Once across the bridge we hit instant chaos. There was a swarm of vehicles and humanity around the factory gates. I jumped out, as did my battle buddy, Corporal Leonardo, the scion of a New York, uh, "family".

Trying to figure out where the fuck whatever the fuck had happened had happened, my guts pulled me toward the gates - clearly the explosions had happened inside. Leo suddenly yelled at me from a good distance to my left, "Pat, you have to stay with me!" ( this is the battle buddy rule - you are a twosome, responsible for one another ). I yelled to explain that I wanted a shot of the explosion scene "I want to get inside the gate!" He reacted with a completely perplexed look which completely perplexed me. For some reason I began to drift toward him. With the melee swirling I "got it". He's confused as to why I want to go through the gate because the shit is right..." and as the realization hit and I continued to drift toward him my eyeline was rounding the rear corner of a 7-Ton truck which was blocking my view of a tiny field to the left of the gate which was now inch by inch opening up to my eyes like a tableau behind a peeling curtain and they began to reveal themselves the body parts the dead and screaming dying as the first chunks of flesh and bleached white bones then in seconds as my rounding approach continued the piles, piles of bodies the howling wounded soldiers, civilians, Marines, the living and healthy horrified helping trying to save to rise above their own shock and sickness a mad rush I was now calves deep in bodies, gore every imaginable body part everywhere hands, severed legs, intestines, spines, survivors guts hanging out brains and gunpowder on a wall the piles were felled dominoes as if they had been arranged neatly but there had been no time for the living to make such piles of the dead how the fuck did they get like that and why were the living wounded buried amongst the dead why were living and dying men in the same piles with the dead why were these piles lines instead of the regular piles I can't shoot the military dead and wounded the eyes of all the dead are looking at me locking with mine "Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!" he is shrieking no one is screaming it is all shrieking and wailing pleading up from the earth the faces for me to help them there's not a goddamn thing I can do there are nearly a hundred bodies here in this 15X30 foot space I can't believe the endless spray chunks and blood why do I want to look at the eyes again to see what they hold I see through them they don't look real the corpses just like the prosthetic torso we used in Autofocus I can't help you the primal pleading what these mangled must be thinking as we walk so vigorously amongst them what is pain like theirs what are they thinking I am relieved I have no friends here that the casualties are mostly Iraqis not American military and my friends this is just the way it is there is only one wounded Marine but several wounded and dead soldiers blood does not look real for God's sake its purple how in the fuck did that happen what the fuck happened here period there is no metal it must not have been a car bomb I can't deal with this I can't stand let alone film amongst all this that's it pretend they're not real they don't look real pretend they're not real then you can do it and a switch goes off and like a gremlin from the underneath I'm making a mad focused swoop in beautiful hi-definiton determination up and down the lines of happened and happening horror the stew of death I steep in I must be Satan I hate Michael Moore and Newsweek and CNN and all these people who encourage the enemy to keep it up with the clarions of failure and retreat it swells up from my guts I don't think these thoughts they madly swell up I know it's right to film this I think its right I wonder if it's right to film these people as they are Ogrish.com all these shredded dead and dying what are the soldiers watching me thinking do I look like Satan yes I can do it they are not real I can do it I am slipping falling down from my left foot what the fuck I look down and see my boot slipping on a severed leg on the meat sticking out of the top of the fat hairy leg the meat jutting from the torn thigh I jump off that fat black army medic chick is totally out of it traumatized palms out and flat helpless wandering clueless can't deal Leo I don't think it was a car bomb a suicide bomber he says a vest a witness kept stammering to him it was the dude with the vest the dude with the vest as if Leo had been there and of course would remember the dude with the vest stretchers all the shouting and running get that fucking camera out of here I will not I feel so wrong but I know it is the right thing to film this I'm not shooting Americans I yell defiantly at the army officer I see meters and meters away bodies they must have been the walking wounded who finally collapsed he's reaching his hand out to me from the pile "just wait just wait it's going to be okay" knowing he speaks no english but I'm hoping the expression on my face and my gestures will make the point soothe him with some hope and comfort "get our guys out first!" it's clear the american casualties are the priority Jesus the blood is fucking purple "Do you speak Arabic?" the Marine asks me I see the fat Iraqi soldier standing covered in blood he doesn't get that his buddy at his boots is dead he is clearly beseeching medical help jabbing jabbing pointing his purple finger at his comrade laying on his back his eyes very open and staring straight out from a body that lacks any and all of the vibrations of the living what the fuck do I say I see the chunks of flesh on his uniform as he points and pleads what the fuck do I say to this shocked man an allied soldier a comrade unwilling to accept his friends fate I just give it to him straight "Fineesh" I say making the same gesture an NFL referee makes to signal the end of play "Fineesh" it's clear this guy gets what I'm saying but still doesn't get if you know what I mean he's snapped as he continues to point and press me for aid I touch his arm to comfort him and look in his eyes and as I do I feel these sharp sticky plasticized chunks of flesh on his arm press into my palm I say again "No...no more...fineesh" and when I pull my hand away I still feel the chunks pressing like the phenemenon of feeling an itch on an amputated limb I continue to feel it stabbing into the soft inside of my hand I keep looking at my palm for the rest of the day as if I'm going to see the chunks stuck to it and pressing in I swear they are there the death is thinning out but the infinite spray of blood and matter is infinite no more Americans Lieutenant Awtry across the piles is looking dazed I drift have you ever seen anything like this I ask a beat later he looks into my eyes shaken no he says hey pat yells Leo for some reason making making me aware of all the yelling still going on occupied stretchers bounce past follow me I run with him out into the street this is not cool we are under threat of further attack ramadi has the best international jihad snipers in the world an angry crowd across the street watching we are now exposed in the middle of the street I follow him up behind the ascending sirens a hummer for cover the sirens are now my focus the ambulances he says we have to search the descending Iraqi ambulances I know they are used often to transport weapons bombs killers they are all the sound now leo jumps out all four of us follow running out stopping the ambulance ejecting them from the cab flinging open the doors quickly quickly thoroughly but quickly we all feel the crosshairs on our backs clear wave them through rushing back to cover behind the humvee to repeat it in minutes over and over for half a dozen ambulances I realize why Franklin and Williams were knocked off the sidewalk by two small typical booms it was the evil the evil of the suicide bomber slaughter that knocked them back.

