Well its official... I am old!
Good week though. Here is one of my "firsts"
Join us on Tuesday, Oct. 21 I went to a lecture, "In the Arena: The Middle East in Flames," featuring Dr. John Nagl and renowned columnist/tv commentator Al Hunt Jr. It was a fascinating duo talking about the US involvement in Iraq, and Afghanistan as well as the changing face of how wars are fought today. It was presented in such an interesting way by people who covered and fought in these places. I think the 2 things I found most disturbing were 1. The way we treated the Iraq people when we first went over. "Sweep and Dust" missions were carried out. There weren't any enemy uniforms and we couldn't tell insurgents from civilians, so we rounded up all men 15-50 yrs old and imprisoned them. We went in with about 1/6 th of the soldiers we needed to keep ammo sites secure etc so we let insurgents have weapons as well. It took 4 years until we changed our war tactics (thanks in large part to General Davis Patraeus and John Nagl rewriting the military field manuals for this new style warfare) and 2. The number of Westerners with passports training with Isis now, numbers hundreds or thousands. That will definitely come back to bite us in the butt... now and years from now. Thanks to my friend Jenny for taking me along with her to the lecture. #warinmiddleeast #WesternerswithIsis
Good week though. Here is one of my "firsts"
Join us on Tuesday, Oct. 21 I went to a lecture, "In the Arena: The Middle East in Flames," featuring Dr. John Nagl and renowned columnist/tv commentator Al Hunt Jr. It was a fascinating duo talking about the US involvement in Iraq, and Afghanistan as well as the changing face of how wars are fought today. It was presented in such an interesting way by people who covered and fought in these places. I think the 2 things I found most disturbing were 1. The way we treated the Iraq people when we first went over. "Sweep and Dust" missions were carried out. There weren't any enemy uniforms and we couldn't tell insurgents from civilians, so we rounded up all men 15-50 yrs old and imprisoned them. We went in with about 1/6 th of the soldiers we needed to keep ammo sites secure etc so we let insurgents have weapons as well. It took 4 years until we changed our war tactics (thanks in large part to General Davis Patraeus and John Nagl rewriting the military field manuals for this new style warfare) and 2. The number of Westerners with passports training with Isis now, numbers hundreds or thousands. That will definitely come back to bite us in the butt... now and years from now. Thanks to my friend Jenny for taking me along with her to the lecture. #warinmiddleeast #WesternerswithIsis 
have we officially hit the double quarters? if so: happy birthday! have fun with your year of firsts. I will keep checking in.
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Happy birthday dear Helene, you are only as old as you feel, last week you were 39 and I'm guessing you don't feel any older this?
ReplyDeletexoxoxo ♡