An American POW in the US War on Iraq

The first time I went to Iraq in 1997, bringing medicine to children in hospitals, I wasn't prepared for the psychological impact of being on the front lines of a war. Madeleine Albright had clearly spelled out who the combatants were, the 500,000 children whose deaths were, " a difficult choice but worth the price." I hadn't read the Defense Intelligence Agency report which laid out the intent to unleash biological warfare on the civilian population by laying waste to Iraq's supply of clean drinking water. Yet there it was in front of me, bed after bed full of miniature, gasping soldiers whom I'm sure had no idea that they had even been drafted.
I returned to Baghdad a year later with even more medicine, desperate to make an impact, completely unaware that here, deep behind "enemy lines", I was in mortal danger. Then it happened without my even knowing-- the Iraqi people captured my heart and it was clear that my life would never be the same.

Maybe it was the woman feeding her hydrocephalic baby who was too weak to nurse, with a spoonful of milk taken ever so gently from a breast that would wither prematurely from disuse. Perhaps it was the hotel owner who informed me that we Americans had it all wrong, and when we had wrung the last drop of oil out of their country, we would have missed the true Iraq that he loved-- the rivers, the citrus and date groves, the music and poetry, the history, the magnificent architecture, the lovely people.