Kevin Sites Iraq dispatch: Rivers Run Through It

NBC combat correspondent Kevin Sites posted this dispatch to his blog before departing Baghdad for Fallujah this week,

When I see them in the river — the 40-foot, olive-green boats — all I can think of is Apocalypse Now. When, I wondered, would Captain Willard climb aboard and motor up the Mekong Delta on his way to terminate Colonel Kurtz's command with "extreme prejudice."

The surroundings even smacked of the cinematic version of Vietnam, muddy river banks broken up with patches of stiff, thin reeds, fisherman in small wooden boats plumbing the opaque green waters for tonight's meal.

But this is obviously a long way from that war zone. Twenty-nine years and a few thousand miles. We are on the banks of the Euphrates River in Iskandaria, Iraq. In moments we will be pushing off into a steady current and an uncommonly serene Iraqi dusk.

Link