Well, it is like feast or famine over here right now. At the moment,
we are in the feast stage and so I haven’t had alot of time to post.
We are doing alot of mission and some of them are actually
interesting. Hopefully, in a couple of days, I will be able to post
some info and pictures once they are released to the public.

On another note, I just got my frocking letter from my command. Which
means that I am officially promoted to MC1. (That’s E6 for you army
guys) Hurrah for me! I am going to see if I can have a little
ceremony and party out here with the rest of the Navy guys that are
out here. I hope to procure a cake from the chow hall and soda for
all. Since, I can’t have beer out here, I expect you all of owe me
one when I get back. Just kidding!

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone how has sent me packages. So
far I have been getting all of them, even the ones that were sent to
Falcon have arrived. I can’t remember if I posted this, but I have a
new address, yes again. Drew has it and it is alot simpler than the
last one. Hopefully, this will be the last address change for this
tour. Don’t worry we are still on FOB Kalsu, we just had to change
our address with the post office due to paperwork issues. Sigh. I
love the army, no really. Anyways, please email Drew for the new
one.

As always I miss you guys and am really hoping everyone has a good Thanksgiving.

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who has been emailing me.
I know that I am not the quickest to reply, but I do read them and
really appreciate hearing news from home and just talking with
friends.

Second, I want to thank all of my friends who are Veterans and have
served their country so well in the past and present. While, we
didn’t get Veteran’s day off, I hope that everyone else enjoyed the
long weekend.

As for boxes, I finally got the first box that my mom sent with
pictures of James in it. And I got the second box from Drew with our
GPS in it. So I guess the mail is making it through, it is just
taking a bit to get here. I need to go down on to the Post Office
today and see what is going to change with the address when we get
moved over to the new unit. Soo… if you are thinking of sending
another box, give me a day to check things out from this end. Thanks
guys, I miss you all.

Sorry that I haven’t posted in a bit. Wagner and I were sent out to
FOB Iskan to do a five day mission with the Civil Affairs team. It
was actually kind of fun, and I realized how spoiled I am to have my
own CHU with all my stuff. We ended up having to buy power strips
from the local market as we were working out of the temporary CHUs we
had, and the power socket was different. We had some really good
missions including going out to distribute school supplies to some
local Iraqi children. That was very cool and Wagner has a picture of
all the kids swarming me as they found out I was taking video.

The best thing was that when we got back tonight, we ran over to the
mail room and picked up two more boxes from home, plus my photos from
Michelle. So tonight, I get to look at pictures of James and family
before I crawl into my own bed. Ah, home sweet home is now a CHU at
FOB Kalsu.

We are settling in really well here, which means we are getting more
and more busy. Actually, I just got an email from an old friend from
the USS Truman, who told me that my video is getting noticed. I can’t
believe it, that is soo cool to here. Hurrah for Vidiots!! Still I
think that I need to get a mono-pod because by the end of the day my
footage gets kind of shaky cause I am carrying 30lbs of armor and
running around to get the shots. Oh well. Time for me to hit the
hay. I love you guys and miss you and will see if I can post some of
Wagner’s pictures of me soon.

Well, I spent my birthday doing video and stills for a City Hall Grand
Opening ceremony in Musayyib, Iraq. They only had room to send one of
us, and I am alittle more up to speed on video which was the primary
focus, so I got to go. I totally forgot it was my birthday when I
volunteered to go the day before, and I was so busy I forgot until I
got back and Wagner reminded me. So, we had a little celebration in
my CHU with the goodies that everyone has sent and I was asleep by
10pm. All in all, not too bad of a way to spend my 29 (x4) birthday.
I even got cheesecake for dinner. I want to thank everyone who sent
birthday wishes via email. It was very nice to get to read them today
and hear from everyone.

I hope to get some more packages soon, as several people have told me
they sent stuff but our mail is really slow here. Everyone has been
asking about what I need. Mainly we need easy and small packs of
snacks (like the 100 calories pretzels) to take out on missions as we
usually don’t get lunch on mission days. Also, Wagner and I are going
to start collecting supplies for the school kids here. There have
been several units here who have been doing their own distribution
missions to the kids. So, if you have time, please send me pens,
pencils, crayons, markers, notebooks and coloring books. Or anything
else that school kids could use. Then once, I get a bunch I will have
the MPs here help me distribute it to the local kids. Thanks.

Edit: As I was writing this, Wagner just brought in my birthday box
from Drew. I got a cool new spiderco knife and chocolate turtles.
Yumm… Happy Birthday to me! I love you guys and miss you.

Well, it wasn’t like going trick or treating with James, but I got to
go out on a mission on Halloween. We went with some MPs to Jabella to
do a walking patrol of the market with the IPs. It was very cool to
get out of the MRAPs and actually walk around a town. The MPs that we
went with were very nice and pretty much let us go where ever we
wanted to get footage. They just watched for security and to keep the
kids away.

The kids were amazing. It was a Friday so they didn’t have school as
that is the holiday here. But they just come out of the woodwork and
start talking to you. They ask for a lot of stuff like soccer balls,
pens, candy, which I didn’t have any. Next time, I think I will be
sure to bring a bag of some on the candy that I can’t eat as I am
trying to lose wait. It will go to a good cause. The only annoying
part was that once they figured out that I was doing video they would
get in front of the camera and wave. Which kind of ruins the effect
of documenting what is happening without people acting differently.
Oh well.

On the base, we had a party at the MWR and they played “Halloween” the
movie on the side of a T-wall with a projector, which was cool.
Wagner and I dropped off a lot of the candy that we had both gotten,
as a treat to all the soldiers for the party. It was greatly
appreciated. My costume was a Navy sailor trapped on an Army base in
the middle of the desert. It was a big hit.

I really appreciate all the packages that people have sent and we are
getting mail now, so please keep them coming. I especially like the
printed photos which I have put up in my office to remind me of home.
I miss you guys and hope that you all had a fun Halloween.