OIF

2008-12-18T22:59:00.002-05:00

Long time no post. Let me catch you up really quick...

About 3 months after I got back, I got into a fight with a weight bench. Not one of those puny "I'm just sitting here with an uninhabited press bar" benches, but a "You know you can do up to 40 different exercises and I'm currently holding about a ton of unused potential man-ness" kind of benches. Doesn't matter if it was a Hulk Hogan starter set bench, I got beat, and beat hard. I broke my patella in half. 2 surgeries later, I now realized I haven't dreamt that I had a good knee in over a year. Weird how you dream you're disabled.

Now don't let me confuse anyone, I'm not completely disabled. I can run a little bit, I can walk without a limp, so I don't mean to deceive anyone. I'm not in a wheelchair, I'm not fully disabled.

At the same time my unit got a new leadership program. I don't mean to sound rash, but I wouldn't have followed my 1SG into Alabama so I decided it was my time to move on. My friend was a saxophone player in a Reserve band in Charlotte...I'm thinking what you're thinking, the Army Reserves have a band?!? Yes they do, and I joined it as a guitarist/percussionist.

While a part of the band, I finished my degree in Criminal Justice, got married to the love of my life and moved to Winston and got a job with a major bank.

2 years later I am officially a PFC. Private F*cking Civilian. Ft. Livingroom...ever heard of it?

It's funny, I spent a total of 4 years in a very liberal college, 8 years as a soldier, and 1 1/2 years as a deployed soldier and I have learned more about live in the last 2 civilian with a job years than ever. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade my status a soldier and a veteran for anything, it's taught me how to survive physically, but my civilian life has given me an opportunity to look at the life of a soldier from the outside.

Have you ever met someone who's about to go to the sandbox? And I don't mean from a "Yea I'm about to go too" standpoint, but a "God bless you, you're a true American hero" standpoint...it's the saddest thing you've ever seen.

I have. Years after I got back I had to watch my best friend get ready to go. I had to watch him pass test after test qualifying him to get shot at. Ironic how you're ability to pass a survival test can get you killed. Watched him as he told his wife goodbye, watched him as he changed his mannerisms, his personality, his very reason for existence.

"Let me know if there's anything I can do to help" I say truly heartfelt, but sounding foolish...I think to myself, there's nothing short of packing his bags and moving him to Europe that I can do to help him.

It's good to be back, more to come.

2005-02-08T16:23:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. First and foremost I just want to apologize for not being on here for the last...however long it was. Nothing happened to me except the pains/pleasures of coming home. So I'll try to fill you in.

I got to Camp Doha from Virginia in Kuwait and that's where I found out that I probably wasn't going to have time to update you guys. Sure enough...no time, no availability of the internet. I got there the day before we left. The next day was full of travel. First to APOD (which is the term we use for the airport), then Germany, then New Jersey, and finally Georgia. I wish it were as easy as it sounded me just typing it, but that was not the case.

Anyway, it really wasn't that bad. The next couple of days in Georgia were filled with long lines trying to demob and start the process of being a civilian again. Great stuff.

Finally, we made it home at about 1:00 pm today. We were met with a couple news crews and plenty of excited family. It was a great process. Now some of the juicy details.

We got home in GA at night and when we stepped off the bus, there was my family waiting on me smiling and holding signs and taking pictures. I smiled and went on inside to get ready for the ceremony. After the ceremony, I hugged my mom and she handed me a ring that I had purchased on leave in September. After that I got down on one knee and asked my girlfriend Amy to marry me. She accepted and it got quite an applause. So now my girlfriend of 3 and a half years is now my fiance.

Here are the pictures from the engagement. http://community.webshots.com/album/266502631NmamMz

I wanted to take a quick second and thank everyone who has followed me this year. It has been a very tough year and whether or not you agree with the reason we are overseas, the American people have been nothing but supportive of the troops and for that I can't thank you enough.

I'm probably not going to keep going with this blog. I may keep it up and blog every once in a while, but it will be nothing like it is now. I am home, but it is bittersweet. We still have soldiers fighting and standing in harms way, so just because I'm home I urge you, don't give up the prayers. There are soldiers, even ones that I served with, that are still there.

I also want to point out that civilians like to thank the soldiers. But as a soldier, I would like to think the combat arms soldiers and Marines. Every day while I was sitting in the motorpool or post office, this guys were face to face with the enemy. I came home with all my friends, most these guys don't. So as a soldier I thank you combat arms from the bottom of my heart for keeping me safe...Thank you and God bless you.

I love you all and I thank you again so much for your prayers and support. This was one soldier's story...God bless.

2005-01-30T04:03:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Just wanted to give you a quick update. I can’t type long because the space bar doesn’t work on this computer very well and it’s making me mad. I have a couple good updates for you. For one, the rest of my platoon made it to Kuwait. So now we’re all here. Number two is that we got a pretty definite date of when we’re flying in. Of course I can’t put it on here, but my family and Amy know now.
To avoid breaking this guy’s computer out of rage, I’m going to go ahead and get off for now. But I’ll come back soon and update you guys on anything else that happens. Really, it’s all back seat to the fact that I’m coming home anyway. Ok, love you guys and I’ll see you really soon. God bless and thank you for your prayers and support.

2005-01-26T06:06:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. As “the man that doesn’t blog” pointed out, I made a mistake. After I blogged that he hadn’t written me, I saw that he had. My fault man who doesn’t blog :) Anyway, I wanted to let you all know what’s going on here. We spent the last two days traveling around the country. Today we brought another unit’s equipment to the shipping dock. I can’t wait until that’s our stuff. Speaking of which, our connexes are on their way down here right now, so that’s awesome. As soon as they get here, we have to clean them up a little, weigh them and send them to the ship.

Other than that there is nothing going on for now. I’ll let you know if things change but right now we’re just trying to beat a schedule so that we can leave on the day that our flight is scheduled. If not, then we’ll just catch the next one, but I would love to leave as soon as there is opportunity. So cross your fingers. That’s it, hope everyone is doing well. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. God bless and I’ll see you soon.

2005-01-23T06:49:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Just wanted to let you all know what’s going on around here. Things are still about the same. It poured yesterday all day and got our tent soak and wet, but today it’s pretty again, so I don’t get this country.

We have a tentative fly date for the states, but the rest of my platoon isn’t even in Kuwait yet so like I said, tentative. From what I hear it may be snowing a lot in the big ‘ole NC, so I hope that doesn’t mess everyone’s plans to come down and see me. I’m not sure how long it’s supposed to snow, but I’ll e-mail a few people and let them know when the tentative date is so that they can disperse the info to the others.

I guess that’s about it. I asked a buddy to e-mail me what was going on in Iraq so that I could blog that too, but he’s doing a crappy job of it, so I guess we all have to wonder. Anyway, that’s it for now. You guys are so awesome for everything that you’ve done for me this last year; from your prayers to your boxes to your e-mails to your comments. It’s all been awesome and I thank all of you for it. God bless, see you soon.

2005-01-21T03:01:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So another couple boring days, but at least it gives me plenty of gym time. Some good news from Kuwait. The unit that got here before us is officially gone. They left this morning and they are on their way home. That is good news only because we're next. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for them to leave, but I'll be much more excited for me.

We got our call forward which is our official orders for the rest of the platoon to come down here with us, which means we can leave. I'm not sure how long it's going to take them to get down here, or when they are leaving, but after they get a few more things done that I know they have to do then they'll be on their way then we'll be on our way. I can't wait.

Again, not much that I can think of in the way of stuff to tell you about, I'm just glad it's all coming to an end. Thank you all so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

2005-01-19T05:50:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So this place is completely boring. Nothing to do at all. I've been going to the gym and watching the same 10 movies over and over again to waste my time. What can ya do? We took a little trip to Doha today so that I could get a bus lisense so that I can drive around this country. The people here are horrible drives so it'll be interesting.

We got some good news up in Taji. Now everyone gets to leave their vehicles and equipment, not just our platoon. So the other platoons now may get out as soon as we do. It'll be great. I still don't know any dates about when I'll be getting home, but it shouldn't be too much longer.

I wish there were more to report, but it's so boring around here that I'm lucky I haven't slipped into a coma due to lack of entertaiment. Oh well, at least the people I'm here with are cool. OK, I'm gone for now, I'll let you all know when I find out something. Thanks for your prayers and support. God bless.

2005-01-17T09:15:00.000-05:00

OK, so I typed half of this out on a crappy keyboard that took me 20 min to type out what should have taken 5 and then lost it all. So I'm not very happy right now. But I'll blog nonetheless to let you all know what's going on. Where to start? The last couple days have been hell and I'm glad it's over.

Thursday night we're set to fly out of Taji to Balad. We have a LOT of baggage because we're all leaving forever (hopefully) so that doesn't make it any easier. We get on the bird and take off and land in like 5 min. We all know it takes longer than that get to Balad so we're not really sure where we are. We pick up a few people and some boxes and take off again. We fly for another good 45 min and land in a half a mile long perimeter marked off with lights in the middle of nowhere. Now I have no idea where we are. They tell us a bunch of initials, which I have no idea what they mean, and later we found out we landed in an FOB (Forward Observation Base) in Fallujah. Good stuff. We dropped off blankets or something. Thankfully, we were out before I even knew where we were.

After that, we fly for a while and finally land in Balad. Our new batallion (which may I just say is ten times the batallion that we over us before) picks us up and takes us to a little tent city where we finally get in to bed...this is at 0300. We wake up at 0430 and get ready to go our briefings for flying. After our briefings we get our names on a list to get out as soon as possible and they gave us a tent to stay in until they call our names. We stay there all day and then get ready for our flight.

Mind you we've been moving a ton of bags this whole time and we're all pooped from getting an hour of sleep the night prior. They have us move our bags outside after moving them inside because our flight is supposed to be announced in a little while...yea, it never does. Turns out our flight gets pushed back a couple times then cancelled...AT 0300 AGAIN!! We get in the bed finally (after moving our bags again) and finally get some sleep. We get to sleep in the next day, so it wasn't that bad.

After we finally get on our flight the next night, we fly into Kuwait, land, clap, all happy to be out of Iraq. We get off and wait on our ride. And wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. She got lost. WOW. Anyway, after our ride comes, at 11:00 pm when we landed at 9:00 pm, we get on and make it back to Victory. Where we are now. We got in the bed last night at 0230 again, so it's been a nice little routine.

But we're here, we have all of our baggage, and I'm out of Iraq. So all the hussle was worth it I guess. This place wouldn't be so bad though except that it's pooring the rain. We're staying in a tent that leaks so all of our stuff is wet now. That's nice. We're working on a plan that will get us out of here by the end of this month or the beginning of the next, so cross your fingers. I'll will let you all know when I'm coming home, but it'll be last minute. For now, we have plenty of work to do.

If I had anything else to tell you, I can't think of it now and I'm tired of typing anyway, so maybe next blog. It's harder to get to the net here, but I will, as always, make an attempt to get to you all. OK, I'm gone for now. Thank you all so much for your support and prayers. IT'S ALMOST OVER!!! Oh, I almost forgot...my cousin has now been deployed with a tanker's unit (I think, I haven't gotten all the details) but I ask that you all keep him in your prayers now. He's going to be busy for the next year. God bless. Talk to you all soon, and hopefully see you soon too. Peace

2005-01-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. I wanted to let you all know that I finally got a hard date for when I'll be out of here. I'm now attached to the advanced party going to Kuwait. As redundant as it is by now, I can't tell you when but let's just say, my next blog will be from Kuwait. Awesome huh?

Anyway, everything else around here is normal. Everyone around here was getting people to sign t-shirts and flags to remember them by, but I thought, what better way to remember everyone than to have them sign my guitar. So I had people sign my guitar and when I get back, I'll hang it up on my wall.

Well, I guess I have nothing else. I'm excited about leaving and I have almost everything packed so I'm ready. Guess that's it. See you all in Kuwait. God bless and thanks for your prayers and support.

2005-01-09T03:14:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I have great news for you all. As of right now we are leaving our vehicles here. What that means is, no waiting on TMR dates for other trucks to tow ours down to Kuwait, no waiting on them in Kuwait, no cleaning them once we get to Kuwait, it could knock weeks off our time to get home. So we'll see.

We also get to leave one of our connexes here so that means once everyone puts their personal boxes in the one connex that we are taking home, then all we have to wait for is a customs inspection. Hopefully that will be soon.

I still don't know when exactly I'll be in Kuwait or at home. I'm sorry, but that's something I probably won't know until days before it happens. I guess that's it for now. As awesome as it is, I know it's still not solid dates and I know that's what everyone's is waiting for including me. But I will let someone know that can let everyone else know as soon as I find out.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support, I can see the light at the end of this year long tunnel and it's beautiful. :)

EDIT: On a very sad note, my great aunt Dot died on January 5th. I'm very sorry that I couldn't be home for the funeral but I want my family to know that I am praying for Dave and the rest of my family. God bless.

