For those of you that have inquired, I have arrived home.  I have several make-up posts to do over the next few days or even weeks, but for right now, I am just savoring EVERYTHING, especially being with my beautiful wife and child.  More to follow...

Time for redeplyment is gettting close, real close.  I am busy transitioning with my replacement, and the new LAN is slower than the old one, with more people trying to use it because of the changeover.  I will keep this short.

1.)  I am short. - This means I have a short time left here.  The title of this post should be a hint.

2.)  I am busy.  I have a lot to post that I may do from Kuwait or more likely the USA, when I have more time and more bandwidth.

3.)  The Iraqis are still alternating between frustrating and improving on about an hourly basis, this depends a great deal on which particular Iraqi I happen to be working with at the time - no change there.

4.)  I have completed my last mission outside the FOB intact.  Barring the golden rocket or mortar round, I will thankfully be going home in one piece.

5.)  I bumped into a few more old friends.  More on this later.

It has been a usual day here, although I did get a few extra hours off.  I went to Midnight Mass last night and the chapel was packed.  Chow was a little better than usual, and I had a long telephone coversation with my beautiful Wife, who indulged me by singing Silent Night to me in spanish.  That was the best present that I could have received. 

I brought several boxes of See's Candy into the TOC today that were sent by my family, and presented them to the Iraqi Soldiers and Officers - Did I mention this whole country has a huge sweet tooth? They each had several pieces which they enjoted thoroughly and wished me a Merry Christmas.  I found that somewhat surprising and heartwarming that the Iraqis were the ones to initiate Christmas greetings.  I also shared the candy with the rest of the US MiTT Advisors, so it did not last long.

Although it is obviously Christmas, as evidenced by the decorations that have proliferated all over the FOB in the past few weeks, it never feels quite that way unless I am home.  There are lights decorating the trailers of many troops, fake trees and even an inflatable snowman in front of a company command post.  There is even a Nativity Scene out in front of the main chow hall - don't tell the ACLU... By far the funniest thing I have seen was a Soldier dressed up as Santa manning the gun-turret of an up-armored HMMWV as it drove across the FOB.  He was waving and shouting Christmas greetings to all of the troops, who could not help staring and laughing.  As I stood in the back of the chapel, thinking about the past year, and my impending return to the US in a few weeks, I felt a sense of peace I have not felt in many months.  It is amazing Christmas always does that to me, in spite of where I am.  One feeling continues to well up within me looking back on the last year - gratitude.  Merry Christmas!  Peace on Earth.  Goodwill toward men.  God Bless us, every one.

I could not believe this when I read it.  The weapons we have work just fine.  We don't need to spend a fortune on new ones. We need to spend the money making sure we have enough good people properly trained to wield them.

"Every purple finger is a bullet in the chest of terrorism."

Quote of the day - by the Iraqi man who helped save Private Jessica Lynch. (HT: Beth Topaz)

The enthusiasm today around the Iraqi Headquarters was contagious.  As the sun came up, the place was buzzing again with activity.  We rolled out two large convoys to go take the Senior Staff and Soldiers to check on the security status of the polling centers in our sectors. While they were there, several of them voted, since they had not done so during the past few days. A few of the Iraqi Officers laughed when I inspected their fingertips for purple ink when they returned to the TOC. It was a quiet day for the most part, as expected. There were no Iraqi or American Soldiers hurt due to enemy action. A few civilians were wounded, unfortunately, but all in all, the day was a great success. Turnout appeared to be the strongest of any election yet.

As for the predictions that I mentioned, they are completely anecdotal and have no basis in any standardized polling or scientific method. I have, however, heard the same things enough times to make me think that there might be something to what I am hearing. List number 731, that of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, should have a relatively strong showing – much better than a year ago. His name has been mentioned frequently by both Iraqi Soldiers and civilians. The two Shia religious parties that did so well in the interim government elections, SCIRI and Dawa, will not do as well as they did last time. They will still have a strong showing, but they will probably lose ground in the Parliament compared to what the have had over the past year. The Kurdish Coalition, largely ethnic and regionally based will probably do the same as they did in the last election and remain the bloc that someone must partner with in order to form a majority coalition.  For now, the Iraqi Soldiers are looking forward to a well earned day off, some of them anyway. First, however, ballots need to be secured, transported and counted. I will add another photo gallery in the next few days – Inshallah…