Qatar Trip - Part 2

Part of the fun of going to Qatar is that they have excursions you can take off the base and into the city of Doha. Brad and I went out on what they call the cultural tour, which is an all day tour through the different parts of the city.

First stop was one of the local malls. It reminded me of a cross between the Venetian and Ceasers Palace in Vegas. You could ride the gondola through the inside of the mall and there was a painted sky overhead. Lots of good shops and interesting people walking around. We even grabbed a hamburger and coke at McDonald's before heading out.

Doha hosted the 2006 Asian Games last year. I guess this was a big deal and they built a lot of stuff for it. This is a tower of some sort, I think our guide said that this was being made into a hotel with 500 rooms.

Outdoor venue where the Asian Games were held.

We stopped at the local camel market and took some photos. The camels made a crazy noise at us, kind of like Chewbacca when he was upset. I didn't get too close because I was frankly a little bit freaked out. Our guide said that a camel will remember your face if you hurt it for its entire life, and if it runs into you 20 years from now it will bite you and then sit on you until you die. Allrighty then. That is why the camel jockeys for the races are children, they won't remember them as their faces will change as the age. The camel market didn't smell all that great as you could probably guess.

We stopped at the veggie market as well, nothing too exciting there. Then we shopped for a couple of hours at the outdoor market. Lots of traditional stuff, they kept trying to sell us man dresses and burkas but we passed. I did buy a Rolex at what they call the gold market. I got a pretty sweet deal, I checked online and the model I got sells in the states for $13,500, I only paid 140 Qatari Dinars. Sweet. Next stop was lunch. We had a traditional lunch. Here is the restaurant.

After lunch, it is custom to smoke from the Hooka pipe. Brad and I shared one with apple flavored tobacco. Kids don't try this at home.

The Hooka was followed by coffee and tea. Hello, I ordered a large!!!

Cool building I saw. Can't really remember what it was though. They told us if we took pictures from the bus we'd be tarred and feathered so we had to do the tourist thing when we were stopped.

This is kind of a big deal. Giant oyster and pearl. I took a picture because everyone else was. The Persian Gulf is in the background and a couple of fellow 167 soldiers are on your right.

More to follow.

Qatar Trip - Part 1

There are very few positives of the additional 4 months that got added to our time over here. One of them is that we are now eligible for a 4 day pass to Qatar, a small country down on the Eastern coast of Saudi Arabia in the Persian Gulf. Actually, we were eligible for this before but due to manning requirements our Brigade didn't allow anyone to go. Once we got extended they opened it up and most everyone will have the opportunity.

I was fortunate in that SSG Johnson and I got to go on the same day, so I had a travel partner for the whole trip. It is about a 2.5 hour flight from Anaconda, and luckily we went nonstop. Unluckily we took a C-130 which is a prop driven cargo plane. You sit on netting and it is quite uncomfortable. Since this was military transport, our 2.5 hour trip took about 12 hours all together. You don't just show up 45 minutes before and get on a plane. We reported at 0400, took a roll call, and told to hold tight until 0600. At 0600 we were told to go get breakfast and come back at 0830. At 0830 we were told to hang out until 1030. Somewhere in there we finally got on the plane, and sat on the plane in the sun on the tarmac for another hour until we took off. Here is SSG Johnson on the plane.


After the flight, we went through customs in Qatar where they searched our bags for ammo and other contraband, and then we took a bus from the airport to Camp As Sayliyah. We got our in brief on the dos and donts, and then were blissfully released to do our own thing. Our only time hack for the entire 4 days was to be back at 2100 on the last day to check on our flight home. The first night we got in kind of late, so we went right away and got our allotment of 3 beers (I had Fosters on tap) and then went to Chilis for dinner and then to bed. Luckily, the travel day doesn't count as one of your 4 days so this was basically a free night for us. I think this is a picture of me at Chilis, wearing civilian clothes felt pretty good after being in nothing but ACUs and PTs.

They had a miniature golf course at the gym that we played. I got out to an early 3 stroke lead but SSG Johnson came screaming back and beat me by one. I had about an 8 foot putt on the last hole that I needed to tie but I misread it and pushed it left. Sad night.

