"Gloves are just a very important thing here. For one reason is that I don't touch any Iraqi without gloves on for the mere fact they wipe their ass with their hands. YUCK! Other reasons are keeping skin covered from bugs and overall protection from the daily grind of a soldier in combat. The shirts I keep ordering are called Under Armor shirts. You may ask what makes them so special. Well, when you’re wearing the body armor for 16 to 18 hours a day in 115 degree heat you sweat profusely. These shirts take that sweat and use it to cool you with. The shirts fit real tight for that reason and let me tell you they work well. Under Armor is just one of the companies I'm going to write when I get home to tell them how well their product worked for me. There are also a few companies I'm going to write to tell them how horrible their product was and they can kiss my desert tan American soldier ass."
"You asked in your letter what a typical day here is like. Well I wish we had typical days here. Everyday here is different. We never do anything the same way. We have to keep the enemy guessing to stay alive around here. If you drive down the same road everyday at the same time they will see this and place an IED there and wait. So we change everything we do every time. Kind of sucks for the rest part because you never get any. We may come back from foot patrolling one of our towns for 10 hours to go right back out in our hummers to patrol mounted. Just keep them guessing. And if they do make the dumb mistake of poking a angry bear with a short stick you get about 16 country boys with full automatic weapons and itchy trigger fingers trained to kill efficiently.

To be honest in those situations it’s like the world stands still. It’s like nothing I have ever experienced before. You just don't realize how scared you are till it’s all over with. Not everyday is like that though. It’s actually pretty safe where we are. One day that stands out in my mind the most as a good day was when we were on a foot patrol through town we had all these children following us. This is a good thing actually because nothing ever happens when children are around. I was carrying some of the crème savers Emily sent me for myself and to give out to children. Well they were all boys except for one real little girl and she wasn't getting any of the candy we would throw because they would run and get it first. So I walked back through all the crowd of the boys knelt down and held out my hand with a crème saver in it. She jumped back at first like she was scared. I would be scared of me too with all the crap we wear, we look like storm troopers. So I took off my Kevlar helmet and sunglasses while my platoon sgt. is yelling, "SGT.Nelson! Put your Kevlar back on!" Well I ignore him and hold out my hand again and she slowly creeps up and snatches it from my hand, gobbles it down like it was the greatest thing in the world runs back up puts her arms around me and kisses me on the cheek. My heart melted and it made all this we are doing worth it. I stand up, put my Kevlar back on and my platoon sgt. walks up with the comment of, " I hope your happy, now get your sappy ass back in formation". Well those are just some of the experiences I have had while here."

--Sgt. Jeremiah E. Nelson