Rain Rain Rain

Oh where to start, let’s see I was off today because the weather was so bad we could not see the end of the airfield. So I spent most of the day trying to get caught up on paper work it was most exciting to say the least. I really don’t have much to talk about tonight the day was uneventful and rainy all day. But it has been a few days since I last wrote on my blog so I wanted to jot down a few lines to talk about what is going in my life. First I think I am addicted to TV shows, well at least a few that I got from Joe. It’s so funny before I came to Afghanistan all I ever watched on TV was the news and now I think the news is the last thing I really care about. I mean after all I am over here living the news every day and the last thing I want to see before I go to bed is headlines about what is going on over here. So far so good, 1-3 out of Savannah has not lost anyone yet and for that we are all thankful. I am sure once the weather goes full swing this summer things will heat up a bit but we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

We have some new units switching out right now and it has been really crowded here at FOB Salerno. Mostly in the chow hall occasionally we have a line to wait in to get lunch or dinner. You know me never was much for breakfast that is a meal that I will always skip I typically get to meals a day and that is plenty for me. I will not complain about the food for the most part it has been pretty good they have a really good chocolate cheese cake that I really like and as much as I try to limit how often I eat it I tend to eat one every day. The one thing that I really miss is real milk, we have pretty good soy milk that I drink pretty often but it’s not the same.

I met a pilot from the Alabama National Guard and we had a nice conversation yesterday he was telling me all about what kinds of jobs are available right now for pilots and what most companies are looking for as far as experience goes. Talking to him it sounds pretty promising to be able to stay in Savannah, it sounds like there are plenty of jobs in the area. And as I have told so many of you I am not looking for much I would just like to get a nice EMS job somewhere close to home. I like Savannah and it’s not Cincinnati but it is growing on me not to mention my kids and their friends. I truly hope to finish my career at Hunter Army Airfield I truly like it in the south. Marie may have some trouble with the bugs sometimes but I think after time she too will learn to love the area. We truly do have so much to see and do in the savannah area and when I get home I want to do it all. I think we may revisit the Boat idea too, living so close to so many boat ramps and being so close to the water I think we need to take advantage of it. Or we could always buy a nice plane I would like that just as much. With a plane we could take trips up north as often as we want, of course we would have to get a twin though. And if we had twin I know I would be trying to take the family all over the place. Some day when we are older maybe this will be easier to pull off. Right know we need to figure out how to get three kids through school and set them up for success. Not that I think this will be a problem, on the contraire we are lucky to have the most wonderfully, bright and gifted kids in the world. And for that Marie and I are truly blessed, truly.

Well I am really jumping around with this post aren’t I. You know I usually sit down here at my computer with some sort of idea as to what I want to talk about. It usually has something to do with something that happened to me at a given time or something that happened during one of my flights. However if it was from one of my flights, I usually have to sit here and think carefully about every word that I write. Not that I have national secrets floating around in my head because for the most part I don’t. But there are so many things that we do on a day to day basis that can’t be shared with the bad guy because there is always the chance that it could put good guys in harm’s way. And like I have told you all so many times before I can deal with doing many things while I am here in Afghanistan but the one thing that scares me more than anything else is the thought of hurting a good guy. I think we are doing all we can do to mitigate the risk of hurting friendlies. The other day I flew security for a ground convoy for over 5 hours they only traveled about 20 miles but it is a huge ordeal to keep them safe. This is probably one of the jobs that I like the best I truly feel like I am making a huge difference. I am keeping these guys who are so vulnerable safe and out of harm’s way. We have many tactics to complete this mission and so many things that we must do as pilots to make it a successful mission. But nothing beats the call I get when that last vehicle passes through that gate into their FOB and I know that they are safe. As most of you know we are losing more troops over here to IEDs and VBIEDs that convoy security although it is not very sexy is so so important. Well my word counter says that I am over 1000 so I know that I need to cut this post off. My final thought, almost four months down and I am really looking forward to going home for a break, NIGHT ALL