They also had a combination Dairy Queen/Orange Julius right in the gym. They would even add a scoop of protein into your Julius for that post workout pump.

More pictures to come over the next few days after I dig out from under the pile of emails that were waiting for me.

More Deployment Souvenirs - Part 3

Final installment of Spur Ride pictures. Follow the links for Part 1 and Part 2 if you need to get caught up. Beans also some coverage over at his blog, follow the links to the right.

All 12 teams getting lined up for the ruck march.




And they're off! You will notice CSM Hall and his sombrero off the right.



Beans and I on the march.

Team America after the march. You will notice how much sweatier Beans, a 21 year old college athlete, is then me, a 31 year old desk jockey, due to my superior physical conditioning.

S1 Spur Holders. SFC Kerchal, me, Burnometer, Hammer, and Beans. Not pictured: SPC Fleck, CW4 Regan, and SSG Johnson. Oh wait, they aren't pictured because they were too scared to compete. Maybe on their next trip to Iraq?

Team America: CPT Wangler, SPC Burnham, yours truly, CPT Varejcka, and SGT Benes.

As mentioned, each station was graded and you had to get a minimum of 70 points to pass and earn your spurs. The first day of competition 2 teams didn't make it so if you didn't train enough it was difficult. Team America finished 2nd out of 12 teams with a 92.6. The winning team had 93.5, so we were less then a point out of first. We left a few points out there on the map reading, weapons, and radio stations, so we were a little disappointed, but we had fun and earned our spurs which is what the day was all about. Since we earned them in a combat zone, we'll get gold spurs, if you earn them at home you get silver. The 2 officers were nice enough to purchase the spurs for the team, so we are thankful for that bonus.

More Deployment Souvenirs - Part 2

You can find Part 1 of this post here. Here are some more pictures from our recent Spur Ride.

Me getting ready to head out on the ruck march. Team America is in the background.

Everyone's favorite soldier Beans looking sharp.

Burnham and CPT Wangler hooking up the radios at the commo station. CPTs Wangler and Varejcka pinned on E3 and E2 rank for the spur ride as they were just joes on the team. That got a lot of laughs throughout the day. Beans and I contemplated smoking them a few times but decided that the payback at the end of the day wasn't worth it. They had to put them together, load them from the ANCD, and then get them set up properly to communicate in a certain amount of time.

My gear for the day. I estimate that between the IBA and the ruck everything weighed about 75 pounds. We had a specific packing list that included 6 liters of water which definitely added quite a bit of weight. This was in addition to my assigned weapon which weighs another 11 pounds. I was at somewhat of a disadvantage as us staff pukes don't wear the IBA nearly much as the line guys.

I have one more set of pictures to upload, so check back in this weekend to see the rest and also find out how Team America finished.

More Deployment Souvenirs - Part 1

The Stetson isn't the only accoutrement that can be earned while attached to a Cavalry unit. Another rite of passage is called a Spur Ride. The details behind a Spur Ride vary by unit, it isn't an official Army sanctioned event so it is up to the unit to come up with something. The driving force behind the Spur Ride is unit morale, team building, and a tie back to Cav history. The 167 Cav held a spur ride on the 18th of March, and I was lucky enough to participate.

Our team consisted of the 2 finest mail clerks in all of Iraq, Beans and Burnometer. Initially the Flecker was going to round out our team, but he got cold feet and backed out. In order to make up for the loss of a Specialist, we added 2 Captains to Team America. CPT Varejcka is our S4 (logistics) officer and CPT Wangler is in charge of the base defense projects like the new fence we are putting up and the new guard towers.

For TF Saber's spur ride, MAJ Teegerstrom wanted it to be training for what we do over here, so it was tailored for Iraq. There were 10 stations that we had to navigate as a team. They were: a timed ruck march, tire change on a Humvee, map reading, medical tasks, grenade throwing, radio operation, blue force tracker (the gps enabled computer system that we use to keep track of all of our guys), Cav history, and the senior spur holder station. We spent about a month prepping for each station so we could dominate each station like good staff Troopers should.

Here is the first batch of pictures from our day. Team America lining up to move out.

Map reading station.

