Horatius at the bridge

On the war in Iraq, no one in the Senate is clearer than CAPT John McCain, USN (Ret.).

...we members of Congress, must face our responsibilities honestly and bravely. What is asked of us is so less onerous than what we have asked from our servicemen and women, but no less consequential. We need not risk our lives, nor our health, but only our political advantages so that General Petraeus has the time and resources he has asked for to follow up on his recent successes and help save Iraq and America from the catastrophe that would be an American defeat.

That is not much to risk, Mr. President, compared to the sacrifices made by Americans fighting in Iraq or the terrible consequences of our defeat. For if we withdraw from Iraq, if we choose to lose there, there is no doubt in my mind, no doubt at all, that we will be back – in Iraq and elsewhere -- in many more desperate fights to protect our security and at an even greater cost in American lives and treasure.

Little is asked of us to help prevent this catastrophe, but so much depends on our willingness to do so, on the sincerity of our pledge to serve America’s interests before our own.

Boulder rolled aside, career path clear.

Actually I just graduated from ILE-CC. Intermediate Level Education - Common Core, more commonly known as "The reason a whole bunch of Guard and Reserve Officers will never make LTC". It takes a bit of a time committment to finish the course - if you go to a Reserve unit for instruction, you are away from your own unit for a long time, so that option is not very attractive. If you take it correspondence/web based, then it is like picking up a Masters degree on your own time (oh, and you have an 18 month time limit).

Man, am I glad I got that bad boy over with.

BTW - to all the submariners; thanks for the commentary on my choices of books on interwar sub development. I turned in a neat little paper on the subject and got some kind remarks from the grader.