QRF Flight

Music and my new Friend

Music, I never thought that I would ever say that music could change my life. But I was wrong. I was always a talk show kind of guy, you know news shows and business and investing. And I always loved the show Dead Doctors don’t lie that I use to listen to in Alabama. But know I listen to just about anything, Pop, Jazz, Rock even country it really doesn’t matter to me at this point. It’s really all about what they are saying, you know the story that they try to tell. Most songs are small stories mixed with music and sometimes you really have to listen to understand what it was that the artist was trying to say. I have my favorites and they really touch me some of the songs remind me of home and others remind me of friends and family. I think I will never be the same person once I get out of here, not in a bad way either I think I see things much clearer now and I feel that I will be a better Dad to my kids, Husband to my wife, brother to my siblings and friend to all. Today I was at the bizarre and I spent some time talking to one of the Afghani guys that risk his life to come onto our FOB to sell us things from his country. His Dad was killed by the Russians and his mother raised him the best she could. They had nothing he and his brother and sister shared everything, everything. They did not always have enough to eat and he was the only child that could go to school. I could not totally understand what he was saying about school but I think he only went for 5 or 6 years. He now has children of his own and he is trying to provide for them the best that he can. Both of his boys are going to school he sees to it every day that they are safe at school before he comes to our FOB. Then he walks for almost an hour to get to a location where he is picked up and transported to another location where he is screened by security and then loaded on a bus with blacked out windows and driven onto our FOB. The Bizarre is open from about 0930 till 1430 and know I understand why. One of his friends who came from a richer family use to drive to the security check point and ride the bus onto the FOB with him. A month or so back his friend was killed in his car when it blew up trying to get to work. His job was to come onto the FOB and sell handmade rugs to American Soldiers and contractors. The pain in his eye when he told me about his friend really got to me I see all the guys that come onto our FOB and I try to think about what kind of lives they have when they leave the safety of our FOB. I find it so sad that their lives have to be put in harm’s way just for them to try and make money to give their children a chance at a normal life here in Afghanistan. I use to go to the bizarre and talk these guys down on their prices just like I use to do in Korea and now I find myself going to the bizarre and asking them how much is something and I pay what they ask. The average household annual income in Afghanistan is 300 US dollars unless your family is in the Poppy business and then it’s around 6,500 dollars for the family. The men that come on our FOB do not grow drugs they are screened by security and watched pretty closely. I am sure that they are making much more that the average wage for their country but given the fact that they are all risking their lives to be here hardly seems worth it. My new friend at the bizarre is full of questions; he wants to know all about America. All he has to go by is what he sees in the movies. He has no idea about what freedom is like he has no idea what it would be like to live in a country where you can go to work and not be in fear of being killed for what you are doing. To let your kids go to school and rest assured that you will see them after. To have a chance to make something of your life and make decisions for yourself and your family that won’t get you killed. He is a good man and I respect him for what he does and for the sacrifices that he makes on a daily basis for his family. I will never know what it would be like to walk in this man’s shoes for one day. All he has been through all of the family and friends he has lost and yet he has only kind things to say about everything, I can’t understand how someone can be so forgiving and yet he so sincerely is. I think Afghanistan is filled with many good people and a few bad and it is a real shame that we only know of the few bad. I will keep you updated on my new friend who will remain nameless for his own safety and what is going on in his life through all of this but for now I will close this post, night all

Some picture of the mountains

Long Long Day

Wow, where to start. Yesterday I flew 7 hours and with three fuel stops I was in the aircraft for over 9 hours all said and done. We completed just about every mission type imaginable in theater. Fortunately no harm came to anyone that we supported, covered, escorted or responded to from a call over the radio. So in my mind the day was a total success, just a little longer than I would have liked. I was flying with one of our new pilots and they did a great job keeping eyes on all that we needed to keep eyes on. Someday I think it would really be cool to round up all these people that I am becoming such great friends with for a 20 year reunion or something like that. I truly feel that the bonds that are formed in situation like this withstand the test of times. Speaking of those bonds I was talking to a great friend last night and I found out that he might not be coming to my FOB. I was really hoping that he would be coming here and that I could give him the welcome that I gave him once before when he came to Korea. He will be coming over here to replace us near the end of this year and his unit will also be divided into three or four Task Force and sent to different locations in Afghanistan.

I sometimes forget how fragile things are over here and then I notice little things in my daily routine that make me aware of where I am and what is going on. Like simple things missing in the chow hall which means that we have not gotten supplies for a while or no one gets any mail for a whole week and then it’s like the post office is packed with packages and letters and they have no room. Then wham it hits me, Rob you’re not in Savannah anymore you are in this place where you have no control over anything in your life not your food or your time or anything that is important to you. I will walk everywhere I go, I will eat what is made or go hungry and I will work as much as I am needed no matter how I feel or how much I need a break. But at the end of the day, I feel that I have done all that I can to make a difference in this place that I am just visiting for one short year of my life and I am truly OK with it all.

