It's entirely depressing when the WaPo hears about my husband before I do. Oh well, at least I can find out info somewhere. Here's an article about an ambush my husband's convoy encountered last week.

MORE TO GROK:

Of the $87 million allotted for Iraq, 75% of it was supposed to go towards military expenditures, CavX recently taught me. Never forget that Kerry voted for this proposal before he voted against it. If Kerry had gotten his way, we probably wouldn't even have the HMMWVs and body armor that we have now...

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Read Greyhawk.

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Sometimes I worry about my husband getting killed in Iraq. Thank god I don't have to worry about him getting shot by someone who's supposed to be on the same side.

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When Kos said "screw 'em", he ticked a lot of people off. He ticked Deskmerc off enough that he's considering becoming a mercenary. Does anyone know how we can help him?

Porphyrogenitus is joining the Army and Deskmerc is becoming a "merceneries" (as Kos spells it). There are men of honor and action in the blogosphere.

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I had a wonderful dream last night: somehow we spouses were taken to Iraq to visit our soldiers. It seemed more like a 10 minute prison visit than R&R -- dozens of couples standing around together just hugging and smiling -- but I was there with my arms tight around him laughing and talking. It was just about time to leave when my alarm went off, and I tried desperately to go back to sleep so I could see him one more time. But at least I didn't have to say goodbye again.

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1 Bittersweet... By the way, see here for the solution to your Munuvian blogroll problems.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 19, 2004 06:19 AM (+S1Ft)

2 I've had dreams like that...they can hurt. Hang in there! I'm prayin for you.

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I saw via Amritas that James Hudnall wrote an analogy using The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

The thugs and criminals of the Middle East have had a free ride for far too long. The only way to civilize a place that has known only oppression and terror is bring the rule of law. A good John Wayne movie really illustrates that point. It's called THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALLANCE. The story illustrates the same thing that's going on in the Middle East. The place is the Wild West. It needs to be tamed if there is ever going to be peace there.

The husband bought the movie right before he left, and since we owned it but I'd never seen it, I watched it today. I see what Hudnall was saying, but I also saw another parallel to the Middle East.

Stoddard tried to bring law and order to Shinbone, but law and order only work when they're respected. To a man like Valance, a man with no regard for the law, threats of incarceration and jurisdiction meant nothing. The only thing that kept Valance in line was the threat of force. Personified by the extremely cool John Wayne.

The EU and the UN would have us negotiate with terrorists, but you can't negotiate with people who have no respect for law and order. The only thing that terrorists respond to is force. Only when those who have no respect for the law are removed -- only when Liberty Valance was shot -- can law and order start to rule a land.

All the law books in the world won't help when the other guy is holding a pistol.

MORE TO GROK:

An Amazon reviewer of the movie was thinking along the same lines, and phrased them in a much nicer way than I did:

The liberal left has viewed the war on terror as a legal issue to be resolved through the court system. Preemptive strikes against terrorism are considered by the left as brutish Republican behavior. Evidence must be gathered, the terrorist rights must be protected, and courts of law must adjudicate the issues. But, terrorist, like Liberty Valance are evil. They feed off of the fear of others. Until we put the law books down, and pick up our .45s, terror will reign. Civilization was brought to Shinbone only after Liberty Valance lay dead in the street, his body riddled with bullets. The war of terror will only be won by the West when those who perpetrate it are killed. It is not a nice thought, but a necessary one.

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This is good news. No one wants money instead of their loved one, but it's a generous idea.

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These photos can only be properly viewed while AC/DC's Thunderstruck is playing...

Firefighter as sexiest job? Pshaw.

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The Friday, er early-Saturday, Five

I've never done one of these, but this one at Triticale caught my eye. Any opportunity to rave about my students will be taken.

1. What do you do for a living?

I work as a college registrar for an overseas branch of an American university that offers college classes to overseas-stationed and deployed servicemembers. Currently I am also teaching my first term of ENGL 101 (and just Wednesday got hired to teach it again next term.)

2. What do you like most about your job?

Working with students who want to be there. For the average college student in the US, college is just something you do right after high school, and any excuse to miss class is welcomed. In contrast, my students now are doing everything they can to squeeze in courses. Most of them are on block leave after returning from a year in Iraq, and rather than use that month to go on a vacation or go home to the US, they've chosen to stay and get some courses taken with their free time. The ones who are not on leave hate to miss class for a day at the range or an unexpected CLass A inspection. They're working 40-50 hours per week and still manage to come to class nearly every day (during their lunch hour!), turn in their assignments, and turn in optional re-writes on their papers the very next day. Some of my students used to be in jail or in gangs, and they appreciate the value of getting their education and making a better life for themselves in a way that regular college kids could never understand. (See also here and here for why I love my students.)

