'Mr. Wilson' finally gets out of Ramadi

[Barrett808]

'Mr. Wilson' finally gets out of Ramadi
By ANTONIO CASTANEDA, Associated Press Writer

RAMADI, Iraq - "Mr. Wilson" is gone. When U.S. tanks first rolled into this most violent of Iraqi cities, the Iraqi family man stayed put. He hung in there for three more years as neighboring shops and buildings were pounded into rubble. He stayed even after U.S. Marines, failing to recognize him as he drove home one day, opened fire and injured him in the leg.

When virtually everyone else fled the heart of downtown Ramadi, he stood his ground. He became a rare familiar face to young U.S. Marine lookouts who knew little about him by a nickname of unknown origin, inherited from past deployments: "Mr. Wilson."

The Marines would target him in their sights as he approached their base — then ease off when they realized it was just Mr. Wilson coming home. They came to respect him as a harmless, stubborn man who wanted to stay put in a white, single-story house that unfortunately lay across the street from government offices besieged by insurgents.

Marines heading home would brief their replacements to be alert for strangers but leave Mr. Wilson alone, and, when they left, to pass on his story to the next batch of troops.

No more. About two months ago Mr. Wilson, his wife and daughters left for safer parts of the city of 400,000, leaving behind blocks of shattered homes from which hundreds more had already fled.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060719/ap_on_re_mi_ea/goodbye__mr_wilson__lh1

[Charlie Brown]

1. Perhaps it was Dennis who convinced him to leave nt

[TomInTib]

2. Required reading. This is so representative of the human condition

always present in this thing called War.

I remember a lot of 'Wilsons' in SE Asia.

I would recommend this article 20 times if I could.