In a letter-to-the-editor from Baghdad, Lt. Col. Chuck Workman asked: "What's up with your news coverage of Sarah Palin?" The editors were accused of making "an effort to cut and paste left-leaning stories [about her] that have been proven inaccurate." No examples were given. Finally, the letter asked, "What about Joe Biden?" implying that he was getting a free ride.

Week 4 Top Ten
The Top Ten teams in the Stars and Stripes' 2008 Far East high school football ratings, with records through Sept. 22, points and last week’s rating, as compiled by Dave Ornauer of Stars and Stripes sports. Ratings are based on teams' win-loss records, quality of wins, strength of roster, schedule and leagues, point differential and team and individual statistics. Maximum rating is 500 points:
                                  Record Pts Pvs
1. Kadena (Okinawa)                 1-0  448   2

Some camping trip this was. Try 11 universities and three summer volleyball camps in five states in 25 days of driving hither and thither.

Thus was the lot of Osan American Cougars junior Nicole Sparks and senior Laura Vega, along with the latter's mom and dad Christine and Gualberto. Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia.

The goal: Exposure to smaller universities where students learn from professors rather than graduate assistants, smaller volleyball programs which afford more playing time than one might get at a Division I school, and exposure to cultures and creeds one would never see out here.

-- Kadena is, simply put, a very, very dangerous team. Brandon Harris or Anthony Tarver sniffing out the nearest interception and taking it to the house. Big-armed Lamar Smith striking just the right note with the well-placed pass on fourth down. And how about Stan Schrock, leaping over double coverage to catch that fourth-down pass? A defense that allowed deepest penetration by Kubasaki to Kadena's 38, and only two first downs the whole game?

The Sarah vs. Joe saga continues. After assessing the coverage Ms. Palin and her rival for the vice presidency, Joe Biden, have been getting in Stars and Stripes (see the latest column/blog below), I was confident the controversy wouldn't abate. I was right. A reader from Wiesbaden, Germany, took offense at -- what else? -- a  Doonesbury cartoon. In that Sept. 23 strip, author Garry Trudeau reduced Palin (literally) to a talking doll that "lies."

*donning my best Fred Rogers cardigan, sitting back in my easy chair, smiling for the camera*

Well, Mr. Hokkaido Milk asked me to tell a story about the great Northwest Airlines rescue of the Far East Boys Basketball Tournaments in 1986. So here we go, boys and girls and SportsBlog campers:

Once upon a time, there was a Far East High School Boys Basketball Tournament scheduled for February 1986 at Yokota High School. It was to be a competitive tournament, featuring 16 of the finest American and international high school teams from around the Pacific. And their cheerleading counterparts as well. A good time was expected to be had by all.

-- They don't get much more scary than they did Saturday afternoon at Camp Walker's Kelly Field. Quite a nice comeback by Seoul American, which trailed much of the day 14-3 on the KellyTurf. Nico Scholl falling on a fumble in the Daegu end zone and Willie Brown's 8-yard touchdown catch to cap a 13-point run within six minutes of the final period.

Every military family has a woeful story, or several, about what happened on the homefront during deployment. Mine are mostly about sick children, septic tanks and household pests run amok. Does anything good come from these difficult experiences? I explored this idea with a couple of other military wives for the Sept. 28 Spouse Calls.

Hope Metzler developed www.DeploymentLessons.org, a site where military spouses are invited to post one or two sentences about lessons they have learned in the absence of their active duty spouse.

Week 5 Top Ten
The Top Ten teams in the Stars and Stripes' 2008 Far East high school football ratings, with records through Sept. 27, points and last week’s rating, as compiled by Dave Ornauer of Stars and Stripes sports. Ratings are based on teams' win-loss records, quality of wins, strength of roster, schedule and leagues, point differential and team and individual statistics. Maximum rating is 500 points:
                                  Record Pts Pvs

One quarterbacked Kadena to a Far East Class AA football championship last November, is back as an assistant coach, plans on enlisting in the Air Force in January and intends to return to Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, as an airman.

The other quarterbacked the Kadena Buccaneers to two Rising Sun Bowl berths back in the old Okinawa Activities Council split-squad days. After injuring a knee at Tyler Community College in Texas, he enlisted in the Air Force and finds himself back at Kadena, a skills-positions assistant and an Air Force two-striper.

Read Jonathan Wright's and A.J. Morgan's story in this week's Pacific Home Team.