“I Don’t Want To Live My Life Like This”

Soldiers in Iraq speak up about what is happening there:

“We’ve been here for 12 months now and there’s been no progress,” said Spc. Richard Johnson, 20, of Bridgeport, Conn., as he manned a machine gun on the rooftop of an outpost ringed by a shallow moat of sewage.

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[Another soldier] said the largely Shiite soldiers sometimes loot homes, fail to follow orders and openly acknowledge that they don’t trust the Sunni population.
“They are only going to do the right thing if someone’s watching and they know they will be punished if they don’t,” he said. “That’s not every soldier. I have met some great guys, but it is a lot of them. They don’t care, and this is their country.”
Asked if he was frustrated with the situation in Ramadi, he replied: “That doesn’t cover it.”
“U.S. soldiers are dying trying to help people who don’t want their help,” he said. “That makes you angry.”