Breaking News……James shakes hands with Democratic Presidential Hopeful.

That’s right folks, I actually shook hands with Barack Obama today (In case you couldn’t tell that not me in the above picture though). He flew into COB Basrah this morning and had a meeting with the British General (not the one I made mad the other day, but that Generals boss) who is the head of Multi National Division –South East (MND-SE). I knew he was coming in and I had to have some Soldiers and Marines available to greet him, but I only knew when he was supposed to meet and greet the soldiers not what the rest of his itinerary was. I found out he was in the building when I left the Operations Center to go get a couple of real brewed coffee only to find him shaking the hand of the girl who runs the coffee shop (sorry partially obscured by a support pillar) . The girl, who is British, was much more interested in shaking a Presidential hopefuls hand than making me a cup of coffee, I see where I rate. Why doesn’t the world revolve around me again????

The two above pictures are Obama shaking hands with one of my Marine augments, Cpl Perez, and CPT Jeremy Hahn, one of the advisors on my team. The Marine mentioned that while Obama was nice and personable he didn’t spend too much time talking to him when he learned the Marine was from Texas.

Here is the photographic evidence, of me shaking hands with Barack Obama. My politics may be a little more conservative than his, but you never want to miss out on the chance to shake hands with someone who might be the next President of the United States. Of course he wanted to know where I was from and when I told him Missouri, he wanted to know from what part. Of course he would have no clue where the bustling metropolis of Perry is, so I told him the Hannibal area. After a brief conversation about Mark Twain (that always comes up when I mention Hannibal) he then asked if my family had been affected by the floods and I told him no but that the rains had made the majority of the crops go in late, which seemed to briefly catch his interest.

I must admit that if it had been Hillary you would never have heard about her visit. There really isn't a polite way to say what I think about her so I'll just leave it at that.