Back to yesterday and my 7 hour flight, we escorted some Ch-47s into a FOB that is considered High Risk because of the amount of indirect and direct fire that they get on a daily basis. I was circling at 10,500 feet and my wing man was the low bird flying close security for two aircraft that were shooting their approach into the FOB. When Apaches are on station the bad guys scatter like roaches when you turn on the lights and our CH-47 pilots know this and they are always so happy to see us when they have to do combat resupply to some of these more dangerous FOBs. I went to flight school way back when and I was sent down to Ft Rucker to learn how to fly the Cobra. For those of you that don’t know the Cobra is also a gunship, it is a single engine attack platform similar to the Apache Longbow. But half way through flight school the state of Indiana lost the Cobra so I had two options OH-58A/C or UH-1 Hueys and you all know how that turned out. So I flew the UH-1 till 1998 when I came into the Army to learn how to fly the AH-64A. So you see things happen for a reason, I was meant to fly an attack platform and even though I did not get from the start I would end up flying guns eventually. And I am loving every minute of it, it is pretty cool to be given the chance to fly the most advanced attack helicopter this world has ever known. I am a member of a small group people who like to call themselves Apache drivers. Like I have said before in some of my previous post in May of 1998 I quit my job, and I have not worked ever since. Night all

HGST Complete

Another nice day off, well sort of I spent most of it writing a new HGST “helicopter gunnery skills test”. But the rest of the day I relaxed a bit and it was nice, very nice. Tomorrow I am on QRF and I am not sure if we have any deliberate missions or not I will just have to wait and see. Just got back from chow and buy was it lacking tonight, did I mention that it was not that good? Oh well I will try not to complain because I know that it does nothing and there are some things that you just can’t change and the chow hall is one of those things.

I spend a lot of time thinking about home, more specifically Savannah. When I get home, I mean home for good I want to become very familiar with everything that down town Savannah has to offer. I read somewhere that near River street there are over 200 restaurants within one mile and I want to eat at all of them. They also have a great deal of history in the area and I want to learn about all of it, from the Civil War to now I want to learn everything there is to know about my new home town away from home. I mean after all I will be there for a while until I retire six years from now. And after that who knows I am sure I will be able to find something to do in that area like, welcome to Wall-Mart can I get you a shopping cart? I think I might even go back to school and get my masters or something crazy like that. I will be fifty years young and have a little freedom to do something crazy like that for a little while so I may as well take advantage of it.

Great song, “once in your life you find her” so true so true. I thing this song says it all, you find her and the rest is history. Life is like a book filled with empty pages, you just need to find that special someone who has a pen and is willing to help you write the ending no matter how scary it gets sometimes. And once you find that person you can’t let them get away no matter what.

I am starting to talk to the Afghani guys that work at the bizarre, they have some unbelievable stories and I am actually taking notes so I can do them justice. There will be more to follow on the locals that risk their lives to come on our FOB to make a buck selling us boot leg movies and odds and ends. Sad really but so interesting that I just need to put a few stories on here to be able to remember them and what they did for me the year that I was in their Country. Oh well I need to get up early and I am getting pretty tired so I will cut this post short tonight but I hope that you are all happy and healthy, even those of you that are up north dealing with all the snow, night all

Its getting busy

I am on tomorrow, I was glad to be off today, really glad. Yesterday’s flight was pretty busy the weather is getting a little bit nicer and you know what that means. You guessed it all the whacks come out and believe me they were out in force. The first thing we had was a TIC and while we were on station for that we were re tasked to a VBIED “vehicle born improvised explosive device” fortunately no one died, we were pretty close so we arrived on station quickly and spent the next we twenty minutes or so securing the area until Dustoff arrived to transport the wounded to Sal hospital. I still find it hard to understand how someone can have so much hate in their mind that they can drive a car loaded with artillery shells up to a US Army convoy and blow themselves up. But hey that’s just me right; I mean maybe they have no choice. Maybe their families are being held hostage and they are told that is the only way they can save their wives and children. I know that there is not much I would not do for my wife and Kids and I am sure they feel the same way. All and all I earned my money yesterday and I know that we made a big difference, especially in the lives of the Soldiers on the ground during the TIC when we got on station the bullets stopped flying and they knew that help had arrived. We were there long enough for them to regroup and get to some good cover and wait for Dustoff to arrive and transport the wounded back to Sal.