2005-01-05T05:38:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. A few more days down and I got A LOT of packing done. They have given us a two week window of when we should be leaving and it's soon, so that's awesome. They said we needed to be in a situation in the barracks that we would be able to pack in an hour's time to get to the flight line. So that's what I have done. I sent another two boxes of stuff home today and now I'm officially done. The only thing I have left here is military clothes and miscellaneous survival items...toiletries etc.

Here's how it's supposed to work. The main body (me included) will leave and fly down to Kuwait. We will leave a couple behind to make sure our equipment gets loaded up properly. Then they will meet us down there about the same time our equipment (vehicles included) gets there. We will then spend the next couple days cleaning them. After that we put them in a sterile yard and here we come America.

The main body could be in Kuwait for a couple weeks waiting on the vehicles, but I can handle Kuwait. They don't shoot at you there. Once the second smaller group gets to Kuwait we should be there for less than a week. Once we get to the states, we should be in MOB station for just a couple days.

They say it's hardcore get in get out down there, so if you're planning on coming down to meet me at MOB station, you should know that I'm not going to get very much time to visit. Pretty much just the evenings...maybe. But anyone that wants to come down is more than welcome to come. After we get done processing, back home we go and then on to the rest of our lives. Can't wait. So there that is.

Our promotion packets SHOULD be going through the board today, so hopefully I will find something out soon. When I know you will know. I can't really think of anything else to tell you. I thought I had something, but I've lost it now. I appreciate you reading my blog and mostly for your prayers and support. God bless, I'll be home soon.

EDIT: I see a lot of you have listened to "Paper Idols." I appreciate it. I just wanted you all to know that I have a new song up too. It's older but it's the first time I've recorded it. You can go to www.afbmthemovie.com and look at the "Downloads" section to find it. It's called "Sand Song."

2005-01-02T08:17:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So the new year hasn't been that bad so far. We had a nice reuniting of the soldiers that we had to send down to Baghdad today. Now that they are all back plus the replacements for one of the platoons, we finally have plenty of people to help work. Our replacements are supposedly in Kuwait right now getting ready to come up here, so that's pretty exciting too. I think when they get here I'm not going to be able to contain myself. It's going to just be too much. I can't wait.

Me and one other soldier got our promotion packets in and they are supposed to go to the board on the 5th of January. If we have enough points to get promoted, we should know about it about two weeks after it gets through the board.

That's all I have for right now I guess. Things are going good and I can't wait to get out of this place. Gotta keep my head in the game though, if I get too antsy time will go way too slowly. God bless and thank you all for your prayers and support. Peace.

2004-12-31T11:09:00.000-05:00

Well, a year has come and a year has gone. I thought for this segment, I would list some of the things that I and other soldiers have endured.

During the course of this year I have:
Visited a new country
Talked a different language
Kissed my mother goodbye in tears
Lied and said "I'm not scared"
Cried over the phone to my girlfriend
Watched an incredible sunrise
Watched an incredible sunset
Heard a mortar round shot
Heard a mortar round land
Been 200 yards from an impacting rocket
Been less than that from an impacting mortar round
Been 300 yards from an exploding IED
Walked on the Iraqi streets with a bullet in the chamber begging the people not to start anything because there were children around
Laid on the streets under a truck with my weapon ready to fire
Watched a building wondering if a sniper was going to take a shot
Asked my friend to tell my girlfriend I loved her if anything happened to me
Stood in a crowd of Iraqi's
Yelled at a crowd of Iraqi's to move back and get away
I've been scared
I've been happy
I've cried
I know what it smells like when a motar explodes
I know what it sounds like when a car bomb goes off
I know what a 50 cal sounds like in the distance
I know what it feels like to not be scared of a noise anymore
I know what it feels like to not have your family there
I know what it feels like to not be there for your family
And if there's one thing I've learned in this year, it's that I could have lived without this.

I love you all, I'll be back soon
God bless.

2004-12-30T10:32:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I don't have much time, so I wanted to write really quick and let you all know that I'm still doing fine. Not much has changed. We heard some explosions today but from what I hear they were all outgoing.

We have some more stuff going on, but it's stuff that hasn't happened yet, so I'll have to tell you all about it later. And I will in a couple days. Sorry I don't have more, hope you're all doing fine. Love you and God bless. Thank you so much for your prayers and support. Peace.

2004-12-27T01:32:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. When I finally woke up Christmas day (after staying up until 0400 Christmas Eve night) it was pouring, an absolute downpour. It rained pretty much all day on Christmas and made one huge muddy mess. Christmas Eve was nice, that night was gorgeous, and the 26th was really pretty today, as is today, but for some reason the weather decided to punish us on Christmas. Oh well. The day really wasn't that bad, like I said, one more day closer to coming home.

We have had a lot more updates on the movie website including some downloads. You can now download the AFBM movie trailer, a forfeit movie that Whitney made with pictures from 3rd ID, and he put up a song that I completed called "Paper Idols." If you want to download any of these, go to www.afbmthemovie.com and either scroll to the bottom and download there, or click the "downloads" link to find the links. You can stream or right click save as.

Time's coming soon to an end, but it seems that dates keep getting pushed back. They have changed the way advanced party works here. Initially, the advanced party was supposed to go down with the vehicles before the main group got there and so they could clean the vehicles and be ready to roll out as soon as the main party got there.

But now, the dates for the vehicles to go down have been pushed back so much, that the main party is going to go first and the "advanced" party will be staying behind to make sure the vehicles get line hauled. But we will all be leaving Kuwait to go back home together so it doesn't matter whether or not I'm in the advanced party.

We got two days off for Christmas Eve and Christmas so now I'm trying to get used to going to work again. Two days off...hmmm, sounds like what they would call a weekend in the civilian world, but after two days off it seems like I haven't been here to work in weeks. I get bored when I'm cooped up in the trailers for too long anyway.

I suppose that's it for now. I appreciate ALL my comments on Christmas. And I'd like to extend my thanks to the readers that don't know me the posted. Thank you everyone. Well, I'm going to go for now, thanks so much for reading and I appreciate your prayers and support. God bless, see you soon.

2004-12-24T19:59:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So it's Christmas. And I know it's still the eve to you all, but here it's about 4:00 in the morning so it Christmas here. Anyway, I stayed up late so that I could call the family while they were all together and get to talk to everyone for the first time since I've been back from R&R. It was pretty great. And I know the phones were bad when I talked to dad, but at least I got to hear everyone's voice.

Anyway, the way I see it, and I can't remember if I already said this, but it's not really Christmas here to me. Just another day closer to me getting to come home. I'll have Christmas when I get home and that'll be good enough.

As far as current events, we got to show the full movie to the company tonight. Huge success. It was great because all the hidden jokes that we had that were inside jokes for the company, they got. Well, most of them at least. So while you guys may or may not like it, our target audience loved it, and that makes me happy enough.

Also, my family got to see the trailer to the movie so that was awesome. From what I here they liked it too, so that's good enough for me.

Well, I don't have much to say. I've been up for about 20 hours now and my brain's starting to fry a little so I guess I'm going to go to bed finally. But it was GREAT getting to talk to you guys tonight. It was the best little piece of Christmas I could ask for from this far away. So God bless you all and thank you so much for your prayers. Peace.

2004-12-23T01:52:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Well, first things first. I want to offer my condulances to the familes of the soldiers and civilians killed in the DFAC attack in Mosul. It's truely unfortunate and I hope they find out exactly what happened so they can prevent further attacks. The DFAC can be a scary place when you hear an explosion.

It's always hard to follow news as bad as that with anything else. All other news seems insignificant. I'm sorry, I will try to write tomorrow to catch you all up on the rest of things going on around here. But for now, I'll dedicate this post to those who lost their lives in the attack. God bless.

2004-12-20T02:43:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Not much going on here now. Christmas is coming and we're trying to get in the spirit. I already told you about the decorations that we put up. Really, I think we all agree that Dec 25th is just a day this year. It's still a religious holiday but it isn't what it's supposed to be over here. Christmas is when you're supposed to get with your family and have fun and realize how dysfunctional everyone is. That's what makes it such a great holiday. But since this year we're without our families, then Christmas can be celebrated on a different day, in a different month, when we all get home and we can be with our families again.

I usually don't put my opinions in this thing. Normally I just put what's going on and stay out of the political events etc. And I know that this happened a long time ago but for some reason, everytime I posted I forgot to mention it. But I wanted to just give a hand to the soldier that stood up to Rumsfield in Kuwait. I have a buddy here who's father was actually at that meeting I guess you could call it. Too many times we as soldiers have complaints and then we don't express them when we get the chance.

Armor is a HUGE problem here. When my buddies were going to go to Kuwait to pick up the replacements, we spent two weeks gathering scrap metal and welding big rusted pieces of steel to the vehicle to make it safer to travel. Going to war with the army you have, not the army you want is a great answer. But even hinting that uparmoring a vehicle doesn't really protect you that much, or that you could be blown up just as easily in an uparmored tank as you can a truck with no doors is preposterous.

When we traveled up here we had a hmmwv that had no doors coming up here, but times were as dangerous then. Now rumors are going around that we may have to drive a couple of our vehicles down. We haven't had time to armor them nor do we have enough time now. I hope for the best. I will let you all know when we find out but as of right now, we still should be flying back down south.

On a lighter note, the movie is finished. We burned 10 or so copies of it last night to hand out to people around here after we show it. It's going to be great, I'm really excited. We even put up a website for the movie. It's only a test site right now, but once we show the movie it'll change a bit. The site is www.afbmthemovie.com.

Ok, that's it for now. Hope you're all doing well. God bless you all and thank you so much for your prayers and support. We're almost out of here.

2004-12-18T01:57:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. So the talent show didn't go that bad. I didn't place but I didn't get booed off stage, so I can't complain about that. It seems that a lot of people were more mad than me that I didn't place but they are all my friends so I think they're kind of biased. I played three songs, two originals, and one cover. I went to the competition with one song to sing but when I got there they said there were going to be two rounds so I had to try to remember something to play...didn't take too long. Anyway, it was fun so that's all that matters.

No attacks that I know of the last two days. We had a simulated attack. They put a vehicle outside the front gate and lit it on fire to simulate a car bomb. Then everyone on the base had to get an accountability check and act as if it were a real attack. Good training, but in my opinion, we really don't need the training when we get hit about twice a week. But who am I? Just a little ole Specialist.

A couple things I forgot to tell you about. It ends up that my buddies don't have to go on the convoy to pick up the replacements for another company...cause they are already here. Me and one of my friends went to pick them up about a week ago and they are busy trying to move in. Pretty exciting, because even though they aren't our replacements, they are replacing a company that got here right before we did. AWESOME!!!

OK, well I'm gonna go for now. It seems like there was something else I forgot to tell you but if I think of it, I'll do an Edit. OK, love you guys and thanks so much for your support and payers. God bless.

2004-12-15T06:38:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I know it's been a few days...sorry. Things are going pretty good here. We finally finished the movie all the way...well at least we thought we had. We had our first preveiw today with an audience and we saw a lot of mistakes that we needed to fix. But they are all quick fixes. It's pretty exciting to finally almost finshed, but at the same time it's sad that we're done.

We had a few attacks and some fake excitement a couple days ago. Still not sure what it was all about but they shut down all the KBR ran stuff, laundry, DFAC, all the other stuff that we use everyday. There were a thousand rumors running around from KBR ID checks to assassins on the base...so who knows?

Really, not much has been done because we've been working hard on the movie for the last 4 days. The talent contest is coming up and I've been practicing. I'm a little nervous about it but all in all I'm pretty excited about another chance to perform w/o getting booed off stage.

I guess that's about it. I love you guys and I can't wait to get home. Thank you so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

2004-12-11T13:32:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So a few new things but not much. I woke up this morning to gunfire from the fenceline...pretty interesting. We also had an IED go off outside the gate. I don't know if anyone was hurt during the attacks.

There is a talent show right here on base next week that I'm going to enter. This time I won't have to travel anywhere and I've decided to go solo on this one. I'll make sure to get someone to tape it for me, hopefully I won't get booed off the stage again...cross your fingers.

Something I forgot to mention on my last post. The 8th of December was my one year anniversary for this blog. I started the blog on Dec. 8th 2003 on our first day of home station drill. So I have been in this deployment for over a year now. Crazy to think about huh? And now it's all coming to an end. I'm not sad about that at all. I'll be happy when I don't have to do this blog anymore because it'll mean that I'm home.

I've been pulled for the last couple days to be the company gofer. It gets old fast. One day I had to work in the post office and I pull guard duty about 2 sometimes 3 days a week. I guess the changeup isn't that bad, but I enjoy being in the motorpool so much that I hate being switched around.

I don't think anything else is new. I appreciate all of your posts, I love getting messages back. So thanks everyone for your support and prayers and I'll see ya when I get home. God bless.

2004-12-09T01:53:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So what's new? Not sure anything really. It's bee prank central around here for the last couple days. It all started when our 1SG got water boxes and stacked them up on our porch in front of our door so we couldn't get in our trailer. So me and Klinge retaliated by getting Barrett. We put the whole pallet of water on his porch. Then we lied and said we didn't do it, so we all got together and got SGT Barks. We stacked it while he was inside and made it so that he could open his door only to find he was completely surrounded by water boxes.

