Spotlight

Understand that a lot of what I deal with on a daily basis is classified, so I have to be intentionally vague quite a bit. In some cases it's understandable, but in most it's really not. Like "come on I KNOW that's not classified" info that would make great writing but just can't be put on here.

So the other day there was a military plane coming to pick up some stuff (vague) from here. We are in a VERY austere location, on a base owned by a country who often doesn't seem to understand that they have an Air Force. We don't get these planes very often, so it seemed kinda weird to me that no one had called us to ask some simple questions like "is there a runway" and things of that nature. We're in the desert, and the airfield doesn't have the normal capabilities you would expect at say, DFW. They don't have some of the capabilities that they have at even small airfields at home. But yes, they do have a runway. And its dirty.

Very dirty.

It doesn't seem to bother the Iraqis much, or the contractors that work with them either. It may ding a plane up now and then but its no big deal. So, since I'm such a nice guy, I called the guys flying here and let them know that. I said "the runway's a bit dirty, so use caution."

What they heard was "upon landing a giant Kraken will rise from the depths and swallow your aircraft whole. It will then slowly digest you for 1000 years and sell your wives and children into slavery."

You would think that I had just told them that the wings would spontaneously combust when they touched the eeeeeeevil dust on the runway. They, of course, cancelled the mission and forwarded my clearly ingenious and well-educated comments up the chain. Waaaay up the chain. Like lots of stars up the chain. And my name has been all over it.

If anybody got the license plate of the bus that they threw me under, please contact the appropriate authorities.

So, for the last 72 hours, I have been having extensive conversations that have a lot of "sir's" in them trying to convince them that it really isn't THAT dirty, and that we DO actually fly here. Every day. In small planes. With students. Who can't land.

Unbelievable bureaucracy like I've never seen it. Equally unbelievable ass-covering. But I'll save that for another post.

Tikrit

I'm here, finally.

After an hour long helicopter flight, I finally made it to Tikrit on Tuesday.

After skimming over the outskirts of Baghdad, the landscape slowly changed until it became...nothing. For as far as the eye could see--nothing. Just an endless sea of sand. I've seen this before, while flying over Saudi Arabia in the 90's, where we would fly for hours and not see anything but sand. It was a little different than that, though, as we went further north. The horizon, which was hazy enough, slowly began to disappear until it blended into the desert itself. There was so much dust in the air that the desert seemed to just blend and then overtake the blue sky itself. By the time we landed in Tikrit, in an enormous cloud of dust, the only place I could find blue in the cloudless sky was straight over my head--and that was kind of hard to see too.

The job should prove interesting. On a base of hundreds of American and international personnel, I am one of three Air Force people. This has plusses and minuses.

When I was in Qatar I was one of thousands. As a result I fell into a group of about a dozen people that hung out together, and we became close. I blended in to the massive crowd of blue and green (or tan, I guess). Here--the big news on the compound is that there's a new Lt Col in town. In 36 hours I met no less than 50 civilians. Eventually I caught a clue and started writing everyone's name down. In the military, everyone wears a nametag. I might seem like I immediately remember your name, but the reality is I just look at your nametag.

"Hi, Lucky!"

"Hi...uhhh..." Look at nametag. "Joe!"

Can't do that here. Everyone's wearing civvies.

My job is also way out of my area of expertise. I'm essentially responsible for massaging all the dozens of contracts that the Iraqi Air Force has hired to get their training program off the ground. In typical fashion, there isn't a single company name that isn't spelled with an acronym. "He's from Triple Whisky." "ABC has that job." Not only do I not know what the acronym is, or what it stands for, I don't even know what the company does. I'm picking it up, but once I hit my limit of 100 acronyms for the day, it starts becoming gibberish to me. During a brief the other day the Army put a new acronym on a slide. It was sixteen letters. Sixteen. And it didn't even spell anything. Something like "The Office That Runs the Water to Supply the People Who are Responsible to Fuel the Trucks to Carry the Water to the Office that Fixes the Pipes to Carry the Water to the Office that Runs the Water (OTRWSPWRFTCWOFPCWORW)." No shit. I cracked up and everyone in my office looked at me weird.

