im home and safe.

 

got back jan 6th.

 

my wife and i are expecting another child, and things are great.

 

right now all we are doing is setting back up into our normal routines, and its going to be a long and busy year, as i have to get ready to go back in december or january again.

 

but before then, i go to ancoc which is a school i need to go to to get my E-7, but at the same time or right after I will put in my packet for either topo warrant officer or aviation warrant officer.  So wish me luck.

 

well take care.

 

my vacation in paradise may be over, but i'm still in paradise here.

-J

Well it is that time of the year.  The end... or is it a beginning???  

Well let me look back at this last year.  To sum it up it was not a good year.  A year long deployment is a very long time.  Most of my life I have not really concerned myself with going away.  Ever since I joined the army 11 years ago I have never had a problem with anywhere that the army has sent me and always had an understanding that I will go back home when they send me and just lived with it.  Well that has all changed now.  Marriage does that causes your life to change.  The difference between this deployment and all the others before it.  I have something to look forward to when I come home.  I have someone to go home to.  The one person that I do not ever want to spend time away from.  Well I have just spent a year away from her.  It really sucks.  Other deployments there was no one waiting there for me when i got home so I was just like o well lets just find something to do now.  But now I get to come home to my family and get started going again.  I am looking forward to it. 

Well back to the year in review.  I started on the 6 of january 05 by getting deployed to Iraq.  Spent the first 5 months at one small little fob south of tirkrit Iraq.  Then after that we moved to a fob north of tirkrit where I am still at on the new years day.   There have been to this date not a single death from my company which is a wonderful thing.  And I hope I did  not just speak to soon on that.  So with that fact alone we had a sucessful deployment.  Then youthink about all the great things that we have accomplished since we have been here.  The Iraqi people are making progress in being able to keep the peace using there own forces.  and they will continue to improve and someday not to far off we will be able to pull our forces out of here.  It will not happen over night it is a work in progress but things are getting much better here.  

Personally this year has been hard on me.  I really do not being away from my wife.  I love you and always want to be with her.  There where some tough lessons learned with how to deal with the seperation.  But we have built a stonger relationship this year.  We are getting  better every day at communication.  I miss my boy.  He is doing so well in school.  He is in gifted classes learning higher grade level math, and started learning languages and other things.  It is just so amazing how smart he is.  I am so proud.  I just miss them terribly.  But soon I will be back home and I am getting impatcient waiting to go back home.  But it is not much longer.  

Well Happy new years everyone   have a great holiday and be safe. 

Later

j

Is there ever a time when that phrase is not good to say.  If so I have not found it.   I will walk around here all day long and when I see someone I will say  Good Morning.   Most people just get a confused look on there face, shake there heads and keep going to where ever they are heading.   Some people will come back with its not morning..   to which I reply it is somewhere.   Yes this coming from me someone who has never been and will never be a morning person.   I really do not like the morning.  No matter how much sleep I get I do not like to wake up and start my days.   There are times where I will lay in bed for over an hour wide awake just not wanting to get up.  Unless of course I have something to do or somewhere to be.   I am pretty much always on time for things I have to be at.   But saying good morning at all times of the day and night.   I guess I have used it as entertainment since I have been deployed.  I am not the only one here who is not a morning person.  There are alot of us non morning persons in the world.  And I think I just say it to get people to react and I don't mind if there reactions are positive or negative.  Just don't matter.   So try it.  Go through an entire day and everyone you meet great them with a GOOD MORNING..  no matter what time of the day it is.  

Later all

J

damn, damn, damn...excuse my french. no pun intended...

anyways... the bears winning streak is over...after 8 wins, they could not pull the 9th win. no matter, they still have a chance...heres to crossing fingers and toes.

Well as you can see another month down, another month closer to going home.  In fact in a few more weeks it will be only one month left.   Wow time has been going the last few weeks.  Which is very very good.  I just hope it stays going really fast.  I am really excited to get out of here and go home.   Still have to keep focused on what i need to do here of course.  But for the most part all is well just have to make sure that everything gets done so that it is a easy and painless as possible getting out of here.  

Other then that.  Lets see...    The bears are doing great this year.   They have a big game this weekend that will show us how good they really are.  the bulls are struggleing so for during the beginning of the season.  It is a long season so I am not worried about it.  And of course next year the cubs will win the world series. 

Well take care all

later

J

Wow 2005 is a year best forgot.  You ever have this feeling that you are just in a box with no way out.  the funny thing is, litterally not just figurtivly I have been stuck in a box for the entire year.  My box is a room about 15' x 15' but every day 12-14 hours a day this is where I am.  When I am not here I am in another room just a little bit bigger reading or sleeping.  I guess the good that came from all this is that I have read alot of books.  But I need to change my job in the army because I am left with way to much time to just think and that can be dangerous. 

But enough with the sad state of my year.  I just have to look at the bright side.  The year is almost over and soon I will escape from my box.  To freedom back home in the US of A.  Well as much freedom as I get being in the military.  Big decesions coming soon with my career paths.  I do think that I will be submiting a request to become a warrant officer.  It will be a good career choice so why not do it.  After all I still have at least 12 years left until I can retire from the miltiary and that will just get me more benifits when I do retire. 