Then he got me back by stacking water all the way up to the top of my door. But you can't mess with tall people like that. So me and two other guys stacked water all the way up to the roof of the trailers in front of SGT Barks' door. You could see the water bottles from the other side of the trailer, it was hilarious.

But the funniest one happened when we were cleaning all the boxes up and SGT Whitney said he wasn't going to help because he was never involved. We decided to involve him. We got the key to his room from 1SG and put individual water bottles all over his floor. Then we stacked 4 water boxes in front of his door.

So when he went back to his room, he saw the 4 boxes and thought "Wow, what a bunch of pansies. Is 4 boxes the best they can do?" Only to open the door and fine 144 water bottles lined up like dominoes along his floor. That was the best one, we got plenty of pictures and video tape. Good stuff.

Other than us being complete idiots, we're trying to get in the mood for Christmas. It's not easy but we're trying. SSG Watson put one of those cheesy door covers over his door. It's awesome though. 1LT Knight put a small tree and a bunch of decorations in the APO office and I'm putting up a tree in my trailer, but I'm being lazy.

We just got finished with about 4 days of being slammed in the motorpool. In one day we had like 8 deadlined vehicles that needed to be fixed. I replaced the glow plugs in one, replaced the gasket in the top of the fuel tank on another vehicle, Klinge had to fix the oil pan and battery box for the little Ranger Gator vehicle that our commander drives, and more. We still have some stuff in here, but we've worked until like 6 or 7 almost every night. We usually get off at 3. I have to work at the post office on Friday because some of our guys are going to be getting ready to leave. That's exciting to know that we're starting to move out, but I still really don't want to work at the post office. But it's only one day, so I won't complain too much.

Well, that's about it. Hope you all are having fun and I can't wait to get back home. Love you all and thank you so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

2004-12-06T01:43:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I regret to tell you that I was wrong in my last post about no one getting hurt. The attack was on a guard tower and a soldier was killed. I jumped to conclusions and I apologize. I did not know the soldier but I ask that you keep his family in your prayers. From now on I will try to make sure I KNOW before I post.

We were in communications blackout for two days, but for some reason they don't cut everything off, they just tell you not to use it. I didn't get word so I went ahead with my postings and e-mails as usual not knowing we were in a blackout.

Things here are still about the same. Work in the day, find something to do to keep my time occupied at night. Yesterday I laid down to take a nap and accidentally slept for 4 hours. Made for rough sleeping that night.

I had guard duty yesterday and there was an Iraqi there that spoke english very well. It was nice because I actually got to talk to him and ask him some questions that I wanted to know about. I didn't get to record the conversation, but I wanted to let you guys know what we talked about, so I'm going to paraphrase the conversation. It was kind of sad and a little bit suprising.

me - so your girlfriend is from america?
him- yea, she's a sergeant.
m-so are you going to try to make it america
h-it's so expensive, plus i can't move there because of september
m-september 11th?
h-yea, i'm sorry about that
m-you have nothing to apologize for, you had nothing to do with that. we know who's responsible for that. plus, there are a lot of muslims in america and while some parts of america are more rasist than others, we mostly live in peace
h-i'm looking for someone to help me get to america because it's so expensive
(After a pause) m-so what do you think? how has it been here in iraq since the americans came? is it better or worse...you can be honest.
h-(laugh) i don't know, i can't answer that
m-well, has your situation improved or are you in greater danger?
h-well, when i come to work here i can't tell people whre i'm going. they say where do you work, and i say, just take me there, and they say who do you work for, and i say just go this way.
m-why do you work for us then?
h-because my uncle works and i want to help him. plus i like the US and i really want to respect my uncle.

That's about all I could get out of him, I wish I could have set up a real interview, maybe before I leave I can get something going. He let me take a picture of this old Baath party coin that his father owned before he died in the first gulf war. His father was an officer in the Baath party and the old Iraqi army and now he's trying to sell these coins so he can move to america. He says they're real gold, I looked, I'm not so sure, but if anyone is interested in getting a real Baath party coin, e-mail me, I have his e-mail address. I told him I would see if anyone wanted to buy it. I know I know, it's Baath party, but I know a lot of people are interested in stuff like that, not to support them, but trophies. I mean, plenty of people have WWII German helmets and knives etc. and no one thinks it's because they supported the Nazis. So if anyone is interested let me know.

I guess that's about it. Hope everyone at home is doing well. I miss you a lot but I'm coming home soon enough. God bless and thank you so much for your support and prayers.

2004-12-04T01:34:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Wow, what a buy couple of days. I’m really sorry it’s been so long. I didn’t realize how long it had been. But it has really been crazy around here. We have a lot going on around the unit that I can’t really disclose right now, plus I don’t know all of the details, but it’s bad. I’m not involved to don’t worry about that…but it’s bad.

To top that off, I’m not sure if it’s the weather or what, but we’ve had 8 broken down vehicles in 2 days. That’s ridiculous. We’ve been working our butt off here at the motorpool and it seems to only be getting worse. Plus with the new undisclosed stuff going on, I may have to move back to the post office, we’ll see. Hopefully I won’t, but we’ll see.

We had an attack yesterday. I’m not sure where it was, but I heard it, then we spent a half hour in the bunkers. I guess since communications are up I can at least assume no Americans were killed in the attack.

We got more songs done now for our album. We’re up to about 7 or 8. It’s a ridiculous album, but it takes up time so that’s all good. SGT Whitney came back, so we’re all excited about that. We can finally finish up our movie so we’re VERY excited about that.

I suppose that’s it. I can’t think of anything else enough. Again, I’m sorry that it took me so long to write you guys, I have no excuse, I hope it’ll be sooner next time. Love you guys and I hope you all fun and thank you so much for your prayers and support. God bless.

2004-11-30T23:09:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. So I just got finished with CQ. That means I had to stay in the office all night in case they needed accountability etc. You get to sleep, which isn't normal for CQ, but you get to sleep because you have to work the next day too. Oh well.

Anyway, last night was an interesting night. First of all it was our awards ceremony. Most of the people in the company got an ARCOM, which is an Army Commendations medal. Me and another guy from the motorpool got SGM coins. In the army when an individual wants to recognize another individual, they hand out these personalized coins. Some of the other people got the Col.'s coin. It's kind of like the green ribbon at field day in elementary school. They TRY to give one out to everyone that's not a complete screw up, so it's not that big of a deal.

In addition, yesterday they had some kind of investigation, or barracks inspection, or something. I'm not sure what it was because we weren't allowed in our trailers at all.

We also got to show our movie trailer to the company last night. It went pretty well for the 2:00 that it takes to show the trailer. The real movie will be interesting because it was hard to get this group to sit down for the 2:00 trailer. How much worse is the 30:00 one going to be. We'll see.

I guess that's about it. I need to go shower and shave etc. Gotta work in an hour. So I'm going to go. Love you all and I thank you for your support and prayers. God bless.

2004-11-29T06:20:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone, another couple days down. It’s almost December which means it’s getting closer to time to get out of here. And man do I love that.

Yesterday we had to get our blood drawn. Apparently the Malaria pills that we have been taking (or at least were supposed to have been taken) can attack your red blood cells and damage your liver if you are missing a certain enzyme. You either have it or not, it’s genetic, so you can’t get it if you don’t and you can’t lose it if you do, but it just seems to me that they should have checked for it BEFORE we took these pills for a year. But what do I know?

I got A LOT of packages and cards for Thanksgiving, my birthday, and for Christmas. I wanted to say thank you to everyone for that. Unfortunately (and fortunately) I won’t be able to wait until Christmas to open the packages because I will have almost everything I own already on it’s way home in the mail, so that stuff will now have to be included. But I still wanted to thank you all so much for thinking of me.

Time here seems to be slowing down just a bit. Probably because I’m thinking about the future too much, that seems to happen when you’re trying to obtain a goal and it’s finally, after a year of waiting, in sight. Nevertheless, work goes on and we’re still trying to get things ready so that we can leave when it comes time. And what a glorious day that will be. I hope everyone at home is doing well, e-mail me whenever you want, because no matter how little time I have left, and e-mail will never get lost because I have to move. It’s the best method of communication if you ask me.

I guess that’s about it, I’m going to go get to work and do whatever else is needed to make the time go by faster. Oh yea, I almost forgot. My friends and I have started a new project to waste time away since the movie is almost done. We have decided to make a cover album. We have taken songs from the past, some from the present, and did our own rendition of them. But that’s not the catch. You know that nothing we do ends up being serious, so we decided to make the music as perfect as our ability and equipment allows, then have the two worst singers in our group do all of the singing. Plus we’re doing songs they don’t know too well, so it makes for funny interpretations.

Ok that’s it for now. I love you guys, thank you so much for your support and your prayers. You are all a blessing. God bless.

2004-11-26T11:51:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. We had a pretty big day yesterday for Thanksgiving. First, they opened up two new DFAC's, so that made for some very good food. They had all the male workers dressed up like pilgrams and all the females dressed up like Indians. They also opened up a new PX, I haven't been yet but my friend says it's like a small Wal-Mart. So that'll be nice.

Things are good here. No new attacks that I know of. Spending Thanksgiving away wasn't as bad as I had expected. I got to hang out with my friends, eat lots of food, and just hang out. The bad part was not being around the family. That's the hardest part. But don't get me wrong, it was a very hard part. I can't wait to get back to see you guys. Really, it wasn't Thanksgiving w/o everyone, it was more like good food day.

I played another softball game today with another team. We beat them like 21-1 or something, it was rediculous, but fun nonetheless.

Thanks so much for all the comments I got on Thanksgiving. It was nice. I appreciate you all as readers and it's nice to know people out there care for me :) So anyway, I'm going to go now. I thank you all for everything that you've done for me, all your prayers, all your support, all your e-mails, all your boxes. It's been awesome. You guys are what brought me through this year so easily. You all are awesome. God bless and thank you all again. Peace.

2004-11-24T08:28:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Sorry it took me so long, you know how it goes. Anyway, as you all know tomorrow is Turkey Day. I won’t be there physically, but know that I’ll be indulging myself in enough food to hold me over until Christmas in spirit.

They started the softball season up again just in time for it to be over. We only had two games left and one was cancelled because the team we were supposed to play is on a convoy…how many times will you ever hear that in a lifetime? But we did win our final game, and I don’t mean by a little bit, I’m talking about a good old fashion butt whooping. It was nice to win one.

Things here are pretty normal. Not many attacks, which is always good. We did have an alarm a couple days ago in the middle of the night, but to be honest with you, if they hadn’t knocked on my door, I would have never known.

The one thing that is new here is how unbelievably cold it’s getting. It’s ridiculous. Granted it’s not as cold here as it is in the states, but it was 120 here a month ago so I’m in a little bit of culture shock…I think we all are. Plus there is almost no heat here, all air conditioners, so we freeze wherever we go. Luckily we have it in our trailers, so there’s a safe haven there for us.

Well, I guess that’s it. I thank you all for your support and prayers, and don’t be sad that I’m not at home this Christmas season, because I’ll be back soon and we can forget this whole year. Love you guys. Peace

2004-11-20T02:11:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I get up this morning, it's freezing outside, I walk half a mile to work wearing my 20 lb armor...it was awesome, I felt like I was at school again. Plus I had to go to guard duty so I got to sit there for an hour listening to someone that I couldn't understand...ah the memories. Anyway, I'm back in the motorpool now and about to finish up on my generator.

Things here are going really well. We got some new "maybe" dates I like to call them. Maybe we'll get out at that time. When we leave we'll go somewhere in Kuwait and clean all of our vehicles and then...home it is. Right around the corner.

Looking back it's hard to believe that I've spent almost a year here. It seems so insignificant now. The time went so fast. Plus it really isn't that bad here, we have TV, AC, decent chow. I can't complain, but I don't want to come back.

I'm not sure anything else is new. I'm in a great mood and I hope it can last until I get home...but I'm sure it won't. But anyway, thanks everyone for all your support, they really seem to be paying off. God bless.

2004-11-17T07:01:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. As most of you know the military took over Fallujah. During the fight there was quite a bit of action here but since I posted that, it has been pretty quiet. So that's always good.

For the last three days I've been working alone on a small generator that we're trying to get running since we basically have the funds to get whatever parts we need for it. I've been elbow deep in grease for three days so it'll be nice if it will all pay off...but it's looking a little hopeless.

The advanced party for one of the platoons serving here are leaving VERY soon. That's awesome because we got here a little over a month after they did, so I'm holding my breath until the day I get out of this place. I know thinking about it only makes time go slower, but I can't help it.

My buddies are still in Anaconda training. I haven't heard from them in a while so I suppose they are training pretty hard.

Well, that's about it. Hope everyone home is doing well and thanks so much for your prayers and support. Thanks also for your e-mails, I love being caught up.

