About a year ago I was positioning myself in a town in Eastern Turkey to prepare to enter Iraq. Midyat, Turkey is about 65 miles from Iraq as the crow flies. It is a town with an old section and a new section. In the old section I found a hotel with rooms each painted with different bright colors. It was here I would sit and ponder for several days if I would actually go to Iraq. The dish TV in my room had at least 300 channels. Many of them porn.
I took a mini-bus ride to Cizre, Turkey, which is very near the border with Iraq, to make a dry run. Cizre looks like a city on the border of a country at war - dust, trucks, soldiers, check points, drab buildings, more dust. No vans headed back to Midyat after 4:00 p.m. so the bus office flagged down a cargo truck that was headed back to Midyat and put me up in the front seat with the driver. This is a common practice I discovered.
I got to know Midyat a bit because of my procrastination. But I had done the same thing in Viet Nam. I stayed in Saigon for two weeks before I ventured out in to the country at large. If it works, don't fix it. In Midyat there was a beautiful Turkish girl working in the one bank, and she was always intrigued by my tattoos. There was a friendly Internet shop in a basement down the street from my room. Above the Internet shop were a couple of restaurants that were amicable. There is a couple of markets. Most of the things in the markets had an agricultural timbre. Farm tractors pulled wagons through town all the time. Every one was either very friendly or just ignored me. I was the only Westerner in the region. In the evening, the restaurants would mix a blend of salad and meat in big tins outside on tables on the sidewalks; the mix would then be eaten in a bread wrap. It was a festive feeling; men sat outside on chairs and drank tea and smoked. This all done after sun set as it was Ramazon time (the month long Muslim religious holiday) - no eating, smoking, or drinking during the day light.
After a few days of mulling it over, I asked my humble hotel if I could leave my bags with them for at least a month. No problem, the sleepy-eyed young clerk just pointed to a corner where the night clerk napped. I sent Heide "the-go" signal only we two knew the code to. The next morning with just one small bag I hoped on a mini-bus and made the journey to the border.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is 24-year-old U.S. Marine Corporal Brian P. Prening. Corporal Prening who is from Plymouth, died while engaging the enemy in Babil Province, Iraq, on November 12, 2004. Prening was assigned to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve. The unit is from Chicago. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Brian is a graduate of Plymouth High School. He had gotten married on August 13, 2004, and he and wife Amy were expecting their first child. CNN.com lists the Prenings as from Sheboygan. The Journal Sentinel also mentioned Brian went to Lakeshore Technical College in Cleveland, Wisconsin where he got a degree completing the tool-and-die program. Brian worked at Kohler Company. His Marine Reserve unit was activated. Corporal Prening was the 27th soldier from Wisconsin killed in the fighting in Iraq. Brian is survived by a twin brother, Bill, a younger sister, Ann, 21, wife Amy, a step son, and mother and father Brian and Deborah Prening.
3,810 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
28,093 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.
80 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
115 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
