Surrender at any cost

That seems to be the message of Barack Obama. Apparently, he still thinks it a good idea to attack John McCain for wanting to stay in Iraq and finish what we’ve started. 6-12 months ago, this might have been a good idea. Iraq was on fire and the American Public, whose stores of fortitude have always been lower than the actual Soldiers who are doing the fighting, had decided that enough was enough. Today, with clear evidence that the troop surge has produced results, Al Qaeda on its heels, or flat on its back, in most of Iraq, and violence is at its lowest point in years, the public has largely either renewed their support, or stopped talking about it altogether.

Some people refuse to accept that they could have been so wrong. If you are a democrat, you are absolutely forbidden to say one positive thing about the handling of the war. I’ll give anyone a dollar if they can find me an actual democrat who will admit to progress in Iraq and attribute it to the Republican administration’s policies.
Not that there were any administration officials out on the street with us, but that’s the last thing we want. All we really want is the personnel and equipment necessary to carry out our mission. We’ll do the heavy lifting; just give us the gloves and a dolly.
I saw an article in the NYTimes from September that cast doubt on reports that violence had actually dropped in Iraq. Apparently they were not skeptical at all when violence was high, but now that there is progress being made, it’s all a big C.O.N.Spiracy.

Take my word for it. If you really don’t believe the reports, you have to either believe an eyewitness or go see for yourself. I seriously doubt there will be many liberals going to see for themselves. If they did, they wouldn’t tell anyone. It would ruin their social life if they committed such a grave faux pas.

The first six months over there were as bad as can be imagined. The last 8 months were relatively easy. To leave now when things are finally looking up would be like invading Normandy, driving across Europe, and stopping at the German border.

The hardest part, knock on wood, is over, but only if we keep pressing forward. Iraq is a pot that has just stopped boiling. It wouldn’t take much of a fire to start it boiling again. I would hate to think that we did all this work and lost all these Soldiers so that some liberal/Socialist opinion monger could reverse everything without a thought for the future... or the past.

oops

From comments..."Anyway - Sounds like you're pretty good natured about the whole thing so. :-) Keep at it and you'll probably get pretty good eventually. Of course that is assuming that you don't break something before then of course. ;-)"

Too late.

The first one to go was a rib high on the left side.

The better I get, the faster I'm going when I eat it. We were at Keystone, and I was trying to keep up with a friend who may or may not have been born with a snowboard strapped to his feet. I was bombing down the mountain at around mach 3, when I caught my front edge on a pretty steep blue slope.

According to eyewitness accounts, I was in the air for over a full second, long enough that I remember thinking "This is going to be reeeeally bad", before I slammed to the earth with my left fist caught between my chest cavity and the hard hard surface of inevitability.

Then I started to cartwheel.

Then I continued to cartwheel.

I've never been especially good at cartwheels, but these were superb, true cartwheels. Body fully extended, head... board... head... board... etc.

Once the cartwheel show ended, I ended up facing up the mountain, still travelling at a brisk pace. I dug both elbows into the snow, and after leaving two 50 foot furrows in the snow, finally stopped.

Everyone who wasn't dialing 911 hauled ass to my position, ready to begin first aid.

Pride pushed me to my feet, and I continued to board the rest of the day.

I've been out twice since then, and was doing ok with it until I replayed the exact scene at wolf creek last weekend.

Breaking a rib doesn't hurt nearly as much as landing on a broken rib.

I literally couldn't breathe for about 5 minutes, and thought i might have punctured a lung, but apparently not.

Oh well...
I have two more days to heal before my next trip to keystone. I doubt that it will be enough, but hey, if Soldiers can be hard when it comes to accomplishing missions, we should surely be tough enough to drive on when we're doing things we WANT to do, right?