IMPORTANT: I almost forgot, because of the mail rush for Christmas, mail will take at least a month to get here they say. So I had George take off my address and the List of stuff link you may have noticed. That means no more mail for me. If you send me something, make sure it's just a letter or something because I don't want to leave and have packages in the mail to get lost.

Thank you guys for all the things you have sent me over the last year. It's been awesome and I appreciate you taking the time to help me out. You're all a blessing. But save yourself some time and money and don't send any more mail, I would really hate for it to get lost. THANKS A BILLION all of you for your support. You all are Godsends. God bless.

2004-11-14T03:48:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Not that much new going on around except it's getting ugly and I can't wait to get away from this place. I'm not sure if it's the attacks on Fallujah or the fact that elections are getting close or what, but they are hitting hard and often now. We spent the morning in the bunkers again, fourth day in a row.

I'm having internet problems and that's why it takes so long for me to update anymore...sorry. I still haven't found a way to send the trailer out, the internet here just isn't going to allow me. So I guess I'm going to send Amy a copy of it and see if they can't get it on the internet somehow. I'll let you all know when/if it happens.

We have some guys going through convoy training again because they have to take a ride all the way down to Kuwait. But it's to pick up our replacements...how cool is that? I'm sure they are't looking forward to the convoy, but the reason they are doing it is just awesome. So keep them in your prayers. They have a couple weeks before they are leaving, but I'll let you guys know when they make it back.

I got a package from my Nana. I can't remember if I already told you all, but she sent me a Christmas tree, so we're going to put that up in December. So I wanted to say thanks for that. If I already mentioned that on here, sorry. I get mixed up sometimes.

The problems w/ the internet include e-mail, so I'll try to make it the APO or a KBR internet cafe soon so I can e-mail everyone who has e-mailed me. But until then, God bless and thank you so much for your support and prayers. Peace.

2004-11-11T01:30:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Time ticking down and I'm feeling good. Sorry it's been so long since I've written, I honestly couldn't tell you why. Anyway, things are going pretty normal around here. We seem to be having lots of alarms right now, meaning we're getting attacked more often. I've heard a few of the attacks, but many more alarms.

Some news info that's important to us. Arafat was pronounced dead today. Not sure what that's going to mean for the Middle East. My optimistic side says maybe this will open opportunity for peace treaties, but my realistic side says chaos. But we'll see.

We've gotten a lot of the movie finished, somewhere around 99 percent. Our trailer for the movie is completely done. I wish I could get it on the internet so that you all could see it but I don't know how to send a file that big through the internet. Sorry.

Well I guess that's it. Sorry there aren't more updates. Keep praying for us. It's been a little more hectic than normal around here lately and we all just want to hurry up and get out of here. Love you guys and thanks so much for your support. God bless.

2004-11-07T16:49:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. We've been in blackout for a few days. If you've been watching the news then you know why. I can't say that we've seen any extra action here, but we have gotten hit a couple times.

This morning we had a urinalysis to test for illegal drugs. Fun fun. So that meant we had to get up early this morning. No biggie though.

We got some new dates for us who are on advanced party as to when we're supposed to be in Kuwait. I can't tell you over this, but let's just say, it's right around the corner...And I'm excited. Knowing that we are wrapping this whole tour up is just insane to me. I know I've been here forever, but it still seems like I haven't been gone for long at all. Probably because of how awesome R&R was for helping me discover that thing's are still good at home.

Anyway, I'm still going to play the game like I have been, because I know as soon as I start getting antsy, time is going to go by twice as slow. So I'm going to TRY to not think about it. OK, well I love you guys and I thank you so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

Oh yea, I almost forgot, I received the coffee that one of my readers offered to send, so I wanted to say a thank you and tell you that there is a small token of our appreciation in the mail for you. Again, thank you. The support of Americans, even those who may not agree with the war, for me and my comrades is amazing. Thank you all.

2004-11-04T18:29:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Today two of us went out to the bone yard again. This time, I brought a camera. I got great still shots and video tape of some of the blown up vehicles. We saw one Hummer that got hit by an IED. A HUGE piece of shrapnel came up underneath the wheel and hit the rear passenger side seat. The piece got lodged in the frame of the seat. Had it not, it probably would have been lodged in the poor guy that was sitting there. But it turns out that it just happened to hit in the corner of the frame, so it stuck. Someone was definitely looking out for that guy. We took pieces of the shrapnel for keepsakes. It was pretty amazing.

We lost another softball game. I think I'm just going to not post about the games anymore unless we actually win one. That'll probably be a better choice.

As you all know by now, Sen. John Kerry conceded to Pres. George W. Bush at about 1:00 pm on November 3rd giving Pres. Bush 4 more years in office. To all of the Bush supporters, congratulations to you all. And to you Kerry supporters, you fought hard.

I think it's time though that despite our opinions, we try our hardest to keep this country unified. At the same time, I believe that you can't sit quietly if something is going on that you don't agree with, I just believe there is a tactful way of expressing yourself. So, let's all pray that in the next four years, something will give and the American death toll can be substantially less than 5,000. God bless you all, thank you for your support for me and the troops, let's see if we can't end this thing and get home. Peace to you all.

2004-11-02T09:52:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. So this place is terrible now. It's one big country of mud. And gross mud too. They tried to put rock down before it started raining, and I guess it's better with than without it, but the rocks are all muddy now so they just stick to your feet and you track them in your room. It's horrible. We're supposed to have a game sometime this week, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen because it's so muddy here. I hate this.

Anyway, nothing's really going on other than that. We had an attack this afternoon, but I think it hit outside the gate and I'm pretty sure no one got hurt, so no biggie. I guess that's it. We're currently switching one of our semi-armored hummwv to a fully armored one. It may be going on some convoys eventually, so we wanted it to be good and strong. We also put a gunners turret at the top of it for the same reason. It's coming along nicely.

OK, well, sorry for the boring post. Hope you all are doing well. Thanks so much for your support and God bless.

EDIT: I almost forgot. Today is a huge day for the military. Elections. This election isn't going to affect me and my tour, but it will affect those coming after me quite a bit. Now I'm not going to preach to you nor am I going to even let on as to who I'm pulling to win, but I do have someone in mind and I did vote. So I thought I'd let you all know, don't do what your friends want you to do, do what's right in your heart. And think about pros and cons of your decision. God bless.

2004-10-30T13:30:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Sorry it's been a couple days since I've written, but the internet went down in the trailer and I've been working late so I've been too lazy to come down to the lab. But here I am and I wanted everyone to know that everything's been ok.

We've played two softball games since I last wrote. We finally won ONE. I emphasize one because we got embarrassed the other game. But I'm willing to admit that one of those innings was my fault. I made a couple boo boos.

Not much has happened as far as attacks that I know of. I know we went to the bone yard (I'll explain in a minute) and there was a firefight going on about half a mile or so. A firefight is a gun battle, not a building on fire. I don't think anyone was hurt though, or at least I never heard of anyone getting hurt.

I'm still doing guard duty during the days, and it looks like I'm going to be there for a while. But it's about to change a little bit so I'll be going back and forth between guard duty and the motorpool. No biggie. It's an easy job...sit there and watch the guy.

Ok, now to the bone yard. The bone yard is where they drop vehicles that have been blown up, and people come to scavenge parts off of them. We really don't have a main bone yard here in Iraq, but we have a small one here in Taji.

Once we heard about it, we went and let me tell you, there was some crazy stuff there. There was a tank that was practically ashes. 5 or so HumV's that were toasted. You could see the bullet holes in the glass, or where the bullets hit. It was all armored glass, so it didn't go through. That was another cool site.

In one of the tanks, you could see where it got hit by a rocket. The rocket penetrated the first layer of armor, but barely put a dent in the second one. Pretty cool to see. We got all that we needed, but they went back today and another HumV got dropped off that was completely ashes. They said that the truck got his by a rocket, caught it on fire, and the heat cooked off the rocket launcher that they had inside. Luckily, the AT-4 rocket launcher has to do so many rotations before it'll explode on impact, so it just went through glass. They said that no one died in the attack, and that made it a lot cooler to look at.

Well, I guess that's it. I know it's a lot, but I had makeup to do. I hope you all are doing well, and I thank you all for your prayers and support. God bless.

2004-10-27T01:43:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Today is a very special day for me. Three years ago today, right after a football game at App State, me and Amy decided to give each other a chance, and three years later, I couldn't be any happier.

As hard as the time was when she went to Ireland for a couple months, and as hard as this last year has been to be apart, we have grown together so much despite our time away from each other. I feel we haven't been given a fair chance yet to see each other and not worry about who is going where, but I know that time is coming.

Amy, I wanted you to know that you mean the absolute world to me, and you have kept my spirits high and my hopes up and though this last year has been the hardest thing I've ever endured, your love has kept me sane. Thank you. I love you.

OK, that's as sappy as I can get on this thing. I just wanted everyone to know how awesome she is :) We have a softball game tonight, we'll see how that goes. Apparently there was a hit right outside of the base last night because the alarm went off. But like I said, it was only close to the base. Not on it.

I'm going through my pictures right now and naming them all and reorganizing them. Plus I'll be putting new pictures up very soon, so look forward to that. I don't have a lot, but I have some.

I guess that's all I have for now. I hope you all are doing well and I appreciate everything that you do for me and the troops. Everything from mail to prayers. Thank you so much. God bless and pray for peace.

2004-10-25T06:27:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So another couple days gone and a couple closer to being home. We lost another softball game. We’re terrible. We haven’t won a season game yet. But maybe we can pull a Bo Sox.

Our internet went down in our trailers, and that’s why it’s been a little while since I’ve updated everyone and answered e-mails. We’re oh so close to finishing the movie. We have maybe one or two more days work on the trailer, then I’m going to try to find a way to send it to the states so maybe we can get it on the internet so you all can see it. I’m excited.

This morning I went to the gate to get my worker and the gates were closed temporarily. They were closed because they found a car bomb. I don't think it exploded so that's good, but kind of scary all the same. They eventually opened the gates and I was on guard duty for most of the day again today.

I guess that's probably it. I can't think of anything else that is new, but if I think of something, I'll make sure you let you guys know. Hope all is well, I miss you all, and can't wait to get home. God bless and thank you so much for all of your support. Peace.

2004-10-22T13:34:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I woke up this morning to extremely loud explosions that seemed to be right outside my door. I jumped up, put on my gear and ran outside to get into the bunker. As I got outside, I saw that everyone else was acting normal, and that’s when they informed me that they were merely controlled blasts. The smoke from it was huge, so I guess they were blowing up something big. Needless to say, I was wide awake after that. On my day off too. Oh well.

I also neglected to mention the explosion that I'm sure you all heard about on the news a couple days ago. It was an IED explosion right outside the gate. One of our soldiers was in the guard tower right in front of the explosion. He didn't get injured at all except the blast kind of threw him to the ground and rained his tower post with schrapnel. But he was guarded by sand bags etc. So that was a positive note. Unfortunately two (I think it was two) soldiers were killed in the blast. So please keep their families in your prayers.

On a better note, a random reader wrote me and offered to send me and my friends some coffee. He runs a coffee shop and offer to send us some of his selection. So I would like to publically thank this individual for his generosity.

We lost another softball game. Frankly, we're not very good. But I'll stick to my "I don't care 'cause I'm having fun" story.

We had a couple more people go to the range today and qualify. I was jealous of these guys because they got to shoot M-60's and AK 47's. They also had MP 5's out there, but they didn't start shooting them until our guys were leaving. So no one got to shoot those. But it sounded very cool anyway, and I'm mad that I didn't get to shoot anything like that.

Oh well. I got the last two days off of guard duty because my workers had to drive to Najaf to see their families. But I have to go back tomorrow. Fun Fun.

SSG Byrd sent us an update a little while back and said he was doing fine. And we lost another one of our soldiers, SPC Wright had to go to Germany for some surgery also, but then was sent home to have the surgery. So keep him in your prayers also. Neither surgery was an injury due to fighting or anything.

Well, I guess that's it. I love you guys and hope you're all doing well. E-mail me sometime and I'll get back to you when I can. God bless and thank you so much for your prayers and support. Peace.

2004-10-20T08:53:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. Not much new. Still on guard duty, still working in the motorpool, still playing softball. We lost again, so that's not new either. We have another game tomorrow, so I'll let you know you how that goes. I wish I had more to write about, but this is going to be another one of those really boring blogs that get 1 comment. :) But it's ok. Alright, well, if anything happens in the next day or so I'll go ahead and write it. Other than that, have a good one everybody and thank you so much for your support. God bless.

2004-10-18T05:39:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So another couple days gone and I'm feeling good. I'm still on daily guard duty, not much new there. I got the internet in my trailer for the first time last night. It was great because I was able to use Instant Messenger to talk to some people, so that was nice.

I have another softball game tonight so I'll let you all know how that goes whenever I post again. Hopefully we can pull a win out tonight and make us feel better after last game's loss. We'll see.

