Inspiration

After 34 Mondays in a row, I woke up last week and it was finally Saturday.  It has been an extra long first leg of deployment, but seeing my family at the end was totally worth it. 

 

A few things get me through lonely nights: my faith and reliance on God; the love of my family; and reading, lots of reading.  I usually read during the little free time I have and at night before I fall asleep.  So far, I have read The Hobbit, and am in the middle of Blood and Thunder, by Hampton Sides.  The latter is about the US war with Mexico, the claiming of the New Mexico Territory, and the wholesale slaughter of Native Americans.  It follows Kit Carson as the central character.  It is very interesting, especially being from New Mexico and spending most of my childhood in NM’s northern mountains.  I highly recommend it.  Anyway, I wanted to share a few quotes that really struck me this past month.

The Hobbit

“I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!”  It was not the last time that he wished that! 

There hasn’t been a day that I don’t think about the things I could be doing in my nice “hole.”  Don’t get me wrong, I love my job.  I love leading soldiers and “getting in the dirt,” but I will always long for home.

It was at this point that Bilbo stopped.  Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did.  The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it.  He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.  At any rate after a short halt go on he did.

This is as true for me as it is for Julia.  I fought a real battle in the Airport on Tuesday.  Saying goodbye- fully committing my mind to that which I know I have to do.  Julia- committing her mind to raise Ellie by herself and to keep the house, pay the bills, and keep everything else in order.  There will be hard days and nights, and times when I may be in danger, but I already did the hardest part of this deployment.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

Word.

“I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led.  And through the air.  I am he that walks unseen… I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water.”

This last quote comes from when the Dragon asks Bilbo who he is.  I included it because it is a pretty cool parallel to Christ.

The Bible NKJ

1 Corinthians 15:33

Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.”  Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God.

1 Corinthians 5:9

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.

I have a delicate line to walk.  In the Army, like the rest of the world, there are all kinds of people and all kinds of depravity.  I have seen my “good habits” become corrupted and I have also seen me border on judgmental.  I serve with great people, many of whom do not know Christ.  However, I must hold myself accountable to the Truth I know, but shouldn’t expect those who do not know or believe in Christ to hold themselves to the same standard. 

A few more goodies:

1 Corinthians 16:13

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.  Let all that you do be done with love.

John 6:28-29

Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”  Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

John 6:68-69

“Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Blood and Thunder

“How little do those who sit in their easy chairs in Washington know of the privations we are daily subjected to.  Even our anxious friends at home can form no idea of the trials we undergo.”

-Taken from the diary of Captain Turner, a commander in the invading Army.

A soldier’s wife in St. Louis was much like a whaler’s wife in Boston – she said good-bye to her beloved as he set sail on an ocean of land and then she accepted the voids of silence, the hard nights of not knowing, as the weeks and months became years.

Although technology has changed much about warfare and a soldier’s connection with home, these both still hold true.  Current hardships are not nearly as bad as then (for example, many soldiers were stationed in Santa Fe for several years without their families), but this is no comfort for me and Julia.

It may be a few weeks before I get to post again.  So, if you don’t see any updates, don’t worry.

Top Funny Things

Buenos Noches!
I have been in Indiana for only 4 weeks, and already some hilarious things have happened.  I feel that now is an appropriate time to begin my TOP HILARIOUS THINGS!!!  This will be rank ordered by less hilarious to most hilarious.  Enjoy.

Coming in at number 4:
The Army is full of traditions and often, each unit has its own traditions.  C CO is no exception.  Their biggest and most well kept is that of getting "jumped-in."  This refers to the time honored tradition where the "new guy" gets welcomed to the company by getting beat up and usually constrained to a certain area.  This tradition is not hindered by rank.  I was jumped in in Las Cruces.  It was after final formation, I was standing behind my platoon.  My platoon sergeant was getting ready to release them when, he had them turn around and charge me.  I made it about 10 feet before I was caught.  They picked me up, gave me a few punches and taped me to a tree outside the commander's office... classic.
2nd platoon takes the tradition a bit further.  They include birthdays.  As many of you know, my birthday was February 2nd.  This brings me to round 2:
I made it through the 2nd with only 1 person knowing it was my birthday.  The only reason he knew was because we share the same birthday.  Then Feb 3rd happened.  My platoon was away training that day and I, unfortunately wouldn't see them until the next day.  I figured I was in the clear.  Then it happened.  I am learning spanish on Rosetta Stone and a soldier from a different platoon asked me how to say "Happy Birthday" in Spanish.  It didn't click, especially since I just learned that.  I said happily, "Felize Complianos!"  "That's right" they said.  And before I knew it, I was hoisted up and given 10 birthday spankings.  This isn't fun and gentle.  The orchestrator in all this was SSG Elmore, a former 2nd platooner.  I figured he was talking with my platoon and this counted as my birthday jump in.  So, I called my platoon sergeant and "thanked" him for the birthday wishes.  Well, he didn't know it was my birthday and it tipped him off to the other person that had the same birthday.  Mistake.  They jumped him that night.
I still wasn't in the clear.  When my platoon got back they had to jump me, the first one didn't count.  That's only fair. 
By the way, it has been a busy 2 weeks for birthdays.  There have been 5 already.

