E-mails from Sgt. Anthony Kelly of Alpha Company

Unfortunately, not all of us will be coming home. In addition to the nearly 30 men our company has had wounded in action, as I write to you today we've had six men killed in action. (Kurt Krout, Brahim Jeffcoat, Gennaro Pellegrini, Nate DeTample, John Kulick and Francis Straub). These men were more than friends to us, they were our brothers. It was gratifying for us to hear of the outpouring of sympathy for their families and the respect in which the people treated their memories (it's never far from your mind while you are here that at any time you might be one of them) so I thank you for that also. They were good men who were killed in combat fighting for their country. More importantly, they were fighting for us, their brothers here in Iraq. For those of us here, our memories of them will never fade nor will the passage of time lessen the affection in which we hold them. We still feel their loss.

For many of us our service here in Iraq has been a life altering event. In many circumstances this change can be measured in physical terms: wounds, surgeries, permanent disabilities. In other instances, the change will be a little harder to quantify. You cannot encounter a set of experiences such as we have faced here without it shaping your view of the world and your place in it. There are many challenges in reconciling these experiences with a return to normal life. Many of the men of this platoon are still very young, not much older than many of you, and this will have been a formative experience in their life. Everyone will have their own opinions and rethought values upon returning home.

This is also true in my case. I've seen human beings at their worst here in Iraq, but I've also seen them at their best. For every negative thing we've encountered here, I've seen something equally positive.

There are many opinions back home with regard to the conduct of this war. I'm not writing to you now to change any of them. What I would like to leave you with is this: while the politics and justification for this conflict may be subject to debate, the conduct of your soldiers, marines and airmen here in Iraq is of a caliber that is rarely seen among Americans anymore. We are regular folks, men and women from all races, creeds and varying backgrounds, with one thing in common: a devotion to our country and an equally matched devotion to each other.

Yours truly,

Staff Sergeant Anthony H. Kelly
2nd Platoon, A Company
1st Battalion, 111th Infantry Regiment