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Mr. Lowry,
I am an enlisted man in the United States Marine Corps and have recently returned from 6 months in Iraq. I spent 6 weeks living in Fallujah as a liason with Iraqi security forces. In the short time I lived in Fallujah, I saw that our own clear, hold and build strategy was working on a daily basis. This was evidenced in the large numbers of Iraqi’s that returned to Fallujah after the November 2004 battle. They returned not because they wanted to pick up the insurgency where it had left off, they returned because Fallujah became much more secure than it had been prior to the battle. Even though much of the city was flattened, they returned. They also returned because they could raise their families in that relative security. Iraqi security forces were taking a much larger role in the security of Fallujah in the 6 months I was there. Is it perfect, hell no. We still have work to do. What really galls me is the utter lack of reporting of our successes. The only time I can recall the media coming into our AO in force is when the female Marines were killed in late June of this year. How can they get a clear picture of what is going on from sitting in Baghdad? Anyway, I did not want to get on a rant about the media, I just want to say that the current strategy over there is working and if the American people were being told that story, support for our efforts over there would be much, much stronger. Thank you to you and your staff for your support of our military. You all are giving a voice to our men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.