3 man litter carry at the Senior Spur Holder station.

MAJ T giving a pep talk.

Team America changing the tire. I used my cat like quickness to hop into the trunk.

Weapons station. We had an M16, M9 pistol, M2 machine gun (.50 cal) and M240B machine gun completely dissembled in one big pile that we had to assemble in less then 6 minutes.

Putting the finishing touches on the 2 machine guns.

More pictures to follow in Part 2.

Haji Don't Surf

I don't where they came from, but we have a set of old school shades floating around the office. We took a few pictures the other day with the shades. Here is me and my desk.

Me and Irene.

I think there is a striking resemblance to Lt. Col Kilgore from Apocalypse Now. What do you think?

Also, some good news from here. After 12 months here at Anaconda, we discovered there is an MWR lab right next door to our building. The battlespace owner, 2-82 FA, which is a 1st Cav Division unit, shares office space with us and our guys go out on joint patrols with them. The previous group never bothered to offer to let us use their MWR lab, but the new guys are much more gracious, so it will be a little easier for me to do blog updates. So look forward to some increased activity here.

Pre-marathon Update - Weeks 2 - 5

I'm sure you've been waiting on pins and needles for my updates on my progress towards the Chicago Marathon. So, without further ado here is the last few weeks of what I've been up to.

Week 2 (planned/actual):

Monday - Off
Tuesday - 4 / 4 @ 8:19
Wednesday - 6 / 6 @ 9:!2
Thursday - 4 / 2.5 @ 9:22
Friday - Off / 2 @ 8:41
Saturday - 6 / 6 @ 8:53
Sunday - 12 / 12 @ 9:29

Total - 32 / 32.5 @ 9:08

Week 3 (planned/actual):

Monday - Off
Tuesday - 4 / 4 @ 8:37
Wednesday - 5 / 5.25 @ 8:57
Thursday - 4 / 0
Friday - Off / 3.1 @ 7:36
Saturday - 5 / 6 @ 8:39
Sunday - 9 / 6.25 @ 8:24

Total - 27 / 24.6 @ 8:31

Week 4 (planned/actual):

Monday - Off
Tuesday - 4 / 4 @ 8:07
Wednesday - 7 / 0
Thursday - 4 / 0
Friday - Off / 4 @ 36:36
Saturday - 7 / 7.25 @ 9:20
Sunday - 10 / 10 @ 9:27

Total - 32 / 25.2 @ 9:10

Week 5 (planned/actual):

Monday - Off
Tuesday - 4 / 4 @ 9:18
Wednesday - 7 / 7 @ 8:34
Thursday - 4 / 4 @ 8:15
Friday - Off
Saturday - 7 / 7 @ 8:38
Sunday - 12 / 0

Total - 34 / 22 @ 8:40

Now you can sleep at night! Week 3 we had a practice road march for the 167 Spur Ride (more to come on that) so I cut some miles from my long run on Sunday. Week 4 I had a dozen article 15 hearings in 3 days. After standing for 4-5 hours a day I didn’t' feel much like running so I missed a few. Last week we had the actual Spur Ride on Sunday and I was pretty tired after so I missed another day. Other than that, things are going okay. The weather has been nice which makes it easy to be outside. My current plan is to continue to run as it gets hot out and hopefully get acclimated to the heat so I don't get chased back inside again. We'll see how that goes.

Irene

As promised, here are some pictures of my newest time killer. After buying the Picco Z, and flying that around for a while, I realized I needed something with a little more power. I did some research and found just the bird, the Blade CP. It is a 6 channel collective pitch helicopter, which means that it will fly forward, backwards, side to side, and up and down. It will also fly upside down, although I'm light years away from doing that.

Here is a pic with the old helicopter.

The controller. Lots of buttons and switches.

The canopy with a few additions.

The only negative so far is that I don't have a great place to fly. I use the Tomahawk range in back of our building, which is good unless it is windy. So I can only fly a few days a week. I'm done with ground school and have moved on to learning how to hover. It is quite difficult but I'm learning. Someone compared it to balancing a marble and a sheet of glass, which I think is accurate. The controls are very sensitive and you are constantly adjusting to what the helicopter wants to do. Good times!