Not much else is new. We have a couple guys in Anaconda right now for various reasons, but for the most part, we're all here doing the job that needs to be done and waiting on our replacements to come so we can start packing. I don't mean waiting on them like they're supposed to show up any day, they're supposed to be here in a couple months, but it's exciting to think that it's all winding down for us anyway.

We have an NCO and officer dedicated solely to getting us ready to leave, so we've started the process again. It's basically the same process we went through at Ft. Stewart, only this time we're starting it in Iraq and moving to Stewart.

I guess that's it. Spirits are still pretty high from getting to come home, and knowing I could be home pretty soon. Thanks everyone who reads for taking time to show you care. I miss you all and can't wait to see you all again. God bless and thank you so much for your prayers and support. Peace.

2004-10-16T01:06:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I know I didn't make my usual every other day goal, but oh well. Things here are still pretty normal. We're still walking around everywhere with flak vest and K-Pot cause of the holiday season. How cheerful. But as far as I know, nothing major has happened.

We had to go to a class yesterday because now they are getting more strict with the Iraqis that they let on the base. Apparently they found two guys that they were letting on the base with full unescorted access that had blasting caps, IED's and 40 or so grenades in their house. Again, cheerful.

We haven't played another softball game yet and they may have cancelled them until we get out of having to wear the body armor everywhere. I'm not sure. Other than that, I'm still pulling guard when the gates aren't closed, and when they are, I'm working in the motorpool. Not much time off, but who needs rest right? I

don't know how many of you know that I have had a pay problem since I got here, well they are finally resolving it, but it's going to put me in debt a couple thousand dollars. It's kind of crappy that I have to pay for their mistake, but on the other hand, it's the government so I'm not surprised at all.

I guess that's it. Everything else is going well and we're getting really close to finishing the movie. OK, well I hope everyone else is doing well. I love you all and thank you so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

2004-10-13T13:04:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So we lost last night in softball, but I didn't do too bad. And it was fun, so that's all that matters. Things are good and have been quiet for a few days, but as some of you may know, the Muslim holiday Ramadan is coming up, so we're guarding up for that, just in case.

George just let me know that there are new pictures from when I was home up on the site now. They are pictures from my father's wedding. I'm not sure if I mentioned it yet, but my father got married to Lesli, a very cool person who is now my new step-mother :) But I wanted to let you all know and say congrats to him. I played a song at his wedding, so there are some pictures of that up.

Also, I wanted you all to know that my squad leader SSG Byrd had to go to Germany for some minor surgery, so keep him in your prayers. I guess that's it for now. Love you all and thanks for your prayers and support. Keep them up. Peace.

PS. Oh yea, I forgot. Geroge put another website on the right side of the screen. It's a good one. You guys should check it out. OK, that's it.

2004-10-11T06:09:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I've been on guard duty for the last week and that's why it's been so hard for me to get to the computer. Things are going well though. The trash pile that my worker is cleaning w/ his dozer is slowly but surely getting smaller.

We seemed to be hearing blasts every day now. And multiple times a day. We still don't get actual incomings a lot, but there were two IED's that went off outside the gate in the past two days and we've had a lot of outgoings and a bunch of controlled blasts. It just seems that there is always something shaking the trailer now.

On a good note, and as crazy as it sounds being in a war zone and everything, but they started a softball tournament. I played my first game last night. It was a practice game, but we won. It's fun to play again. Of course I haven't swung a bat in almost a 6 years, so that was something to get used to, but at least it was softball and not baseball. But it was fun. Anyway, the tournament starts this week, so I'll let you guys know how it goes.

Well, I guess that's it. I appreciate all of the support and prayers that you guys take time to give out. It all really means a lot to me. I love you all and God bless. Peace.

2004-10-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So today was pretty interesting. Number 1, I had my Iraqi guy that I was guarding and we got NOTHING done thanks to another group of Iraqis. So I just sat there for 8 hours trying to stay awake.

Then we got hit. A bunch of times. First there was an IED right outside the gate, then there were a bunch of incomings. Luckily, none hit inside the gates. They were all on the outskirts.

We're supposed to get the last person from the 449th back from R&R soon. The last platoon that gets to go has sent off about 5 people now. That means two things. Number 1, they get to go on R&R and before, we weren't sure. And number 2, times ticking away. It's great stuff.

Well, that's all I have. I hope you all are doing well. I love you and thank you for your support. God bless you all. PO.

2004-10-06T06:48:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So for the next week I have to guard an Iraqi guy that's cleaning a huge trash pile out side of distro. Not that bad of a job, just boring. I can get used to anything though. I got burned a little bit today, but it's not bad here. When you get burned here, it goes in the next morning. Sunburn just isn't bad here for some reason.

I'm still getting used to everything. My buddy left yesterday for R&R so now I have the trailer all to myself for the next 3 weeks. That'll be really cool. Whitney and I got A LOT done on the movie last night. We're basically done except for one more shot. Then it's on to the special features. That's right, we're going all out on this one.

Honestly, nothing else is different. We're trying to get the internet in our trailers. That'll be great for keeping up w/ everyone, but it's a pain and it's not very reliable right now. So I guess I'm going to go for now. Love you guys and I appreciate your support and prayers. Talk to you soon. Peace and God bless.

2004-10-04T00:43:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. A couple changes over the last couple days. Mainly, I wanted to congratulate 2 of my buddies for making E-5. They should be getting pinned today so congrats to them.

My platoon sergeant made it back from R&R last night so he informed me that my packet is in and he'll find out when the board is, so it should be soon. I'm in no rush though.

We're still filming and we're pretty close to being done, and I'm running still every other morning so I'm kind of happy that I'm actually sticking with it.

Well, I guess that's it. I can't read your comments until I get on a different computer, but when I do get on another computer, I'll read them. Alright, love you guys. I'll talk to you later. Thanks for your prayers and support. God bless.

2004-10-02T00:27:00.000-05:00

Hello everybody! So another morning and I'm feeling good for some reason. We finished about 80 percent of all the filming for the movie. We still have quite a bit to do in productions and such, but we still have a little bit to do. As soon as the trailer is finished, I'm going to find a way to show to all of you at home, but you probably won't get to see the movie until I actually get home.

Speaking of which, we got dates for when we are leaving. I can't tell you over this thing when that is, but let me just tell you, it's about a 3 weeks before we thought we were leaving. So that's nice.

No new attacks that I know of, and I'm really starting to get back into running and working out...it's something I'm definitely going to have to work hard to continue when I get home. Well, I guess that's it.

Apparently I'm supposed to put more breaks in my paragraphs, so this is my first attempt. Let me know it it's easier. Ok, well that's it. God bless and thank you all for your support and prayers. Love you all. Peace.

2004-09-29T07:55:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I’m finally starting to get back into the swing of things. I’ve started working out again and let me tell you, after 2 weeks of doing nothing, I’m hurting. But I figure I’ll get back to where I was. Not much else new here. My E-5 packet should be in as we speak, so hopefully I’m looking at a promotion sometime this month when the next board is up. That doesn’t mean I’ll get pinned right when I go through the board. It takes some time to actually get the rank so maybe before I get home. That would be cool, IF I make the points. We’ll see. OK, well that’s it. Hope all is well at home. I’m having problems looking at the comments, something’s wrong w/ the site or something. But I did get to read yesterday’s and let me agree with the guy that said my “girl” is a hero. Amy has been an absolute blessing to me and she’s kept me going from 12,000 miles away. You are a life saver Amy, and I can’t wait to get back to you. I love you. I’ll talk to you all later, thanks so much for the prayers and support. God bless.

2004-09-28T05:38:00.000-05:00

Well, I’m back to Iraq. I had a great vacation but it went way too fast. But let’s face it, I was expecting that when I started it. So let me share with you basically how it went. The day that I left here I flew on up to Balad which is where we leave from. So I stayed there for a couple days and then flew a C-130 to Kuwait. We transported a couple places in Kuwait and then we had to go through the paper work. There are about a million forms you have to sign, you drop off your vest and K-pot, then you get all the briefings you can handle. After that we went through US customs. That was fun. You empty out all your bags and they tell you what you cannot take back with you. I didn’t have anything, but they’re pretty strict. So then I get on a military charter plane, (commercial flight though) and fly to Germany. That’s a 5 hour flight. We lay over for an hour, refuel and take off for Atlanta. That’s another 9 hour flight, good stuff. So once in Atlanta, they’ve already booked me a flight to Asheville so I hop that plane and I’m going home. 2 days of travel, it sucked bad, but when I was home, I didn’t care about it anymore. What was funny is that no one felt the need to tell me that it was flooding in NC. So when I’m flying in I’m looking at all the beautiful green trees and then I see a rooftop sticking out of a lake. Until that moment, I had no idea. You want to talk about freaking out. But I landed finally, and everyone was there to greet me off of the plane. That was pretty awesome. The next two weeks are really a blur to me. All I remember is I had the time of my life. It just went by way too fast. I got to see all of my family, and friends. It was awesome. I really couldn’t have asked for a better time. So thanks to all of you. So on the way back, there was nothing different. Just the opposite of everything coming in. The only cool thing that happened was that I got to sit in the very last seat on the Chinook so I got to see everything outside. It was pretty awesome. Well, all in all I had an awesome time and it let me if nothing else realize that nothing’s changed. My friends are still my friends, my family still loves me, and my girlfriend is mine forever. So it was nothing but a great time and now I feel complete again for a little while. I’m glad to be back, which is to say I’m glad not to be traveling, and I can hurry up, do the time I have left, and get back home. Hopefully for good. I’m not sure about what all went on over here. I know they had a lot of incomings come in on the ICDC side, so they were in uniform 3 for a little while. That’s where you have to wear your vest and K-Pot everywhere all the time. But other than that, the movie’s going along really well and we have a very minimum amount of stuff to finish. So that’s exciting. Well, before I was able to send off this message we got hit again. This one was close to the DFAC. No one got hurt, it didn't even go off. But it was prett loud and the guys sitting outside said they heard it actually flying overhead. So that's kind of cool. Alright, well I guess that’s it. Thanks SO MUCH for the great time. You all are all the family and friends, and of course, girlfriend I could ask for. God bless, and I’ll talk to you all later. Peace.

2004-09-08T20:15:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. SO I'M HOME!!!! And America is everything I thought it could be. Well, I'm going to be brief...CAUSE I'M HOME!!!! Obviously, I won't be writing for the next couple days because I'm going to be here AT HOME!!!! I will write again once I get all the way back into Iraq and then I'll catch you all up on everything that happend. OK, well God bless. I'm chilling here so if you want to hang out (which would rock for anyone of you that know me) call Amy, my dad, or my mom to get in touch w/ me. Or e-mail me. Love you guys. See you in a couple weeks. Peace!

2004-09-03T22:03:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I'm still counting down the days until I'm home. And while it seems so close, another part of me sees it as so far away. We had the day off yesterday in the motorpool. When I leave there will only be three people holding down the fort (hehe, holding down the fort, get it? Anyway) and one of those will always be on guard duty for the next two weeks. Now see, that's just stupid. They always call on the motorpool to do their duties, which we do correctly and without complaining, which means we get more and more duties. Now when I leave, they expect to only have two people in here on any given day with no rest and still expect all of the vehicles to stay up. There's no way to keep a company's vehicles in top condition with two people. We were having problems when we had six in here. So, maybe when they see their vehicle status drop dramatically, they'll change the way they think about the motorpool and the constant duties we're on. But we'll see. In other news, something kind of cool happened to me the other day. I was on guard and we were taking the Iraqi's back to the gate. I was riding in the back of one of the Iraqi's trucks and there were two other guys back there with me. A big company was about to go on a convoy so there were Apache's EVERYWHERE in the sky. Then, for what seemed to me to be no reason, one of them decided to land right beside us. The two Iraqi's ducked really quick but I thought, "I'm wearing goggles, it won't get in my eyes." So I sat there and watched the wall of sand come flying at me. What I didn't count on was the huge pieces of rock to be flying with the sand. Needless to say, I was in the same position that the Iraqi's were in, in only split seconds. Kind of stupid on my part, but I thought it made for a funny story. Well, I guess that's it. I hope all is well on the home front. Watch out for what seems to be one natural disaster after another over there. I don't know what you guys to tick off the weather, but you should stop :) I'll see you all soon and thank you endlessly for your support. God bless.

2004-09-02T08:13:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I had guard duty today. Not bad. The guys we have for the new project are pretty funny. Plus I got off early today so are going to start on the finishing shots of our movie before I get to go home. Things here are good. I had a briefing today from the commander regarding R&R and what his expectations are. Just means I'm one day closer. Well, I guess that's it for now. Not much to report. Hope you guys are all doing well. I love you all and I thank you for your support and prayers. Peace.