Yesterday was the first day I felt like I had a clue. Like a 15% clue. Shooting for 20% today.

Life in the Refrigerator

Wake at 0430 without an alarm.

Check email if the internet is working.  

Go run.  

Eat breakfast.  

Shower/dress.  

Wander aimlessly around the compound, maybe stopping at the office where I just get in the way.

Eat lunch.

Sit in my room, a blank room with white walls, a refrigerator door for an entryway, and air-conditioning that doesn't seem to get warmer than 55 degrees.  The alternative is outside, where it is 109.

Eat dinner.

Chat with SW, since the internet is so slow Skype is sketchy.

Go to bed.

Repeat.

At some point it would be nice to actually get to the place I came here to work at.  The next flight isn't until Tuesday, since the one opportunity was blown by "not my job"-itis.

Back to the Airport

After getting our weapons issued we headed back to the airport side of Baghdad on the help once more. This time they had the windows wide open due to the heat level reaching 108 degrees today.

As we flew over the city it occurred to me that I wasn't as nervous anymore. With my camouflage uniform flapping in the wind from the rotors I looked over the vast desert city and thought about what I had done for the past week, and considered the job that my boss had laid before me as I get ready to go north to Tikrit. For the first time a feeling I haven't had yet washed over me.

This is cool.

I'm finally looking forward to the next few months. Yes, I would obviously rather be with my family, but my confidence is a little bit higher now--and I'm doing something I thought I would never do.

If in January you had asked me where I thought I would be today my answer would have been sitting behind a desk in San Antonio. Iraq would have been the last possible option.

Embassy

Awoke this morning to darkness once again. My clock still has not caught up. Each night I wake up earlier--today I was up at 0230. It is actually working out well--you'd be amazed at what you can get done before 8 AM.

Today is in processing day. Again I amazed, as the last time I deployed the time from departure from home to "on the job" was 3 days. It has been over a week and I have yet to get to my final destination.

It started with yet another overnight bag and a trip back to the airport where I met one of my Baghdad counterparts, another Lt Col who I flew with many years ago. After passing through customs (we're only going to the other side of the city…not sure what the obsession with passports is in this country) we loaded up on a helicopter for the trip to the largest US Embassy in the world. Beyond the fact that I can't remember ever flying on a helicopter, it gave me my first real glimpse up close of Iraq.

Helicopter ride to the Embassy

It is very difficult to describe--both beautiful and horrible at the same time. As with everything else, there is only one color--tan. But across the city you can see thousands on square little houses, and then suddenly a massive mosque juts out of the landscape--beautiful, majestic, overpowering. As we moved closer to downtown Baghdad the buildings became larger, and then I saw it.

The Ba'ath Party Headquarters is home to the majority of the military offices and operations in Baghdad. It is also my most memorable snapshot of the night of "shock and awe." A massive square building, it is larger (as far as I could tell) than any other building in the city. After a drop straight down to the landing pad, we dismounted and were met by my CAST roommate. It was awesome to see someone that I actual knew.

Helicopter ride to the Embassy

The rest of the day was spent throughout the beautiful US Embassy compound, with a good deal of time spent in the massive building doing my inprocessing items.

The HQ building is awe-inspiring. Beyond its size, it is made of unpolished marble and with unreal architecture. To have to have set this building on fire is tragic.

We finished the day with a trip to the bazaar so I could get a better shoulder holster, and then a drop-off at our latest accommodations--square trailers stacked up on top of each other across from the HQ.

As with many other moments thus far, it was very surreal. My room is pretty crappy, no doubt, but it isn't a tent and has a private bathroom. It is also less than 50 yards from a building I watched almost 10 years ago get incinerated by massive explosions by US airpower. Due to proximity and amenities, I can bet that someone very important stayed in this room many years ago--now it is relegated to an overnight stay by me.

