Marines Get the News From an Iraqi Host: Rumsfeld’s Out. ‘Who’s Rumsfeld?’

[Actionman]

Enlightening reading.

NYT: ZAGARIT, Iraq, Nov. 9 — Hashim al-Menti smiled wanly at the marine sergeant beside him on his couch. The sergeant had appeared in the darkness on Wednesday night, knocking on the door of Mr. Menti’s home.When Mr. Menti answered, a squad of infantrymen swiftly moved in, making him an involuntary host.
Since then marines had been on his roof with rifles, watching roads where insurgents often planted bombs.
Mr. Menti had passed the time watching television. Now he had news. He spoke in broken English. “Rumsfeld is gone,” he told the sergeant, Michael A. McKinnon.
“Democracy,” he added, and made a thumbs-up sign. “Good.”
The marines had been on a continuous foot patrol for several days, hunting for insurgents. They were lost in the hard and isolating rhythms of infantry life.
They knew nothing of the week’s news.
Now they were being told by an Iraqi whose house they occupied that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, one of the principal architects of the policies that had them here, had resigned. “Rumsfeld is gone?” the sergeant asked. “Really?”
Mr. Menti nodded. “This is better for Iraq,” he said. “Iraqi people say thank you.”
The sergeant went upstairs to tell his marines, just as he had informed them the day before that the Republican Party had lost control of the House of Representatives and that Congress was in the midst of sweeping change. Mr. Menti had told them that, too.
“Rumsfeld’s out,” he said to five marines sprawled with rifles on the cold floor.

Lance Cpl. James L. Davis Jr. looked up from his cigarette. “Who’s Rumsfeld?” he asked.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/world/middleeast/10marines.html?ei=5094&en=e2b42fbea8b9beb7&hp=&ex=1163221200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1163182537-wT/+BRKwCuJI2fl2l6rgTg

[CottonBear]

1. Masny soldiers and Marines know very little about politcs and public figures.

My friend who is an Army Staff Seargent got very little to no news in Iraq (Rush Limpballs doesn't count.)

Lance Cpl. James L. Davis Jr., right, taking a smoke break.


Sgt. Michael A. McKinnon talked with Mr. Menti on Wednesday.

If history is any guide, many of the young men who endure the severest hardships and assume the greatest risks in the war in Iraq will become interested in politics and politicians later, when they are older and look back on their combat tours.

But not yet. Marine infantry units have traditionally been nonpolitical, to the point of stubbornly embracing a peculiar detachment from policy currents at home. It is a pillar of the corps’ martial culture: those with the most at stake are among the least involved in the decisions that send them where they go.

Mr. Rumsfeld may have become one of the war’s most polarizing figures at home. But among these young marines slogging through the war in Anbar Province, he appeared to mean almost nothing. If he was another casualty, they had seen worse.

“Rumsfeld is the secretary of defense,” Sergeant McKinnon said, answering Lance Corporal Davis’s question.

Lance Corporal Davis simply cursed.
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