The Anti-Climax

Well June 30 has come. June 30 has gone. Tomorrow will be July 1, which has been declared a national holiday by the Iraqis.

We still have to work (It's OK...there at still three seasons of Scrubs that I have yet to watch on our entertainment drive...).

We didn't get to have a parade either. Yes, I asked. I just figured we could drive around Balad in our NTV's, honk the horns, flash the lights, and maybe fire wildly in to the air out of respect for the local customs.

I'd even completed PMCS on one of the vehicles to make sure it was ready. And it becaues it was my turn. I didn't wash the car even though it was on the checklist. I said I wasn't going to wash it.

I forecasted a dust storm.

We got it.

The car looked dusty before. It looks dust now. The clean cars all look dusty now too.

I win. Or I thought I did until one of the senior NCOs pointed out to me at dinner that last summer's weather guy kept the dust away. My award was in danger of not being approved. This led a warrant officer to jump on the bandwagon and mock me for briefing the boss the other night that he would not need to choose between hot and dusty because he would get both over the next few days.

I just asked the warrant officer to describe the weather for me at the moment. Hot. Dusty.

I win.

And in case any one is worried, the Senior NCO was just giving me crap. Last summer actually set records for dust in Iraq.

This particular Senior NCO continues to be a font of wisdom. He was telling some hysterical stories from working as an evaluator at the last phase of one of the SOF training courses.

His conclusion: "Being on the clippie side of the clippie board is much better than being on the non-clippie side."

Oddly, we all knew exactly what he was talking about.

But back to the local news... some one here was complaining about the coverage on CNN. I agreed. It was confusing. I keep hearing about withdrawals and draw downs, but we're all still HERE.

The JOC director told me to ignore the news. I'm not going anywhere.

So one day, apparently, this JOC will be all mine.