More from the Holiday Weekend

I provided a brief description of how things went over the fourth of July weekend, but need to expand a bit on one aspect. Being an All-American kind of holiday, the powers-that-be decided to send some All-American personalities, in this case prominent politicians. Thus we were descended upon by Senators McCain and Lieberman plus the Vice President bonus celebrity.

Now, there are a lot of good reasons for gentlemen such as these to make the long flight and spend a little time boosting troop morale and chatting up their Iraqi counterparts. The counterparts so wretchedly stuck on their ability to form the Iraq government. No telling if the delegation had any impact, but the Iraqi pols were happy to see and talk with them.

The downside of the whole business is that the bad guys were also keenly interested in the presence of these guys, but were more focused on killing them than entertaining them. Thus a few long nights as the rockets' red glare, in the guise of 107MM Katyusha rockets, burst upon the scene with wildly varying accuracy. Still, they don't have to be too close to be heard and felt. Enough booms for me for awhile. For the most part, we were all tucked all snug in our CHUs, with triple-canopy cover, but the reality of it is that the alarms are way too loud to sleep through.

By Tuesday, the memos went out that the dignitaries departed. The bad guys, foiled again, slithered off to pursue their butchery against softer targets. Calm is restored. Hopefully the Vice President will find himself too busy to return during my watch.

I did get to witness something pretty cool here last night. One of the Army majors was promoted to lieutenant colonel. Tremendous recognition of talent for any officer, but difficult to fully appreciate when all of your loved ones are 7,000 or more miles away. But this guy, in accordance with the Army ethos, opted not to give up or accept defeat. He worked with the local video-teleconference people to set up a three-way link between here, Atlanta GA, and Houston TX so his parents, his brother, and his girlfriend could be part of the ceremony.

About 20 of us squeezed into the small room, they got the remote sites on the screen, and the 2-star boss came in and said kind words and did the promotion. Worked like a charm and we left the newly-minted, no-time-in-grade lieutenant colonel locked in the room to continue his virtual visit in privacy. I always like to be part of promotions as well as reenlistments because each tends to be, in some way, a life-changing event and can be powerfully emotional.