The SandGram

Emails have the half life of an Atom.

Well guys, I could see it coming. The other night, a message was forwarded to me titled “from a Soldier in Afghanistan.” I read the message, thought about it for a minute and then emailed back, “This guy will be in deep “do-do” soon”, and he will have learned the first major rule of this war; anything you email back home will be forwarded to hundreds if not thousands if you have something interesting to say. See, emails have the half life of an Atom, thus, you must have a second set of eyes review what you say, because guess what cyber world…we as military members are not free to say whatever we want. They play these commercials all the time here on Armed Forces Network talking about what you can and can’t say as a member of the Military. This is not unlike any other major corporation say if you worked for Ford and blogged that your product was inferior to Honda, I’m sure your boss might have something to say. Within in the hour, I got four more copies of this letter written by some Army Captain to his family. I could see it was going viral and told my folks to watch this thing snowball..

Now as Paul Harvey would say, “Standby, for the Rest of the story.” We found out that two of the most powerful Senators were coming out to Afghanistan accompanied by a junior Senator who just happens to be running for President. I can tell you that security was tight for that very reason, and they had their schedule detailed down to the very minute of each day (and that short trip to Bagram didn’t have time to play basketball, he worked out at our gym that night). It’s not easy putting something like that together, and the task is a bit overwhelming at times for those involved. What the press never mentions is the fact that Senator Hagel, an army veteran of the Vietnam War and a guy wounded twice with two Purple Hearts was here along side of Senator Reed, another veteran of the Army and graduate of West Point. Very impressive men in their own rights!.

The day we met them (Sunday), we had to get into the lobby of our building a half hour before they were scheduled to arrive. Milling about smartly, we waited until the Secret Service brought the trio into the main area, and guided them up to the podium for a very quick speech. Senator Hagel introduced himself as Senator Obama’s bodyguard. That got a lot of laughs. He made a few remarks and passed the mic to Senator Reed who told the audience that he was Senator Obama’s driver this trip. This brought more laughter. Then Senator Obama got up, made a short speech, which was well received, and they moved around the crowd shaking hands and chit chatting with folks in the room. The head of security told us this would be very fast, and not to be surprised if they had to leave in order to make the visit with President Karzai. I had a chance to meet all three men who all thanked me for my service, and were truly nice to chat with. It was something I will be able to tell my kids about when they are older..

There are always two sides to a story out there folks. My old boss was one of the five Military Aides to the President of the United States, one year for President Bush Senior and two for President Clinton. When asked about serving for the Clintons, he just chuckled because of the stuff he would read in the paper and how it didn’t jive with what he saw. The first week after Clinton took office, the press came out with some bogus story about how the Clintons hated the military and the staffers told the military guys they had to wear civilian clothes at the White House..

What the press didn’t realize was that whatever that day was that the Clintons moved into the White House just happened to be the “casual day” for the military staff. The press jumped on this, put two and two together ergo the Clintons moved in and no more uniforms thus they must have told them to not wear them. Had they been at the White House that same day on any prior week, they would have seen the military staff in kakis and polo shirts. I asked him what it was like to work for the President. His reply was great. “No matter what your politics, the man makes you feel like your old best friend. You also know that you are talking to the most powerful man in the world.”

Now back to that Captain. He was wrong to send out that email and I’m sure that he is catching some heat from it. If you have posted his letter, please take it down. Snopes.com claims it is false although, For more on it, read the post at Blackfive. I have to say that if I saw or recieved shoddy treatment, then you would know about it. Somehow I would find a way. http://www.blackfive.net/main/2008/07/from-gi-in-afgh.html.

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That’s about it, hope you all have a great week, and Captain, if you are reading this post, don’t worry, it too will pass, you should be ok since it was letter intended for your family and not sent to the Washington Times.
Semper Fi,
Taco

PS, for those of you who know me, then you know this is about as unbiased of a report as you’ll ever get anywhere. 

Tags: Afghanistan, Sen Hagel, Sen Obama, Sen Reed