Below is an excerpt from a town hall meeting, which took place at Forward Operating Base Warrior in Kirkuk, Iraq:

SEC. GATES:  (Applause.)  I want to thank all of you for coming today, although I suspect more than a few of are — are volunteered for this duty today.  Hope you haven’t been standing around here waiting too long.

                I know some of you are just finishing up your tours.  And I just want you to know how grateful I am for the service that you’ve rendered over the last 12 months.  Whether you’re just rotating in or rotating out, you may have noticed that this theater has largely disappeared from the headlines.  That’s due to the sacrifices of too many of our comrades and too many of the sacrifices back home on the part of their families.  But that doesn’t mean that this theater isn’t still important. 

                Your mission here is still critical to preserving the gains of recent years.  This post, right on the Kurd-Arab fault line, will be increasingly important in the next several months.  And your role in fostering cooperation here is essential in ensuring a credible election process and transfer of power. 

                That’s the message that I conveyed to Prime Minister Maliki this morning and the message that I’ll convey to Mr. Barzani this afternoon. And this effort will allow the Iraqis to consolidate the gains that they’ve had.

                I just want you to know that as the holidays approach, everybody back home has you in their thoughts and prayers, and they also have your families in their thoughts and prayers.  And I hope that when you communicate with your families the next time, that you will pass along to them my personal thanks for the support they give you and for the sacrifices that I know they put up with.

                So what I’d like to do is take some questions.  And then what I really want to do is have the opportunity to thank each of you individually, get a photograph with each of you and give you a coin, just as a small token of personal appreciation for your service to our country.

                So with that, who’s the intrepid soul who will have the first question?  (Laughter.)  Over here.  And no, you can’t go home with me.  (Laughter.)

To view the town hall meeting in its entirety, please click here.