"good m iam hadi from basrah how are you my brother i miss you"

This is an email I received today from my new friend, "Hadi". Hadi is obviously from Basrah. The one-line email is a bit odd, but his english writing is much better than my arabic, so I won't judge him too harshly. He is a 19-year-old entepreneur who makes his living selling propane to people, including our military. He is very well-spoken and very friendly, and although I was leery to give him my email address when he asked for it, I humored him and wrote it down. Here is how I met him..... Three days ago, my boss approached me while I was sitting at my desk in our office. "Hey Jim! I've got a mission for you, you're gonna love me!"

I replied with, "Um, Ed, if 'loving you' is the mission, I'd rather not take part."

It took him a few seconds to understand my little joke.....typical. The mission was to drive the Suburban just outside the front gate and link up with a young man selling propane, escort and sign him in, and bring him to the work site so we can switch out our tanks. So, I did. The ride with Hadi was an interesting one. He was immediately friendly and talkative, asking me numerous questions about America. He knew many of the US states and was very proud of this fact. His dream was to ultimately save enough money to move to Texas and attend "university". All of the Iraqis know of Texas. And Michael Jackson, "King of Pop, yes?" Our conversation eventually shifted to the pre-invasion era, and Hadi described to me how his father was forced to fight in Saddam's army for 30 years. His uncle, his father's brother, had refused and had subsequently been executed. This seems to be a resounding story in Iraq; people refusing to follow Saddam, mysteriously disappearing or executed by his secret police. I heard countless stories like this while at Abu Ghraib, and and same is true down here.