After more and more dangerous forays out into the street to check incoming ambulances for bombs, we were finished, and took up position in our Humvee, protecting the road and the cleanup from the growing crowd across the street - a crowd likely to contain insurgents with RPGs, likely to be insurgent snipers waiting for an opportunity. We fired smoke to disperse the crowd. We posted near a tank. Somehow, Britney fucking Spears began to blare out of Franklin's CD player. She sang of dancing and of love concerns from an alternate universe. We had him fucking change it to some grinding Swedish metal band with a song about combat and killing. It's not because we are hateful that we listen to such music, but like anyone else, we like music that speaks to the truth of our conditions, our lives, our concerns. We are not thrillkillers. We kill to survive, to end the lives of enemies who may tomorrow kill our friends. Most soft bubble-dwelling post 70's Americans have become detached from an essential truth of life, an essential part of their masculine responsibilites, a healthy, reverant, duty of life on earth: good, morally imperative killing. The post 60's quest for ideals has led too often instead to a denial of the truths of life. We must learn again to have a mature reverant respect for killing when it needs to be done. It is a key thing to teach our maturing children. The entire structure of the universe is entirely dependent on responsible killing. Killing, the right kind of killing, is good, a sacred responsibility - we need to become men again, to meet these responsibilities of manhood again, as a culture, and teach our children well about fighting and killing. We will have no life, no America, without them. People used to criticize Reagan for being out of touch with the times and pining for a bygone era whose mores no longer fit the times. Well that torch has been passed - it has been passed to liberals who pine for the bygone era of the 70's and it's admirable, but childlike views of the world. We cannot live in a world that we arrogantly demand to be: we must live in the world that nature has actually given us. And a man unwilling to fight and kill is not a man. As I said, we must teach our children well. The era of the morally imbiguous anti-hero is over. The era of the hero is in, and not for trendy reasons, but reasons of survival, and protection of our children, our systems, our freedoms.

The Governor of Al Anbar province, Governor Ma'moun showed up and surveyed the scene. When he left, it was our job to dismount and descend once more into hell. We put on rubber gloves and bagged body part after body part, spines, eyeballs, hands, general goo, you name it, into plastic bags. On the drive back, I noticed chunks of flesh and blood all over my combat boots. I meant to clean them off back at the camp. I made a joke that I hoped to fuck they didn't serve lasagna for chow that night. I forgot to clean my boots. Back at the chow hall, now dinner time, they motherfucking served lasagna. We couldn't believe it. As if I already know how far into an alternate reality I'd drifted, halfway through the meal, which frankly, was a war between my abject hunger and my naseau, I realized that I was sitting in the chow hall, eating dinner, with boots covered in the body parts of dozens of recently slaugtered men.

