A radio station (620 WTMJ) in Milwaukee has an "informal" correspondent over in Iraq. He emailed this to the station.

LETTER FROM SGT. ADAM WICKERSHAM 12/5/03

Many people sent newspaper and magazine clippings of the accounts of the events in Iraq. The articles are filled with the latest mortar attacks, number of soldiers called up, and the "ever rising" death toll.

While I appreciate the news, I am constantly wondering if you are receiving any information on the good things that we are doing here. I don't read anything about:

• the first battalion of the new Iraqi Army has graduated and is on active duty.
• over 60,000 Iraqis now provide security to their fellow citizens.
• nearly all of Iraq's 400 courts are functioning.
• the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent.
• on Monday, October 6 power generation hit 4,518 megawatts-exceeding the prewar average. ... all 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools.
• by October 1, Coalition forces had rehab-ed over 1,500 schools 500 more than scheduled. ... teachers earn from 12 to 25 times their former salaries.
• all 240 hospitals and more than 1200 clinics are open.
• doctors salaries are at least eight times what they were under Saddam.
• the Coalition has helped administer over 22 million vaccinations to Iraq's children
• a Coalition program has cleared over 14,000 kilometers of Iraq's 27,000 kilometers of weed-choked canals which now irrigate tens of thousands of farms. This project has created jobs for more than 100,000 Iraqi men and women.
• the central bank is fully independent.
• Iraq has a single, unified currency for the first time in 15 years.
• satellite TV dishes are legal.
• there are more than 170 newspapers actively publishing throughout the country.
• in Baghdad alone residents have selected 88 advisory councils.
• today in Iraq chambers of commerce, business, school and professional organizations are electing their leaders all over the country.
• 25 ministers, selected by the most representative governing body in Iraq's history, run the day-to-day business of government.
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced that it is reopening over 30 Iraqi embassies around the world.
• for the first time in 35 years, in Karbala thousands of Shiites celebrated the pilgrimage.
• the Coalition has completed over 13,000 reconstruction projects, large and small, as part of a strategic plan for the reconstruction of Iraq.
• children aren't imprisoned or murdered when their parents disagree with the government.

Iraq under coalition control has come further in six months than Germany did in seven years or Japan did in nine years following WWII.

Military deaths from fanatic Nazi's, and Japanese numbered in the thousands and continued for over three years after WWII victory was declared.

I can only hope that I am not the first person who has spread these messages. We are all here to do our job and help the people of Iraq.

We may or may not like our long tour in Baghdad, but the aforementioned successes are historically dramatic and I am proud to be a part of it.

I hope you are all equally as impressed with the work of the "American aggressors."

Sgt. Adam Wickersham....

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Last Updated: December 10, 2003