Dear Family and Friends:

A Correction, requested by Hammurabi himself: several times I referred to him as "Big H" in the last dialogue and he has reminded me that his time spent in LA's gansta rap empire has earned him the right to add numerous and meaningless Z's and L'z to his words. Therefore the name "Big H" should have been printed as

Big Hizzl.

...

Maybe something funny:

The Hadjis, being an industrious and skilled people, offer many services on military bases, one of the most popular being the stitching of unit patches. A unit artist gets together with his buddies, they come up with symbols, a picture perhaps, and certainly a few choice words to print on the patches, then they make a few dozen and everyone goes home with them.

Our unit patch, running at 10 bucks a pop, turned out unspeakably lame. As it somehow perversely mimicks our time spent in this company, it seems appropriate and I will keep it as a sort of "Quasimodo in the belltower." Horribly ugly, yet compelling to look at all the same.

Some of the best unit patches I've seen:

A picture of a Guinness pint with a red circle/slash through it with the words "Operation Enduring No Guinness" printed around the circular frame.

Another with Homer Simpson in the middle, raising his pint mug, a cheery smile on his lips. the top reads "TO ALCOHOL!" in bold stylized letters. Beneath the picture on the bottom of the frame appear the words "The cause and solution to all of life's problems!"

I thought about having a small one made, maybe 1 inch by 3 inches, with the three colors of the iraqi flag printed like an instrument guage-- black, white, green. A small tacometer would be slanted all the way to the black and the label at the top would read "Alpha Co. B.S. O-Meter." i.e. we've tanked ourselves...

Okay I relent,

:D