I've only crashed once (at least once hard) so far, and I bent a piece that I had to replace. Other than that, things are going pretty good. Hopefully soon I'll be moving past the hover stage and doing some real flying shortly.

March Madness!!!!

AFN is doing us right again, and they have 2, sometimes 3 channels devoted to March Madness. Hammer and I are currently holding down the fort in the office watching a classic battle between Maryland and Davidson. It is going to be a long weekend for us, as the games run pretty much all night. In fact, we have basketball on until 0630 tomorrow morning. We are looking forward to it though, it will be a nice distraction from the mundane. Sleep is a crutch anyway!

Once again, I'm buying into the hype and have picked KU to win it all. We watched the KU vs Texas Big 12 title game and I came away really impressed with the Jayhawks. They can pretty much play any type of basketball and have a ton of depth which is important in tourney time. I think they are the best time in the nation, but we'll find out in about 2 weeks. Rock chalk!

A Date with Desitny - 007

I like to think that our section comes up with some good ideas from time to time. Our latest master plan is that we are working our way through the James Bond movies. LTC Apprich has the Ultimate Bond Collection, and was kind enough to give us the hookup. I thought I would review each movie as we watch them Monday nights. Tonight is week 3, we've already got 2 in the books. The collection doesn't go in chronological order, so I'll review them as we watch them.

Week 1 - Goldfinger (1964). I didn't start watching Bond until the early 80s, so I haven't seen many of the early ones. This is a Connery Bond, and was a definitely a good way to get our weekly movie night started. It was funny how much the Austin Power series borrowed from Bond, this one in particular. The villain (Goldfinger) has a diabolical scheme to pollute the world's gold supply at Fort Knox, thereby increasing the value of the gold that he holds. He has a pretty cool henchman (Odd Job) who throws a hat. Ouch.

This was a really solid film that we all enjoyed. Even though over 40 years old, there are some decent action scenes and Connery is on his game throughout. There are some classic cars, from the Aston Martin DB5 to what I think is a 64 1/2 Mustang convertible. Bond has some sweet tricks, the villain has some good lines, and the movie keeps a pretty good pace throughout. I give this one 4 stars out of 5.

Week 2 - Diamonds are Forever (1971). This one is another Connery, I believe his last. Unfortunately this movie really stunk. If it hadn't of been a Bond, I think we would have turned it off halfway through. The villain is dumb, and he has 2 henchmen that are incredibly annoying, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. Believe it or not, they are actually a gay couple, which I was surprised to find in a 70s movie. This one again centers around a smuggling ring, although diamonds this time. Not much to like in this one. Connery mails in his performance, dialogue is forgettable, and the majority of the film takes place in Las Vegas. The fun part of Bond is that he travels all over the world and Vegas in the early 70s isn't all that glamorous, although the villains hotel is pretty cool. Stay away from this one, far away. 1 star out of 5.

Tonight is the Man with the Golden Gun, our first Roger Moore. I'll follow up later this week with my review. We should be able to get through all 20 Bonds before we head out of lovely LSA Anaconda at our pace of one per week.

The Man Has Got Me Down

Well, the blogging has been pretty hit or miss lately. It has been a combination of the MWR lab being closed for painting, being busy with work stuff (always a drag on my myriad number of hobbies), and lack of motivation. March is going to be the toughest month of the deployment. Everyday there is a new milestone for something that should or shouldn't have happened due to the extension. For instance, we should currently have our "left seat" training complete with our replacements. That is where we do the work and they ride along and take notes. Our "right seat" training should have started by now, which is where our replacements do the work and we watch over their shoulders. For us admin pukes, it is pretty simple because our replacements were to be active duty and probably don't need a Nat'l Guard unit telling them how to do their jobs. It was more of an update for anything special they need to know about being in theater. Friday, March 9th, was our original TOA (transfer of authority) date and we would have been outta dodge shortly after that. Each day that goes by we talk about how different things would be if we were going home and not spending another 4 months here. SFC Kerchal went so far as to say we may actually have all died in a mortar attack, and are currently in purgatory. Every time our new TOA date comes around we'll find out we are getting extended and never get to leave. I've been having nightmares ever since.

