NBC combat correspondent Kevin Sites is in Iraq, and files a new dispatch to his blog today:
Once you start to slide in Iraq, it's hard to right yourself. There's enough to piss you off on a daily basis that if you let it compound there's bound to be trouble. For Iraqis–car bombs, roadside bombs, city-sieges, instability, uncertainty, and loss of hope–this is their daily diet. I asked one of our drivers, Wesam, how he was doing the other day. It was just a typical faux question in passing. He stopped me in my tracks with a heartfelt answer.
"We are so unhappy, Kevin."
"Who's unhappy? You? Everyone?"
"Everyone–its such a very bad situation. We don't know what to do."
Neither does anyone else here– so it seems. We are bound together in this bloody conflict where the body counts have to break double digits to really get our attention anymore. It's a spiritual malaise as easily caught as a common cold. Big Daddy spelled it out best with one word in Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," – mendacity.
Mine comes and goes depending on how much time I've spent quarantined in the hotel as opposed to out in the field. This week I've got it bad
