Texas Aggie Muster

I went to college at Texas A&M University - a very unique and tradition-filled place. That Aggies are different is certainly no news to anyone in Texas, but as a growing number of my readers are from outside the state, I figured I'd let you in on the secret. They often say about Aggie traditions that "From the outside looking in, you can't understand it and from the inside looking out, you can't explain it." Nonetheless, I'll try.

Texas A&M was originally a military school founded in 1876. Even years after our school was opened to the general public, we still retain a lot of our old military-based traditions. One tradition - indeed the greatest one - is something called Aggie muster.

Starting in the late 1800s, A&M students and alumni would gather every April 21 - the anniversary of the Batttle of San Jacinto during the Texas Revolution. At first it was a gathering intended to relive old days at the university with old friends. But as those initial students began to grow older, it evolved into a memorial service for those who had passed on. Eventually, it became an annual tradition (the only one of its kind in America) where the entire Aggie world - alumni and students alike - gather and honor those Aggies who have died in the past year.

As each of the names of those who have passed away is called out in a military-style roll call, someone in the crowd - a family member or friend - answers for them: "Here." A candle is then lit. It is an awesome, sobering tribute, which would be poignant enough if not for what happened one April 21, when Aggies gathered together far from home.

On April 21, 1942, America was at war. After the Japanese smashed Pearl Harbor, they invaded the Phillipines, quickly overrunning most of the islands and isolating the heavily-outnumbered American garrison. Our troops, led by Gen. MacArthur, retreated to the harbor island of Corregidor, where they held out for months despite continual air raids and shellfire from Japanese Navy ships. Hidden in caves dug into the hillsides, the troops held out against hope for relief - relief that would never come. And so it was that on that April 21, several Aggies - led by an Army general, gathered and held muster for their friends who had died in the battle. Even as air raids sounded above them, they met, and as the names were read out, called "Here."

Back home, America was fixated by Corregidor and listened daily to radio broadcasts from the Pacific bastion. When the story of the Texas Aggie muster was broadcast to the world, the nation's spotlight fell with pride on Texas A&M.

Ever since then, Muster has had a very important meaning for all of us, and like Aggies everywhere, I was convinced that I would not miss it this year. And as it turned out, I didn't. I went to this year's Muster here in Baghdad, and it was an extrordinary experience. Getting back the following day, I quickly hammered out my experiences and posted them on an A&M-related website. Then I went home and got some sleep. By the morning, my post had 7,000 views and hundreds of responses. I got unsolicited emails from Aggies all over the world thanking me for my account. The office of the Vice President of Student Affairs asked if they could post it onto their website. I said yes. So here it is:

http://studentaffairs.tamu.edu/spotlight.aspx

Gen. Petraeus, the Surge and Iraq

General Petraeus and I

I have intentionally avoided going into a lengthy analysis of how the war is going. Analysis is what I do every day over here. Nonetheless, the recent appointment of General David Petraeus to be the new commander of U.S. Central Command is worth noting.

As the architect of the Surge, General Petraeus is the one man most responsible for the dramatic improvements in security we've realized in Iraq in the last year. I don't think anyone realizes back home just how dramatic the improvements have been. Attacks in the West are down around 80 percent. Violence in many neighborhoods of Baghdad are down 60 percent. Cities like Fallujah, whose very name had become synonymous with violence, gunbattles and death, are now quiet and almost back to normal. Parks are open. The Baghdad Zoo is open. In many areas, the shops and markets are full.

Certainly there are tough times ahead. No one has been more honest about this than Gen. Petraeus, who predicted a few spikes in violence even as the trends were going down. But looking at the situation with all that I know, I have to say that I'm even more of an optimist than the General himself. You see, it's not just that the quantity of violence has gone down, but the quality as well. And most importantly of all, we're winning the battle of hearts and minds. Or, more accurately - the enemy is losing that battle. Their brutal ideology of death and more death has changed many Iraqis.

None of this would have happened without the surge, and that is a credit to General Petraeus. By being elevated to his new position at Central Command, Petraeus now will assume overall authority over both Afghanistan and Iraq, and will be able to take lessons from one war and use them in another.

