HAPPY THANKGIVING!!!

Sorry it has been so long, but the computers are just so slow and they lock down the internet most of the time. Things have been going well so far. The staff that I work with are starting to come together and we are really jelling as a team. The Seabees out here are doing amazing things and making a huge difference in the entire environment out here. The mission is simple – support the Marines with construction support all over Al Anbar. Al Anbar is roughly 58,000 square miles in western Iraq in what used to be a horrible area. Now it has become the model of success and the threat has plummeted. I only hope we are having a little part in that.

I am living in an old beat up building. It is concrete and block with tile floors. There are a couple rooms in the side I live on and we all share two bathrooms. The bathrooms are not very nice and the showers just kind of spray into the middle of the room. You have to squeegee it after your shower just to keep from floating away. My office is in another old building (picture to the left) about half a mile away from where I live. It is not too bad of a walk and kind of nice in the morning and evenings. We have an entire walled complex that used to be some Iraqi training compound. There is even a pond nearby with geese that will chase you if they think you have food. There is scrub brush kind of vegetation, but it is better than nothing at all. The food is just what I expected. Lots of it and it allll tastes the same. Only disappointment so far was Thanksgiving lunch. They did not have turkey. I had to have a Philly cheese steak sandwich, but still enjoyed multiple desserts so it was still good.

I have done a fair amount of traveling since I got here, but it has slowed up now. There were lots of visitors and I had to host them. It was a big swing to all the sites twice over three weeks. The best so far was a ride in an Osprey. It was amazing. It is hard to tell how it works, but it feels so weird. The osprey has tilt rotors which start out facing up so you take off like a helicopter and then the tilt and face forward like a plane. The back is open so you have to hold on to your stuff as it transitions because there is a substantial tilt downwards, but the view is great. I am trying to get some pictures of the Ospreys, but so far I have only seen them at night when it was too dark to get pictures. Picture it the right is Frank Fernandez and I at a Combat Outpost. Hard to believe all these years later, we keep running into each other. He is the Operations Officer for one of the units that works for my unit.

I was really sick for a while, but have pretty much gotten over it. It is normal and everyone gets is as your body gets used to the new environment. It is just your typical flu-like cold and coughing.

We have had a couple visitors since I got here to include the Chief of Naval Operations (most senior person in the Navy) and the Secretary of the Navy (Civilian head of the Navy). They have been passing through fairly quickly, but both of them included the Seabees on their busy schedule. I got to meet the Chief of Naval Operations and actually briefed the Secretary of the Navy. They were both very complementary of what we are doing out here.

Nothing else too exciting, but thanks for all the support. Miss everyone and can’t wait to get home. Cards on the wall are from the Pre-First class at Christian Academy of Knoxville. The group is the Operations Department. They are the ones that make everything happen.

PICS WOULD NOT LOAD. I WILL TRY LATER