3. What do you like least about your job?

I have a master's degree and I make less than $15,000 per year. But pickins are slim on an overseas post, especially when you insist on working in higher education. You take what you can get.

4. When you have a bad day at work it's usually because...

As a registrar, it's when someone barks at me for something I have no control over, like a soldier arguing with me because I can't give him copies of sensitive documents.

5. What other career(s) are you interested in?

19K

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When we were registering for wedding gifts, the only thing my husband wanted was a waffle iron. I thought that was a good idea; my dad made us waffles often when we were kids, and I thought the idea of making waffles for our kids in the future sounded charming and traditional. So we got the waffle iron, and we make waffles quite often, though I hate cleaning the waffle iron just as much as I hate cleaning the George Foreman. Now that my husband is gone, I don't make waffles just for myself, but I can't wait for the day he comes home next year so I can start making him waffles again.

(If you don't get the joke, see here.)

MORE TO GROK: Spectra called my husband Mr. Grok the other day. That's kinda cute. Actually, I like LT Grok; maybe I'll start calling him that instead of "the husband" in the future.

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I just got a phone call from a soldier who bet another soldier $20 that there was a grammar error in the NCO Creed. They called me to be the judge. And they're not even my students; they're soldiers in other classes who know I work here.

Have I mentioned how much I love my job?

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This Italian is a hero.

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Hook asked his soldiers Rooney's questions.
His soldiers destroyed Rooney's claims.

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Can I just say again how much I love my students? Yesterday I got accused of not being pro-American enough in class. Me. Not pro-American enough. Hysterical. I spoke somewhat cynically about how our justice system doesn't always work as well in practice as it should in theory, and one of my students jumped on me for being too critical. As he and I "argued" back and forth, I realized we were basically saying the same thing, and when he concluded with "Well, I don't care because the United States is still the best country ever", I had to smile and realize that he was simply hurt that I had spoken ill of something he values so much. And believe me, I know how that feels.

It's just so nice to stand in front of a class that groks the same things I do. When I say the word media, I hear boos in the back row. When I said that images of 9/11 cause a strong reaction in many Americans, one soldier (an immigrant American) mumbled, "Yeah, they make us want to get the mo@#&%kers." When I ask them to write about an incident in their life that makes them who they are today, the majority of them wrote about joining the Army and how it changed their life; they had been drug dealers, gangsters, and battered wives who have found personal strength and meaning in military values. They're my students and I adore all of them.

If I could teach writing classes for soldiers forever, I would.

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I forgot to mention that the other night in German class, while practicing reflexive verbs, my teacher asked me Kämmen Sie sich vor dem Spiegel? (Do you brush your hair in front of the mirror?) and thought I was joking when I answered Nein, ich kämme mich vor dem Computer.

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1 Ich lachte vorm Computer.

Posted by: Princess Jami C at April 16, 2004 01:22 PM (0gPLe)

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My friend wrote me an email and echoed Erik's sentiments in the comments below; her father has Parkinson's, so stem cell research is close to her heart the way national security is to mine. But I did have a quick thought.

Den Beste is not personally affected by the war as a software engineer. Lileks has little chance of seeing an attack near Jasperwood. Amritas doesn't have any friends or family in the military. But all of these men, and countless other bloggers, rate the war on terror as the highest on their list. I've heard that numerous bloggers shifted hard to the Right after 9/11 only based on terrorism. None of their other views have changed, but for these folks -- most of whom don't have a husband who's sitting outside Najaf as we speak -- the war on terror trumps all other hands.

Yes, I have big issues with the current restrictions on stem cell research because I'd really like to see our medical technology move forward. But how can we as a country continue to move forward when an entire section of the globe is stuck in the fifteenth century and determined to convert us to their antediluvian ways? If we did ignore the Middle East and focused instead on new research, we might miss the fact that they were doing research of their own, that which leads them to nukes. A radical Muslim with a nuclear weapon is the most frightening thing I've ever imagined in my life, and I believe this war on terror is aimed at just that fear.

I'd love to focus more on the US and her internal problems. But to me right now that seems like trying to study for a test while someone keeps hitting you with spitwads. Sooner or later you're going to have to go over and deal with the nuisance before he graduates to a slingshot, and studying will have to wait until you can concentrate. I believe the terrorists will never give up or get bored or look for ways to improve their own health care system, so until their threat is abolished we must remain diligent.

