Thanksgiving

 

Seasons greetings and Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. This year marks the third year in a row that I will spend Thanksgiving away from home, so I guess you can say I know how it feels. Next month will be a little weird because in 21 years this year will be the first Christmas that I'm not home but that will be in next months blog. They dressed our Dining Facility up really nice with decorations and table clothes to give it that Thanksgiving feeling and we had live music from one of the Army bands. On the menu they had Prime Rib, Stuffed Steamship Round, Pit Ham, Cornish Hens, Lobster, Salmon Cakes and of course Turkey. All your traditional sides and deserts were served too. So as you can see they tried to give you as many options as they could and I have to say it was a  pretty good meal. Only thing was that the football games didnt come on until about 10:30pm because of the time difference so there was no football while eating.

This time next month I'll be almost out of the door for R&R I should be leaving Afghanistan on Dec. 28 and after all the stops and checkpoints I should be back in the states on Dec 31, hopefully in time for church. There would be no better place to close out this year and start the new one than in the House of the Lord.

Our official re-deployment date came down the wire this week and we will be heading back to Hawaii on May 28, 2011. It's about two weeks earlier than we were expecting and I'm sure no one is complaining about that. 

Once again I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and if I don't have the time for another blog before R&R I wish you all a Merry Christmas as well.

Countdowns and Countups:
Time is Afghanistan: 5 months, 14 days
Time until R&R: 36 Days
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 183 Days

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The other day I walked outside and looked in ahead of me, in the distance was a mountain. I turned to my left and there was a mountain. I turned to my right and there was mountain. Looked behind me and guess what I saw...a mountain. Looked on the ground and there are dirt and rocks. Looked at the sky and its cloudy and gray. Those are just some of daily things I see when I walk outside here. I'm not happy here and I'm ready to leave this place. Theres nothing to look forward to, you cant look forward to the weekends because you're working. When I get off from work I do nothing but eat exercise and  then sleep. When I'm at work there's really nothing to do, because I work the late shift 11pm-7am and everybody's gone, so I have to do is really just make sure our link stays up and guard the equipment because we do have secure items that not everybody can have access to. Even with all that I try to make my days count instead of counting days. (Although I do know I have 58 days until R&R.)

I definitely want to say thank you for the care packages that were received this past month, they were enjoyed. It means alot know you thought about me.


The picture you see is my team I feel I should introduce you to them since they are pretty much my family while I am here. The white guy you see is our Team Chief, Sgt Chris Bell he's from Oakland, California. To his left is Spc. Roy Lee Holmes he is from Augusta, Georgia. To the right of him is my roommate PV2 Jeremy Johnson he is from Fayetteville, North Carolina. You all know me. Finally the lady of the team is Spc Felisha Wade and she is from Plain Dealing, Louisiana. All from different places but here in Afghanistan together. I ask you continue to pray us and every soldier fighting in this war.

Countdowns and Countups:
Time is Afghanistan: 144 Days
Time until R&R: 58 Days
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 221 Days