Once we get through March things will get better. We should have an idea of our new TOA date by the end of the month, and essentially April 1st will be sort of like December 1st. Time to start thinking/planning/working on getting out of here. Right now we are in limbo which isn't much fun. One of the Brigade staff officers used to always say that this deployment isn't a sprint, it is a marathon. He now says that is isn't a marathon, it is a death march. We have depicted this on our big white board with stick figures representing each month. Right now our stick figure guy is crawling along the ground. In April he will start to get up off the ground. May and June he will be heading towards the light. July he will be back on his feet. August he will be celebrating with his friends and family. So, we'll make it through some how.

I was planning on doing a post on my new helicopter today but I forgot my flash drive with the pictures. After consulting with the Dan the Man, I've named her Irene. I am still figuring out how to fly her, and things are going pretty slow right now. I found a flight instructor on the 'net (really!) and he is giving me some tips. Once I get the hang of it I'll do a more detailed post of me and my bird. I am done with Radd's ground school and am moving on to hovering right now. I had a little bit of a hard landing the other day and bent an important piece, but my Crew Chief (SFC Kerchal) and I did some maintenance and she is back up in the air. Good times.

New Interview at Thinking Right, Pre-Marathon Update Week 1 of 16

Jim over at Thinking Right has a new interview up with another deployed soldier. Go check it out if you want to know what soldiers on the ground think about the effort. As always a good read.

Week 1 of 16, (planned/actual):

Monday - off
Tuesday - 4 / 4.5 @ 9:11
Wednesday - 6 / 6 @ 9:00
Thursday - 4 / 4 @ 8:31
Friday - off
Saturday - 6 / 6 @ 9:02
Sunday - 10 / 10.25 @ 8:56
Total - 30 / 30.75

Good week all together. First time over 30 miles in one week which is a good milestone for me. Here is the plan for this week:

Week 2 of 16:

Monday - off
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 6
Thursday - 4
Friday - off
Saturday - 6
Sunday - 12
Total - 32

Small Pleasures, Steaks, Castles

Before you do anything else today, go read this story I found via a link from ROFASix. A few excerpts:

I've said it before - we've forgotten the days when we called for blood. We've forgotten the days when we listened to the President tell us that this would be a long war, would have many fronts, and would not look like any war we'd seen before, and our only response was the rallying cry of that horrible day - "Let's roll."

I have always believed, always known, that no foreign power would destroy my country. I have always known that my country was something amazing - something unique, and possessed of an innate will, an innate strength, which would always make her a fearsome enemy.

Our enemies - all of our enemies - hate what we are. They hate that we continue to snub convention. They hate that we flourish, because it exposes their failures. They hate that we exalt the individual achievement, because they see their own weaknesses. They hate that we do not apologize for greatness, because they see their own inadequacies. They hate our courage, because it exposes their cowardice. They hate those of us who speak plainly, who call terrorists and murderers and cowards what they are, because it exposes the thin veil of their lies.

Half a world away, men and women willingly risk their lives for a country that we would simply give away. To do so is the ultimate betrayal. It is an offense that is unforgiveable.

Go read the rest, it is well worth your time.

A few posts back I mentioned SSG Johnson's new toaster oven. Here is a picture. Not sure what that Goldbond is doing there. This is what passes for excitement for us now a days, making sandwiches and pizzas in our office.


Turkey/bacon/swiss hot out of the oven.

SSG Johnson enjoying his well made sandwich.

Here are the steak(s) I enjoyed for the Super Bowl. They didn't have any big enough to meet my standards for the Super Bowl so I had 2. Who needs sides?

The LSA Anaconda Consolidated Legal Center has a pretty neat paint job that I thought I would share. Right before the 3rd Coscom group left in September, they repainted the t-walls to look like a castle. Every building here is surronded by these cement barriers to help protect from mortar attacks. The paint jobs can be quite cool, but usually they are limited to one or 2 barriers right in front. Some poor joes got to paint the whole thing.

We know call it Castle JAG.

Branch crest.

