Reply #2: State Leaders Visit War Zones

[cal04]

(snip)
In previous trips, governors have traveled to Afghanistan to visit Guard troops there as well. "The governor very much wanted to see and honor the Virginia troops and guardsmen and women who are deployed there," Hall said.

In a voice mail message from Kaine to Hall late Monday night, the governor said: "We left on schedule Sunday night, with predictable military precision. . . . Things are going great. We're in Kuwait, and I had dinner with some Virginia troops, which was great."

He was invited by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld a day after the Virginia governor returned from the National Governors Association meeting in Washington, D.C., at the beginning of February, Hall said. At that meeting, Kaine and all of the nation's other governors wrote a public letter to President Bush expressing their "opposition to force reductions in the Army and Air National Guard being considered by the Department of Defense."

Hall said Kaine accepted the invitation to go to Iraq on the condition that the General Assembly session had concluded. "We told them that the only caveat that we had a legislative session that had to take priority," Hall said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/14/AR2006031400398.html