Message from Baghdad

When I was in the GaSDF's officer candidate school last year, our lead instructor was a great guy who'll I'll refer to as Captain Jim here. Capt. Jim got sent to Baghdad a few months ago and is working in the CENTCOM J2 section. I got an email from him yesterday and want to share part of it:

Yesterday I was in the DFAC here and a young E4 assigned to the 101st came in and sat down at the table next to me. His uniform looked as if he had worn it for days (I know how that feels) and the opportunity to wash up before entering the DFAC was the as closest thing to a shower he had seen in sometime. The news was on (yes we have TV in the DFAC) Fox News and some talking heads were discussing how strikes or a potential war with Iran would affect the stock market. He looked as though he could not believe what we was hearing (neither could I). Have we as a country lost focus on why we are here? Are we so concerned with our portfolios that we only give lip service to the war on Islamic fascism? The young soldier got up and said I've got to get back to my brothers and left. I could not think of anything else to say except HOOAH!

Capt. Jim is a Vietnam combat vet and knows what it's like when the media turns against a war. It can't be much better to have the media turn a war into a "material adverse effect" on a corporate 10Q report. And yes Jeff, Capt. Jim called it a "war on Islamic fascism" - the people who are actually putting their lives on the line in Iraq know what we're fighting for, even if many others do not.