Joel Arends is a South Dakotan and a veteran of Iraqi Freedom. You can read what he has to say about his deployment in the Yankton Press here (free registration required). Here's a tidbit:
Arends said he also saw improvements in Iraq's infrastructure during his stay.
"Baghdad has 7-8 million people, it is about the size of New York City," he said. "When we got there, it was like going to a New York that had no police force, no firefighters and no garbage men. There were 57 garbage trucks in Baghdad; New York has 15,000 garbage trucks. People would just throw their trash outside the door, and the dogs and cats and other animals would drag it off. When someone got tired of it, they would scoop it up and dump in the vacant lot down the street.
"American and coalition forces are now purifying water, taking care of garbage, updating sewage plants. American cops are training Iraqi police and American soldiers are training Iraqi forces. That's our exit strategy. We will train them to take care of themselves and then gradually scale down."
Arends said he wants to spread the message that Iraq is not an out-of-control mission.
"In the media, if it bleeds it leads," he said. "Iraq is portrayed as a blood bath. You have to remember that is some guy's career to decide what you see on the evening news. The mainstream media will have you believe we are in a quagmire, but reality is 14 out of 18 provinces in Iraq are considered peaceful -- they police themselves. The media commits errors of omission. Sometimes it's not what they say but what they don't say."
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