2004-08-31T12:10:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I had to go to a briefing today so they could depress me about how many things have changed at home and how everything's going to be different and how I might not have the same friends when I get back and how my family's going to be different and all that stuff. Really, I think change is OK. I've changed I know, so I expect for everyone else to have changed. I guess you just have to start over with the people that you still have when you get back. So, no biggie. Things are good here. Still working and keeping my head down in chances that one day I'll look up and it'll be time to go home for good. It'll happen, soon enough. I wish there were more things going on (minus attacks) that I could report, but nothing's really new. We're in this, get up, get dressed, go to work, come home, go to bed, repeat stage that seems everlasting. But it makes for fast days. The movie is coming along quite nicely. I've watched a few scenes that we've done and just rolled in the floor laughing. So if it's as funny to everyone else as it is to me, then me and my buddies are going to be up for an independent film award. Ok, so it's not that funny, but I like it. Well, that's it. Hope all is well on the home front. I miss you guys a lot and can't wait to see you all. Even if you have changed :) God bless and thank you all so much for your support and prayers. Peace.

2004-08-29T05:54:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Just wanted to let you know that everything is normal. Nothing new really. I'm still waiting on the chance to get home and it's coming very soon. I can't wait. I wish I had more to report. I got some good pictures of where the mortar round landed the other day. The one that landed right next to where we work and right next to where we used to live. So, when I come home, I'll bring them and put them on the web. Alright, well that's it. I love you guys and thanks so much for your support and prayers. Write me sometime guys, I'd love to hear from you all. Later. Peace.

2004-08-27T04:45:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So it's gotten pretty hectic around here for the last 3 or 4 days. We've had attacks almost everyday for the last couple days. Yesterday, one hit RIGHT beside where we used to live. And when I say right beside, I mean 20 feet. We had three friends from another unit sitting there drinking coffee when the round came in. Luckily for them, the round didn’t explode, it only landed. Therefore, they only got dirt in their eyes instead of shrapnel. There was one injury that I know of. Another guy that we know was walking by and lost some hearing from the impact. If the round had gone off, it could have killed a lot of people, but we were being looked after I guess. This morning’s round came in on the ICDC side (those are the Iraqi soldiers). I’m not sure about casualties. They also burned off some ammo today in the camp. That’s where they basically take a bunch of ammo and burn it in a fire to destroy it. It made for some great loud noises and a bunch of smoke, so I filmed it. The last thing that’s new is that we’ve started a motor pool productions movie. It’s going to be great. I can’t tell you what it’s about right now, but know it’s going to be hilarious. OK, that’s it. I hope all is well with you all. I’m excited about seeing you all soon. I love you and thank you so much for your support and prayers. They are working. God bless.

2004-08-24T22:51:00.000-05:00

So my dates are in and my parents and Amy know them. So, I’m pretty psyched now. It’s still a little ways off but, at least I have a concrete date. More important news, ends our halfway mark. That’s right, we just finished our 6th month and are now 50 percent done. That’s good stuff. So even if we stay until February, it’s all downhill from here. Awesome. Also, George got my pictures up. So there are some great shots there of me with the Iraqis that I had to guard, a picture through night scope, and some other cool stuff you guys should enjoy. Not much else new, things pretty much going the same in all aspects. I hope you all are well and I can’t wait to see you all soon. God bless, and I’ll talk to you all later. Peace.

2004-08-23T03:08:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I got my "unofficial" dates in. I'm e-mailing my mom, dad, and Amy to tell them when they are. I'll find them out officially tonight at my meeting, but I wanted to go ahead and tell them since the two different dates are only 2 days apart from each other. I'm not going to say what they are over this thing so if you want to know, either call my mom, dad, or Amy, or e-mail me and as long as you're not a terrorist, I'll write you back and let you know :) Well, that's all that's new for right now. I'm excited about getting to come home even though it's still a little ways away. But while I'm home, don't hesitate to call me. Yes I will be spending a lot of time with Amy and my family, but I want to see everyone I can. Ok, Love you guys, talk to you later. Thanks so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

2004-08-22T02:13:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So the rumor is that the dates came in for R&R but I don't know mine yet. But there are some important things happening when I go home so I'm going to fight to try to get them soon. Then I will tell my parents and Amy so you guys can find out that way when I'm coming home. We had some outgoing artillery RIGHT beside our barracks. It was so loud. We thought it was an attack on us at first so we all go running to the bunkers and then we found out a couple minutes later that they were outgoing. Talk about relief. So I got my camera out and got some great sounds. It was dark so you can't see much, but the sound is definitely loud enough to shake your speakers. Well, that's all the new stuff. I hope everyone is doing well. I miss you all, but I'm looking forward to getting to see you sometime soon. Thank you all for your support. God bless you all. Peace.

2004-08-19T22:40:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I'm SUPPOSED to get my dates for when I'm going on R&R today but of course, this is the army and I'm not sure if I'm going to get them yet. I won't be able to put when I'm leaving on the web anyway, so when I do find out, I'll let you all know, and I'll tell my parents so they can let everyone know. We got big concrete walls put up on the outside of our trailers for protection, so that was nice. Other than that, everything's the same. Well all, I love you and I thank you for your support. God bless and I'll see you all soon.

2004-08-18T03:56:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I finally got all moved in. Everything's all set up for the most part and I have to say, it's kind of nice being in a quiet area. It's the equivalent to being in a REALLY small college dorm. But I'll trade the space for the peace and quiet. We got attacked yesterday around 2:00 or so. It was a rocket that hit the flight line, which is probably about half a mile from where we're staying now or so. Nothing really major. It's the first attack we've had in a while, but with all the fighting going on in Najaf and Baghdad, I'm not going to complain about one rocket that didn't hurt anyone that I know of. Like I said before, the pictures are in and should be up any time now as soon as George can get to it, and I'm going to start on another video recording the trailers and stuff. What's awesome about that though is that by the time I get done w/ the video, I can just pass the cd's out myself because I'll be home for R&R. That's exciting to think about. Well, that's all for now. I hope everyone is doing well and I appreciate your support and prayers. God bless. Peace

2004-08-16T05:18:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I GUESS we're moving into the trailers for good. That's pretty cool because I'm so close to the chow hall. I'm just hoping I don't get fat now. Midnight chow is the biggest temptation I've had in a long time. Things are good. We're in the process of moving our stuff from the barracks right now so it's kind of hectic and very messy right now. But for you who know me, you know I'll have to have everything unpacked and fixed before I can go to bed tonight. Other than that, things are pretty normal. Amy got my pictures so they should be up on the net anytime now whenever George gets around to it if they are not already up. So enjoy those and I'll talk to you guys later when I have more to write. Love you all and God bless you all for your support for me and the rest of the troops. Peace.

2004-08-13T09:02:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Another day in the desert. Not much new. We're still temporarily moved into the trailers. But no one has given us the word on whether or not we get to stay. So we'll see eventually. Other than that not much has changed really. Still working as much as ever. A few people got moved up on the R&R slots and we have one person that is going stateside for a medical reason (non-combat related) so that's one more slot open. That pushes me to the second person to leave when we get our new dates which is supposed to be Aug. 20th. I'll be sure to let you all know. Anyway, that's it. I hope all is going well for everyone else. God bless and thanks for your support.

2004-08-11T08:36:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So our generator is still down. I think now instead of worrying with it anymore that they have decided to just go ahead and put us in trailers. We slept in them for the first time last night. They are pretty nice…very small, but at least you only have one other roommate to worry about noise and stuff. I thought I was going to hate it at first because of how small it was, but I really didn’t mind it once I got there. They haven’t decided whether or not we’re going to stay in them or move back once the generators are fixed, but chances are that we are just going to stay in the trailers. Which I don’t mind at all. Other than that, not much going on. Still just working everyday and waiting around for R&R. Can’t wait. Well, I guess that’s it. I have a meeting to go to so I have to split. I love you guys and I thank you all so much for your support. God bless and talk to you all later.

2004-08-08T11:09:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Not much new around here. Our generator quit because someone didn't put oil in it and it has a sensor that shuts it off when the oil is low. That's not that bad because we went ahead and put oil in it, but then we found out the starter is bad so it won't start now. That's making for some VERY hot stuffy nights with 20 men in a closed bay with no moving air. I think I have a battery operated fan that my mom sent me that I'm going to break out tonight for my own personal enjoyment :) I heard that my videos came in. I hope you all got to see them. I know the one of me talking is pretty long, but I figure 45 minutes of stories for 6 months of my life isn't all that bad. Other than that, things are normal. Working on vehicles and when one leaves two more come in. I guess that's just the way it goes. Alright, well that's it. Thank you all so much for your support. God bless you all. Peace.

2004-08-06T11:31:00.000-05:00

Hello everybody. Things here are good. No new attacks. I went swimming today for the second time since I've been here. It's fun but they put A LOT of chlorine in there now because apparently they found E-coli in the pool a couple weeks ago...I know I know, how do you get E-coli in a pool? I don't know. It's one of those things I guess. Anyway, things seem to be going pretty steady. We're in our 6th month now and as of the 25th of August we'll be half way done. Now only being half way done is kind of depressing when you think about how long I've been here, but the second half will be much easier for two reasons. Number 1, we're already in a routine...A comfortable one. So no more tent living, long convoys, workless long days etc. And number 2, one of those months I'll be gone so that's awesome. We're only home for 2 weeks, but we're away from here for a total of 3 weeks, so that's almost an entire month that I won't be here. And two weeks of that will be having the best time of my life with my friends and family at home. So we all know those weeks are going to fly. Well, that's as optimistic I can get about being over here, it's starting to become a way of life now. So, I guess that's it. Thank you all for your support. God bless you and stay safe. Peace.

2004-08-04T11:57:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So we've had an interesting couple of days since I've written you. First of all two days ago we got attacked. I think it was 5 different attacks but I'm not sure if they were mortars or rockets or what. We've had about 10 accountability checks in the last two days. No one was killed in the attacks that I know of, but a really sad thing did happen. A soldier was killed here a couple days ago because he was hit with another vehicle that was backing up without a ground guide. Because of constant noise and armored vehicles that make it impossible to see behind you, the Army has a regulation that all soldiers must have a person standing behind them guiding them while they back up so not to cause injury and damage. This particular soldier thought he was above the law and backed into another person penning him against a tank. The soldier penned was killed. It's a horrible horrible thing, but it happened. Now this soldier's family has to suffer because of someone's stupid mistake. It's a tragedy. So please keep that soldier's family in your prayers. I hope that the attacks are a one time deal and that they do not start back up, but it seems that they are still random and unorganized. Other than that, things are normal. I'm still working at the motorpool. We got word today that, in the system, they have us leaving on the 21st of February. That's a little bit longer than I had expected, but that is in no way shape or form a hard reliable date. So don't go planning coming home parties...Yet :) But that is the tentative date. I received a box from Mary, my boss from the financial aid office at App so I wanted to thank her for sending me those great cookies. :) Well, I guess that's it. I love you all and I appreciate your support. God bless.

2004-08-01T11:56:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So as Amy let you all know in one of the comments, I made it back from my convoy just fine. We went to Baghdad and let me tell you what. The place I went was so beautiful. They had a huge lake with a palace on it. And this thing was gorgeous. I have to hand it to Saddam, he at least had great taste in architecture. They had lake side housing...Probably for the high ranking officers. But the convoy was 99% uneventful. Before we left, reports came in that three IED's had gone off in the last hour and a large barrel of oil had been spilled on the highway coming back home on purpose and caused a tanker to flip over. So right away I was psyched...Not! We got there just fine but right before we left again we heard report that the highway was finally all cleaned up from the spill. Well when we got there, there was an iraqi police car making us go another route. This was a little spooky. Then when we got on the road that we had turned on, two transfer trucks were stopped in the middle of the road. Now this freaked me out because the first thing I thought was ambush. They were going to get us stopped then attack. But our lead vehicle jumped the median, so I followed of course, and when we got to the other side of the trucks, we saw that there was a military escort. So it was nothing. But it still scared me a little. But we got back with no attacks, and that made for a very happy night. Other than that, not much new. We had to say goodbye to some good guys that had to move down to Baghdad, but we'll see them again when we all leave. That's it, thanks so much for your support and God bless. Later

2004-07-28T21:32:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. Another day down. We're just hanging out getting ready for our convoy in the next couple of days. This will probably be my last post until we get back. Nothing's really new around here. Still really quiet. We're just working hard trying to get all of these vehicles up and running. We have this thing called a deadline and it's when a vehicle is too messed up to be mission capable. It's normal to have quite a few vehicles on it at a time, but we're striving to get at least 98% of all of the vehicles up and running. I'm not active duty, but apparently that's some kind of goal for them. Me? I'm just trying to get home :) Well, I guess that's it. Hope all is well. Love you guys and I appreciate the help. Thank you for your support.
God bless.

2004-07-27T10:46:00.000-05:00

Hello everyone. We found out a couple days ago that there are about 9 people from our company are being moved to a company down in Baghdad. While I'm not one of the ones getting moved, I just found out today that I'm one of the ones that are taking them down there. Therefore, I will be going on a convoy sometime in the next week. I can't tell you when, but I'll let you all know when I get back. We are only supposed to be down there for a day so it shouldn't be too bad, but I thought I'd let you all know so you could pray for me a little bit extra. I promise to be as careful as I can and I still have sometime for a few more posts before I have to leave so if we're only gone for a day or two you all may not even know until I get back. Of course, my mom, dad and Amy will know when I'm leaving, but when I get back I promise to update you all on everything (hopefully nothing) that happens while I'm gone. I got a package from Jacob and his family today. I wanted to thank you guys so much for the stuff. Especially the Hulk Hogan book, the hair brush and the enema. I'm sure they will all come in great use. Ha Ha. Well, that's it for now. Thank you all for your support. God bless.

