Somehow I don't think if the sh*t goes down again that the Iraqi troops will be surrendering to CNN camera crews like they did during Desert Storm. Mind you they will get their ass's kicked again but maybe not as easy the second time around. IMHO

Don't pack your gear yet. I've just last week returned from six months in the gulf and it's just business as usual but with a President with more gonads.

I've made 6 deployments to the Gulf in 20 years now - the last two after the Gulf War and on both of these cruises we were conducting strikes on various installations. A missile attack on Bagdad is out of the norm I'll grant you but it's George W's way of saying that he's more like his father than like Clinton.

The "no fly" zones seems a lot like a previous generation's Viet Nam/Cambodia delema. The gobblins would retreat back across a line on a map and be safe from punishment. In love in war all is fair and we should only tell the warriors to break certain things and kill certain people not so much the how to go about it.

We would have Iraqi planes jet down toward the battle group, never really getting within striking distance but still crossing the line, and when we would send the combat air patrol at them they would retreat back north over Bagdad.

Don't they still have the old rule where they "could" not deploy you  overseas until you had spent a year in the States?

There has always been plenty of Mickey Mouse stuff and chichen sht in the military,just make sure you don't step on any!
If you go back,be careful.A peace keeping mission for the military is an oxymoron,in my opinion!