Singapore–Philippines–Pakistan–Afghanistan

Thursday, 28 May 2009

Am in Singapore to meet up with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  Unfortunately his airplane had difficulties and he is delayed.  I understand part of the trip is being trimmed down, and I detected that some of our soldiers are not happy with that.  Secretary Gates is getting increasing respect from the soldiers, and I got word that the soldiers wanted to see him.  VIP visits often are a royal pain for our folks on the ground, and so it says a lot when they are upset about not getting to host Secretary Gates.

After my trip with Secretary Gates, will do an embed with U.S. forces in the Philippines.  They are helping in the fight against some seriously bad terrorists there, and I understand that they are making progress.

After that, over to Pakistan for a short time.  An embed was approved yesterday for Afghanistan.  Back to combat for me — not looking forward to the endless firefights and bombs — but at least we’ll have one more voice out there with the grunts.  It’s hard to get firsthand reports from Afghanistan.  I’ll work on that.

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