Now that I am back in "the land of the big PX" as the old saying goes, I am returning to a sense of normalcy, at least for me.  In the past few days, have met a few good friends, completed (nearly) all of my out processing from active duty, and now am back home and getting reacquainted with my "stuff."  The (recently) deceased humorist George Carlin had a great routine on stuff, how when we go someplace, we take continually smaller versions of our stuff and now, the reverse for me, I'm surrounded by my stuff yet again. For the next few weeks, I’m going to be returning all my connections to their previous state, telephone lines, TV connections etc., when you are single, you’ve got to pare down then reconnect yourself back into a sense of the steady state again.  

In Iraq, things were simple, you woke up, cleaned up, grabbed something to eat, and got busy.  Last night I was at a retirement party for a Pave Low MH-53 pilot surrounded by a group of AF Colonels and most of their wives and was chatting with one friend had been a deployed commander in Iraq and we had seen each other a couple of times and we discussed the sense of wanting to know how last night went, that for so long (in his case a year) we knew what some of the most sensitive information was, how the battle was going, and you had the feeling of being “in the know” and then you get on a plane, return home, and you are completely out of the loop and in many ways, thirsting for the news.  And not the crap fed to us from the media. 

It’s funny, you read commentary by guys like Joe Galloway, who must be one of the most negative commentators on anything the modern military does and who acts as if he cares more about our troops than the leaders who are serving forward. Guys like him relate to the Vietnam War and the “Five O’clock Follies” (the term for the admittedly way too rosy briefings back then) and you compare and contrast with the virtual blackout we are experiencing now, and I ask, in this war, who are the propagandists?  The military and administration who are trying to tell their side of the story or the disdainful Pentagon Press Corps? Or the media Barons who refuse to show the good news?  When is the last time the news carried something positive?  You’ve probably seen stories that Afghanistan has gone to hell and that troops will have to be rushed from Iraq to Afghanistan and yet how much true analysis is being done?  Now there are reports Iraqi Prime Minister Malaki wants us to increase our pace of departure, good for him and for us.

Those of us like my friend and I who have just returned, well, I think we conclude differently.  But, besides the sense of loss of information access, there is also a sense of guilt, although this time much less than five years ago when I left Iraq the first time.  That time, I had been asked to accompany some Special Ops guys to help set up camp outside of Baghdad and when my tasks were done and I left, I left a whole group of guys that I had worked with for three months.  This time, everyone is on a rotation and while units do come and go, so do many as individual augmentees so a much lesser sense of guilt.  It’s still there, just not as pronounced.

At the end, everyone asked me the same question: what’s next for you?  And my answer was simple and honest: I don’t know.  I am many ideas, many inspired there and will be trying to chase a couple of them to include taking my stab at doing some writing, I’ve got a few novels in me screaming to get out.  I’ve also got some other ideas, still have the Reserves, and am still going to try to get Excalibur off the ground.  But I’ve also got more to say about Iraq.  In the next few weeks, I plan on writing about the following:

• Contractors on the battlefield
• Unmanned aerial vehicles and their good points and weaknesses
• The Iraq War and thoughts on how we got to where we are

I also plan to do two things with this site.  First, I’m going to test the waters and open up for comments without registering.  If I get a whole bunch of nonsense, profanity, and what not, then I’ll shut that down, but it’s time to take a chance on the internets.  And second, I’m going to throw out a “Call for ideas to improve the Air Force” and see if the readers of this might want to provide some ideas on how to improve the Air Force, now with new leadership stepping up.   

For those that have sent comments, I do appreciate them all.  It is so wonderful to be back home.