Friends, family, strangers...Americans young and old....I apologize to you all tonight because I fear I may have just lost the war. I was on a patrol tonight with my squad...we had to go firm in a house because engineers were going to blast away the remnants of the bombed out bridge. We were sitting around, socializing with a group of young Iraqi men, when the conversation turned to athletics. Well, one of them thought that he was pretty strong and flexed his arm for us...of course, my friends, my comrades, my brothers-in-arms, decide to throw me under the bus and say that I was much stronger. So this Iraqi makes me flex for him...I'm not gonna lie, I was a lot bigger.

It doesn't end there. Suddenly this Iraqi challenges me to an arm wrestling contest. I immediately have a flashback. Suddenly its 2003, I'm at the Music City Bowl in Nashville, TN for a football game. I'm drunk at an Irish bar on New Year's Eve...suddenly an Irishman taps me on the shoulder. I turn around...he's about the size of a leprachaun. He gets to the point, he thinks he can whoop me in arm wrestling...I tell him no thanks...he insists...I say no...he buys me a Guinness...I say okay...I almost lose.

Fast forward to Iraq...tonight...I don't think its a good idea, but my friends insist that it'll be good for building 'relations'...I take another look at the guy he's not THAT big. I agree.

Ten minutes later, there is still no winner. It's declared a draw, but for America, it was a resounding defeat. It was the draw heard round the world. I will never be able to show my face in that area again. Granted, he didn't claim victory, but I could see the sparkle in his eye... my fellow Americans...I am sorry.