'I Thought I Might Lose It'
In an ongoing series, NEWSWEEK publishes letters and e-mails from fallen U.S. troops in Iraq to loved ones and friends back home. The following are unedited excerpts from correspondence provided by families of the deceased.
Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew Zabierek
March 24, 2004
Dear Mom and Dad,
We started doing patrols through our area of operations a few days ago. The Iraqi people are very friendly and nice. The children and their parents come out to see us when we patrol down their street. Even when we [are] doing vehicle checkpoints and stop cars and search them, the people are still nice. That is either because they are just used to it or because they are too afraid to protest since we have a great deal of firepower. The only notable event that happened was that on our first day of patrolling we stopped a car with three Iraqis in it. They were driving a Mercedes with UK plates. We stopped them and there was a father, a son who was about my age and an old man in the back. The old man had a gunshot wound in his leg. I was serving as a translator ... I can catch bits and pieces of what they are saying but that's about it.
Anyhow, our lieutenant called into our command that we stopped these guys and they told us that these guys and their car are on a Coalition wanted list. So we detained them and brought them back to our base as prisoners. It turns out that these guys were major terrorists. They cracked under interrogation and ratted out a bunch of people. The Army conducted raids based on their interrogation and they arrested a dozen people and found major stockpiles of weapons and ammunition....
Love,
Andrew
Zabierek, 25, of Chelmsford, Mass., was struck and killed by a vehicle driven by an Iraqi in Fallujah on May 21, 2004.
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