Their Own Fourth Of July

A roundup of the past three weeks' good news from Iraq.

[Spc. Christopher] Bean, 20, of Port Gibson [N.Y.], finished up a year-long stint in Baghdad as a truck driver with the 594th Transportation Co., a 101st Airborne division. His time in the military has given him a different perspective on the Fourth of July.

"In Iraq, we're not fighting for ourselves," said Bean, from his home base in Fort Campbell, Ky. "We're over there fighting so the Iraqis can have their own Fourth of July."

Read This Without Crying

Go on.

I dare you

For four years, Pat cooooooed at Sarah, for 20 minutes a day, listening to Sarah's silent language, filling her patient with the kind of love that strangers reserve for people and things that cannot speak for themselves.

If Sarah made any sound, Pat would praise her, "Yes, that's right. You got it. I love you, Sarah. Do you love Pat?"

Sarah would blink.

The sessions were intense, with Pat looking deep into Sarah's eyes, trying to penetrate, break that lock on her voice.

"Are you glad to see me?" Pat would say. "Look at that smile. Now relax your arm. Relax, sweetheart. Say, my name is Sarah. Say, I'm hungry. Say, I'm thirsty. Say, I want to eat. I want to talk. Are you ready to talk? Yes, you are ready to talk."

Sarah would blink. And deep inside that face in which others saw only blank stares, Pat Rincon saw a flicker.

Funeral Crasher

An ambulatory waste of carbon who happens to be Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania, crashed a Marine's funeral to hand out her business cards and tell the family how the state was "opposed to the war". The governor has promised written apologies, but the only one that would come close to cutting it would be a single page from Knoll herself saying, "I resign".

Don't hold your breath.