Lest one think that we're being left in less-capable hands, I can assure you that we're not. Because the right-hand man of General Petraeus - the man who implemented the surge on the ground, so to speak, is taking his place. Gen. Ray Odierno is a more pragmatic, nuts and bolts kind of guy than Gen. Petraeus. When Gen. Petraeus sees a glass half full, Gen. Odierno sees it half empty. But rather than conflict, the two seemed to work well together, with a yin-yang kind of symmetry.

I've worked under both of these men and have seen them in action. Certainly, if I had anything negative to say about my superior officers, I would be silent. But I do not, and I am not. I don't think that there could be a better team to take Iraq to the next level. Their experience, their institutional knowledge, will allow the lessons of the surge - good and bad - to be pushed on towards the finish. Because I read the tea leaves every day, and I can tell you that there will be a few dark days ahead, but the road is clearly downhill from here.

Budge the Stress Dog

I had a great opportunity to meet a local celebrity. I had seen him before on T.V. - I think it was CNN or FoxNews - but had never met him in person.

No, it wasn't Toby Keith, although he was here the same day. In fact, as one soldier put it, this celebrity may possibly be bigger than Toby Keith.

He's Budge, the Stress Dog.

Or, to be more accurate, Sgt. First Class Budge, the Stress Dog.

It all came about when some medical folks over at the Combat Stress hospital started thinking about ways to ease the strain on soldiers. Taking their clue from hospitals which had noticed the calming effects of pets on nursing home patients or others in need, they hit on the idea of getting their own stress dog.

Budge - as the TV broadcast explained - goes all over this base and others, visiting the troops. Being petted. And just being a dog. A tough life it must be. And so it happened that a small medical awareness display was set up over at the palace, and budge came along. Walking through the hall, I spotted him and just had to come and say hi. I was star-struck. Celebrities just don't get any cooler than Budge.

So, like an awkward teenager, I begged to get a photograph, and his handler agreed. After that, I played a bit with Budge - tossing his chew toy and playing tug-of-war with it. He was an excited and friendly dog, and as I went back to work, I think I could verify that the "Budge effect" was not just a myth, for I felt no stress at all.

Dust Storm in Baghdad

This week, the City of Baghdad was choked and covered with fine dust as high winds pushed in a sandstorm from the West.

I knew it was coming, since I get a weather briefing every day from an Air Force meteorologist, but it was nonetheless a surprise when I stepped outside and saw a dense, impenetrable fog cast about the horizon.

We've had storms before, but this was the biggest. When most people think of sand storms, they probably think of huge rolling clouds of sand like something out of "The Mummy." And sure, there are some storms like that from time to time, but those are the exception. And they're not really the Baghdad thing. We're in a city - although on the edge of it - and there are buildings, trees and things to dampen the storm's energy.

The other misconception is that it's gritty, sandblasting-type sand. Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, the sand - dust, really - is very fine. So fine that you hardly notice it when you breathe it in. Even though you know you should avoid that as much as possible.

There are as many types of sand here as the Eskimos have types of snow.

There's hard-packed sand after the rains have dried. It's as tough as concrete and is usually packed or rutted in exactly the shape of the last vehicle that passed by when it was wet. In one area, the sand had dried - I'm not sure how - in a kind of undulating, wavy pattern. Driving across this at anything over 2 miles per hour is a teeth-jarring experience.

Another kind is crusty on the surface and harder just below. This usually happens when sand is exposed to a light rain. It kind of reminds me of a light frost on the grass during winter back home.

And then, there's powdered sand. There's a parking lot full of this over by the Pizza Hut and the Turkish press shop (where I tip with such a grand sum - $1.50 - that I'm afraid that the owner wants to arrange a marriage with one of his daughters - if not two). This kind of sand is the consistency of baby powder. I'm tempted to kind of skip across this like Alan Sheppard on the Moon. It leaves a boot-print so perfect that you could probably see the trademark symbol right by the name of the manufacturer.