Four more days until I finally head to Tikrit.

Baghdad

I was packed into the rear of a C-130 for the 1.5 hour ride north by members of the New York Guard. In all the hours I spent flying one of these I don't recall ever receiving a flight in one anywhere rear of the cockpit. I'm glad I didn't. Sitting sideways on cargo netting between two civilian women who clearly thought perfume was the way to go made for a long flight.

After getting our bags off we were shuttled to a makeshift terminal off the side of the flightline. Several C-130's, a few Beechcraft prop planes, and one or two I didn't recognize was all the sat on the ramp. I had to imagine in my mind what the scene was like five years ago--where parking space was a premium to the hundreds of US aircraft shuttling troops in and out. I then went further back, and imagined what it had to be like on the night we unleashed hell on this city--with massive explosions in the distance, and some here on this very ramp.

The heat was there, but as in Kuwait it is bearable. Now granted, this is not summer and the heat has not reached 130 degrees. But even more so, we are definitely in the desert as there is not a spot of green to be seen.

After dragging our bags in I was met by two officers--the AF site lead for Baghdad and his deputy. Fortunately I have a history with the site lead going back to my Tweet days, so the transition was easy. As I processed through customs I found it interesting that the customs officer claimed that I did not need a visa if I had an official passport--I'm still debating whether or not to bring that up in the future.

Once we left and were on the main compound, an annex of Baghdad International Airport, one thing is abundantly clear: this is a war zone. Bombed-out bunkers, 50' high walls, and armed guards are everywhere. Things are improving as there is construction everywhere, but it is definitely still considered a high-threat environment. As I suspected, the withdrawal of US troops did little to diminish the constant threat of violence this city holds. But one thing is different--its not the military here anymore, it's civilians.

From what I gathered when the military left, civilian corporations moved in to do the job that we were formerly doing--and likely at a much higher price. Americans are still risking their lives here, but now it is for the benefit of the companies they serve rather than their country. Funny how you don't see a whole lot of that on CNN.

My room is much like it was in Kuwait--a sparse trailer with a bed, a refrigerator with water, and not much else. The difference between here and Ali Al Salem, however, is that this trailer is surrounded by 50' high concrete walls and a giant roof to protect from falling mortars. Very kind of them.

Tomorrow I will head out with an overnight bag (again) to the embassy via helicopter to meet with my bosses and inprocess the country. Hopefully the reasons I am here will begin to crystallize and I will finish the day closer to getting to my final destination.

Sleepy Hollow

My first real taste of the desert came at the hands of the country of Kuwait. Because my flight was so long I missed the connection into Iraq, so I was dropped off to wait the weekend out until the next flight happened, on Monday.

Ali Al Salem Air Base is divided into two sides--one controlled primarily by the Army, and one by us. The one I stayed on was the Air Force side, fortunately. I was given a small trailer with four beds, a refrigerator with water, and not much else. When the sponsor I was picked up by dropped me off at 8 am on Friday I asked her what was expected of me.  "I don't know, catch up on your sleep?"

Excellent. Three more days of my life to spend doing absolutely nothing.

One thing they do have here is reliable internet. I was able to Skype with SW and the monkeys quite a bit. The first time I did it, Princess was curled up on SW's lap and refused to talk to me. Half way through the conversation she began her silent crying, what she does when she's genuinely upset and trying not to lose it. I guess seeing me on the little computer screen let her know that I wasn't coming back for a long time.

On the first day I woke up at 3 am. After watching movies on the laptop for a few hours I decided to go exploring. The first thing I noticed was the lack of people. I made it from one side of the base to the other (it's relatively small) without seeing a single person. I did, however, see the movie theater, coffee shop, rec center, gym, huge chow hall, several internet cafe's, a decent BX, and a church, as well as several independent eateries that sell arabic food and pizza. All of this led me to a single question:

Why the hell is this base here?

