Marines have hard time convincing Iraqis to help clear areas of trash

[unhappycamper]

Marines with 3rd Squad, 4th Platoon, Company L, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, walk through a trash-strewn patch of their area in Fallujah. They were trying to find a local man who could gather unemployed Iraqis to clean up the spot.


Marines have hard time convincing Iraqis to help clear areas of trash
By Geoff Ziezulewicz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, January 30, 2008

FALLUJAH, Iraq — The Jubayil district appears in certain places to be drowning in its own filth. On Saturday, Marines with 3rd Squad, 4th Platoon, Company L, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines set out on a patrol to find some locals who could help lead a cleanup effort.

At the helm was Cpl. Brett Younts of Nampa, Idaho, a 21-year-old on his second deployment. Like many young grunts to his left and right on that patrol, he said he did not enlist expecting this kind of mission.

Younts’ Marines were looking for a local man to hire other men to clean up a particularly dirty garbage-strewn patch in the middle of the city’s poorest area.

“It’s my week to do it,” Younts said.

The squad set out from an Iraqi police station sitting on the border between the Jubayil and Nazaal districts, where Marines live with Iraqi police. From this base, different squads run their daily patrols.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52033

[thunder rising]

1. We're too busy killing and maiming to clean up the mess we created.