Ok enough on all that today I did nothing but eat watch some movies relax. Ok that is not all together true I did spend some time in the office doing some paper work and getting ready for gunnery. Oh yea I also mailed my first package home to Marie and the kids. The first box is for Marie and Robby the next package will be for the girls. I wanted to go over to the bizarre and buy the girls some authentic Jewelry made in Afghanistan but for some unknown reason the Bizarre was closed today and I wanted to get the box mailed so I sent it with only a couple of things in it. But I know that when my girls get their gifts they will be happy with what I send. I almost forgot, today I got a box of brownies from Marie and the girls and boy are they good. I know, I know I told Marie that I would throw them away but they looked good and tasted even better. Sure they were made over three weeks ago, but hey with all I got going on over here I am not too worried about some spoiled brownies hurting me. Thanks girls!!

I love to get on here and type while I am listening to my iPod; music really has a profound impact on how I look at things and how I put words together. I never thought that this blog would be so therapeutic for me but even after a completely crappy day when all hell breaks loose I can escape to my blog and talk about most of what happened and move on with the rest. For obvious reasons there are so many things that I can’t talk about but it still helps to sit here and write things down. What you don’t know though is when I am sitting here typing to my blog I spend a lot of time going through the events in my head and thinking about what went right and what went wrong. I also have to proof some of what I write so I do not talk about things that I shouldn’t. For the most part I am getting pretty good about that, I use to write times, places a names but know I try to be pretty generic with all of that. I spend a lot of time picking titles for my post so that I can look back at this year from now and remember what was going on. I feel that this has been the most challenging experience I have ever had to deal with in my life. When I was in Kosovo I was a front seater, I was a Pilot, with basically no responsibilities whatsoever but here I am the Pilot in Command of my aircraft and the Air Mission Commander of the flight. With that comes great responsibility, when my team is out flying its mission it’s my call if anyone will pull the trigger. I have to be absolutely certain that what we see and what we do is both morally correct and accurate. Our rules are very clear and I must follow them to the letter of the law. There are a lot of things that I think that I can live with when I leave but one thing that I can’t, is a bad engagement. I pray that I am always able to maintain tactical patience when it comes to engagements. And then and only then I know that I will be able to leave here the same guy I was when I got here. Alright I am pushing over 900 words for this post and I need to be up early tomorrow so I am going to cut it off right here, night all

Its cold out there, but not at Sal :-)

Oh where to begin, let’s see I am two days into my new schedule and like I said for the most part it is going pretty well. We are flying just as much only we are not on duty as long but more often, and I am ok with that. The natives are getting pretty restless these last few days they are trying to come out in force I guess they are just as depressed about the crappy weather we have had for the last few days too. I was out in central valley today escorting other aircraft and looking for bad guys in all the right places, lucky for them they were not there to be found. It’s really cold out in central valley I would guess it’s about 15 degrees or less. We flew all over the snow capped mountains looking for bad guys that keep shooting at some of our FOBs not that it’s a real threat for the most part they show up launch some indirect and the run. Most of the time no one is ever harmed but even a broken clock is right twice a day and sometimes they even get lucky. My FOB has had indirect so many times since I have been here that I don’t even keep track anymore. No one has been hurt yet I think they are more interested in popping one of our 40 million dollar aircraft because that would truly be a victory for them. All I know is whenever you bring a knife to a missile fight the guy holding the knife usually can’t keep his grip on that knife for too long.

On a lighter note, now that the weather is clear we have 27,000 pounds of mail inbound over the next two days and I am expecting some brownies from my girls so I am pretty excited about that. And I know they made them some time ago but I will enjoy them anyway even if they make me sick. I have been pretty lucky so far, I really only had a quick flew like cold for a week or so. Many of my friends have had what they refer to as the Afghan Ge-hod and they have been in their rooms for several days dealing with nasty nasty stuff. So no complaints here if you know what I mean, as for me I try to stay away from the germs the best that I can. I think our biggest problem is all the Afghani help in the chow hall, they are not known for the perfect hygiene if you know what I mean. But what can you do, all I can do is watch what I get and try to stay away from some stuff based on how I know it gets prepared.

