Life on the Vine

In February 2005 I sent an e-mail to family and friends recounting a recent trip I'd made to Erbil and Dahok in Kurdistan.  I wanted to share portions of that e-mail here.  Partly because I've had the unique opportunity to visit Kurdistan, and with Kurdistan in the news, I can share a personal experience from a trip that I greatly enjoyed.  The below text is from my e-mail - at the time I was working as the Public Affairs Officer in the Gulf Region North District based in Mosul, Iraq.   Our emphasis here in country is moving towards getting reconstruction news out to the local media.   In order to start establishing a working relationship I requested that meetings be set up with local media in Erbil and Dahok, two provinces in the green zone of Kurdistan.   Little to no attention has been given to the Kurdish media.   Connie G., a public affairs officer from headquarters, who has been in Iraq helping with the elections, traveled up to go with me.   We had an

My blog has been dormant for more than six months.  Truthfully I've been contemplating closing this blog down and starting a new one on WordPress.  I went to a lecture on blogs earlier this year as part of the Tucson Festival of Books and the guest speakers highlighted the benefits of using WordPress over Blogger, namely easier reader/follower interaction and some better search capabilities.  I'm still thinking about making the change but there's something I wanted to share, as it has been front page news this week. I have only casually been following the recent developments in Iraq.  I knew that rebel forces had taken Mosul and that U.S. military advisers were sent in to assist the Iraqi military.  And this week I've seen the news about strikes and the air drops of humanitarian aid.  Many of the recent developments have been impacting the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq.  As many of you know I deployed to Iraq twice as a U.S. Army civilian