Down in Al Udeid they have a bonafide mission: to flow personnel into theater, and to run the air operations from their CAOC, where I was deployed in 2005. Here? I have no idea. I left here after three days still having no idea. I went to see "Hunger Games" at the theater on Saturday and it was packed. My impression is that we have a few hundred airmen there that are working very hard to justify the existence of a base that has no reason to exist.

When I departed at 0330 (effectively destroying all attempts I had at getting my clock back on schedule) on Monday morning, I went to the Army side. Now they have a mission. Three flights went out that morning fully loaded, and a huge tent city resided just outside the terminal. It was run extremely inefficiently (I showed there at 0345 for a 0800 flight) but at least there was a purpose.

I'm not sure if I would be happy or pissed if I was deployed to Sleepy Hollow for 6 months to a year. After three days I was so bored I was making stuff up to do.

Goodbye

When I left to go to Qatar in 2005, Monkey was 6, Cowboy was just over four. It was Patriot Day 2005, and we were departing from my home-station at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona. Dropping me off consisted of a 20 minute drive to the base, so we decided to drop the kids off at their school first.

They both knew I was leaving--Monkey had broken down a few days earlier because we told her I was leaving after my birthday, which we had celebrated. As we dropped them off at school, with me wearing a desert uniform that they had never seen before, Sammy gave me a hug and ran off to his pre-school. He clearly had no idea. Sarah, however, did, and it was a very difficult separation, with both of us crying pretty hard. Eventually, she was strong and went into her classroom, and I cried the rest of the way to the base.

Just before the waterworks were turned on

This time was much different. First, we had been expecting this day for a long time due to the delays in getting me out of there. Having a deployment hanging over your head is very difficult because you never really know when your "last" will be--your last real meal, your last outing with the kids, your last beer, etc. Second, we live 3 hours from the nearest large airport--so we had to get up bright and early and drive the whole way out there--knowing what awaited us on the other end. Third, we now have four kids, with the younger two almost the same age as the older two were last time. And lastly, the drop off has to be quick--as we pulled up to the curb and the San Antonio Airport police don't care if you're donating a kidney on the curb--you have 5 minutes.

I was overwhelmingly nervous, since I was alone this time, versus one of three hundred deploying last time. Like shaking nervous. On top of that I was an emotional wreck due to the fact that I was separating from all of them for the first time. After the bags were on the curb, Ben lost it first. He actually got out of the car crying and was hysterical by the time I was pulling my bags away. Sarah and Sammy were as expected, as we had gotten the hardest parts out of the way the night before. SW was holding her own, and I was too, until I started pulling away and something happened.

Lilly, in all her three years, figured it out.

With all her siblings and mother crying around her, on a busy side street with daddy hauling over 100 pounds of bags, something HAD to be amiss. As I was walking away she very quickly ran after me to hold my hand, as if she thought she was coming with me. I kissed her on the head and brought her back to mom. As I walked away she did the same thing again. She didn't cry, she didn't pull me back--she had a very serious look on her face and appeared that she thought it incredulous that I would go anywhere without her.

I lost it.

Eventually I made it into the building and just sat down for a minute to collect myself.

This is going to be a long six months.

I selected this post to be featured on my blog’s page at Military Blogs.

In the Interim

Good Lord what it takes to deploy someone these days.

We bailed out of Iraq, and I am constantly reminded of how irresponsible we were as a service in doing so.  My experience thus far has been that we bailed and didn't leave anything behind to lead the support structure in regards to what the plan was after we left.  It was (and should always be) obvious that when we leave a war zone we are not actually leaving.  We will always plan to have folks that stay behind to take care of business.  And thats what we did this time.  We just took all the play books with us.

CAST

When I was selected for this deployment I was told that I was going to have to attend a training school called "CAST"--Combat Airmen Skills Training.  It involved 2 weeks of field conditions, living in tents and wearing body armor, low-crawling through the weeds, and shooting multiple weapons for qualification.  To say I was slightly apprehensive about going is a slight understatement.

