E-mail from a fellow (but cooler blogger)

To those of you who might not know Colby Buzzell, he was an infantryman who had served in Mosul, Iraq around the same timeframe as yours truly. He started a blog called "My War" and it had some of the most honest and vivid description of a GI's life in Mosul, as well as some of the most honest accounts of some attacks/ambushes which happened to his combat group.

He had gotten into trouble with his chain of command for allegedly violating OPSEC (operational security)and so he stopped updating his blog for a while. In the meantime, either by word of mouth or other forms of referrels, Colby's blog got the attention of some publishers and plans were made for him to publish "My War, killng time in Iraq", and I think it should be out by the first of October.

After reading him for the good part of my deployment to Iraq and afterwards, I decided to send him a e-mail, and it went something like this....


Hey CB:
You don't know me, but I was attached to your old brigade while in Mosul, you were posted at FOB Marez while I was posted at FOB Freedom, I did unit supply and you were infantry. Just wanted you to know that your blog's really awesome and I read it every chance that I'd get. Looking forward to your book release (I've preordered mine already) and I'm just just glad that both of us made it back from hell on earth.
Take care!


I thought that Colby probably would set my e-mail aside or delete it since I'm not much of anyone important. Then, after a day, I got a reply from him! (excerpt below)


Hey man,
hows it going, thats cool that you were attatched to my old brigade
back in mosul, Who knows, we probably walked right past each other
while I was over at Freedom the several times that i was there. Thanks
for your kind words on the blog, I really appreciate that, especially
from a brothe rin arms who served in the same AO as I. I really means
alot, and thanks for pre ordering the book, FOB Freedom is mentioned
several times in the book, and hopefully you'll like it. Not alot of
people know about mosul, and I'm hoping that this book shows people
what we went thru and experienced up there. All you ever hear about is
like, Marines, and Falluja, and Baghdad, you hardly ever herd from
mosul when we were there. Anyways, thanks again for emailing me and
ordering the book, I hope you like it, and feel free to send me an
email when you get it and let me know what you think.
thanx again
-cb

Now, wasn't that just the shit? That he referred to me as a "brother in arms"?

Go and check out his blog if you hadn't done so already....

http://cbftw.blogspot.com/