Labor Day weekend traffic was wailing along at 5 mph, and I was looking at the backend of hundreds of Chevrolet Tahoes, Expeditions, Jeep Grand Cherokees, and reeking hippy busses that were burning a hole in the ozone up to the cerulean blue skies.

The stragglers from the Burning Man Art Festival – at which 40,000 tree-huggers pop peyote, smoke weed and destroy the ecologically sensitive playa in the Nevada desert – certainly didn't have any Eureka! moments in regard to the environment, I told my traveling buddy Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson.

These teenage dreadlocked navel-gazers were clogging up traffic on the freeway and slowing down our patriotic caravan of freedom lovers traveling to 27 rallies all across the country with a proud pro-troop message. We have dubbed the cross-country caravan the "Fight for Victory Tour," or "give peace through strength a chance" in our more casual moments.

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Monday morning before the launch in Carson City, I looked out the window of our Holiday Inn Express, shocked by the sight of a '60s psychedelic painted bus. I assumed the contraption attached to the rear of the coach was some new-age bio-diesel thingamabob. It turned out to be a collection of rubber anatomically correct private parts. I'll let your imagination roam from there.

Our decorated lead vehicle was sporting streaming banners of red, white and blue flags, and Uncle Sam's image on each side with a sign that read: "We Don't Surrender To Terrorists."

I thought it was a nice compare-and-contrast for what is happening in the world today. Burning Man Festival (which builds a 10-story tall man that is set on-fire at the end of the week-long gathering – but this year had a premature immolation) versus hundreds of men and women who stopped their lives and interrupted their holiday backyard BBQs to turn out in protest of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who calls our troops "losers."

Move America Forward folks believe we are engaged in a life-and-death struggle against the Islamo-fascists who have been on a worldwide killing spree for dozens of years.

Our uplifting message that we are WINNING the war in Iraq delivered in Carson City, Sacramento, San Francisco, Modesto, Los Angeles and all the other stops along the way was enthusiastically received. Cheers of support rolled over the park for Debby Lee, whose son Marc Alan Lee was the first Navy Seal killed in Iraq, and Deborah Johns, whose son William stands ready for his fourth deployment back to the battlefield.

Burning Man attendees were rolling around in the desert dirt, celebrating the Flaming Lotus Girls and Serpent Mother's articulated flaming snake, dropping acid, cramming "shrooms" and dropping out of reality.

OK, so kids and old smelly hippies are entitled to their fun – but when the San Francisco Chronicle (and dozens of other newspapers and blogs) writes about a zillion words about their antics, while ignoring our heartfelt plea for the country to remain strong and united behind our troops and their mission, well, something is out of kilter in the cosmos.

Reality check! Gen. David Petraeus is going to deliver a report to Congress around Sept. 11. My sources say he is going to say something like this:

• There is every reason to be optimist about the prospects for establishing security in Iraq.

   

• Operation Phantom Thunder is the first coherent campaign to route al-Qaida strongholds at once. No more whack-a-moles. AQ in Iraq has been DEFEATED.

   

• Smaller terrorist groups are on the run.

   

• Kim Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, says that "the tide in Iraq is clearly turning, as the Iraqi people are voting with their lives to fight with us against the terrorists and militias. Now is not the time to give up the flight."

Let the '60s refugees and their rainbow-haired progeny roll in the mud and do in their Burning Man. The grown-ups of the world are setting fire to our patriotic spirit, winning freedom for oppressed Iraqis and killing a lot of Muslim extremists who would be more than happy to take them out into the desert night, douse them with gasoline and burn them alive, exactly what they did to Iraqi children whose parents supported reconciliation in Iraq.

Please join the Fight For Victory caravan. Come to Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15 for the Gathering of Eagles and Eagles Up! push-back against the highly offensive "Die-In" by the International A.N.S.W.E.R. crowd.

Cities and locations are posted on the Move America Forward website.