The Cubs this year floundered who could have guessed that??  However the whitesox look as though they will win the series tonight.  To bad I am a cub fan and not a sox fan.  Notredame almost upset USC that was a great game, but disappointing that they lost and how they lost.  At least i was able to sit down and watch the entire game albeit from another box.   the bears are still having problems on offense but there defense is play marvelously.  question goes out what do they do when there qb comes back from injury?  stay with the rookie who by then will have played in more games then the vet or give the vet a chance.  We will see what happens.  The bulls we will just have to see how they fare this season  last year was a great year for them, they made great stides.  We will just have to see what they do this year without the big presance in the middle.  But that is what I am keeping up with these days. 

I am looking forward to leaving Iraq and coming home which will be here in a couple more months.  Lets hope that the time goes by extremly fast for the next couple months. 

 

Later

J

Alright Well Yes I am still in Iraq.  That does not mean that I will not be following all the excitment that comes with football season.  Sunday will be the first game of the season for the Bears.  How are they going to do this year.  I want to say very good, however with a rookie starting at quarterback.  We will just have to wait and see what happens.  They do have alot better team surrounding the rookie QB then what they put on the field last year.  So We will see how it all goes.  There is some promise.  The defense looks really strong, and they are healthy this year where as last year they lost many key players to injury thoughout the year.  So here is hoping for a Superbowl winning year in chicago. 

Also the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.  All they went and did is open the season with one of the bigger upsets of the first weekend.  Not the biggest that goes to TCU over Oklahoma.  But they went from unranked to number 20.  So its great for them to get back into the top 25.  Now this weekend they have to travel to ann arbor and play the number 3 ranked wolverines.  They havn't won there since 1993 So it will be a challenge to come out of there with a W, but not impossible.  Like the hiring of former NE offensive coordinator to be the head coach at ND.  So far so good.  Lets hope that they keep with the winning ways. 

Well other then that all is going well here.  Just waiting out the last few months before we get to go home.  The heat is subsiding a little bit.  But all is going well.  Looking foward to this deployment to be over. 

My wife and I are expecting so after I get home a few months later we should have an addition to our wonderful family. 

Everyone take care

later

J

O wait they are all the same.  One day the same as the other 200 or so i have been here for.  Well today was long and hot and still going.  I don't know if it will ever end.  But it has to sometime soon.  You would think.   I guess only time will tell; as always.  Well as for why this has been such a long day.  Maybe the biggest thing is the heat.  It is so hot right now that my ac is not cooling my office down.  Even though I really should not be complaining because I have an office with an a/c.  There are many here that dont work in an office and they are with out a/c all day.  So I do hope that they all have a safe and fast day.  As for me I did take some time today to go to the gym.  I started going to the gym again just over a week ago, and have gone every day except yesturday.  We where busy at work and I didnt get to go.  Right now at the gym I am just trying to drop my weight down to 175.  Once i get there I will start lifting weights.  That is my plan at least.  We will see how long that takes me to get there.  I have not been 175 since 1994.  I got down to 180 last year but now I am back at about 195.  Just want to get myself into shape again.  A year away from working out is not good for the body.  So I shall get my self back into shape.  Should be fun and it is a good break in the middle of the day.  Trying to get my soldiers promoted so they are studying and doing courses online so that they will have enough points to get promotoed.  They are some good kids and they work hard.  They will do great things.  At this time they are both getting out of the military as soon as there enlistments are up.  It would be great if they would stay in and beccome the new leaders of the army.  However they need to do what is right for them.  I will not push reenlistment upon them, but i do require them to have a solid plan for what they are going to do once they get out of the military.  I do not want them to get out and then be stuck with nothing.  So they are working to get together all the information and researching opportunities for them once they get out of the military.  

Now i just need to find out what it is that I want to do when i get out.   I do have time I will stay in and retire and then find me a nice job.  Maybe I will go to school but I also need to start taking college while i am in the miltary.  So I will get into that when i get home.  Should be alot of fun.  of course.  Going back to school.  It has been 10 years since i graduated.  what a long long time ago.  When I first go over here i got an email from someone back in highschool inviting me to the 10 year reunion.  Of course i didnt go because i am here in wonderful beautiful iraq. 

I am doing good however and I will write more later.   they day should end here in a few hours.

later

J

Just thought that I would drop in here and say hi.  Thanks for all you that stop by and leave me comments.  I havn't been to my blog for almost a month I think.  Just been busy with making a few changes around here.  However, of course I am still here in wonderful Iraq.  We moved across town and are not settled in for the most part in our new home for the next however many months we will be here.  Hopefully not to many.  Some exciting news on the home front so that is cool.  Just want to go home now.  It is amazing how much people change when they are away from each other.  But that can be a good and bad thing about being deployed.  I will get to go home, and it can either be me struggleing to remember and recreate how my wife and I interacted, or just get to know each other agian with all our changes that we have gone through in our time away from each other.  Of course the second option is the better one.  I am excited to get home and get to know her agian.  It will be fun and exciting.  But as for now I am here doing my job, and doing the right thing to insure that I make it home with all my soldiers.  That is the most important thing right now is making sure that we all make it home.  Be smart, don't get complacient and just do the right thing at all times.  I am really looking forward to going home but I know if that is all i focus on that it will take forever and a week to get here.  So take one day at a time and keep busy and time will pass quickly. 

Well everyone take care and be safe and

later

J