What I found, though, was (after a couple of days) a manner of calmness that I had not expected.  The days there are very structured.  There is very little confusion as to what comes next, what the plan is for the day, what uniform you need to wear, or what you need to do.  At night, there is absolute silence across the compound.  It amazed me that the thin g I feared the most--more chaos--was virtually eliminated by being at CAST.  

Beyond all of that--it was fun.

I was the lead truck in our convoy details.  I dove into the dirt to unload magazines into the "bad guys."  I ran out into a field of fire to drag wounded soldiers back to cover.  All of these things are matters that I will NEVER have to do, and if I do have to do them--things have gone horribly wrong in any conflict that we are involved in.

But what I grasped the most from CAST was that I left with an abundant awareness that I was going into a combat zone, and I need to get into the mindset that I was doing so--something I had not done yet.

Wet Footprints

For a little while now, I've known it was time to go.  I've spent almost seven years of my career at Laughlin Air Force Base flying with the 85th.  Eight if you include the 6 months at Pilot Instructor Training in San Antonio as part of the deal. Once I realized that my time was coming to an end, I started noticing details about the place that I hadn't before--things that make this place, and the experience of being a primary pilot training instructor, somehow worth it in the end.

When a student in Air Force UPT goes on his first solo flight, it is a pretty big deal.  The vast majority of kids that wash out do so prior to achieving this goal.  Quite a few still falter before finishing the program, but the first time you solo a $5M aircraft, you feel like the king of the world.  For decades, when a student lands after his first solo his classmates carry him to tank of water that each class decorates.  It is normally filled putrid water that's been out in the sun for the duration of the class being pre-solo.  They toss him fully clothed into the pool as part of the baptism of becoming an Air Force pilot.  As part of the tradition, there is an unwritten rule that if you are able to make it from the jet back to your flight room without being dunked--the flight owes you a case of your choice of beverage.

As you would expect, no one escapes their dunk.  Even the very rare individual (we had one recently change from his flight suit into a FedEx uniform, grab a handcart, and try to "deliver" boxes to his flight room--he was caught) that makes it back to the flight room is summarily tackled and carried back to the dunk tank.

One of the little details I've noticed recently surrounds this tradition.  Our hallways are carpeted here.  When a kid comes back into the building to change his soaked clothes, he leaves a long trail of wet footprints down the hall.  To me, it resembles a trail left by a ghost.  Every student that has come through this building in pursuit of the coveted wings has left this trail behind them.  To see the trail warms my heart that once again, my instructors have taken a kid who knew nothing about flying and taught him how to master the skies. 

To leave that trail means that you have just had one of the most significant events in your life--so recent that the water has yet to evaporate from the steps you have taken.

Back to the Desert

I've always wondered what I would do if I was tasked to go back to the sandbox.  Specifically, what would I do with my blog.  In the days now of Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and Facetime, the need to have this blog is kind of inefficient to serve its originaly purpose: to keep the homefront aware of what I was doing.  It did, however, make for a very theraputic way to pass the time when I was over there.  So, I've always wondered.

Now I get to find out.

Rather than move to San Antonio for what would likely have been the last time, I've been tasked to go to Baghdad.  My intial reaction (like everyone I've told where I'm going) was "I thought we didn't have anyone in Baghdad??"  Well, apparently we do.

There's a few things different than the last time.  First, it's Baghdad.  When I went to Qatar there was very little combat training involved or gear that I had to bring.  This time around there's a significant amount more of both.  It's a six-month deployment, rather than the four-months last time.  I volunteered months ahead of it last time, whereas this time I was tasked with only weeks to go.  And the most significant:  this time around I'm leaving four kids with SW, rather than two.

I am not thrilled--but I'm not complaining either.  This is going to be a very difficult challenge for me and my family, but it is yet another Desert Odyssey.

Moments

My time here in Del Rio is coming to an end. It's funny how fate throws twists your way every now and again.  This time around I was actually, for the first time in my career, not looking forward to leaving an assignment for the next one.  Despite multiple assurances that I was in the overall plan for the base, when the time came such assurances fell through. As a result, we're moving on soon. I just don't know when. 

