Presidents Need to Visit the Troops

is the sour term occasionally used by soldiers when some group of distinguished visitors shows up in the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan. From the soldiers’ point of view, the itinerant pundits or officials are a nuisance. They require special care and handling, they ask dumb questions, they take up the time of harried commanders and sleep-deprived intelligence briefers, and they really don’t get what this enterprise is all about. The visitors will probably go back and brag about their time under fire when they have just been lounging around a safe forward operating base—but if they do force their way to a place where bombs go off or snipers shoot, they can be a real menace to others as well as themselves.