You Win!! Too Bad

At chow tonight I was sitting with a sergeant who just won NCO of the month. The prize is two days at Camp Victory near Baghdad, actually an interesting trip to see Saddam's palace and some other sights of the old regime. I am in aviation so I congratulated him. He didn't look so happy. He said he would rather have two days off here. I started to say how many of my friends thought Camp Victory was cool. He then said, "I'm infantry. If I take the prize I go in a convoy." Great!! He gets to roll for hours in an armored truck hoping he does not get hit by an IED.

He's right. If I were him, I would take two days in my room at Tallil before I took my prize-winning trip to Baghdad in the back of an armored truck. We were trying to think of a civilian equivalent. Maybe a trip to Florida by bus stopping in every major city from Boston to Miami--and never being allowed out of the bus.