And that's the kind of dust in this storm. I walked to work through the beginnings of the storm, seeing the sand blow horizontally in the headlights of the vehicles on base. It was still dark, but I could see the buildings fairly far off despite the sand. But as the storm intensified, this became less and less possible. When I finally re-emerged for breakfast, the sky was completely obscured, and the sand hung in the air fog-like, so that I couldn't even see the gate guards from the building door. Stepping outside, I thought I had stepped onto the set of "Dune."

As the day wore on, the storm grew in intensity. Not in wind, mind you, for that was never much beyond a breeze. In fact, that contributed to the perpetual haze, as the sand didn't blow in and blow out, rather it blew in and just kind of hung there, obscuring everything.

The guards at the dining facility wore those paper masks on their faces. They're all from Ghana, so they're probably familiar with bad air. But somebody nonetheless thought of them and got them masks. Of course, no one got me a mask, but I'm only outside for a short period, not standing guard for hours at a time. To be fair to the Army, they did get me something like a sand mask. But it's really like a winter cold-weather protection thing for your face and neck. And with thick, heavy cotton, it's almost impossible to breathe through. At least the Air Force guy below got something better:


I'm sure some readers are about to fire up the old word processor and zip off a letter to their congressman. Something to the effect of: "Our poor men and women are in harm's way and they don't have adequate protection against dust storms. Quick. Spend $62 million to send them hankerchiefs." If that's you. Stop. Push away from the keyboard. Do not continue.

First of all, we can buy that stuff here if we need it. Secondly, I already have enough crap as it is. I brought three dufflebags of junk, and I only use one and a half dufflebags' worth. If I ever find the jerk who wrote congress saying "We should make sure every single one of our troops has a chemical warfare suit" I will be hard-pressed not to wring that person's neck. What do you think? We can carry a chemical warfare suit - gas mask, rubber boots, gloves and the suit itself - around with us everywhere we go? So, at your taxpayer's expense, there are 130,000 chemical warfare suits that have been flown across the Atlantic, up to Iraq, and which now sit in an unopened dufflebag beneath our beds. For our entire deployment. Then they come home and get sold off to Army surplus stores. Yes, folks, that's your tax dollars in action.

But I digress, and we were talking about sand (come to think of it, perhaps I'll dig that gas mask out after all). It's pretty much everywhere here, year round. And there's nothing to hold it down. Grass is an almost unheard of commodity. I have actually seen some in a few spots on base where water faucets leak or rain runoff collects. But such spots are few and far between, and once it becomes sufficiently dry, the sand migrates to and fro, covers your trailer steps, silts over the cars and clogs up the filters on your airconditioner.

When the new folks in my team arrived in February, one of the enlisted guys - on his first trip outside the United States - summed it up pretty well. "This air," he said, "tastes dirty."

Anyway, that's the kind of day it was - or days, since the storm hung around for two. All of the pictures above were taken around 2 p.m. By four p.m., it was worse, and I took the picture below. No, I didn't play with the color, that's what the sky really looked like. Anyway, I didn't hang around much longer. I may indeed die of some bizzarre lung fungus in 30 years, but the sooner I got out of the sand and back in my trailer, the lower my chances will be.

Senator Hutchison visits the troops

Our wonderful U.S. Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, came to visit the troops a little over a month ago, and stopped by for a visit to our palace. For those who don't know, I worked for her on her 2006 Senate race. So I ducked out of work for a while and visited with her. Our troops have a lot of friends in D.C., but she's one of the biggest.

75 percent of the way done!

Yee haaa!!!!

My tracker puts me around 70 days left!

Heroes and Citizens

The stirrings of patriotism run deep in all who fight for their country. For many of us, it is a calling and a debt we owe to those who have gone before, as well as to those who are yet to come.

Serving our country is a part of our heritage. Among the many soldiers in Iraq are some who can trace ancestors who fought in the Revolution. Two of my ancestors fought in the Civil War - One North, one South. Almost all have grandparents who fought in World War II. When we raise our right hands, it is honorable, but certainly not extraordinary.

