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Tonight I decided to do the most resourceful thing I’ve done in about a month: start packing my stuff to send in the mail this weekend. Right now I have three mobility bags (us Air Force guys deploy with all our gear in our own care because we deploy individually, so we don’t have a supply person to take care of our mobility items…i.e. chemical gear, cold weather gear, etc.), a suitcase, laptop and related accessories, and a whole bunch of stuff that friends and family have sent me.
What I want to do is send everything back except for a few clothes in my suitcase, my laptop and related accessories, and one mobility bag…we have to hand carry our chemical warfare gear for obvious reasons. But I’d love to just have just those three things to carry, so I can take a helicopter to Baghdad Airport instead of having to wait for the Rhino. Flying is always better than driving in Iraq, again for obvious reasons.
In other news, my Seattle Mariners started the season 3-1, then realized, “Oh wait, we’re not supposed to be good this year either.” Now they’re either 3-4, 3-5 or something like that. We can’t hit the ball for crap and we have no relief pitching. I guess I’ll have to root for my other team, the Milwaukee Brewers, the rest of the way since they’re on the upswing and haven’t been to the playoffs in years…and simply because the team is named after my family. 
13 more days!!! Keep counting down.
God bless!!!
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So today was the best day at work in awhile. I don’t know why, it just was. That being said, I have more photos from the Hail and Farewell yesterday. Check ‘em out. I also have a video of the event, which I posted in the “News Stories & Other Videos” section, so check that out too.
Thanks to everyone who offered their congratulations on the award. It might be trivial to some, but to me it’s a big deal, especially in my last year in the military. It means a lot and thank you once again. God bless you all!!!
So today I got my plane tickets from Baltimore to Norfolk. Of course this is for after I fly all the way across the Atlantic Ocean into BWI. They’re making me go from BWI to Philadelphia, then Philly to Norfolk. Crazy, but I guess it works. I’ll be arriving in Norfolk while John Stevens is leading worship during Sunday morning service on the 30th!!! I guess that really won’t do any good for the folks who would otherwise have an opportunity to come see me kiss the ground in the U.S. Oh well.
Fifteen days away from leaving Baghdad. Are you counting too???
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So I’ve done it. Tonight I was awarded the Joint Service Achievement Medal for my service here in Iraq. They held a modest but brief ceremony introducing the new folks and saying goodbye to the ones who are leaving soon. When I got up and talked in front of all the officers and enlisted folks I’ve worked with over the past six months, I told them of how I was scared to death to leave the relative safety of the International Zone at first, but when I did go, it opened up a whole new world for me. I spoke of how I was glad to see how the soldiers were working, because it set my faith in the mission in motion…and it was awesome to see how the Iraqis, for the most part, appreciate what we do.
It’s been an interesting tour, and it’s hanging on now like a baby tooth that doesn’t want to be pulled out for anything. Sixteen days until I hop on the midnight train to Baghdad International Airport. Eh, not a train, more like the Rhino. A big, pretty much indestructible bus that has tons and tons of armor on it, and takes people from BIAP to the IZ and back during the night. It’s a fun ride, but very slow.
Anyhoo, just wanted to shout out and say I got the medals I wanted!!! I’ve earned them, they’re mine, and I’m proud of them. No one can ever take them away. No one.
God bless!!!
UPDATE: SPC Rzepka took some photos of the ceremony and I will post those ASAP. Since the photos are not mine and I am only using them with permission, I ask that those wishing to use them refrain from copying them, instead please link to this blog post. I’d let people download them but the images aren’t mine. Thanks!
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So we corrected the problem with the Internet in our hooch and now life is peachy once again. I was dying after not getting to talk to Aftan for a few days. But I’m back.
Tomorrow is interesting. It’s Sunday which means everyone at work is dead and dragging, and the day usually goes by really slow. Worst workday of the week…it’s like my Monday because we work six days a week with one off, and my day off is Saturday. Anyway, tomorrow is interesting because we are having the monthly hail and farewell (where they say hello to new troops and goodbye to departing ones) AND I AM ONE THAT IS BEING FAREWELLED. Of course I still have 17 days of poop flinging to dodge, and exactly three weeks until I am back in the United States, but I’m being “farewelled” so I’m happy.
Plus, I receive my end of tour award. Speculation has it that what I am receiving for six months of serving in Iraq is the Joint Service Achievement Medal. It’s higher than any of the service achievement medals (I already have my Air Force Achievement Medal from serving at Lajes Field in Portugal from 2003-04) and it’s a good token to show that I had some sort of impact with what I did over here.
I’ll see if I can’t get someone to take some photos of the event for me so I can put them all on here.
Until tomorrow, cheers.
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…but the Internet connection in my room is not. Add to that the fact that I have no internet access at work now and communication is almost completely cut off for the time being. Oh well.
To pass time, I’ve been watching a lot of Simpsons episodes from the 19-disc set I bought. That, and today I went to the PX and bought The Visitation and Flightplan. I’m gonna watch The Visitation right after this when I go back to my hooch, and Flightplan after I get done playing basketball a bit later.
