Live - from the Austin TX Airport

I know that I may have let many of your down by not posting to this blog. I have a few excuses, some of them are good, some are not. Primarily, I have heard that the internet speeds are incredibly slow in Afghanistan and knowing this leads me to the temptation to quit blogging. (I know - many of you think I already have:) Haha!!

I have been extremely busy for the last few months. I participated in an Annual Training in Tucson for 1 week, the down to Ft. Huachuca for weapons qualification, then up to Florence for two weeks of basic "soldiering" training. Then I hit Ft. Hood. Internet availability has been sparse and I'm not a big fan of fancy phones that would let me do blogging from anywhere.

It is nearly 7:00 PM and I am sitting the Austin TX airport waiting for a van to pick me up and take me over to Ft. Hood. I will be here for several hours. It is nearly a two hour drive from Austin to Ft. Hood. Ay Carumba!

Regarding Ft. Hood. It is known as "The Great Place". I don't believe there is anything great about Ft. Hood. Of course, I don't know anyone here other than the unit I am deploying with and we all want to get out of here ASAP!!! We all want to move on to doing our full-time jobs instead of all this "training". Now - I know that training is important. Very important. But I'm still showing up in Afghanistan having had very little training in the one area I really need it.....that of being the Battalion Logistics Officer. I don't even know what that means yet :)

I spent the last 4 days with Stephanie and Sydney. What a welcome break! And...too bad that it is over. Thankfully we have made some great progress as we have all tackled this deployment with a real team effort. My wife is definitely the inspiration for my perseverance. We are working on goals and trying to see the silver lining hidden in this experience.

Sydney is taking the deployment well too. Of course, I think this is largely due to the fact that she doesn't know what her dad is really doing. I was quite emotional this morning as I said goodbye to my two best friends again. Sydney looked at me and said "Dad, why are you crying?"

I told her I was crying because I love her and that I am really going to miss her.

She said, "Dad, I will be right here. I not going anywhere!"

Out of the mouth of babes!!!