Uncle Jimbo, at Black Five, provides an update on the Vets for Freedom National Tour:

The Heroes Tour has made it from San Diego to LA, Phoenix, Tucson and now we are in San Antonio. The events have all been special and the reception very warm. It has been heartening to see good-sized groups of people eager to hear from the folks with the real deal from Iraq and Afghanistan. This tour serves multiple purposes starting with allowing Americans across the country a chance to see and hear about the battles we have fought and the progress we have made. But just as much it serves as a counter-narrative to the MSM portrayal of our efforts in Iraq as a failure.

Since we sent the extra troops and changed our strategy to counter-insurgency (COIN), the results could hardly be more startling. That is one of the more compelling stories being told on the tour. Pete Hegseth talks about his time in Doura when it served as AQI HQ in Baghdad and was essentially a no-go zone, and contrasting that with his trip to the same neighborhood 2 weeks ago where kids played in the streets and he didn’t hear a single shot in three days out with patrols. Or Jeremiah Workman, who fought his way through 2 dozen insurgents in a single house in Fallujah earning the Navy Cross in ’04, describe the utter normality of life when he went back last September. We are winning and so are the Iraqis. The losers are the MSM and the Defeatocrats.

READ THE REST (and see an interview).