Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Among the reasons I like Oklahoma

is the way vets tend to be treated. In this case, the son of a friend, a Marine just back from his second tour in Iraq. Couple of days ago they went to a Pizza Hut for dinner, and a friend of the father who'd known the son growing up saw them, invited them over, and then announced to the place that this man was just back from the sandbox. The whole place gave him a round of applause.

Tonight he said a bit about it. He'd been in Ramadi and said that when his battalion arrived, for the first couple of months there'd been a bunch of firefights; for the last two months not a single American troop in his area had fired a shot. The Iraqi army and police had done all the fighting. From a trickle of information from the locals at the beginning they'd moved up almost to a 'flood' level, tips on bad guys(who and where), weapons and explosives caches and so on.

Also mentioned they'd had a bunch of bad guys who'd gotten sick of the fighting and killing and turned themselves in, often giving information leading to arrests of bad guys and lots of equipment.

He spoke of power restored to neighborhoods, schools and clinics opened and such. Finished with 'there's still bad problems, but they're moving ahead and taking responsibility; it's getting better'.

Oh yes, he got a round of thanks from us, too.

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