Correspondents mourn the loss of 'Five O'Clock Follies' general

[donsu]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/10/wirq210.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/10/ixworld.html

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Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, an artillery officer who was initially reluctant to take up his media briefing job, has moved on from his Baghdad post as part of an American military policy to lower its public profile.

But he has left an indelible impression on reporters who tried to penetrate his unshakeable optimism or make sense of his more surreal pronouncements on what was happening in an Iraq descending into violence and chaos.

When asked by an Iraqi journalist what he would say to Iraqi children frightened by low-flying American helicopters, Gen Kimmitt replied: "What we would tell the children of Iraq is that the noise they hear is the sound of freedom."

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Journalists began referring to his daily briefings, conducted with Dan Senor, the coalition's civilian spokesman, as the "Five O'Clock Follies", the bitter nickname given to command briefings in Saigon during the Vietnam War.
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and think about what these children are learning:

He seemed so pleased with this response that he elaborated on it in a subsequent briefing, attributing the wisdom to his wife, a teacher on army bases in America.

"You often hear the sounds of artillery rounds going off. She seems quite capable of calming the children and letting them understand that those booms and those bangs that they hear are simply the sounds of freedom."


so where is Kimmett now?