Hey everyone, I'm sorry I don't have time to reply to everyone who's written me. I wish I could, but your support really means a lot to me. Share this letter with whoever, your church, your school, your family. But please read it.

I don't care about oil or politics, I'm not very patriotic. I didn't care about the Middle East or Islam. And I still don't. Those things are all trivial to me. But I am now in the middle of something I can't ignore or be apathetic about. I've gone with little or no sleep since I've been here. I am in a platoon that volunteers to go out into the streets of Bagdad after the missions we've been assigned are done.

And this is why: these people. They need us, they need us to protect them from dirtbags that come into their homes and drag whole families away. They shoot children in the streets. Every night I sit in an ambush team in a different house that's been abandoned by the terrified families or burned out by these sick, twisted men. And me and my brothers sit there and wait, we sweat, we fight, we bleed. Just so that the families we are watching over can have one night of rest. One night without worrying about if they will be drug, kicking and screaming, out to a van where they will be bound and gagged and then executed and abandoned in an alleyway.

They tie up and murder 3-year-olds!

If anyone is innocent on this forsaken earth it is a child. But these children have been subjected to torture, murder and loss such as most of you will never understand. These men drive down the streets of neighborhoods spraying rounds at every house. They expend more ammunition in a day and night than I've fired in my whole time in the Army. This is why we fight; this is what we sacrifice for. This is without a doubt the noblest thing any of us has ever done, or ever will do. But I don't want you to think of us, all I ask is that you think of the children. Children who are dying in front of our eyes every day.

Spc. Zachary Perry

4th Brigade, Charley Company

2-23 Infantry, U.S. Army