Why should I travel to Iraq?  
   Why should I travel to Iraq?  - someone else's problem over there right?  The longer the Iraq War goes on however, it sparks an emotion that the Vietnam War also holds to me.  But not the way you would think.  You immediately might say, "oh, here we go.  He is going to try to compare the two wars' militarily and politically."  Perhaps a comprehensive comparison should be done at some point as it relates to how we Americans fight wars over the last 60 years since World War II.  But, for me the reason to study and travel to Iraq is much more latent.  
   I am simply tired, as I became during Vietnam also, of listening to other people, agencies, and groups fight the war through words.  Many of the people, like during Vietnam, doing the arguing have never even been there.  Some of the wealthy power brokers that have been there - went surrounded by body guards.  The returning GIs it seems are either quietly reflecting to their own military brothers and sisters, or they are telling a story of their experience in the capsule of their own exclusive experience.  And like in Vietnam, those exclusive experiences in Iraq can be so different from unit, to region, to year that one listening wonders if they are even talking about the same war.  After hearing vignettes about Vietnam that covered some 15 years of experiences, my head was swimming.  And like Vietnam, the War in Iraq, now in its fourth year, is likewise becoming diverse.  It seems to speak to long wars.  And now also Iraq, like Vietnam dragged on, does not seem to be about to end any time soon.

Rich talking heads
   Ever stop to notice most of the talking heads on the major news stations, NBC, CNN, FoxNews, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, as well as many radio personalities, are millionaires.  To add insult to injury most of the media in America is owned by about five behemoth companies.  The media corporations' millionaire enabler mouth pieces hold about as much credibility to me as wealthy actors and athletes.  If they go to Iraq they stay a week and bring a platoon of private body guards with them.  Actors that pontificate about the pros and cons of the war have enough money to be over there in 24 hours.  Yet, they just speculate on from a distance.  These news people and actors are not who I want to base my opinions of the war from.  
   After 30 years of hearing contradicting stories from power brokers and blue collar people alike I went to Vietnam myself.  Albeit, the war is long over in "Nam," I still went because there are so many myths and urban legends about the place that linger on.  The point is, I see the same thing developing with Iraq. This time if I go the war will probably still be going on.  But the point is the same.  Just what is truth and want is embellishment about Iraq?  To go there myself seems to be one way to circumvent all the misconceptions and sidestep all the millionaire media enablers.

"They say" "Well, I suppose"
   My Mom and Dad were decent people.  They brought me up as best they could with what they had to work with.  They were dairy farmers and always maintained we were lucky and better off than most.  When I left home to get out on my own it finally dawned on me we were actually rather poor.  Mom and Dad were around during "Nam" and I was of military age.  I ended up in Germany as the war effort dwindled from the American side.  
   But when it came to family and farm matters they had the politics down and the farm remained rock steady.  But when it came to world politics they reverted to their Great Depression era analysis techniques.  Every sentence began with, "Well, I suppose," and "They say."  And it is in that spirit - the spirit of average folks trying to guess about the greater world and roll with the punches it doles out that I seek to go to Iraq.  I can hear the spirit of my parents mantra in the back of my mind.  "They say things aren't going too well over there in Iraq," my Mom would probably say.  "Well, I suppose there is nothing guys like us can do about it," my Dad would no doubt counter.
    
The anonymous un-authored news sources
   Every wounder why so many people rely on news clearing houses for their news sound bites on the Internet and in the news papers? I have.  These sources rarely give an author to a story and offer few sources to their pontifications.  A story will appear in the local paper written by a particular news agency and we are all supposed to accept an un-authored, no-sources version of something as unwavering fact.  Joe Average American is too busy surviving the tasks of daily life to hunt down his own news stories.  Smaller media companies cannot afford to fly someone off to an exotic, dangerous country at war.  So, we are all pretty much at the mercy of large media and its anecdotes about the World.  Therefore, this type of journalism and media by its very anonymous nature, as well has driven me to seek to go to Iraq to see for myself.