Writer, lawyer and consultant with over thirty years of writing and photography experience.
While my areas of writing expertise include history, travel, politics, foreign affairs, aviation, the environment and law, I believe a good writer should, with enough research, be able to write about anything.
Good writing is good writing.
Todd D. Epp, LL.M.
News Law Foreign Affairs Aviation History Travel
Harrisburg, SD (Sioux Falls metro area)
Writer, lawyer and consultant with over thirty years of writing and photography experience.
While my areas of writing expertise include history, travel, politics, foreign affairs, aviation, the environment and law, I believe a good writer should, with enough research, be able to write about anything.
Good writing is good writing.
Imagine if Islamic terrorists occupied the biggest city two counties over. How confident would you feel that they will stay put and leave you and your community alone?
That's the dilemma that faces my Kurdish and international friends in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan Region in northern Iraq. Just down the road in Mosul -- 60 miles of highway -- the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has scared two divisions of Iraqi soldiers to lay down their weapons and abandon their equipment -- including state-of-the-art, American-made and supplied Kiowa and Blackhawk helicopters.
So why should you care about Iraq and the MIddle East?
As residents of central South Dakota, perhaps you should care more than anyone.
Back around Veterans Day 2011, I interviewed, for The Daily Republic, a number of local National Guardsmen who were serving or had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Some had been on multiple deployments. But the U.S. -- and our Guardsmen -- were leaving Iraq.
South Dakota paid a heavy price for its lost sons. According to icare.org, 20 South Dakotans were killed in Iraq; 141 were wounded.
You and me as typical South Dakotans can't really understand the Middle East.
It's not that you or I are stupid or prejudiced or uneducated. We're not. But we come from a society and ways of thinking that are unlike those in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.
After a year and a half working and living and working in northern Iraq, after spending a month in Palestinian villages and refugee camps and after visiting and representing a former client in Syria, I believe I understand less about the Middle East now than I did when I made my first trip to the region in 1985.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first in a series of first-person accounts by South Dakotan Todd Epp about his recent time spent in Iraq as a legal consultant. Look for further installments in future editions of The Daily Republic. One month after United States and coalition forces left Iraq, I moved there to be a legal consultant at an airport.
I recently read Ido Dissentshik's essay, "Night in a Sealed Room" {op-ed, Jan. 26}. The night he and his family spent in their sealed room during the Scud attack on Tel Aviv must have been terrifying. As a family man like him, I can't imagine my 1-year-old and wife having to endure the dangers of missiles and poison gas.
Americans, who are used to laws, codes, judicial decision, and regulations on almost every aspect of life, may find it hard to comprehend, but the People's Republic of China did not have a comprehensive code of substantive or procedural criminal procedure until 1979.
International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice
I am one of probably few Americans who have actually been to Syria. When journalists report about gassings and bombings in Damascus' suburbs, they may be places I've visited. It was 2003 during the throes of the second Gulf War. I was visiting Damascus because I had a client in Damascus that my law firm was representing.
On this date, Sept. 3, 1974, Sioux Falls had its earliest freeze.
An excerpt from NOAA :
SD Weather History and Trivia for September : "The earliest freeze on record in Sioux Falls occurred on September 3rd, 1974 when the morning low dipped to 31 degrees.
You and me as typical South Dakotans can't really understand the Middle East. It's not that you or I are stupid or prejudiced or uneducated. We're not. But we come from a society and ways of thinking that are unlike those in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. At first impression, not understanding how the Middle East works doesn't have much direct impact on our daily lives.
Pictured is a sunrise seen from the new Naz City development of Erbil, Iraq. ERBIL, IRAQ — While South Dakota service men and women along with their colleagues from across the United States stream out of Iraq this month, at least in northern Iraq’s semi-independent Kurdistan Autonomous Region, the rest of the world — and their goods — are streaming in.
In less than two months, South Dakota’s National Guardsmen and women, along with nearly all other American forces, will be gone from Iraq. This Veterans Day weekend, for the thousands of South Dakotans who have served — or are serving — in Iraq or the Iraq Theater of Operations, it is a time to reflect.