I'm currently working on a mural on a bunker wall.
Hey guys, hope all is well! Thanksgiving is here and gone, though it does not feel like it here. Maybe it’s because it is still somewhat warm here. It’s tough being away from home during the holidays. The time has been going by very quickly these last few weeks. The duty hours are long, so when you are off duty, you sleep. It has been work, sleep, then back to work.
At this point in the deployment, things are routine. You start to notice the little things that you take for granted; for example, running water. The only place there is running water here is in the bathrooms and showers. Speaking of the bathrooms and showers, it’s not like at home where you have it all to yourself. You have to share these with others. My bathroom is also on the other side of the building I live in. They have designed everything so all the plumbing is in one area. When I am on duty, we don’t have any running water on the flight line. The bathrooms are all porta-pottys. If you get hungry at home, just walk to the refrigerator, right? We don’t have that here. We have to walk to a D-Fac or have saved some snacks from a care package. You get to see friends and family pretty much when you want at home. The best we have here for that is Skype. It is much better than before when all we had were phones and e-mail. If you think this is bad, the Marines and soldiers that are outside the wire (off base) have even less! They come to the big bases to relax and enjoy what we have here.
Hey guys, hope things are still going well. I know you are all getting excited for Halloween. We are planning a cook out here for Halloween. It is actually getting much cooler here. During the night hours, the temperature is getting into the low 50’s and upper 40’s. There has only been one day of rain since we have been here and nothing but dry weather in the long range forecast. So it is almost like fall weather at home. There are very few trees here, so we do not get to see any of the fall color.
Hey guys! I hope you are all having a great start to the school year! I know the last few weeks have been crazy for me. I have finally arrived at my deployed air base and have begun to settle in. Before I start telling you about my first few weeks, I need to talk about operational security. We refer to it as OPSEC. What this means is there are certain things that I cannot talk about right now; like things that would give an advantage to the enemy if they read this or things that would put other soldiers in danger when they did their jobs. So if you ask something and I don’t answer it, I’m not ignoring your question(s), I just might not be able to answer it.