That's not just the military wife in me talking.

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Sometimes the simplest things can teach us the biggest lessons.

I had an extremely informative IM chat with an old friend this evening. She and I had never talked politics, but the phrase "I like Kerry" came up, so I decided to gently explore. What I found out was remarkable in its simplicity.

I'm surrounded by the military community, a segment of the population that intimately feels the burden of the war on terror. I spend all my free time reading blogs about terrorism, Iraq, or US foreign policy. I completely take it for granted that these are pressing issues that deserve immediate attention and steadfast determination.

Others don't.

When you're a regular 26 year old, working a good job in the Midwest, terrorism couldn't be further from your mind. The things that matter to you are often the more domestic social issues. Not the socialist junk like health care -- you've got good benefits -- but the role of a conservative government with respect to 21st century social issues.

I agree with my friend that I am concerned about the marriage amendment. I agree that I prefer less government control on issues like abortion. I agree that stem cell research is high on my list of beef with Republicans. As I listened to her reasons why she currently intends to vote Kerry over Bush, I could relate.

Except there's a war on.

I explained my view to her that, although the war affects me personally as a military wife, it also affects all of us as Americans. When there are radical Muslims out there who have sworn to kill Americans by any means necessary, all else must come secondary, in my opinion. "Stem cells and abortions won't matter when we're all anthraxed," I said. And she thoughtfully listened to me and said that I had given her important things to digest.

I hope we both learned a little from our exchange tonight; I certainly did. I realized that there are voters out there who don't see the war on terror as the pivotal issue; there are some people who don't care one way or the other whether the UN is with us in Iraq, because Iraq is not their top priority. She doesn't prefer Kerry because he's multilateral; she prefers him because his party represents certain social issues that she thinks are important. I can respect that. I don't even know how to counter it, because I agree with all of the things she said.

But I'd still like her to entertain the idea that terrorism, if left unchecked, could someday become a pressing issue in her own life in the Midwest.

MORE:

See above.

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I hadn't checked my email account in a few days, and what I found brought tears to my eyes. Some Milblogs contributors are fighting to see who can donate the most to Spirit of America. Then Greyhawk jumped in and promised part of his tax refund, and also pointed out that our wounded servicemembers in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center here in Germany are in desperate need of toiletries and essentials since they've been medevac-ed. Soldiers' Angels fired back a response:

We have sent 100 backpacks to Landstuhl filled with needed items ie socks, clothing, cd players, hygeine items att phone card
we have also sent over 100 boxes of needed items. We also are sending the backpacks to the combat hospitals in Mosul and Tikrit and EVEYONE has been used.
West Point class of 55 is donating we are trying to send more and they need it. A big call for slippers and tennis shoes, our guys are mostly coming in with no boots.
The need is great there and Soldiers' Angels would be honored to work with you in providing for the wounded.

It really touches my heart to know that so many people are donating and reaching out to our servicemembers. Now I need to go earmark some of that tax-free money the husband's been making for Castle Argghhh's contest...

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Beth points out a good article called Did I Get the War Wrong?

But what are the facts? The Human Rights Center in Kadhimiya has been set up by Iraqis themselves from the ashes of Baathism. They have been going methodically through the massive -- and previously unexplored -- archives left by the regime, which document every killing in cold bureaucracy-speak. The HRC has found that if the invasion had not happened, Saddam would have killed 70,000 people in the past year. Not sanctions: Saddam's tyranny alone.

Those who lament the deaths of the 880 Iraqis this month are right to be sad that life has been taken. But perhaps we should step back for a moment and remember how many lives have been saved since Saddam was removed.

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The French Connection, found via the comments section of a new-to-me blog, Random Observations. I had heard about Hussein draining the Iraqi marshes, but I had never heard it connected to the French before.

NRO: You accuse France of actually encouraging genocide — it seems like an outrageous charge.

Timmerman: It's a very specific charge, made by Hoshyar Zebari, who is now the Iraqi foreign minister. Zebari was referring to the massacre of the Marsh Arabs who used to live in the Howeiza marshes along the southern border between Iran and Iraq. In the mid-1990s, at the urging of the French, who worried about sending their oil engineers into the area, Saddam drained the marshes — an area the size of the state of Delaware — turning the rich, fertile homeland of this ancient people into a dust bowl. Then he sent in the Republican Guards, massacring thousands of civilians. Why? To make the area safe for French oil engineers and French oil workers.

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