But look deep at the faces, names and backgrounds of many in our military, and you will find another group. Quiet, unassuming. Neither asking for special treatment, nor expecting for anything to be given them without sacrifice. Indeed, if a debt is owed, they do not owe it. If sacrifice is demanded, it is not demanded of them.

Yet they pay.

And they sacrifice.

I first began to get to know these remarkable warriors during my training at Fort McCoy. Training to learn the skills as a Combat Life Saver, one of my instructors urged me on in a strange, thick accent. I had to strain hard at times to understand what he was trying to say. His vocabulary was weak. But you could tell something clearly in the way he taught our group. He had done this before. He had been there. He had been on the front lines putting tourniquets on the legs of wounded soldiers. He had saved lives.

And as I soon learned, he was not even an American Citizen.

There are thousands of soldiers in the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines who daily put on their battle armor, pick up their wrench, or do whatever it is this nation asks them to do, but who have not been born Americans. Soldiers to whom the American dream is not a memory of home left behind, but just a dream of a home to be.

On April 12, a special ceremony was held in the rotunda of the Al Faw Palace in Baghdad. 212 of these soldiers stood forward in rank and file. They had already raised their hand once before years ago to become American soldiers. This day, they raised their hands again to become American Citizens.

Gen. Austin addressing the soldiers who are about to take the citizenship oath.

"These are truly impressive individuals who come from all over the globe," said Lt. General Austin, the Commanding General of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq. "These warriors have already sworn to defend the United States of America, and they have already put themselves in harms way."

Indeed, these men and women who in many cases have worn the uniform of their adopted country for years, are sincere in their commitment, their determination, and their love for America. Over the years, 37,000 non-citizens who have fought for America have taken the oath and become citizens. In the War on Terror, 140 of these heroes have died before they could take the oath.

They come from every continent, every corner of the world. Many come from America's southern neighbor of Mexico. Others come from the Caribbean, Africa, the Former Soviet Union and Asia. In all, 58 different countries were represented at the ceremony.

Indeed, two soldiers recognized at the ceremony come from a country where freedom has long been an elusive goal - but which is only now catching a glimpse of the promise of freedom. For these two men were born here, in Iraq.

One Army soldier, Specialist A., saw three of his four brothers killed in Baqubah, Iraq, following the 1990 uprising against Saddam Hussein. Another, born here in Baghdad that same year, was an infant when his family fled to San Diego, California. In this town, home to one of America's largest Marine bases, he grew up idolizing the men who he saw serving their country - and became one of them. These two men, now returned to the country of their birth are fighting - and translating - for the American forces that are bringing freedom to the Iraqi people.

"These brave men and women before you today understand better than most that American liberties are worth fighting for," General Austin said. "And they're fighting for them."

The soldiers assembled before the General are not the first to become American Citizens here - this was the 11th such ceremony held in Iraq to date. But they were the largest group. In fact, the 212 men and women who stood before General Austin represented the largest citizenship ceremony ever held outside of the borders of the United States.

Citizenship, indeed, is not the final chapter in the lives of these soldiers. It is a new beginning. The promise that the America that they fought for can be an America for them, and for their children. A citizenship, an honor, that they will never take for granted, because they've seen the cost of freedom.

When all the speeches were made and the last echoes of the 3rd Infantry Division Band died down throughout the palace, there was a moment of stillness and calm before a single command was given. As one man, the 212 soldiers stood to attention. A second command, and the men and women of the hour raised their right hands. As an officer of the Immigration and Naturalization Service stood before them and called out the oath, they repeated it in perfect unison:

I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

When it was finished, the hall rang out with applause. On all sides, crowded and jammed by the columns, straining to see from the balconies on the second and third floors, were another 200 or more soldiers. Brothers in arms who, like me, had their citizenship - had been born with it - but came here to be with their fellow soldiers. To see their friends earn the rights that we so cherish and to stand beside us as fellow citizens.


You couldn't help but be moved. You wanted to call them heroes. You wanted to call them patriots. But as you walked away and went back to your work, you shook your head...and just called them Americans.