As I am looking back on what can be described as the best and worst assignment of the last 17 years, I have been debating. What were the moments that defined this tour for me? What am I going to take with me once I depart the location that has been home to my family and I for over six years of my career?  I have some time before there's a farewell party for me--we shouldn't be going until sometime is summer. So I have decided to start writing some of these down. 

I've been looking for an excuse, or inspiration, to get my Odyssey going again. Hopefully this will be the catalyst. 

Farewell Montgomery

Moving Day.

They say things are slower in the South, but this has been kind of taken to an extreme. The longest I've had movers take to pack us up was two full days, and that was when we went 2,000 ponds over our weight limit. This time around they took a full THREE days, and still hadn't finished packing when the truck showed up on the fourth day.

It is now 2100 on the fourth day, and I'm guessing they have a couple of more hours to go. Unbelievable.

So...an update.

I have officially graduated ACSC. What I learned in the end that while it is extremely difficult to do very well here, it is multitudes more difficult to do poorly. I ended up with an average GPA (which was significantly higher than the GPA I earned after four years of college), made some good friends, and got in the best shape of my life. On top of that--one more goal was accomplished:

Baby #4 (and God-willing, final) is on the way.

This brings with it a whole slew of concerns. The majority of the pregnancy will occur while I am in training in San Antonio learning to fly my next aircraft. During that time we're essentially living out of suitcases until we can find a home in Del Rio. Once that happens the rest of the family minus me and the pooch will go there in time for Princess and Cowboy to start school. The remaining two months of my training will be done solo while they are several hours away.

The biggest reason that we had such a big split between Cowboy and Odie was because we took a hiatus while we were stationed in Del Rio the first time (sidenote: it is extremely rare for someone to be stationed there twice, and even more rare to have someone volunteer to do it). The hospital there is not what I would consider spectacular, and SW was working there. Those things combined made us wait. By this strange twist of fate, in the end we're going to be having a baby while we're stationed there anyway.

Funny how life works that way.

We also made our long-planned and highly anticipated Disney World trip last week. I'm not going to go so far as to say we were disappointed, because a) we weren't, and b) that would mean I flushed $3500 down the drain. I will say that, to my surprise, we liked Disneyland better. Unfortunately I don't see us blowing the cash to take a trip all the way to Cali just for one park. Either way, we've gotten Disney out of our system for a few years.

So, as I sit here in Cowboy's empty room, watching the last pieces of furniture being moved away, I can say that this last year was a life-changing experience for me. Not because of the school, or the education, or the friends I made here. Rather, this "pause" in my career gave me an opportunity to re-evaluate what was really important to me. I wear a "livestrong" bracelet on my wrist now and no watch--things I didn't do deliberately but am glad that I have. I am so much more concerned with the wellness of myself and my family that things that don't directly contribute to that goal have fallen by the wayside. I only hope that I can continue to keep this focus after I leave the deep south.

So--that's it. Goals accomplished, motivation charged, I'm off to the next leg of my life's Desert Odyssey. There's so much happening--I hope to be able to write about it.

Airdrop

What I remember the most about Guam was the heat.

Most people hated going to Guam, for some reason. I absolutely loved it with all of my heart. It was there, I think, that I figured out that the location I live matters little--as long as it's warm.

We dropped SEALs on the island all the time--from high altitudes, all the way down to 1000' over the surface of the water. They were awesome. Cliche'd word, I know--but I honestly can't think of a better way to describe them. Tougher than anyone I've ever worked with, and some of the coolest and easy-going men I've known. One of the guys in this photo had over 10,000 drops and had shattered his legs three times.

I haven't flown in almost four years. There's a good possibility that I'll be going back to flying soon--hopefully in the same training capacity that I loved so much before. My limited experience in the C-130 is kind of summed up in this photo, which I took on one of my last live training missions just prior to 9/11. I like the darkness sillhouetting the jumpers and the loadmaster, and the beautiful sky beyond them. It makes me feel like a part of my life and career that I left behind can still be seen, but grows darker with the passage of time.