The suicide bombing was the result of a sea change in the Ramadi insurgency. They say that "As Ramadi goes, so goes Iraq" because as the last great holdout against the new government and progress, (as the die-hard capital of the Saddam Baath Party/Sunni insurgency, it is the most dangerous city in the country, an unending daily battle on the streets) if Ramadi moves willingly into Iraq's democratic/capitalistic/modernized future, than the last hurdle of progress has been achieved. If Ramadi embraces the new Iraqi Democratically Elected government, and works with the coalition security forces, (which are not occupation forces, but are there at the request of the Iraqi government to assist with security ) than yes, the last great holdout against that process has ended. Well the corner was finally turned while I was there. The insurgent Sheiks of Ramadi ( some of whom I interviewed) finally threw in the towel, and had blessed cooperation with us and the new Government - beginning with allowing their people, many of whom were full-fledged insurgents, to join the new Ramadi Police Force, which had been disbanded for some time. That day, at the glass factory, was the first day for new recruits to apply. Al Qaeda, the other half of the Iraq insurgency, would have no part of it, and sent a drugged out suicide-vest boy to blow apart the crowd of new recruits at the glass factory. With a double, front-back, ball-bearing and c4 filled vest, blow he did, killing about 80 people and maiming scores of others. The carnage was ungodly, and somewhere in Ramadi were idiots who thought Allah was up in heaven kicking his heels and doing a jig at the sight of slaughtered Muslims looking to serve their community. In fact, whenever an insurgent commits one of the most evil acts known to man he yells "God is Great!" Well this was a key turnaround in the insurgency: the alliance between Al Qaeda and the disgruntled former Saddam employee Baathist insurgents was now shattered, and they began to fight each other. As we speak, several Sheiks are being sytematically whacked by Al Qaeda. The slaugher brought about one good thing: the insurgency was now a key step closer to ending. The people of Ramadi, who had before began helping Zarqawis Al Qaeda, now turned on them. And closer to us.

And as for the suicide bombers and those who wish to romanticize them as noble and visionary young men willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of "freedom fighting", the truth of it all is a slap in the face to the bombers and their idiot, safe, distant American living room-dwelling cheerleaders (cowardly pseudo-intellectuals whose only real world experience is in their imaginations, usually provided by the mush given to them by cowardly college professors who also know nothing of the real world; or the towering intellectual bastion known as Moveon.org. Urban Bumpkins I call them, people who tread the same tiny intellectual circles, repeating the same blather to the other likeminded lemmings of NY/LA, who think that trips to Europe or Safaris in Africa make them broadly worldly.) Because, you see, we captured several would-be suicide bombers. All were young kids duped by the gangsters posing as religious zealots and liberating freedom fighters, duped and recruited and brought into Iraq via the Murky International Leaders and financiers of the International Jihad Machine. (We are not fighting the politically correct term "terrorism" by the way, we are fighting World War Three, we are fighting Islamist Fascist Imperialsim, the underlying philosophy of the International Jihad Madhine. The International Jihad Machine's goal is simple: Planet Islam.) These young suicide bombers are drugged up and made to work as gay sex slaves for the Jihad Machine/Al Qaeda's leadership. There is nothing religious about Al Qaeda, it is a debauched, porn and drug infested gang. More on that later. It is cynical old men who may have once believed in things, but now just want to run a gangsters paradise, with it's lifestyle of endless boy toys, broads, drugs and the rush of gunplay and power. And now they want to run Iraq, or pieces of Iraq, to use it and it's resources as a base of attacks against American civilians. They will make Afghanistan look like Disneyland when it comes to Iraq as a terroris resouce center. To a man, we get them story from the young suicide bombers to be. If you are a young man thinking about joining the International Jihad Machine, then just know, you are considred by your recruiters and leaders a fool, a disposable toy for the powerful ambitions of debauched, power-hungry old man. You are a sad joke waiting to happen.

But Al Qaeda failed in more ways than just one that horrific afternoon. Since that day a few months ago, over 1000 new police recruits have been trained and processed and are beginning to hit the streets to protect their fellow citizens, to protect a peaceful future.

The people of Iraq are fighting for a future like yours instead of a rule by gangsters. And if we don't help them, if we also don't bring democracy, capitalism and modern education to Syria and Iran as well (you know the plan for getting at the root causes of terrorism that liberals always yak about the need for but actually never come up ( maybe a charity concert by Bono would fix the whole problem with the root causes of terrorism), because such a plan involves removing the socialist dictators of those countries, we're getting attacked again at home again.

Americans are rich people surrounded by desperate hordes. And if we don't kill many of them and help the others get what we have, they are going to continue for our throats. Liberals must begin to understand that the removal of their oppresors, often necessarily by violence, is the only hope for the protection of the world's future. And cutting and running because the work is tough, without regard for the consequences, is just another example of the left's slide into facile intellectual inferiority and rot. The pride themselves on self-imagined sophistication. It's time to actually start showing some. It's time to move out of easy criticism and into the realm of providing the solutions for moving the Islamic world out of the era of murderous, egotistical self-indulgence and imperialsim, and into the age of modernity, prosperity, and tolerance. It's time for the governments of Syria and Iran to stop blaming the US for their nation's economic problems, (problems their governments created with modern versions of the old Nassarist Socialist Policy) just as Hitler blamed the jews.