Blaine's latest... from Guam

Blaine's two stories from Guam were also in the paper this week. The paper got its money's worth out of that trip!

His story in today's (Sunday's) paper is about Guamanians' patriotism as Americans and determination to sign up for the US military (Guam is a US territory).

The island has a high rate of soldiers killed-in-action in Iraq, but the families of those killed don't doubt the Iraq mission. Quite sad stuff.

Agnes Rillera, the mother of Army Maj. Henry San Nicolas Ofeciar, who was killed in Afghanistan last August, told Blaine: "The pain of his death I will take to the grave," she said. "But I respect my son's decision to serve. You tell Washington that we support what he did."

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Earlier this week, the WaPo ran his entertaining piece about how the US military is moving thousands of Marines to Guam, which will shift the American military posture in Asia.

The lede is classically, cheeky Blaine:

Guam Braces for Peaceful Military Incursion
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 25, 2008; Page A01

HAGATNA, Guam -- People on this faraway island -- a U.S. territory 7,824 miles west of Los Angeles -- delight in calling Guam the "tip of the spear" for its role defending U.S. interests in the Far East.

Although the island is typhoon-plagued and earthquake-prone, cursed with bad traffic, unable to cope with its own garbage and overrun with invasive tree snakes that have eaten nearly all the birds, the Guamanians aren't just blowing smoke.

The Pentagon has chosen Guam, a quirkily American place that marries the beauty of Bali with the banality of Kmart, as the prime location in the western Pacific for projecting U.S. military muscle...

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The "beauty of Bali" may be generous overstatement, though Guam was a nice place for a holiday.