Pray For The People Of Iraq

There are ideas and topics that I have such deep feelings for that I have learned not to discuss them. Perhaps it is cowardly of me, but I have learned that my beliefs and feelings are not always the ones currently popular and because I feel what I feel and believe what I believe from the core of who I am, if I allow myself to be drawn into debate, my heart breaks. I almost passed by this note from Kitty of COPD Support for that reason. I thought it would be another reminder of despair.
This note from Kitty's son is something very different. And I believe that no matter what our political views are, we all stand strong in support of our young people drawn into military conflict. I will honor Christopher's request to pass his message along and I regard it an honor to do so.

Kitty wrote:
this was written by my son, Chris who is currently deployed with the US Army in Iraq and the first mail I saw the morning of July 19, 2007. he is 21 years old. what an honor and Blessing to be able to say I am his mom... please share as you wish...
hugs and prayers,
Kitty

"Pray for the People of Iraq"

Here I sit in my room all alone wondering why we are here in Iraq,
there are so many bad people in this world and it just makes me feel like all we are here for is to try to make the bad people go away.
So much for your beliefs and being able to feel the way you want,
since I have been here I feel like I am in jail, not jail behind bars but jail like my life is on hold, and can't seem to figure out why.
If you ever have felt like you can't do anything about anything back in the states you should join the military and come to Iraq, you will feel like that but seventy times worse.
In ways yes we are making a huge difference and helping almost everyone over here but the thing that is so bad over here are some of the people from here just have their beliefs and as you know people don't just change cause someone tells them that they have to or need to.
People need a reason to change their beliefs and the way they think,
if someone could show a person it is wrong to kill because you are trying to help and build their country back up then it may change the way the people here think.

Now don't get me wrong I don't think that there are all that many bad people here I just think that there were one or two events that changed these people and now cannot trust anyone so it is easier to get rid of the people they don't trust then deal with them.

For many of the people here it probably started years and years ago, before this war and maybe before the last one. But for some of the younger people here I believe there is hope that they will not grow up to hate and there is some hope that they will forgive and reilize that we are not here to kill everyone but help for if we were here to kill everyone we would have done that years ago.

Now all I ask you to do is the next time you are sitting in church and get asked if there is anything you would like to pray for, before you ask to pray for the Service men and women please do me this and pray that there will be some light shown to these young Iraqis and that they will see that we want to help them,
I believe if the people of Iraq see that we are here to help then maybe someday this war will end.

So I ask anyone who reads this to pass it on and lable it pray for the Iraqis.
I believe that if we start trying to teach the younger people here that we are trying to help as well as the older people who will listen we can make a difference,

Yes there will always be killing as there is everywhere and that is another issue but for now lets take this one step at a time.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you repost it,

Christopher W.