I think where the issue has come is that there were a lot of guys here that thought you were still an active duty fighting man over there. I now understand that you are a contractor but myself I had believed that you were still an active duty Marine stationed in Iraq. I never bothered to look at your profile so that is a bit on me, however your intro on the forum never mentions that you are now a private contractor it just mentions you are in Iraq, that coupled with your screen name certainly added to the confusion and misconception. I could tell by posts of other, certainly Shane, that others believed you were active duty as well and you from what I saw did not do anything to change that for them. I think it may seem to people that this was on purpose. Now it may or may not have been the only guy who knows that is you. My thoughts now is that you just need to post a slightly better intro maybe and say I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding.
As far as this cigar night thing was concerned I think the simple act of posting a thread was what set people off really, it came across to me as if you were going to do a cigar for the troops type thing and then have them sent to the guys that you associate with where you are located. When you look at that it sort of seems you are trying to get free cigars for a night that you will participate in and thus enjoy some donated cigars yourself. Now while I respect what you are doing in Iraq as a contractor it does leave a bad taste in some mouths to believe that you are asking for smokes for a cigars for the troops that you will take part in. IMO it would be in poor taste for an active duty Marine to ask for smokes to be donated to his unit in Iraq, not because he doesn't deserve it but because I have more respect for the guys here to believe that they try to help take care of our fighting men overseas without the request.
It would have been better if you had just sent Kevin a PM asking him for information for how he did his as you knew he ran one.
Like I said my suggestion now is for you to just lay it all out and apologize for any misconceptions.
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