I AM IN KUWAIT!

I am in Kuwait waiting for my passport and visa to be processed. I will be back in the USA on Saturday morning.

Iraq wasn't that bad, but the place were I was at was called Camp Cupcake by the Marines. There were other places in Iraq that were much worse. The area I was in was very rural and predominantly Sunni. It wasn't like Baghdad which is a huge, multi-ethnic city. I got travel all the western-most part of Anbar province. I even got to go to some places where female marines weren't allowed. The USMC has a very different policy about assigning females to units than the Army does. Female marines are not assigned to brigade level combat arms units. The lowest echelon they are assigned to is division. And when the Marines requested support from the Army, and the Army sent a unit with females in it. The Marines had fits.

And I discovered that the Marines do not let females be HUMINT collectors or CI Agents.

They complain about the Army getting all the funding and the best equipment. But when the Army provides the USMC with that equipment for free, the Marines say, "Oh we won't use that, it's Army equipment."

On, June 14th, the chow hall had a huge cake for the Army birthday, and yes, the Army is the oldest branch of the military. Older than the Navy, and waaay older than the Air Force. But I had Marines telling me that the USMC is older, that they date back to the ancient Spartans.

Ummm, I don't think you really want to emulate the ancient Spartan warriors in this age of "don't ask, don't tell". Much less brag about it.