Shout back to me, you guys seem more dead than I do. What is going on with y’all??? It should be hopping up in here, I’ve only got 19 days until I escape the dungeon of oppression!!!
Love you all.
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Okay, now it’s REALLY time to start counting down. Today, I have twenty-one days before I fly out of Baghdad. Twenty-four until I arrive in Newport News. I ask you all to pray that the next three weeks go by smoothly and that I’m able to get everything done that I need to smoothly and without any unnecessary crap happening. I hope it’s all smooth sailing.
Today I also got caught up on everything that I had previously been assigned. For the first time in forever, I had a tiny little bit of idle time at the end of the day. Little things like that go to prove that indeed, my time is winding down.
I’ve been looking at some great new music lately. Seamless Recordings has a wonderful series of house music albums called Bargrooves. I think there’s something like 13 in the series. Anyway, I remember first seeing these on the Music Choice channel (Cox Cable provides thirty channels of nothing but different genres of music for their expanded cable package) and after hearing them, I thought they were pretty good. I’ve got Bargrooves: Frosted but I think I like Terrazza a little bit better, only thing is I can’t find it on iTunes. Grrrr. Frosted sounds pretty cool with tracks such as Joey Negro & Doug Willis’ “Begun 2 Luv U,” “Attend 1″ by DJ Gregory and “Love Is The Answer” by Vincent Kwok & D’Layna (see the end of this post for a sample).
Anyhoo, hit me up and let me know how you all are doing. My contact information is at the right, so you can email me, leave a comment on this post or be lazy and use the shoutbox.
Check out “Begun 2 Luv U.”
[audio:http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF75844-01-04-01.mp3]
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Before I start anything, Aftan took some good time to send some photos of the good old town that I grew up in…Rainier, Oregon. Check them all out at the PhotoCenter.
Retarded work-related thing of the day: Someone came in asking for help with a briefing video that needed to be made. Someone in a position of authority told them to look up another office whose job it was to do that stuff, and it wasn’t our place to make those kind of videos (which is very true, and I applaud that decision). But wait a minute, I created a twelve minute-long briefing video for someone about three months ago while assigned to Special Projects.
Guess that shows you how valued each of us are down here at AFN Iraq. AFN’s primary objective is to inform and entertain the troops. Not to create informative videos for people. Not saying I don’t love my job, but a large part of it is not worthwhile because I’ve been assigned some weird projects in my time here. I’m glad I heard someone tell someone else NO today though, so someone else can be spared the utter boredom and pain of doing a project like that.
Continue reading ‘Day 155: I Like Broadcasting, But…’
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In the past three years, I have had a series of significant dreams that the Lord has given me in which I can remember every specific detail. Flash back to one of my earliest blog posts in which I describe a dream where my old pastor, Pat Dillon of the Church of God of Prophecy in Kelso, Washington, sang “Jesus Loves Me” at the end of a church service.
I couldn’t sleep again last night, and I begged God to please let me gain a few restful hours. When I did finally get to sleep, I dreamed that I was in an empty church and it was decaying and falling apart. The pews were rotting, the windows were broken, and the roof was leaking badly.
However, the pulpit and the area surrounding it, the altar, the piano, etc. was intact and looked like it had just been cleaned and polished. The register on the bulletin board still said “Attendance Last Sunday: 25,” and gave the amount of the general expense offering that was received. Not a fair amount at all, and I took it that this church had been shut down for some time because of lack of funds to keep the place running. Weird, because the bulletin board had fresh postings for upcoming youth camps, events, etc.
Continue reading ‘Significant Dream From The Lord #3′
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I got to thinking before I went to sleep last night, and I realized how amazing it truly is that time can fly so quickly. Time flies so quickly, in fact, that some people really can’t deal with it as well as others. Sometimes a series of events can hit you in the gut so hard, and when things become normal again, you find that things changed so much and can never go back to the way they were.
Case in point…my brother is about to graduate high school. Think about that for a second. Jason Brewer, 18 years old, about to graduate high school and enter the wonderful world of college. Wasn’t it just four years ago that I graduated from Rainier High School and Jason was anxious about becoming a high school freshman?
The guy’s been through a lot too. I haven’t got the chance to talk to him much on my deployment, but I do know that he took the family’s move to Missouri in stride, even though he had just become pretty well established in Rainier. He moved from high school to high school over the course of two years. First he attended the high school in Seymour, MO; then he moved on to Fordland (this was at the time that I came to visit the family in October before I deployed). After the family rented an apartment in Springfield, he found himself at Kickapoo (that’s the real name of the school) High School. That’s where he’s gonna graduate from.
When I talked to Jason, I told him that I was really proud of him for being able to stick it out during the family’s move. Sometimes we as adults tend to focus on how hard it was for my mom and dad to move, but it had to be hard on Jason as well — albeit in a different way, but hard nonetheless. Changing high schools three times in your junior and senior years would be a bit tiring to say the least, and I don’t know many young people nowadays who’d be able to handle it with the courage that my brother did. I’m proud of him for it and if any of you Crimson House folks read this, give Jason a good hug because he really deserves it.
Continue reading ‘Day 152: Saturday Musings About Springfield’
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