On Second Thought

After writing that last post I looked to Black Five to see what he had to say. And Grim put me in my place.

I've said a lot of bad things about Sheehan in the last couple of years. Most of them were generated from the outrageous headlines that she caused worldwide that portrayed our Country in a bad light. A lot of the cynicsm that surrounds my views of the American political system come from close to the same sources as hers. And in the end, especially after reading what I just did, I feel bad.

I'm debating taking down that last post--something I have never done and have kept myself from doing, even when I didn't like what I had wrote.

Cindy Sheehan is a grieving mother. I sympathize entirely with the motivation. I cannot imagine what the loss of my son would do to me; I would be grateful to the world, I think, if it refused to judge any action I took for at least a year or two afterwards. And so, applying the Golden Rule, I shall refuse to judge her. I hope she finds the peace she needs.

I have no use for those who are using her to further their ends -- nor those who are so heartless as to speak ill of her, in the depth of her pain.
Yes, I know she was a radical before the war began. That means nothing. She is a Gold Star mother, and so she is due a full measure of kindness from us. May she find her peace. May those who are trying to use her get what they deserve. As for those who have sneered at her character -- no one asks you to approve of her, or what she thinks, or how she feels. All I ask is that you let her rage, and pass on, without judgment. That, at least, is only what we should want for ourselves if, under an evil star, we should find ourselves brought to her fate.

Lastly, I was pretty busy yesterday and didn't have time to write. Black Five also has a fantastic post about Memorial Day. Read it here.

CODEPINK Idiocy

I can't stand Sean Hannity. I normally look at him as a self-absorbed, arrogant, pompous egomaniac. Kind of like I look at O'Reilly. But last night I caught his show, in which CODEPINK activist Rae Abileah had the completely idiotic idea to accept an invitation to be on their show.

I mean, how stupid do you have to be to go on to Fox News, in any matter or forum, if you hold the beliefs that these nutjobs have? I suppose it generates publicity for their cause, but it can never actually be in their favor. For just once I was cheering for Hannity as he essentially railed this girl over and over about her support, or non-support, of Hillary Clinton--neither of which she actually ended up admitting to.

Ironically, I looked high and low on the internet this morning for any fallout whatsoever from the interview last night--and found zero. Zilch. Not even a mention. I guessed that blogs would be afire with hammering either Abileah, Hannity, or both--but no one seems to be interested.

Mind you, this is the same group that spit on an injured US soldier at a pep rally protest annoyance gathering by CODEPINK the other day. Another website I read had a list of 75 ways to protest the war--#1 on the list was "quit your job and become active." Exactly who is feeding these people that seem to have nothing better to do than to insult the US Military?

Congressional Military Families

I bought off on the Michael Moore tidbit of knowledge that no one in Congress had a son or daughter in the military. I was wrong.

CDR Salamander has a post detailing exactly who has a stake in Iraq beyond their own political futures. A couple of them have more than one.

Killed in Combat:

Baucus-D-MT: nephew (USMC)

Family members serving:

Biden-D-DE: son (Delaware National Guard)
Johnson-D-SD: son (Army)
Musgrave-R-CO: son (Navy)
Wilson-R-SC: 3 sons: (2 SC National Guard, 1 Navy)
Skelton-D-MO: 2 sons (Army and Navy)
Aiken-R-MO: son (USMC) plus another son about to graduate from
Annapolis
Webb-D-VA: son (USMC)
Emerson-R-MO: stepdaughter (Army)
Hunter-R-CA: son (USMC)
Ros-Lehtinen-R-FL: stepson (USMC) and daughter-in-law (USMC)
Brownback-R-KS: niece (USMC) and nephew (USMC)
Hulshof-R-MO: brother-in-law (Army)
Bond-R-MO: son (USMC)
McCain-R-AZ: son (USMC) plus another about to graduate from USNA

Looks like MO's got it covered. Read the whole article here.