My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

As I begin to seriously realize that I really am about to be deployed, I have begun to think about what could happen while I am over there. Am I concerned about a suicide bomber? Mildly. Could the base be mortared or rocketed? Possibly. It's even possible that I could be selected for a mission in Iraq at some point and have to leave the comforts of my original destination. As cool as that would be, I can think of something that is a bit cooler.

Meeting the President... or someone in the Administration.

Now, I don't know if he will ever come to Kuwait and see us, but it is possible. And of course, it is even less likely that I would even know he was there until he was gone. And then it is even less likely that I would be selected or given the opportunity to see him, and even less likely I'll have the chance to actually meet and talk to him. But, of course, the fantasy question that everyone asks is, "If you could ask [God, The President, The Pope, that ex-girlfriend] one question, what would it be?" The other three, I'll have to get back to you on that. But, I think I know what I what I would ask the President.

It wouldn't be, as many in the MSM (Main Stream Media) would like, "Why did you lie about the WMDs?" That's just dumb. It's insulting to ask such an insulting question of a head of state, even if I did believe it. "When do we leave Iraq, Mr. President?" Another dumb question. I could come up with scores of dumb questions that have been asked of the President, but none of them have really been asked of the President so much as they have been asked to the American people about the President. I get the idea that the MSM doesn't really care about the wildly complex answers it would get from what they think are simple questions.

See, during the last six years, or at least since the GWOT (Global War on Terror) started, I've had one steady complaint about this administration. That is, why the heck doesn't it defend itself and set the record straight? The MSM hammers this Administration night and day, week after week with questions to which they know the answers, and then proceeds to spew those answers to the American public in broken facts, and out-of-context reports. And this administration just takes it. And it drives me up the wall.

Now, before anyone says I'm just some kind of Kool-Aid Conservative Kook, or whatever, I'm not defending this Administration. I do not believe that the president has been up front with the American people about very much during his two terms. He's not leading from the front. On a lot of things, this administration is guilty of the same things I have accused the MSM of doing: leaving out facts and not closing loops that need to be closed. Honestly, I get the idea that President Bush is like a kid on Christmas Eve: he just can't wait for his term to be up so he can get away from the soap opera that is his Presidency.

But I digress.

My one question to the President (or ranking member of the Administration) would be, "When will we start hearing the good things that have occured in Iraq?" See, I would bet my running shoes that the average American can tell you the name of the prison where Iraqis were abused, the name the leader of Al-qaeda in Iraq, approximately how many Americans have died in Iraq or maybe even able to tell you how much the war in Iraq resembles the Vietnam war, even though they are vastly different.

However, I will also bet very, very few Americans can tell you the name of the recipient of the Medal of Honor in this war. Even fewer would know that he died in combat and even fewer can tell you what he did to deserve the highest military honor that can be given.

I will bet that the average American can tell you that the Army missed its recruiting goals for FY05. I'll bet they wouldn't be able to tell you that the Army actually recruited more soldiers this year than last- by more than 1,000 soldiers- and that the Army greatly surpassed its re-enlistment quotas. You won't hear that the reason the Army missed its quota is because they set a goal of 8,000 more soldiers to be recruited than last year. You'll only hear that the Army missed it's recruiting goals by 7,000. The last time the Army missed its recruiting quota was in 1998. I didn't even know that until this year... because there was hardly a peep about it in 1998.

I could go on and on about the great things we have done in Iraq. I've heard them myself from my comrades-in-arms, who have come home and returned to Iraq more than once. Hearing my buddies talk about the war in Iraq and hearing the news talk about it makes me think I'm not hearing about the same war.

Is all going well there? It's hard to say. Even news organizations that claim to be "Fair and Balanced" report the exact same as the rest, with just a little bit different language. I don't think for a second that Iraq is all balloons and flowers. I know we've had our setbacks there. Great and grave mistakes have been made. But I also know it's not a quagmire like the MSM would hope.

Anyway, I could on and on. My point is this: I know this Administration knows what is going on over there. I know that it would take next to nothing for them to set up even just a website to recognize the great things that are happening. I just don't understand why they don't do it. And that would be my fifteen minutes of fame.