http://www.brownalumnimagazine.com/obituaries/the_loss_of_a_heart_and_a_mind_1981.html

I just discovered your post about Mike. I think you would have liked him a great deal. After the mass for Mike last Friday, I had an opportunity to talk to several of the members of the military that worked with him. It was very eye opening for me. I put my thoughts about it here. Hope you’re well.

-Seth

Allen: “Mr. President, you haven’t been golfing in recent years. Is that related to Iraq?” Bush: “Yes, it really is. I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.” Allen: “Mr. President, was there a particular moment or incident that brought you to that decision, or how did you come to that?” Bush: “No, I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man’s life. And I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, it’s just not worth it anymore to do.”

As always with Bush, though, reality tells a different tale:

Not only is it a hollow, trivial sacrifice at best, Bush’s story doesn’t hold water. While he dates his decision to abjure golf to Aug. 19, 2003 — the day a truck bomb in Baghdad killed U.N. special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello and more than a dozen others — the Associated Press reported on Oct. 13, 2003, that he’d spent a “cool, breezy Columbus Day” playing “a round of golf with three long-time buddies. “Bush played at Andrews Air Force Base with Clay Johnson, Office of Management and Budget deputy director, Richard Hauser, Department of Housing and Urban Development general counsel and another friend, Mike Wood.” On that outing, he was typically full of what passes for good humor at the White House. The AP reported: “‘Fine looking crew you got there. Fine looking crew,’ Bush joked to reporters. ‘That’s what we’d hope for presidential coverage. Only the best.’ “He hit a couple of practice balls before flaring his tee-off shot into the right rough.”

Well, I know one American who will be happy that Bush ever got to become president.

As for human terrain systems, does this count?

However, as Bridget Jones points out, for a variety of reasons, most social scientists are not too excited about scholar-warriors….

But reg. the Army’s Human Terrain Systems Program, note that sociologists/anthropolgists in Iraq have not received completely good press either -

Anthropologists on the Front Lines A Gun in One Hand, A Pen in the Other