2004-07-26T05:24:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. I'd like to give out a congratulations to the newest father in our company. My buddy Ricky Barrett's wife gave birth to a 6 lb baby boy on the 24th of this month. I would also like to point out an injustice though. Although Ricky, his friends, and even some of the NCO's in his chain of command pushed and pushed and tried their hardest to get him home to see his baby's birth, he was denied by higher ranking officials every time, most for ridiculous reasons. Like for example, one reason was that he couldn't trade R&R slots with someone else because they weren't going in the same month. Another reason is because to trade with a higher ranking person would show favoritism. There are a lot more and apparently in our system, baby's births are no longer important enough to go home to see. It's sad but it's true. Ricky's a good friend of mine and it's sad that this is the way our system works. But nonetheless, he's a brand new daddy of a healthy baby boy. So congrats to him. Well, that's it for now. Thank you all for your support. God bless you all.

2004-07-24T11:25:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Just so you guys know, I was never planning on quitting the whole blog thing. I've been doing it for too long, it's kind of a habit now. I was just making a general statement because I was averaging 1 to 2 comments per post, and one was always from Amy...Not to say she doesn't count :) Things are pretty much the same still. I pulled guard again today, not a bad detail, just boring. But we shouldn't have too many more details anymore because they are almost done with our new barracks. So that'll be nice. Tomorrow's a 10-2 day so we pretty much consider that an off day. We're supposed to be getting our R&R slots soon so we'll know when the next on the list is supposed to go. I was informed by SSG Watson that R&R shows up on everyone of my posts nowadays, but I can't help it...I'm excited :) Alright, I guess that's it, I'll let you guys know when there's a change. Thanks so much for you comments and support. Oh and by the way, if you have questions, go ahead and post them in the comments, I'm going to start responding in the comments area too. I figure that may be why some of you aren't posting anymore. So, I'll do better about that. OK, that's all, God bless you all and thanks for your support. Peace.

2004-07-22T07:03:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. Apparently we had some incomings earlier today because they did some accountability checks and such. I never heard the explosions or anything so it was news to me. Not much new. We're still just wasting time until it comes time to go home. Oh how great it would be. Some around here think we'll be home for good before Christmas but I'm not quite that optimistic. But I'll take it if that's the way it happens. Well, for everyone who's still reading this thing, if any, know that I appreciate all of your support and keeping up with the way things are going. I love you all and God bless.

2004-07-20T10:50:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. There really isn't anything new here, but a few new things back at home. We have a guy here that does paintings of any picture you give him, so I gave him one of me and Amy and sent it to her. Well she just got it and (as I already knew before she got it) it was awesome looking. I'm trying to get her to take a picture of it and put it on the internet so everyone else can see it. Also, my dad just got another promotion. So I wanted to congratulate him. Well, as much as I'm sorry that things here aren't as cool and interesting as they seem to be on the news, I'm glad they're not. Hope all is well for everyone else at home. Thank you guys so much for your support, I know I say it a lot and it may be starting to seem like lip service, but your packages and letters and comments really mean so much to me. Thank you all so much. God bless you all. Peace

2004-07-18T08:27:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I got to do an open mic night here. It ended up being kind of like a jam session. It was a lot of fun. Really, there's been absolutely nothing new going on. They are fixing up the base a little bit. They've started paving the roads. If you saw my video then you saw how horrible the roads are to drive on around here. It was probably a good idea on paper, but in 140 degree weather, I'm not quite sure if it's going to work. We'll see. Other than that, nothing to report. I hope you all are doing well. I can't wait to get home on R&R and see everyone. But until then, God bless and thank you all so much for your support. Peace.

2004-07-16T10:32:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Not that much new. Things have pretty much been the same around here. There was an open mic night tonight where I was going to try to gain back some of my dignity from getting booed off stage, but when we showed up we found out you have to be in a certain uniform, and one of the people with us wasn't in the right uniform. So we had to leave. But it's ok, it's going on tomorrow night too so we're going to go and enjoy then. I sent some videos to my mother and father and Amy. So when they show up, you guys can probably con them into copies if you want them. They are videos of me telling stories of things that have happened since I've been here and one video of me playing guitar. I also sent pictures with the one that went to Amy so there should be new pictures up in a couple of weeks or however long it takes for the CD to get to the states. Well, that's it. I appreciate all of your support. And God bless you all. Peace.

2004-07-14T08:41:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I had guard today. And I got roasted, which was fun. Despite my attempts to stay under shade, apparently you can get sunburned from just looking at the heat. I had a little bit of lotion that I used to stop my face from getting that bad, but my arms and the back of my neck got it pretty good. It'll be gone in a day or two though, so no harm done. I actually had fun guarding the Iraqis again today. They are, for the most part, very friendly and it's interesting to try to learn their culture and even more interesting trying to figure out what each other are saying through a language barrier. It's challenging but it makes for some interesting misinterpretations. Anyway, I guess that's all I have now. Nothing else has happened. I hope you all are well, I miss you all so much but hopefully I'll see you all in a month or so for R&R. Alright, well God bless and stay safe. Peace.

2004-07-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Not much new to report. I do have a story for you though. The guy that's in charge of supply made a convoy up to Anaconda so he could get more stuff. Well, on the way back down they got shot at by an RPG. An RPG is a Rocket Propelled Grenade. It's basically like a small rocket. Anyway, the RPG went right in between two of their vehicles and hit some factory on the other side. I'll be it was enough to get his heart beating and he said that when they got to where they were going, they guy that ran the gun truck that it almost hit was shaking uncontrollably, as I would probably would be. So another close one but again, no one hurt that we know about. Other than that, nothing new. Hope things are well with all of you. Things here are basically the same. Well, I love getting comments so thanks so much for all of your support. God bless you all and I'll talk to you later. Peace.

2004-07-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I had yesterday off and today was a half day since it's Sunday so it's been nice catching up on some sleep. We had to take some classes today, that was easy enough. Then we got some new issue. We got a lot of cold weather stuff, and some of it we have to turn back in before we get stateside so it makes no since that we get it now. I guess the nights get pretty cold here in the winter, but some of this stuff is stuff I would wear skiing. But some of it I get to keep and I have every intention of using for the ski season when I get back. I can't wait. But soon enough. Well, I guess that's it. I hope all is well for you guys. I love you and I hope to hear from you all soon. Peace.

2004-07-09T03:09:00.001-05:00

Hey everyone. Another day closer to getting to come home. We're like 4 1/2 months done now. It's not a lot, but it's better than a month done. R&R seems to be getting better and better every day. Right now it looks like I could be coming home as early as mid August for R&R. Maybe I'll break both of my legs while I'm home and just stay :) Just kidding. It's starting to get good and hot here. I took off my coveralls yesterday after changing some brakes and my legs were soaked with sweat. But we have AC to go cool down in when it gets bad. Plus I drink more water than most whales now. Well, I guess that's it. Things are good and going by quickly, although not quickly enough. I hope all is well home. God bless and thank you all for your support. Peace.

2004-07-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So things here haven't changed much. I just found out that I have to pull RTO duty for next week sometime. 12 hours a day for a whole week just answering the radio...not excited. But I guess it's something I have to do so better to get it over with. I'm learning a lot over here at the motorpool. Just not generator stuff. The generators we have here are the Iraqi's so we don't really work on them that much. So I've been working on regular vehicles here. I've changed an ignition switch and helped change the brakes on a 6K Forklift. So it's all good learning experiences. Well, I guess that's it. Wish I had more but I don't. Sorry. OK, well I hope is well. Love you guys and I miss you. Thank you so much for your support. God bless.

2004-07-07T04:59:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So it's my first day back to work. Fun fun fun. Nothing new though. Supposedly we had two incomings last night that caused for a 100% accountability check but I was already in the bed asleep by the time they even came by to check. Therefore, I never heard anything. We're doing a lot of changing around in our motorpool office. We're building desks and shelves so we can get more organized. Right now it's horrible in here trying to find anything. Last night I got a package from my mom in the mail so I wanted to thank her for that. Also, a lot of people are asking me what to send me. The list really hasn't changed much. What I'm going to do is send a list to both my mother and my father and if anyone wants to know what to send, try to get in touch with one of them. If you don't know my mother or my father then chances are you know Amy, so ask her. If you don't know her either, use your imagination :) Really, I'm happy with anything. Getting mail is awesome again like it was during Basic Training. Well, I guess that's it. Nothing else new that I can think of. Thanks everyone for your prayers and support. God bless you all. Peace.

2004-07-06T03:31:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I'm back from Balad and it was a horrible experience. Well, it started out really cool. We got to ride on a Chinook on the way up there, completely eventless (which you all know I like) so it made for a great ride. We got there, got bedded up and woke up the next morning and practiced and got ready for the show. When we got there we were surprised to find out that it wasn't a talent show. It was a remake of the old Apollo show. So people were getting booed off stage. I say people meaning EVERY SINGLE PERFORMER after the first person got booed. That's right. Everyone got booed after the first. Some stuck it out, some had friends in the audience that stood up and told everyone to shut up and others just left. So when we got one, the female that we had singing for us, Spc Lahner, decided to tell the crowd off before we started and she called them all evil. Needless to say we got booed right off stage. I was a little upset at first because I had never been booed off of a stage before, but then I said forget it and moved on. Now they are having open mic nights here every Friday so I'm going to do that instead. The ride back was just as fun, and now I can say I've ridden in a Blackhawk and a Chinook. Other than that, things are normal. No attacks here I know of. We had a couple in Balad, but that's normal there. I'm glad I don't live there. Ok, well it's lunch time so I have to go eat. I love you all and miss you all. God bless all of you and I hope you all had a great 4th of July. Peace

2004-07-02T10:33:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. Today's just another day. Still no big attacks so that makes me feel better. Things are pretty normal, guard duty in the mornings and at nights and working and sleeping, that's it. I wish I actually had something to say this time, but I there's nothing to report. Sorry. Well, I hope all is well. I hope you're all having fun. I miss you all and I'll talk to you all later. God bless.

2004-07-01T04:31:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Another day. I just finished my first day in the motorpool and I can already tell I'm going to like it a lot more than the post office. I'm still pulling guard duty very early in the morning and very late at night but so far so good. No incomings that I know of. We seem to be having outgoing every night though. Things here are good I guess. I'm messing with my laptop and putting all of my music on it so I'm not getting any sleep anymore. Plus the 0400 to 1200 hours at the motorpool prevent me from getting a lot of sleep at night. Guess I'll have to learn how to sleep during the day. Other than that, things are normal. I have all my pictures ready to burn and send so expect some more pictures in about 3 weeks. That should be it. Hope all of you are doing well, I miss you all and I thank you for supporting me and the rest of the troops. God bless.

2004-06-30T00:28:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Last night was cool. My first night in my guard position. I got to use my night vision scope on my rifle to check out the scenery. It's a pretty cool system but much too heavy for the weapon. It's alright if you have a fixed position and you can lay your rifle on some sandbags or something and just pivot, but for carrying around it's completely inefficient. But I'm in a fixed position so it won't be that bad. Last night we had some outgoing rounds that scared everyone. It was kind of funny because for a while only a couple of us knew that they were outgoing, everyone else thought they were incoming. They really do sound the same if you're like me and you don't know what to listen for. But our lieutenant is Field Artillery so he is always on top of it. I got some good news today. Since we switched up here to the post office, there are too many people here. So they are going to let me go work at the motorpool with my fellow mechanics until we switch back to distribution. So I finally get to learn some more stuff about what I actually joined the Army for, hang out with my friends, and get my hands dirty for the next 3 months. The hours are horrible (0400 - 1200) but at least I'll have the day to sleep. Alright, well that's it. I hope all is well, I love you guys and thank you so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

2004-06-29T07:59:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. So I guess you all know now about the changeover in power. We haven't seen any serious attacks. Supposedly there were a couple mortars that came in last night, but I never heard them, none of us heard them. I do have a story for you all though. One of our guys just got back from Baghdad where he visited for a day. They flew down there and back. On their way back someone shot a rocket at their helicopter and it got so close that the sparks from the back of the rocket got all in the helicopter. They had to land really quick and grab a fire extinguisher so that nothing would catch on fire. Close call, but thank God no one was hurt. Most of you know that I play guitar. Well me and another guy got together and started playing. Then a girl down here started singing with us and we've been goofing off with new songs and playing around ever since. Well our Batallion Commander found out that we did this so she decided to sign us up for a talent show being held in Anaconda (Balad, Iraq). The show is in a couple weeks, I won't tell you when until it's over, but we're going to be flown up there to play for this thing. I'm pretty excited, I've never been flown anywhere to play before, so it'll be fun. But I'll let you guys know how it goes. Well, that's it for now. Thank you so much for your support and prayers. God bless.

