I am back in the Stan and I am looking at that dimly lit light at the end of my tunnel. I hope that the time continues to fly past and that I am able to have an uneventful tour. My time at home was the best time I have had in many years and I truly think that this was just the start of something wonderful. All the family on both sides seem to be doing well and Marie and the Kids are doing great. Saying goodbye this time was a little harder than last time and I will only be gone just short of 4 months. I left on a Saturday and I got back to my room in Afghanistan on that next Friday. The trip was painful to say the least, trying to live for a week out of a small back pack meant for three days at best was more than I wanted to deal with. The worst place I got stuck was Ali Al Salem in Kuwait the temperature was in the 120s and the blowing dust was awful. I took a shower one night at 22:00 and by the time I walked to my tent I was covered with dust and my hair was filthy, it was horrible. I wanted to take some pictures there but I did not want my camera to get ruined so unfortunately there will be no pictures of that place from this trip.
Our new Task Force SIP showed up today someone that I have worked with before and things should be good. Our last SIP was involved in a really bad shoot and as the AMC on the flight he was removed from the position and sent back to the states to retire. He will not be missed, not by me anyway. I have much work to get done between now and when we redeploy in regards to our aerial gunnery I need to qualify as many pilots as I can using gun videos and the gunnery range ten miles to our west. Should not be to hard most of our pilots should have more than enough engagements to facilitate completing a gunnery.
The weather here at Salerno has been pretty nice it is so much better than what I just came through, not as much dust and the temperature is so much nicer than down south. My room is just the way I left it with just a little more dust here and there. But my room is cold and my friends are all here and I can’t ask for more than that. We have a lot of new faces around here with the 4-4 guys coming in and trying to get them all trained up for their mission over at Sharana. They will be staying here till all of the life support is in place for them to move to their FOB. They are building new buildings and taxi ways for them at Sharana so they have places to live and parking for their aircraft. A couple of them I have worked with before, but they are all really great guys and I am happy to see them showing up to help lighten our work load. Well at this point I am just rambling on so I think I will close this post for now but I promise many more and I hope more often as this month progresses, night all
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