Jane Stillwater, Opednews.com

 Here I am, over in Anbar province with the Iraqis and the
Marines. You'd think that it would be dangerous here but it's not. Things in
Anbar are pretty safe -- but the irony of the situation wasn't lost on me when
a friend e-mailed me an article yesterday about someone getting shot to death
in the streets of Berkeley,
CA, my hometown.

"OMG," I immediately e-mailed back. "I KNOW that guy! That guy
was my NEIGHBOR!"

Here I am sitting around Al Asad airbase in western Iraq, listening to some US
Marines, a State Department PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) and a US-AID
rep giving me the 411 on how they are helping to rebuild Anbar province, while
back home my neighbor couldn't even safely walk down the street.