Marathon Update - ChiTown

I have been debating over what to do about my marathon plans for the last few weeks since we got extended and I won't be home for the Lincoln Marathon. After much internet research, I have settled upon what I think is a solid plan. I am now in training for the2007 Chicago Marathon, where me and 45,000 of my friends will get together for 26.2 miles of fun on October 7. From everything I read, it is a great race for a first timer like myself, and is flat and fast as they like to say. Team Sack still needs a few members, JAg and Ol' Buddy B are both on the fence at this point but I am confident they will make the leap.

Accordingly, I'll be updating my training schedule. I'm still going to use the same program, but will not start my actual training until sometime in June. I am of course going to keep running, but will looking to run more miles throughout the week and not necessarily get really crazy with the long runs until I start the actual program. I would like to get up to 40 miles a week with a long run of 10-12 miles. So I'm working towards that. I am going to continue to post my weekly schedule as it is a great way for me to stay motivated. Also it is an easy post I can do via email.

Week 5 of 18, planned/actual:

Monday - off
Tuesday - 3 / 3.25 @ 8:12
Wednesday - 6 / 6.25 @ 8.25
Thursday - 3 / 3 @ 8:22
Friday - off
Saturday - 6 / 6.25 @ 8:26
Sunday - 12 / Super Bowl!
Total - 30 / 18.75

I was really planning on going for a 12 miler on Sunday, but at the time I knew that I wasn't going to be doing Lincoln, we grilled steaks for the Super Bowl, and I had to get up at 0200 to watch the game. I ended up not running so I could catch some sleep.

Week 6 of 18, planned/actual:

Monday - off
Tuesday - 3 / 4 @ 8:15
Wednesday - 5 / off
Thursday - 3 / 5.25 @ 8.38
Friday - off / 3.1 @ 8:11
Saturday - 6 / 5.15 @ 8:45
Sunday - 9 / 10 @ 9:05
Total - 26 / 27.5

I don't remember what happened on Wednesday, but I ended up moving everything back a day. Saturday I looked at the wrong line on my schedule and thought I was only supposed to do 5, so I added an extra mile to Sunday. Good news is I'm down about 5 pounds in the first 6 weeks of training, it would be nice if I keep up that pace for the next few months.

I am going to change my numbering scheme, and this week is Week 1 of 16 of pre-marathon training, which is kind of depressing because we'll still be here when I finish up my pre training. Oh well, what can you do?

Week 1 of 16:

Monday - off
Tuesday - 4
Wednesday - 6
Thursday - 4
Friday - off
Saturday - 6
Sunday - 10
Total - 30

Mr. Mister and His New Best Friend, Online Chaplain

Here is the little guy with the Cookie Monster I got him for Christmas. He likes to try to feed him cookies, and makes a funny sound as he can't say cookie just yet.

Looking sporty at Grandmas house. It looks cold there back home. I don't miss the winter too much, believe it or not. He looks to me like he is getting ready to go for a run.

Try number 2. I had just finished what I thought was a pretty good post and went to post it and it went somewhere into the internet wasteland. I am ready to put a few .223 rounds into this computer, but then I would have give myself an Article 15 and that would get confusing. So, I'm going to try again although I'm sure the second pass won't be quite as good. Sorry. Oh and the spell checker isn't working so I'm sure there are some typos in here as well. You can request a refund if it really bothers you.

Follow this link to find an outstanding blog post from a chaplain in another Battalion within our Brigade. I actually spent a little bit of time with him at Camp Shelby as we were fellow late mobbers and went through the makeup land navigation class together (you can't spell lost with LT by the way). The post is titled One Day Closer to Someday and when I read it, it pretty much describes how I've been feeling of late.

A strange thing happens to a soldier when they have been deployed for as long as we have been. Somewhere along the path this becomes the primary reality. It’ a scary thing and I have a better understanding of soldier atrocities, where soldiers have lost there humanity. I can no longer imagine what it is like to come home after a long day of work. I can no longer imagine what it will be like to sit and watch TV in the evening with my kids, or go for a Sunday drive, or sit down for a meal with my family. Without that imagination I have come up with this simple word of hope, “I am one day closer to someday.”

