BlackFive

Mike Yon's latest dispatch, Bird's Eye View, discusses some of the changes in Iraq and the US Army since 2005.  But one thing doesn't seem to change - the commanders are still war-fighters that don diplomatic demeanors:

...While the battle goes on just nearby, battalion commanders like LTC Mo Goins (who had lost a soldier days earlier) keep popping out of combat to attend civil meetings to keep nudging and whipping forward the momentum for getting things working again. There’s something odd about the way these commanders come in sweating and dirty, and grindlessly switch gears to talk diplomatically — and sometimes not-so diplomatically – about water distribution....