Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam meets a service member at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, on Tuesday. Haslam and the governors of Kentucky, Nevada and Utah are traveling throughout U.S. Central Command to meet with service men and women from their states.NASHVILLE – Gov. Bill Haslam says his first experience visiting deployed service members from Tennessee in Iraq and Kuwait is proving to be an “incredible eye-opening experience.”
“My main impression is a huge appreciation of the work that the men and women are doing over here,” Haslam said, speaking to Tennessee reporters Tuesday on a conference call about his unannounced trip.
The governor, whose call came from a Kuwaiti base, said the “working conditions are incredibly hard and the work they’re doing is difficult and dangerous still.”
He left the country Monday with Govs. Steve Beshear of Kentucky, Brian Sandoval of Nevada and Gary Herbert of Utah.
Haslam said he was invited by the U.S. Defense Department on the Pentagon-funded trip because of the number of Tennessee servicemen and women in Iraq and Kuwait. The governor had visited five or six bases, including the Baghdad International Airport, which is also a base, by the time he spoke with reporters Tuesday afternoon.