The WMD Easter Egg Hunt

"The job of my battalion was to keep our eyes open, looking for weapons of mass destruction.  There must be over 100,000 of us by now in Iraq, and we were determined to find those WMDs which could have been hidden just about anywhere. Whenever we took the tank out, we would start rolling about 20 abreast of each other, across that vast desert.  There were always a couple of guys on the side with metal detectors, figuring that maybe those dang things were hidden under the sand. I wasn't sure that was a good idea, since the whole tank was pretty much made of metal, and figured that they'd come up with a false positive, but I guess we all had to do our part in one way or another. Usually I rode in the front of the tank, peering out with my binoculars, looking for something – I wasn't sure what. A silo across the desert? A warehouse? Maybe the pointy front of a rocket sticking out of the sand? All of us were committed to finding those WMDs. After all, that's why we were here, wasn't it?

"As we'd go on these long patrols, I couldn't help but think about the time that I had been a kid when George H. was President. I was one of the 72 kids invited to the annual Easter Egg hunt at the White House. I'm not sure how I got invited, or what strings my Dad had to pull, but I was told it was a big honor. I would meet the President of the US of A, and his son, George W., who was in charge of the Easter Egg Hunt every year during G.H.'s time in office. We shook the hand of the President, and then George W. said a few words about wishing us luck and all that. He had an unusual kind of look on his face – Daddy called it a smirk – but we just thought it was his way of smiling.

"All of us kids scattered across the White House lawn which was really, really big. This year, only kids at least 6 years old were allowed to attend. Supposedly last year some of the little kids had stepped on a few eggs and ruined some patches of grass, but they figured if we were a little bit older, this wouldn't be a problem. I thought that those eggs were supposed to be hard-boiled, but heck. What did I know?

"All of us were determined. We looked under every blade of grass. Some kids climbed one of the few trees in the yard and checked under every leaf. We checked around bushes. A few thought about digging, but the Secret Service wouldn't let us have any shovels, and we didn't know where to dig. We didn't find one dang egg. Not one. Some of the kids started to cry. A few who had learned how to throw up their hands in frustration, threw up their hands. I was 8 at the time and better able to handle this level of frustration. We just couldn't figure out where George W. had hid the eggs. George W. first kept insisting that the eggs were there, but then three security guys with important-looking uniforms on came over and whispered to him, "Now come on George, be honest!" I could hear him whisper because I had pushed my way to the front row since I was bigger than some of the rest (although I still feel guilty about that!) Finally, after the sobs became too much, he finally confessed that there weren't any eggs. He said he just wanted us to think there were. Some of the kids didn't believe him, and thought that maybe they were still around somewhere. I tended to think that if they weren't there, well, then they weren't there.

"I continue to look for the WMDs but hope this isn't just like the famous Easter Egg Hunt at the White House of 1991."