Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Staff Sergeant Treen

“We are in [Pemad Ahmed, Mohammed] in the middle of the Saladdin district in a mud hut town. And our LT is currently talking to one of the locals trying to hook him up with a micro grant to improve his farm. My name is Staff Sergeant Adam Treen. I’m from Pittsburg, PA. Currently have a house, wife and family in Junction City, KS outside Fort Riley. I was working for the airlines, furloughed because of 9/11. Doing little odd jobs, recycling centers, car washers, whatever I could get, but it wasn’t paying the bills. No one deploys to Iraq because I want to go! No, they want to stay at home. You get extra money because you are deployed. I’d rather be home and broke with my family than be here making extra money. I thought Send in the Clowns would be an appropriate song for our current deployment. We are a special troop battalion that are doing things for active units not support units. We put the special back in special troops. So, Send in the Clowns fits. I think they were fine before we came. We’re trying to rebuild an entire country. An entire infrastructure set up the way it is in the States, it doesn’t work that way here. The way their religion is such a predominate part of every day life, they need a strong leadership, they’re not really geared towards it – democrat or republic society. I’m not saying they need a dictator, or need a king. They need someone who is strong enough, who can keep them banded together with a single focus. Biggest issue will be trying to keep Iran and Syria from moving into the power vacuum when we leave.”