born ready 

The bad guys really wound up here for awhile and we actually had to hit the bunker a couple of times in the last month. Just like old times. No one usually gets hurt on those but, like in the picture, we are trained "young" to take precautions. Our boys (and girls) quickly adjusted and got things under control.

Hate to burst another media fable already, but it seems the Iraqis are pretty upset about the mile-long waiting lines at gas stations because there isn't enough of the stuff being pumped out of the ground. Some local officials complained the American forces weren't protecting the oil pipelines. It seems the Americans said something to the effect, "We're here to train your police and army, etc. You want to pump oil, YOU guard it." The bad guys have successfully targeted two other main oil sites in Iraq and Kirkuk's is now under assault. So far it has been fairly well defended.

Al-Qaeda is desperately making another flailing stab in ways like these in hopes of creating chaos, the only environment where they can hope for control. Unfortunately, even their bombing of the mosques lately in hopes of starting a schism between cultures here resulted in greater unity between them. Sorry, no civil war. (ever notice how pessimists are almost always wrong?) And as I stated before, progress here continues unabated.