"I prefer Thin Mints!"

A small anecdote:


While on patrol in the slums of north Baghdad the other day, my convoy came across a small boy on the roadside waving excitedly. This was nothing out of the ordinary, for most children come running at the cacophony of American power. But this child, no more than 2 and a half feet tall, would prove to be different.

My company recently received over a thousand Girl Scout cookies, far more than we could even imgaine consuming at a healthy rate. I decided to share this great American Icon with the Iraqi people and have my gunners toss the boxes out to the locals as we passed by.

The small boy at the roadside would be our first recipient. The vehicle in front of mine let fly a box of "Lemon Bursts", a tasty treat in its own right, in the general direction of the boy as we rolled past. The child snatched up the box in an instant with a look of sheer joy on his face. Then, I witnessed his mother harshly rebuke his acceptance of our gift. In a flash, the boys face turned from joy to nothing short of anger. His little arm hucked the Lemon Bursts right back at my vehicle, striking the armored side and letting us Americans know with finality where we could stick our cookies. It was quite a heave, for the box was at least the size of his torso. My astonishment, however, was not at his impressive throw. It was that he rejected Girl Scout Cookies. Everyone loves Girl Scout cookies!

I could pontificate on the international political ramifications of this incident: that the boy was probably Sunni and no cookie would win his heart or mind, that his mother was angry he had accepted an American gift, that he probably didn't know it was a box of cookies, but that would be all too easy. I realized later what really happened.

Simply put, the boy told me and the world that "I prefer Thin Mints!"