Tom, a good pen, if I may say so.

You brought with you (10 years ago) a relatively simple and safe self-imposed ROE policy. We had no need to prove ourselves, we were more concerned with survival, and rightfully so.

You said to me early on, "go in with a spirit of acceptance, not judgement, things will more than likely work better". Well, you did have few at our favorite restaurant before that statement, but I recall it to this day !

You would later tell me to be careful - but you did that a lot !

When the Sozias Director (former Israeli LTC) came to snatch his blue flag, we would laugh, but we could see his experience in his words and jestures. He was indeed more than sufficiently trained and experienced to later make such absurd statements, and prepared to back them.

We would later see what inexperience does. A dumb attack was what I thought with perceptive folks all around us. They were however dealing with the FAZ (Zairian Armed Forces), not Iraq.

Indeed, an unfortunate incident with more US losses.

Regards, Stan