Comings and Goings

Hi all -
Well here it is - the day after the last post - it seems like this day has lasted a week! (ha ha ha) I apologize for how delinquent I have been. What a long strange trip it's been however (to quote the Dead)
It started out with me pencilling into my schedule lunch with the Majority Leader of the US House of Representatives, Congressman John Boehner. Actually, the Congressman was good enough to share some of his time at lunch with fellow "Ohioans". Not really sure if I count, cuz I vote in Wyoming, but since I graduated from there it was pretty cool. He was running late, stuffing his face and generally jet lagged. It is nice to see however the real person that does exist in government now and then. I would imagine a completely different scenario with someone who has obvious ambitions and wants to turn everything into a photo op. We bonded over talk about how many cans of Skyline Chili we have back at the ranch (he was down to his last in his DC apartment!) All in all a good time.
The bulk of the last couple of weeks has been a blur of VIP's arriving, good friends leaving, and general chaos. We get cocooned out here however. I watch TV on my desktop from time to time, and we get opportunities to check the Drudge Report, etc, but for being in the center of the world's hotspots it seems about as far from a war zone as you get. I mean there are mortars, and you hear the occasional explosion, but reality rarely seeps in. As for the inhabitants of this country, you can plainly see that families still look out for their kids.
The cold hard reality does seep in however - you choose how much or how little you want to get involved. As we were eating lunch with Congressman Boehner, one of the other attendees (a Marine of course) spoke about how he and a few other Marine Staffers on his last tour took turns monitoring the radios over at the CASEVAC stations. When a report came in of a Marine being medivaced, they would take turns showing up to talk to them. More importantly, they all made sure that they had cell phones with them. If they got the opportunity, and things didn't look good, they would even dial the phone and hold it for these guys for just one last chance to hear a loved ones voice. The thing that really got me however, is when he told the story of one kid that had lost a foot and an arm, but calmly and coolly told his wife that everything was fine and he was only scratched up a bit. Better to get myself into the best shape I can first than have her worried to death with nothing to do about it he said. You truly can get as deep or as shallow into this war as you want to be.
Even when you are really mad, frustrated, pissed off at the world though, you routinely see things here that not only make you laugh, but really make your brain cramp if you think to hard about it. First, there is the Public Transportation.... Yes, those are our troops, bumming a ride away from the dining facility, to avoid having to walk in the 113 degree heat.... Then, you pass the lake. Now this is Saddam's Al Faw Palace lake. His grand strategy involved flowing rivers, fountains, etc. When we first arrived, those that went swimming came out of the water with strange skin rashes. I would not want to be the poor bastard that had to dive in here for something lost...who knows how many of Saddam's rivals are there. In the meantime, because the water doesn't flow, the grass grows, so we hire a "Navy" of locals to take their boats out to get the "harvest" of kelp. I am sure they have been in this business for a long time, but it makes you wonder...
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention my new digs. I moved out of my Conex box last week. A friend had a half a trailer open - still with plumbing - but bigger, in a better location, and with a window! No Bearnice didn't shrink - the room is that much bigger. Bearnice also picked up a new pet - his name is Scrappy. We found him on top a gun turret on a HMMWV that had been turned in and left behind. It seems that he was a mascot of a gunner, but had been left behind to guard the truck. He was dirty and a little faded when I got him, but after he was washed up, he looks pretty good. And he can keep Bearnice company while I am gone! Yes, I do sleep with two stuffed animals. Not the big tough image you would have for a Naval Officer, but you do what you have to in the desert! Well folks, thats it for now - take care!