Soldier In Hell

This is dialog between a soldier and his parents. There's more, of course, at the link.

AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: Soldiers in PropagandaLand:
" Parents: 'Oh, I was saying with gas prices over two bucks a gallon, are you sure you want to get a truck?'

Me: 'No, the civil war part.'

That was the first I’d heard about the mosque getting blown up and this was two or three days after it happened. I’m IN Iraq and have no idea what’s going on.... the way our media talks about the war it sounds like a stroll through Candy Land. A hot, dusty, ghetto Candy Land. The muffin man lives in downtown Baghdad in a mud house that has a plastic tarp for a door and in his spare time watches bakery porn on satellite television.

...

I can tell you that this place isn’t Candy Land. Car bombs are going off killing civilians, people are blowing up mosques, the kidnapping and subsequently beheading of people, these fuckers don’t wear identifiable uniforms, and friends of friends are getting killed over here. I personally find it insulting that what little amount of news I’m given isn’t realistic. I feel like the main character in 'Clockwork Orange' with his eyelids held open while being brainwashed."