I don't know when I've felt this way in the past, but 14 months away from home, and my new reality is my daily routine here. Get up, go to work, go to the gym, go for a run, go to dinner, back to the office, call the wife, go to bed. Same uniform, same people, same office, etc. I can't remember when it happened, but I honestly can't grasp what it is like to not be in Iraq. I am no longer a husband-father-son-brother-employee. Those roles have been replaced by soldier-sergeant-legal guy-buddy.

What is odd is that there are days that the only thing real to me is my routine, and everything else is like a distant memory that I reach for but can't quite grasp. My son thinks that I live inside of either the phone, the video camera, or the computer, whichever happens to be in front of him at the time. How could he think otherwise? We've spent 19 of the last 375 days together, and I've now been gone longer then the time I spent with him. And I'm one of the fortunate ones, some left within a month or two of their child being born or even left with a pregnant spouse. I at least had 8 solid months to start building a relationship. Others have children that are old enough to know they are gone, and have to answer the question of "Daddy, when are you coming home?"

Driving a car to work, stopping to get groceries on the way home, mowing the lawn, and doing the dishes are now foreign concepts to me. Although Rik would argue that doing the dishes was a foreign concept before I left, but don't you believe her. I distinctly remember doing them at least twice. Maybe three times. Again, I am one of the lucky ones. I will most likely come home essentially the same person I was before I left, although a few pounds lighter and in far better shape. I've been to a combat zone but I haven't been to war. Soldiers that I serve with will live the rest of the lives with some of the things they've seen and done. Some will come home without all of the parts they came with and others won't come home at all. The worst case of PTSD I'll have is the horrors of Chief yelling over the plywood walls for Kerch and Johnson at least 10 times a day.

The Online Chaplain ends with: The 34th ID is one day closer to going home. So are we all. The bible says, we are one day closer to streets of gold. We are one day closer to…no more sorrow, no more pain, no more hardship of any kind. Although this life becomes our primary reality, there is another. Although this life’s hardships absorb me and capture me there are other truths. I’m not sure what heaven looks like, but I am sure it will be great. So, hang on tight. Don't let the pain win. You can do it. You will not always feel the way you do today. Remember, “You are one day closer to someday.”

I do know this, today is one day closer to coming home, whatever that day may be. And regardless of the things I miss about home, I still know that God has a plan for my life whether I understand it or not. He is strong enough to get us through our troubled times. Perhaps the most encouraging thought for me is that when I was home in September for leave, it took all of about 2 steps off the tarmac to forget about Iraq, the Army, and remember what it is like to be a husband-father-son-brother and a person with a first name. As soon as I saw my wife and son for the first time, I knew that was exactly where I was meant to me and what I was meant to do: to be the best husband to my wife and the best father to my son that I can be. I trust that it will be the same this summer, and that a year from now I'll be older but wiser, with a few good stories, and the knowledge that I served the cause of freedom and defended our great country.

Gettin' Some Stick Time

I saw an article in one of the magazines I read, Business 2.0, shortly after Christmas that extolled the virtues of the latest toy craze. It was about mini RC helicopters and how they were the most popular toy of 2006. I was instantly intrigued, however, since we were due to head out of town shortly I decided against purchasing one. Well, once we got the news that we were staying, I decided a little break from the mundane would help cure my ills. I went out and purchased one, and even roped in SFC Kerchal and SSG Johnson. LTC Apprich and Chief Regan soon followed suit with a purchase of their own.

Here is the my chopper and controller, going through the pre-flight charge.

This one is a little blurry, but shows my lil' guy up in the air.

Getting ready to launch. They will take off from a flat surface or you can toss them around which is quite fun.

Hovering above Hammer's desk. My heli is drawn towards Hammer's work space, I think because it annoys him greatly.

In flight, out the door of the S1 section.
These helis are a ton of fun, but unfortunately they are only 2 channel (up/down and rotate left/right). You can't really hover or fly back and forth, they are so light that any air current moves them around. The main thing is just keeping them in the air and away from obstacles. They can really take a beating as most flights end up with a crash. I must say that I've become quite addicted, so with the wife's permission I am in the process of upgrading to a 4 channel model that will go forward/back as well. More to follow on that....