Tonight I am going to try to stay up a little later than I normally would on this shift and watch a movie or something. I am off tomorrow and then I am on for three off one and on for four. I get one to two days off a week. Well not off exactly; there are so many other things to keep up with even on my off days. Tomorrow I need to write our HGST “helicopter gunnery skills test” then print 30 copies of it for next week. I will put it on the board in the office that the test will be next Friday that will give me some time to give the classes to prepare all our pilots for the test. The master gunner job has given me much to do and it will keep me pretty busy for the next 6 months. Most of the gunnery I will grade from gun tapes that crews bring back from their mission flights. I have our TAC Ops guys dividing all the video on our shared drive in my folder and for the most part it’s working out pretty well. Well I think I will cut this post off right here till next time I hope all of you are happy and healthy, night all

New Schedule

New schedule is not so bad I have to get up much earlier than I typically like but my day is a little shorter. We are running our shifts a little differently and I think it will work out just fine. It has rained for the last few days and the air is clear and today when I was flying I forgot my camera and I was so made the sky was so beautiful this afternoon and the snow capped mountains were gorgeous. Not much else to add tonight I have another early flight in the morning and I want to get to sleep as soon as I can I was pretty tired today I guess I am not use to my schedule yet I am sure it will take a few days. I will take my camera tomorrow and if it is still clear I will try to get some pictures, night all

Sunday, haircut day

Well good evening everyone, as I sit here in my room thinking about my day the only thought that comes to mind is that I am going to try and get online tonight and Skype with Marie and the Kids. Today was a pretty good day for me the weather was not so nice however I was not on the flight schedule and I only had a few things that I had to get accomplished so all in all it was good. I did get a haircut this afternoon I guess you could say that was the highlight of my day so far. But once I see my family on the computer I am sure that will quickly replace my haircut as my Hi for the day. Well not really much going on today I just wanted to get on and say hey, Hey. I hope that things are great for everybody in the States, Richard congratulations on your new job; I hope it works out well for you and that you enjoy it. I will try to write more soon, night all

First PL

Where to begin? Well it’s been a couple of days and I have lots to talk about. First I am going to talk about yesterday and all that happened. It started off as a normal QRF day, get up get a shower try to get into the office before the 10:30 brief and get your gear ready for whatever the day might throw at you. Well after our brief we go out to look at the aircraft and do a quick run up to make sure everything is ready for a call. I was half way through my run up with my RL2 front seater and we got the call. We were down two radios and had some other armament issues that I will not go into but it didn’t matter. We were going to launch we had troops taking indirect fire and they needed us to be there to support them so off we went. We arrived at their location and looked into Pakistan from every angle we could. This is a pretty common practice for the bad guys they come in from Pakistan do their hasty attack on our troops and then they run back across the border. We have many FOBs along the border and some of them are not in the best locations to protect them from indirect fire. All of them love it when we are in the air over head they rest a little easier knowing that Apaches are in their AO “area of operation” So we remained on station for thirty minutes or so and showed them a little love. Then we departed for our deliberate mission for the morning it was an escort and it was a haul. We had a lot of ground to cover and not much time to get there. We were probably 40 minutes into our one hour flight out in the middle of nowhere when I had my flight controls malfunction. The aircraft became pretty squirrely I tried to reset a few systems but they would not come back on line so we needed to find a place to put it down. I had no airspeed indication and I lost manual control and auto control of my stabilator. Our closest spot to put her down was about 15 minutes away at a small FOB at about 8000 feet MSL. So we changed course and flew direct to the new FOB we had CAS “close air support” support our escort mission and we were in route to the small FOB I was lead and my wingman was covering me. We landed at the FOB with no other issues and shut the aircraft down made a few calls to the appropriate people to let them know what was going on and we were told they had two CH-47s in route to our location to pick us up and bring us back to SAL. So me and my front seat downloaded all of our equipment and packed for the trip back to SAL. We were not there an hour when the 47s were inbound to pick us up and take us home. Big windy landed near our aircraft and we up loaded our gear and climbed on the back and off we went our aircraft would be recovered as soon as they could figure out what was wrong with it and fix it. This was my first ride in a CH-47 in Afghanistan and I hope it will be my last. I will try to put a couple of photos up with this post tonight I am finally on a faster Internet and I hope to be able to put up more photos and possibly some videos. Well after all that excitement yesterday I enjoyed my day off today for sure. I watched a couple of movies today one was Avatar and let me just say I loved it and the next movie was Freedom Writers with Hilary Swank it was great. I have always loved going to see movies, I miss my movie buddy. Robby rest assured that when your Dad gets home we will catch up on all our movies I promise.

