Reflecting on a Year in Mosul

We're at the one year mark in Mosul, and it's time for a quick recap:

• Hundreds of boxes of school supplies, toys, clothing, and musical instruments have been distributed to dirt poor families and schools throughout Mosul and surrounding towns. The musical instruments were courtesy of fellow Celtic aficionados in Olympia, Washington, and fans of the Chiff and Fipple website.
• Made a lot of friends among the Iraqis, primarily the interpreters. These guys and gals are just like us--they want to make a living, raise families, bounce their grandchildren on their knees, etc.
• My fiddle and mandolin have survived intact, and now a lot of troopers know that there is a bald major with a mustache who haunts the palace late at night with Irish tunes.
• It has only snowed once here--back in February.
• Several troops and civilians and Iraqis have come and gone, and some are gone forever.

Mosul is about to hold elections along with the rest of the country, whether CNN believes it or not. They don't know everything--the camera has a magnetic pull to anything violent or out of the ordinary. The thousands of good news stories that happen every day across the country get eclipsed by the occasional barbarism--but rest assured, we're winning.