'An exercise in futility'

On Tuesdays and Fridays, The Sun has been publishing e-mails sent by Jason Henderson, 23, a 2002 Naperville Central High School graduate who is serving in Iraq, to his mother, Cathy Henderson of Naperville.

With today's segment, all of the e-mails received to date have been published. We'll continue to publish Jason's e-mails and photos as we receive them.

From: hondo5321@aol.com

Sent: Friday, May 04, 2007 7:52 PM

To: chenderson@breakfastclubamerica.com;

It has been a long time since I have written a simple update. I find myself more and more writing for the sake of posterity, I'm pretty sure that is paraphrasing a quote by Thucydides. I suppose its probably natural, with my letters being distributed to a wider public and all. I find myself more concerned with broader issues than the day to day that I used to write about. So this email is simply to let all of yall know what is going on in my life right now.

Our company just took over a new OP. This place is way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. The building itself looks straight out of the 14th century. The building is not only huge, but like so many buildings in this country seems as if it was built for warfare. Part of me wonders if this trend was something strategically invoked by Saddam, or if its simply the expression of an aggressive culture.

As usual, the positions at this OP were not up to par for our leadership. So we have spent the last 3 days tearing them down and putting them back up. Yes you are correct, this is an exercise in futility. I may just be a private, but I still see no tactical improvement in our positions. The only benefit I could possibly see from a leaders point of view is that they have kept us busy for the past few days.

Speaking of futile exercises, myself and a few others spent 4 hours today sweeping off the roof. What, dare I ask, is the point of sweepin a roof in a country where sandstorms spring up like Walmarts. This is on par with sweeping the water off a roof in the U.S., just in time for the next spring shower.

One of my buddies, a sgt who was hear last time, was talking to myself and David the other day. He said that the problem with guys like us, is that we are too smart to be privates. The reason for this statement, according to him, is that we can see when something is stupid. We know that there is not some higher purpose, and that we are simply working to work. This in turn leads to a pretty significant drop in motivation. I know that this is the wrong attitude to have, but at times it cant be helped. I suppose that if nothing else comes of this deployment, I will truly learn what it is to be humbled.

In other news, I am doing my best not to count days until I come home. Instead I count weeks. I figure that I will keep counting the weeks until at least the middle of May, then I can transition to days without going mad. Some of the guys here are already counting down days until we rotate back to the U.S. I just dont understand it. To me 220 odd days is just a depressing number. Hell, even 30 something weeks is depressing, but it certainly sounds better than 200 of anything.

I guess that is all for now, I need to get some sleep before the work begins anew tomorrow. Take care and I will talk to all of you soon.

Jason O Henderson