But first, since I like to do cat pictures to piss of Acidman, here's a dog picture for him sent to me from Barbara.
Ain't she cute?
I forgot to mention the most exciting thing about my trip to the doctor on Thursday. Since my right hand is in a cast, I cannot propel my wheelchair by myself. So, Cindy was in charge of wheelchair driving. It was downhill from the medical building to the parking lot and we were rolling along at a decent clip when we came to a speedbump. The front of my chair is low to the ground and I usually have to pop a wheelie to get my front wheels over a speedbump. Neither of us was paying attention so when we got to the speedbump, the chair stopped. One of Newton's Laws of Motion (the Second, I think) states that a body in motion wants to remain in motion. Since I was in motion when the wheelchair stopped, I remained in motion and I became the Incredible Flying Cripple. Aieeeeaaaaahhhh!!!! Fortunately, I have experience in falling and nothing was hurt, but Cindy was aghast! Also, everytime I fall, I always draw an audience of well wishers who want to help me back up. Never a dull moment in the life of GOC.
Jo posted the following in the comments on one of my previous posts. It was forwarded to her by a friend whose husband is in Iraq. It was written by one of the brigade commanders who has been there since before the war.
Greetings from Baghdad
All is well here, despite what you may see, read, or hear in news. Your soldiers continue to amaze the world, and especially the citizens of this city, with their courage and skill in performing difficult and demanding tasks.
It’s hard to believe that we’ve been on this side of the river for 4 weeks. The transformation since arrival is tremendous, both in terms of returning the city to normal and the transition of it back to Iraqi control. Traffic is horrible, but when you ask the locals if it has always been like this, their response is “oh no, it’s usually much worse.” There is electricity in most of the city for about 16 of every 24 hours, some running water, and the other services are slowly returning to work.
The biggest shortfall and the reason why many stories are in the news, is the law enforcement system. The police force used to be large, but not very effective as the regime and the military ran everything. Same with the court system as many criminals went free due to regime support, while those few overt anti-regime people were put away in jail often without benefit of a trial. These things take time, and the US along with very patriotic and dedicated Iraqis are working hard to move it along. In the interim, our soldiers are providing a lot of the functions of traditional law enforcement-protecting vital institutions like banks and government buildings, helping to keep traffic moving, and lots of very visible patrolling to provide reassurance and security for the shop owners, doctors and nurses, teachers and school kids and the general population so they can get on with life. There remain, however, some bad people, of the criminal flavor and former regime holdouts who don’t like our great efforts to help this country move forward. They profited from the old ways and would like them back, so anything they can do to discredit us in the eyes of the population works to their advantage. The soldiers overcome this and more, and the people are grateful. Every day, soldiers are applauded and thanked by people on the streets for their presence, their courage, and the respectful way they go about their demanding duties.
A couple of examples of things going on that aren’t quite making the newspapers. Each unit is working cooperatively with the schools to provide security at times when kids are transited to and from class so they feel safe. They’re also donating and delivering school supplies, furniture, and we’re working to get some of our female soldiers into the girls’ schools to provide a good example of progress and equality. We have a very robust clean-up the streets campaign using a combination of soldier supervision and planning with local laborers to get the trash and rubble out of the way. This not only cleans their neighborhoods, but gets some of the unemployed off the streets, puts a little cash in their pockets, and helps stimulates the economy. We continue to move the broken and burned cars, buses, trucks, and military equipment into consolidation points to help the traffic problem and work on the general appearance of the city. Every unit has great contacts with the local religious, community, and municipality leaders to strengthen our efforts in concert with theirs and work to transition functions over to Iraqis. We have run free gas points using captured fuel from the war, helped repatriate prisoners we captured with their families, supported the capture of numerous top 55 list guys (the card deck guys-we’ve never actually seen a real deck of cards like those, by the way!). We have strong collaborative visitation programs with hospitals, clinics, and orphanages in our sector. All of this and much more goes on while we maintain our own protection, and work very hard to get the bad guys off the street.
Your soldiers are doing these incredible things daily in 100+ degrees of heat in a city where few speak our language, many of the streets are about as wide as a tank, and in a country whose army we were fighting and defeating just 6 weeks ago. Most importantly, they continue to do it all so very well while separated from their families, friends, and homes. It’s your constant and unyielding support that makes all this possible for us over here-without it we could never be successful.
Of course, we don't hear this from the liberal media since they and the dimocrats want us to fail so they can continue with their agenda of implementing socialism. This damn War on Terrorism shit has delayed their agenda.
Assholes!