The Last Month

May is finally upon and everyone around here is anxious to get home to our family and friends, I can say that you never know how long a year is until you spend one in Afghanistan. I've seen and experienced alot of things in my time over and because of OPSEC I can't post those things in the blog while I'm over here...nor can I post pictures of certain things. However, once I leave here my last blog will tell the stories I couldn't. What I will say is God is good and I'm thankful that I've made it this far and my unit has made it this far only losing two people.


With less than 30 days left in country, we have been very busy, cleaning equipment and turning it in so it can be shipped back to Hawaii. We still have a few teams out on the battlefield but they should be back within the next week. Days are long but this is the work thats worth it because the stuff we are doing now is what gets us home. We are scheduled to roll out at the end of this month, so hopefully we can finish all of our turn ins by mid May. That way we can just relax for our last couple of weeks, the heat has picked back up and its no fun to be out there in the sun all day.

Since this is all in the news I can post it here in the blog, several hundred inmates have escaped from a prison not far from where we are and it is believed that 5 suicide bombers are here on KAF so we are on high alert and have been advised to stay away from the highly populated areas..such as the boardwalk, gyms, and Dining Facilities. If do go to any of those places we are advised not to stay long, because we they do attack its most likely gonna be a place where alot of people are. So just pray that we can make it out of here safely and with no harm.

This should be the last blog I write from Afghanistan, the next one will come from Kuwait or Manas..depends on where they have us layover at to await our flight to the U.S. 

Rainy Month/Reset and Turn In

Well, the rain finally came down this month and when you combine all the dirt that we have around here with water...you get alot of mud. As you can see from the pictures it was a mess, add in the cold weather and you just dont want to be outside. Luckily the weather has started to warm back up and the rains have died down. Warmer weather means we are closer and closer to getting back to Hawaii and the feeling is mutual between everyone, we are ready to go! I am now on the Turn In team, which isn't fun because all we do is wash equipment throughout the week and then turn it in on Friday. Although its not fun I enjoy it because every Friday we are turning in something and that leaves us with less and less equipment. I will be happy when its all gone. Since we are under 90 days and will some begin packing personal equipment, I don't need to receive any more care packages. I'd like to thank everyone that has sent something to me out here, it always brightens up my day and usually my buddies too.At the request of a friend of mine I'd like to post some here on my blog and ask for your prayers.   

"We are asking everyone to say a prayer for the US "Darkhorse" 3rd Battalion 5th Marines and their families. They are fighting it out here in  Afghanistan and have lost 9 Marines in 4 days" 

I'm praying for the day when this will over and no more lives will have to be lost.

Time is Afghanistan: 9 months, 6 days 
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 77 Days

R&R: Rest and Relaxlation

Its been a while since I've posted, I had to go back and read the last blog to see what the last thing we talked about. It is now Feb 2 and we are 10 days away from the 8 month mark. So lets go back to Christmas and work up to today. It wasn't as hard to be away from home on Christmas and I believe that was because I knew I'd be home by New Years Eve. They had a pancake breakfast for us and handed out T-shirts and goodie bags for Christmas. So all in all it wasn't too bad. I flew out of Afghanistan on the 29th and headed to Kuwait, that's where everyone who is going on or coming from R & R goes. We were there for about 36hrs but that's only because our flight got delayed twice. While in Kuwait you are separated based on where your final destination is pretty much everyone east of the Mississippi goes through Atlanta and then to their final destination. Everyone going west goes through Dallas and then to their final destination. We flew from Kuwait to Shannon, Ireland where we only stayed long enough for the plane to re-fuel and we were on our way to the United States. Once we land in Atlanta we were given a round of applause and had to go through customs, get our leave papers stamped and get our return date which would be Jan 16. Since our flight out of Kuwait was delayed we arrived later than originally  planned and the flights that they had scheduled us were already gone. I ended up catching a an 8:30pm plane and arrived in Orlando around 10pm. Even though I had been traveling for almost 3 days I still wanted to make it to church. I arrived just in time to pray in the New Year. I really didn't have too much planned this trip just wanted to take it easy. A woman from my church named Mrs Johnson had a dinner party for me with some other members of our church, funny thing was I had no idea it was for me until I saw a cake with my photo on it. Other than that I went to a couple of Magic games and took some young men along with me. Just the feeling of being home from Afghanistan was enough for me, I didn't have to do a whole lot. I will be back in the summer for longer period of time so I'm sure I'll do more and see more people during that time. It was hard to come back here but its my job and its just what I had to do. I'm glad that I took my R&R in the middle of the deployment rather than the beginning or end. As I said earlier there are only four months left and we are already starting to turn certain vehicles and equipment in to be shipped back to Hawaii. Continue to keep all the deployed troops around the world in your prayers and I will talk to you guys in March

Time is Afghanistan: 7 months, 21 days 
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 114 Days