MICHELE NORRIS, host: Time now for some of your email about Friday's program.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: First, we've been reporting on fighting in Baghdad's Sadr City between Iraqi forces and Shiite militias. One story focused on a friendship between two men, a militia leader and a policeman.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Well, Kevin Mitchell(ph) of Los Angeles sent us this. I'm a 25-year-old Jamaican man, he writes, and I haven't cried since I was a child. But when I listened to how one gentleman said that everyone in cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia is just like him — barbers, grocers, shop attendants — and how he would gladly give his life if Sadr ordered it, I shed tears. And I shed tears when he said that if truce was lifted, Iraq will burn.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Onto another topic, many of you were touched by our latest feature from Radio Rookies. The Rookies program trains young people in radio at member station WNYC. Last week's story came from Shirley "Star" Diaz. She grew up in New York. She's almost 21, and she's about to leave foster care.</s>SHIRLEY DIAZ: Growing up without your mother and your father, you have to ask yourself all the time, where do I belong? Who loves me? Who don't love me? You can never stop asking yourself those questions.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Thank you for giving Ms. Diaz a platform to share her voice, writes Bryan Endrasik(ph) of Los Angeles. Inner-city kids get a bad rap, but I would put them up to the well-heeled kids any day. You go, girl.</s>MICHELE NORRIS, host: Well, thank you for writing. Please keep those comments coming; go to npr.org/contact.
Listener sheds tears over the powerful bond of friendship between two Iraqi men in Sadr City; a WNYC "Radio Rookie" about to "age out" of foster care gets positive feedback.