Can anybody guess what I am doing right now? That’s right I am sitting here listening to my iPod pecking away at my blog. This truly is the best thing in the world for helping me to keep things real. I will try to get on here at least every other day if not every day. We start our new schedules Monday and I am not on the schedule that I thought I was going to be on. I will be getting up at 0500 oh boy you all know me I love to get up with the alarm clock, not. Oh well duty calls, I will make it work and I will be just fine.

I want to end this post with a few things that I have been thinking about lately. We are all so lucky to have one another both family and friends and I hope that this is a good year for all of us. I am at such a loss for what is going on in the news, I really wish I wasn’t but I am. We are pretty sheltered over here as to what is going on in the real world. But I hope things are improving at home I hope the job market is getting better and I hope the government does something to help with health care. I am not saying that I think Uncle Sam needs to write all the checks but I do think they need to get involved and clean the programs up a bit. Alright enough on all that my blog is not for political opinion at all its for me to talk to as many people as I can without typing e-mails to everybody all the time. I hope all of you are well and having a great 2010, night all

My Best Friends B-Day

Well it’s been a few days since I have posted on my blog so I have a little catch up to do. First let me just say that today is Feb 2^nd 2010 and it’s my wife’s birthday and although I can’t be there with her to celebrate her special day with her physically I want her to know that my heart is there with her. I am lucky to have her and our kids are lucky to have the greatest Mom known to mankind. We talked today and we decided that we would celebrate all our missed birthdays and holidays once I get home. So we will have to plan for some wonderful times in Savannah later this year.

As for this year, we are already down one month and the rest will pass just as quickly, I hope. Well my new job as the Master Gunner is really keeping me busy to say the least I have a lot of work to get done and most of it will be paper work. Our gunnery will be a makeup of actual engagements and engagements over at our test fire range. I will grade all the engagements via video, all the engagements must be videotaped and uploaded to our shared drive at work where I will review them and keep all the scores for every pilot we have. We will be conducting our gunnery over the next six months so it should be totally doable.

Well once again here I sit listening to my Nano posting to my blog. I feel like I am getting pretty comfortable with my situation here as of late. I feel like I am in a normal routine and things are going pretty well. Yesterday I was on mission and I flew over 6 hours and we did not see anything. Don’t get me wrong I am not complaining, I love it when I fly all day and don’t see anything. It makes for a peaceful flight and less paperwork for when we get back and have to debrief. Sometimes we are out there and see and do so much that once we land and debrief I find myself sitting at the computer for another hour writing about everything that was done. I still find myself thinking about this country in terms of the people and the fact that they have nothing and I hope that someday they might have a chance at a normal life. And don’t get me started on the kids, kids are so innocent in this whole mess and it kills me every time I see them out playing near the streets that are so riddled with IEDs that are just waiting to blow up and hurt Coalition Forces. And in the process many innocent kids are hurt too and it really eats at my insides. We get a few a week that come in by helicopter to our hospital to be treated for shrapnel wounds and burns. All ages, all sizes, little boys and little girls it’s so sad that there is so much hate in some people that they would deliberately hurt anyone that gets too close to a military convoy traveling down the road trying to keep the peace and run the bad guys out of town.

On a positive note, I finally got my new Internet today and it seems to be a little faster and it cost ten dollars less a month so I am happy with it. We also got some extra aircraft and extra crews so we will be able to keep the pressure on the bad guys a little better. One of the Pilots was a guy that I worked with at Ft. Rucker and over in Korea so it was nice to see another familiar face. His name is Steve and they are here from Illisheim Germany, He Knows Rudy and we spent some time talking about Germany today. It was nice to reminisce about Germany; I loved my time in Europe. Marie and I were ten years younger a little bit more foot loose and fancy free and we tried to do everything that we could why we where there. We met new friends and spent some wonderful times traveling Europe. I got to do a little more time traveling than she did but that is part of the job and I would not have it any other way. I know in my heart that we made a big difference in Kosovo and that the lives of so many were changed forever and all for the better. Especially mine, which was when I truly realized that life, is too short and precious to waste any time worrying about things that just don’t matter. Like I say all the time don’t sweat the small stuff and most things are so small stuff.

Well I have gone on long enough about almost nothing so it’s time for me to bring this post to end and get ready for bed and prepare for tomorrow. Phone is ringing,,,, Well that was nice my sister Sharyn just called, it was nice to catch up with her tonight. I have not talked to her for some time it was nice to hear her voice she sounded really good. She has sent me some wonderful packages since I have been here in this not so wonderful place, thanks Sharyn!! Ok like I said I need to get off here and get to bed, night all