EDIT: I just wanted to add a couple more things. 1st of all. The changeover before schedule seems to have been a good idea. You know when you get ready to run and you're about to take off sprinting at the starting line and someone shouts go before you expected it so you take that one step that's all messed up and then the rest of the run is messed up? Well hopefully that's what this thing did to the Iraqi attacks. That's what we're hoping at least. Second, I got my laptop, so I'm going to start playing around with my video camera so hopefully I can get some better footage. Well that's it for now. Love you guys. Later.

2004-06-27T04:15:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I was looking at my archives over at the right of the screen and I realized that I've been doing this blog for over 6 months now. I don't think I've ever stuck with anything for over 6 months except little league baseball and school. Well, and my girlfriend Amy, we've been together for over 2 and a half years now. :) But it just made me happy knowing I've been able to stick with it this far like I wanted to. I hope you all are enjoying it. Anyway, I have a new guard position now in the event of a massive attack. I can't say where any of our guard positions are for obvious reasons, but I'll just say that I have high ground. I really hope that nothing happens and that they don't try anything, they're not going to win. But in the event that they do get brave/stupid, we are prepared. Also in worst case scenario I'm going to try to take my video camera with me and set it up quickly so I can get some decent footage. The camera won't be moving of course because no one will be manning it, but I figure anything will work. Nothing is ever as bad as the military says it's going to be, but we plan for the worst and hope for the best. I hope all is well. God bless you all and thank you for your support and prayers. Keep 'em up. Love you all. Peace.

2004-06-26T09:15:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So guard duty went fine. A lot of those guys speak just enough English to communicate with you and then I'm sure make fun of you behind your back...right in front of your face. But that's ok. It was pretty fun meeting some of the guys. It was kind of scary in the beginning though. Let me run you through how it worked. So first we drive up to the front gate. We pass by some other Iraqis getting searched and go to a huge crowd of them that haven't been searched yet. This is the scary part. Knowing that there are 500 locals standing there in a huge crowd that haven't been searched at all. So, you wait in line behind other soldiers there to get their work crew, and when it's your turn, you get your workers. Now if you have a big project, like ours, then you have a crew of guys that you get everyday. They have a guy in charge of them and about 40 workers. The guy in charge of our workers is an Iraqi that has a Civil Engineering degree from the University of Virginia. Very very intelligent man and makes for a great translator. So then you break them up into smaller groups that can fit in the truck that we brought and their own personal vans that have now been searched and brought on base. Then one soldier rides with each vehicle and you go to the work site. Our workers are working on our new barracks, which is a huge process, but they work all day and leave around 3:30. Most are very friendly. You're not sure which ones are trying to make some money and which ones are plotting a map, but there's no way to tell either, so the best idea is just to be friendly with all of them. After the day is done, you've had a few laughs and wait for your next time for guard. Well, that's it, pretty fun altogether, especially to learn someone else's culture. Nothing else is new, no new attacks that I know of. So pray for quiet peace. God bless you all.

PS: I almost forgot, yesterday marked our 1/3 mark. We are now 33% done. That'll make you feel a little better, I can't wait for the 99.999999999999999% mark. Ok, that's it. Peace.

2004-06-25T04:07:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. Last night I got a package from Cheryl and her class, so I wanted to say thank you so much for that. Great stuff. The days here are usual. Still flying by. We still haven't heard much action, which I'm hoping and crossing my fingers will keep. But we're having another mass casualty exercise in a couple days again, so we're definitely getting ready for something. Hopefully it's nothing. I have guard tomorrow. The Iraqis come on base and work for money and you have to have so many soldiers for every couple Iraqis on base, so me and two other soldiers are guarding the ones that are renovating our new barracks tomorrow. It's a detail that we switch out. From what I hear it's not that bad and the guys that work with us are really friendly and even know a little English. The only bad part about it is standing out in the sun all day. But I should be ok, I have PLENTY of sunscreen. Well, I guess that's it. Love you all and thank you so much for your support. God bless.

2004-06-24T05:21:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So a few new things happend yesterday. First of all I visited the pool for the first time. We have had an outdoor pool here for about a month now and I just now got to trying it out. It's pretty nice. They have managed to grow a little bit of grass there, and they surrounded it with a grass/hey like fence, so you can actually forget you're in Iraq altogether. It was probably the most fun I've had, or at least the most peace of mind I've had since I got here. So it was nice. Then at 1900 we had what was called a "mass casualty drill." I know what you're thinking, what a horrible name. And I agree. But it was the exercise we went through so we would know what to do in the event that we started getting hit really really hard or they started overrunning the gates and fences. Seems kind of fishy that we started these drills exactly one week before the change over of the new government, but oh well. Wish us luck. At least now we know what to do. Well, I guess that's it, not much else new. Hope all is well and I'll talk to you guys later. God bless.

2004-06-22T04:44:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So we got hit again last night. Two incomings, and some of the people said they heard the streamers off of it so that makes me think it was a rocket and not a mortar. But I haven't heard for sure, nor have I heard about casualties or anything. We are expecting it to be a hard week attack-wise. The 30th of June is right around the corner and some think that the reason it's been so quiet is because they have been saving up for this week or that day. So keep your prayers up. It's all speculation of course, but it makes since. I'm not sure about the Iraqi's that supposedly broke on base, but they are letting the other Iraqi's on base again to work, so I guess it was either not true or they caught them. But I'm pretty sure it was true because SSG Byrd, my squad leader, said he woke up late one night and there were soldiers everywhere running around with flashlights. That's definetly not normal. So who knows, I'm only here, no reason to keep me informed. But I guess that's it, hope all is well. Thank you so much for your support and your prayers, they are appreciated. God bless.

2004-06-21T05:44:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So I guess we got attacked a little. They say that there was an explosion this morning around 0800 and I heard a rumor that six Iraqi's broke in the base last night and they couldn't find them. So if the rumor is true then we have a couple Iraqi's wondering around the base now. Not sure if it's true. But I do now that they are making us wear our vests and k-pots everywhere we go now during certain times. So that's fun. Here comes the sweat again. Well, that's it for now, hope everyone had a great Father's Day. One more week down, one more week closer to being home. Love you all, thanks for your prayers and support. God bless.

2004-06-20T04:35:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. I don't have much to report except that I am moving back to distribution for a week while the others train up here at the post office. It'll be nice doing the job that I enjoy again, even if it's just for a week. Convoys are coming now at staggered times, so now we have to be there sometimes during the day, sometimes during the night. It's all depending on when they show up. We have to be there tonight at 9:00 pm even though we've been working here since 0730 this morning. So when I get off, I'm getting some sleep. We had an explosion late last night, but I just found out this morning that it was a controlled blast. So no harm done. I had my cousin post two more websites similar to mine there on the right hand side of the screen. SPC Allen is a soldier in my unit here working with me that started one up for her family, so you guys can see the same thing I'm going through in different eyes. SPC Oxford is a friend of mine for Appstate who is deployed with the 1450th Boone, NC Transportation unit assigned to Kuwait. They do convoys up to Iraq periodically so he will probably have some interesting stories on there. Well, I don't have much more to report. Hope all is well and thank you so much for your prayers and support. God bless.

EDIT: What was I thinking? I wanted to say happy daddy's to all of the fathers out there. Especially the ones that have been separated from their children by this conflict be it because they are over here or because their kids are over here. And extra especially to my two fathers. My father and my step-father. Both of you have been a great inspiration to me, you taught me my morals, my work ethics (which I found out not many people have anymore) and you two are what I am striving to be when I get my own family. Thank you so much for what you have given to me and what you have instilled in me. God bless you both and Happy Father's Day. I love you both.

2004-06-19T09:25:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. Another day gone and one more closer to me getting to go home. Not much new happened today, we have to go in early tomorrow because they put the camo netting that they are using for shade upside down, so now I guess we get to fix it. Oh well, so much for sleeping in a little. There was an impact about 0500 this morning. It woke me up, but it was pretty far away. I think they said it was on the ICDC (or Iraqi Soldier) side. Not sure about casualties if any. I don't really even respond to them anymore unless they are close enough to shake me. Then I like to see where they hit. Other than that it doesn't bother me anymore like it used to. It's not like worrying about it is going to make me safer anyway, it's hit or miss. But thank God, it's been really really quite as compared to some of the other camps around here. Last year this camp was the most mortared camp in Iraq. We got to see why the first couple months, but now we have civilians on parts of the fences and they don't have to follow the same rules we do, so they shoot at everything. That causes the insurgents around here to second guess whether or not they want to risk their lives to mess with us, and I guess they don't come around. I'm not complaining. Well, I guess that's it, I hope you all are doing well, drop me a line every once in a while, and God bless you all for your prayers and support. Peace.

2004-06-18T13:55:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. Not much new. But I did see something in the news today that kind of disturbed me. It was the story about the MP that got killed in Anaconda one day before he was supposed to leave. The attack hit last Wednesday, and he was set to leave Thursday. That's the day they were supposed to leave AFTER there 3 month extension. So after he was already supposed to be home, he had to stay anyway, then the day before he leaves...Boom, a rocket hits the PX and he's no longer with us. First of all, it kind of disturbed me because I've been in that PX. We stayed there for a week before coming here. Second of all, it seems like they are saying "Oh, you went a year and you're all fine, well we'll just see about that, three more months...HAHAHAH!!!" I know it seems like the sick version of what they are thinking, and I hope to God it isn't what they're thinking, but doesn't it kind of seem like that? I don't know, another "thinking" spell. But all of your prayers are what keep me safe, and I appreciate it. So, since there's nothing going on right now, I thought I'd go on a tangent. But I'm finished now. I hope you all are well and keep your prayers going, I need all I can get. God bless.

2004-06-16T13:33:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. So not much new. I got to pull escort for some of the Iraqis on base today. Kind of interesting. I didn't get to talk to them much because the spoke almost no English, but some of the guys around here speak pretty well. They hire them around here to work on some of the projects on base, and they are fixing some of our extra barracks so that we can get some more space, so now we are switching off guard duties. You and one other person are in charge of around 15 or so people and you're only job is to watch them. It's a boring job, but it allows for great opportunity to learn a different culture a little. And they are already searched and checked before coming on base so they are safe. The only problem we've had is that they found about 7 Iraqi's with maps of the area. They had been doing pace counts when walking and secretly jotting down maps for attacks. They caught and arrested them, but I'm sure there are plenty more out there that haven't been caught. Kind of sad, some of these guys are really just trying to make a living and the insurgents are ruining if for everyone. But since you can't trust all of them, you have to look at all of them with one eye of humanity and one of caution. It's a horrible thing to do, but it's not worth a soldier's life to make friends if you ask me. Well, I suppose that's it, not much new, hope I didn't depress you all with my rambling. But God bless you all and thank you so much for your prayers and support. Thank you. Peace.

2004-06-15T10:18:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So apparently George got my video that I sent copied to VHS so he will distribute to anyone who wants them. To get ahold of him click on his link to the right of the screen "Dirty Greek" and send him an e-mail. Or if you're part of the family, just call him :) Be ye warned though, this is the Army and some of the fellows use bad language despite my attempts to make them behave, but it isn't that bad. Kind of like a PG-13 movie probably. Anyway, not much new has happend. I switched from distribution to the post office. Now I handle outgoing mail instead of incoming mail. Let me tell you, it is one boring job. I'm serious. I could never be a post office worker in real life, it's either extremely busy or extremely boring. No in between. Well, I guess that's it, I'll let you know if anything new happens. But right now, it's all standard. Peace all and God bless.

2004-06-13T13:06:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone. So a few things new. We found out that some of the convoys are going to start coming in at night. So we may have some third shift stuff going on now. I don't really want that, but at least we won't have to work in the hot part of the day. It'll just be harder to see because the lights in that place aren't very good so I'm pretty sure all of our eyes will be shot in a month. Also, this morning there was some hostile fire at the gate, I'm not sure if anyone was hurt or killed, but I know that they cut off the phones so that we couldn't call out today. So whenever I find out what happened there I will let you guys know. Other than that, not much new. I will inform you guys when I find out more or something else happens. Oh, and I received a package from the Cochran's. So I wanted to say thank you to you guys. You have been so good to me, and I appreciate the support and you working with me when I had to move out so quickly. God bless all of you and thank you so much for your prayers and support. Love you all. Peace

2004-06-10T12:36:00.000-05:00

Hey guys. Another day in the bank and one more closer to me getting to come home. Not that I don't just love Iraq (note sarcasm). Things here were pretty standard. Nada new. We didn't get any mail in today but we still had to work pretty hard because we just moved to a new building. But now it's over and I really am at a loss for words because absolutely nothing new has happened recently. Sorry for the bordem and lack of news. But we get up, eat, sweat for the rest of the day, come home, go to sleep, repeat. And it can stay that way as far as I'm concerned until it's time for me to leave. OK, well that's it. Hope you all are doing well. Thank you so much for your support. I love you all and God bless.