Godspeed to Lt. Col. (and state representative) Joe Rice, who will be deployed to Baghdad for a three-month stint starting in October, as reported today in the Denver Post‘s Politics West:
Rice, who has three young children, said he looks forward to getting the “feel of the street†in Baghdad.
“Unless you are out there on the street, you just don’t get it,†he said.
As an operations analyst, Rice will look for the best practices among reconstruction teams. He plans to spend a lot of time with the Iraqi police force.
Rice, who has been in the Army for 23 years, said he didn’t think about asking for a special deployment exemption because he is a state lawmaker.
I am honored to have met Rep. Rice in May 2006, before he was elected to his current position at the State Capitol. He joins Sen. Steve Ward, who deployed to Iraq in late August, and follows in the footsteps of Secretary of State Mike Coffman, who took leave from his State Treasurer’s job in 2005-2006 to serve in the war on terror’s central front.
As I pointed out earlier upon learning of Sen. Ward’s departure, seeing another state legislator deployed should remind us how important it is to support all our troops.
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