Scott Fontaine covers Fort Lewis, McChord Air Force Base, the Washington National Guard and the veteran community. Fontaine has worked at The News Tribune since 2006. E-mail along story suggestions and tips to scott.fontaine@thenewstribune.com
Or, if you prefer, you can send mail to The News Tribune, PO Box 11000, Tacoma 98411.
Also contributing:
Matt Misterek is the communities and military team leader at The News Tribune and has supervised local military coverage since 2003.
- All
- Military (694)
- "The sound of freedom" (4)
- Afghanistan (39)
- Anything to Sneak In a Footy Reference (6)
- Books (4)
- C-17 (19)
- Coast Guard (2)
- Community (129)
- Events (70)
- Fort Lewis (475)
- 1st Special Forces Group (16)
- 2/75 Rangers (11)
- 3-2 Strykers (47)
- 4-2 Strykers (42)
- 5-2 Strykers (27)
- I Corps (38)
- Madigan Army Medical Center (22)
- Generals (8)
- History (18)
- Iraq (289)
- Joint Base Lewis-McChord (4)
- Marines (3)
- McChord (87)
- Air Expo (5)
- Operation Deep Freeze (9)
- Rodeo (7)
- Media (96)
- National Guard/Reserve (166)
- 81st Brigade Combat Team (117)
- Navy (14)
- People (117)
- Politics (26)
- Ports (5)
- Stryker (56)
- Veterans (61)
- WTF, over? (12)
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| << < | Current | > >> | ||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
- August 2009 (14)
- July 2009 (48)
- June 2009 (66)
- May 2009 (61)
- April 2009 (40)
- March 2009 (29)
- February 2009 (38)
- January 2009 (71)
- December 2008 (56)
- November 2008 (60)
- October 2008 (56)
- September 2008 (21)
- More...
FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAWK, Iraq – Only after dinner, two hours after the Americans had first arrived, did the general air his complaints.
Brig. Gen. Abbas Abdul Jabbar Eidan al-Kubeisy wanted his base – which lies inside the grounds of the larger Contingency Operating Base Qayyarah West – hooked up to the Americans’ power supply. He also had problems with securing replacement equipment for his gear.
But when the meeting ended, about three hours after about 15 American soldiers first arrived, the general was all smiles. He gave a colonel visiting from Mosul a coin emblazoned with the brigade’s logo. He posed for photos and made small talk even as the American soldiers were climbing into their cars for the quick ride back to Q-West.
This was military politics, Iraq-style.