Number 3:
I have a driver who also doubles as my radio operator.  He's a cool guy, kinda young, from Belen, NM, but now lives in Albuquerque.  He admittedly hasn't driven very much on snow, but we gave him some training and figured he would be alright since we are in 4WD Humvees.  Wrong.  We're driving back from a mission, I'm the lead vehicle and the roads are pretty icey.  As we start going down a hill, my driver gets worried about our speed.  He touched the breaks and before I knew it, we were spinning.  All I could think while we went round and round was, "We're going to hit that tree.  We're going to hit that humvee.  We're going to hit that tree.  We're going to hit that humvee."  We did 1 3/4 spins before we finally stopped.  It was pretty scary.  I'm told that my eyes were huge.  No big deal, right?  Well, this really shook my driver.  I don't want to fire him because it was a little mistake and he is a really good radio guy, but now he is scared to drive over 10 mph.  I don't really know what to do.  It's like when Goose died and and Maverick lost his edge.  If only Viper were here.

Number 2:
It was one of those miserable days where the snow melted, but refroze as a solid sheet of ice.  What day was that?  Everyday.  Any way, on this day it was particularly dangerous because on the roads it was truely black ice.  We had to walk to the airfield and although we were walking on top of the black ice we couldn't see it.  We only knew it was there because we all fell.  So, we're headed back to the company area after the training and the next platoon is passing us on the way to training.  They are approaching the black ice when one of my soldiers calls out, "you guys better hurry, they're going to stop the training in 5 minutes if you guys don't get there."  This was less than truthful.  The all took off at a slow, safe trot.  It didn't matter.  Everyone of them fell.  Luckily we got it on video. 

And now, the TOP HILARIOUS THING OF ALL:
One of the other Platoon Leaders, 2LT Chris Tebo, is from Cameroon.  He's 37 years old, is the fastest runner in the company, and he is overall a pretty cool guy.  HOWEVER, he is very gullible.  Let me paint the picture:
We sleep in an open bay with 25 people.  There are 5 officers, all LT's.  The rest is enlisted personnel.  We all like to joke around and give each other a hard time.  One night, someone turned out the lights early.  Tebo yelled at them to keep the lights on until "lights out" and then turned them back on.  SSG Elmore, to give Tebo a hard time, yelled across the bay, "Hey sir!"  clapped his hands twice and had someone who was positioned at the light switch that is located out of sight, turn off the lights.  He then clapped once, and the lights came back on.  We all thought it was kind of funny, like a "Clap On" commercial or something. Well... Tebo freaked out.  He did not connect that someone was around the corner.  He cursed very loudly and said that Elmore was practicing witch craft.  We couldn't tell if Tebo was joking, but figured it best to go on with the ruse.  Elmore clapped twice again, and the lights went out.  Tebo immediately turned the lights back on.  Elmore clapped, lights out.  This went on for a few minutes and we all thought it pretty amusing.  We figured Tebo would figure it out, but... this event happened in week 1 and Tebo still hasn't figured it out.  In fact, the guys have convinced Tebo that he too knows how to turn out the lights by clapping.  They told him, "just picture yourself turning out the lights, clap twice, and the lights will go out."  Well, it worked.  Tebo thinks he knows witch craft. 
On a side note, they are about to cross the line.  There is an App on iPhone that allows you to add a ghost like figure to pictures.  They took a picture of Tebo at his bunk, added the figure and showed him the picture.  He freaked out and was preparing to leave the bay and sleep somewhere else.  I was just coming out of the shower as he was starting to pack up.  I felt bad for the guy, and much to the chagrin of my counter parts, told him the truth.

I hope this has entertained you as much as it has us. Enjoy your weekend.

The Beginning

So, I've decided to start blogging my Kosovo adventure.  I can't promise that I will post regularly, with correctly spelled words, or that my post will be of any interest.  The only person that may find this interesting is my wife, but that is to be expected.

I am currently in the last phase of validation before we head over seas for more validation.  My platoon is being evaluated on the numerous tasks we will be expected to do in Kosovo: monitoring the local populace, crowd and riot control, traffic control, and lots of other tasks.  We can't wait to not be here.

Besides training, Indiana is pretty much terrible.  Freezing temperatures (not as bad as NM, I hear), wind, and lots of ice.  When it snows, it takes about 2 days for the snow to melt, pack down, and then refreeze as a solid sheet of ice.  Its fun to watch people fall, but terrible to be the person falling: truly a win/lose situation.

Only 8 days until I see my wife and baby girl.  This is motivation.