Somewhere in Southwest Asia

Well I made it to my “undisclosed location” after a little excitement before leaving Seymour Johnson AFB. We started down the runway for take-off and all of a sudden the pilot slows down and starts slamming on the brakes. Apparently, one of those pesky indicator lights came on during take-off so we had to abort. Waited an hour or so for the mechanic to come check it out and after another hour or so, we are off again. In the mean time, I was able to check the Ohio State score one last time…we won!!!! Finally, a big game win for the buckeyes…it’s about time! Unfortunately, all I was able to see of the game was the first touchdown. Thankfully, my wonderful wife recorded it for me to watch when I return home. Anyways, we get air born this time, although it was a little nerve racking during the second take-off, we are off to our “undisclosed location in southwest Asia.”

We arrived without further incident some 15 hours later. Not much sleep to be had on the airplane for me, thankfully there was plenty of movies and food to keep me occupied. Thankfully my First Sergeant met us at the terminal with our room keys and after our transition trough customs, which was a joke, we are off to our trailers. My room is about 10 x 10, with bunk beds, two wall lockers, a fridge, some sort of coffee table, and a night stand. Thankfully MSgt’s and above don’t have to share a room. I cannot imagine sharing this tiny room with anyone. Rank really does have its privileges. Next our “Cadillac” that’s deployment speak for common bathrooms. Thankfully mine is only a few minutes away and it is a new one, yea!! Some of the showers are cold, some are hot, some are warm…I don’t get it. I am going to start checking out which ones are hot and only use those from now on. The best part is in the middle of the night when you wake to up and have to go to the bathroom, you have to go in your pt uniform and you MUST have your reflective belt on. The reflective belts are a funny thing around here…we have to wear them on our person during all times of limited visibility. That’s silly enough, since our PT uniforms already have reflective material on them, but you MUST also have a reflective belt on your back pack. Pretty silly that’s for sure.

The food is good (usually) and plentiful. The dining facility by my room is open 24-hours a day, so you can get a hot meal whenever you want. Thankfully there is water available everywhere! The hardest part is making sure you don’t eat too unhealthy all of the time, because you sure can raise the cholesterol and gain plenty of weight while you’re here. I did make it to the gym three times this week, including my first introduction to squadron PT, which was a four mile-run and twenty minutes of cardio when we were finished. I can’t even imagine the backlash if I tried to have my unit back home run four miles, let alone do cardio afterwards. Now I just need to find some sports to play. Haven’t heard of any intramural sports going on just yet, but hopefully some will begin soon.

After a week, I think I am finally getting my body into a normal sleeping pattern. It’s been hard because of the time change, working nights, and making sure I find time to talk to the family. It’s Sunday, my day off, and tomorrow I move to day-shift, yea!! It’s hard to work nights when you’re a morning person. Work is good…nice facility, a/c works, so far anyway, and it’s just busy enough to make the 12-hour shift go by fairly quickly. We do have a media web, which has movies and television shows that we can enjoy when we aren’t busy.

Of course, I am still getting used to everything here and figuring to a good daily routine, but each day seems to get better. Found an old friend from Utah yesterday that has a vehicle, so I think we may try to go golfing soon. There is a European Tour golf tournament at the end of the month that I think I will try to go watch on one of my days off.

Anyways…a lot of information I know, but I am sure I forgot something I wanted to share. Next time I will try to have some pictures for everyone to enjoy, but I have to wait for the camera to get here. I hope everyone had a wonderful new year and you are cherishing all of the blessing we are able to enjoy each and every day. That’s all for now…