Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Teflon Don is Going Back to Iraq

If you haven't read any of Teflon Don's Acute Politics posts you should. Teflon Don, the nom-de-geurre of a Army Reserve Soldier who served with the A/321st Engineer Battalion from Boise, Idaho in AL Anbar province, Iraq, doing route clearance for the Marines for all of 2007.

Route clearance involves going out ahead of foot patrols to find and destroy IED's in heavily armoured vehicles. It is dangerous and exhausting work; sometimes patrols went on for 36 hours continuously.

Now he is going back to Iraq as an embedded photo-journalist. You can donate to his embed by buying one of his photos at his website. (See the post New News for the link.)

TD's flight was delayed, so he will try agin tomorrow. In the meantime he writes:

" The trouble I had at the security checkpoint turned out to be for naught. My flight was delayed to the point that I would positively miss the connector to my flight across the Atlantic, so I rescheduled for the next flight out and called my girlfriend: “Hey babe… Want to say goodbye to me again?”

I’m sure it’s a little cruel to shift someone so quickly between tears and laughter, but I needed a ride home. My bag went on without me to my final point of departure from the United States- hopefully it will make it to the Middle East along with me, or I might get to soak up more Kuwaiti sand than I really want to.

Once I get to Kuwait, I will likely be unable to update for some time. I’m told that the damaged cables the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf have brought internet access in the region to a virtual (heh heh) standstill. In the meantime, spread the word that Teflon Don is back in the suck and blogging again." http://acutepolitics.blogspot.com/

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