight, I am worrying about how to keep myself alive.
Every day puts us in a life or death situation and just on this three-day convoy, I have learned so much about myself and the U.S.
I have seen things that have shocked me to the core and I've only been here for two weeks.
The poverty that people live in is unbelievable. Poor people in America drive cars. Poor people here send their kids out onto the roads to run in front of convoys in order to stop our vehicles and beg food off of us or steal it from the sides of the trucks.
Poor people in America are fat from the benefits of welfare. Poor people here are so hungry they are searching through trash on the sides of the road, collecting what they can for their families.
They are living in mud huts. Their main assets are the skinny cow roped to a tree out front and the small garden they made out of what fertile soil they can find.
All the media shows us back in America are the people of Baghdad. They do not show what us truckers see as we are driving down the roads in central Iraq. Poverty runs rampant. I have decided no matter how bad it gets here, I am here for the right reason.
I had a civilian contractor in Camp Arifjan (Kuwait) at the motor-pool tell me after a long conversation that there is nothing in the world worth dying for. He tried to convince me that nothing is worth your own life.
I looked at him and all I could say was "then what do you live for?" I look at these people and as much as I hate to think of it, I realized that these Marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen who have died during this war and the aftermath, have not died for nothing, and should never be considered as dying for nothing.
What we are fighting for are the lives of thousands and thousands of men, women, and children. No, they are not Americans but they are human beings.
America is a very powerful country and I was once told that with power comes responsibility. It is our responsibility to help those who can't help themselves and if that means we must die to improve their way of life, then that is what we must do.
I knew I would be a changed person when I returned from this deployment but I never suspected that I would feel so differently so quickly.
There I was, standing in the middle of a market street in downtown Baghdad and it hurt to see all these little kids running to me, putting their fingers to their lips, trying to show me they wanted food. And even while I felt so bad for them and wanted to give them everything I had, I found myself pointing at a little four-year-old and yelling at him to get back — stay back. It is so hard.
And when we are driving in convoys and the little kids come running up to the vehicles giving us the thumbs up sign, I try very hard to wave and smile at all of them. I'm thinking in the back of my mind that it might make up for those times that I have to be the soldier and think of my safety and my unit's safety before I think of the welfare of those starving children.
I wish there was some way for every American to see what we've seen and are going to see.
Maybe then they'll go home and not complain about the broken TV because it means they have electricity. Or the leaking plumbing because it means they have running potable water. Or the high prices they have to pay for groceries because it means they have the ability to purchase food for their family rather than scrounge through garbage and send their children out begging.
Already I have discovered so much about life and how damn lucky we are to be Americans. I can only imagine what the next year will bring for me.
Love you,
Tamra
