Hey guys, not wanting to "pimp" where I blog, but I have been hammering on this topic relentlessly;

The "surge" is going to require that "housing" be created in the communities where American Soldiers will live and work instead of at their large secured bases. Think of them in terms of something like a whole lot of Army Reserve Centers spread around Baghdad. Needless to say, this will be a security nightmare that I do not want to describe in a public domain.There is a right way and a wrong way to do this and my many friends in that "community" are seeing this go forward in the wrong way. Lastly, there will be a tremendous toll on morale. In addition to living in a constant state of fear, there will be none of the basic "amenities" such as a shower, clean uniforms, hot meals, telephone access or even a running toilet. All of our Soldiers have grown to expect these few amenities over the last few years. Losing theses amenities, coupled with the 24x7x52 fear factor will further undermine combat readiness.

You can easily guess what the reaction has been from the "We support the War long before the troops" faction has been.

The "good news" is that a lot of guys in uniform are being very vocal about this in the planning. Signing off is going higher and higher in the feeding chain.

Larkin- Remember the mantra, "When they step up, we step down?"

Under Abizaid it was going in the direction of "We have to step down so the Iraqis step up."

I could not even tell you what the "plan" is right now, nor could a lot of officers.