Christmas Shout Out

Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas. Unoriginal I realize, but effective. Thats me and Eddie and our Gingerbread house. Engineers we are not!

Well Christmas has made it to the barren desert. The day went pretty well, which is to say it did not suck. This is mostly due to the fact that I got the whole day off! Thus the first shout out goes to my boss, LTC Gary. We were scheduled for a 1/2 day today, but LTC Gary told us to enjoy the day and he would come in and deal with anything that came up. All he asked was that we keep our cell phones on. He did call me once for a minor issue, but the rest of the day I did absolutely nothing. I slept in. Went to chow with my roommate Jeff. Then proceeded to fall into a triptophan induced coma as a result of the mass of turkey I ate. I slept until about 1700 when I got up and went to the gym. I came back to my room, showered and Skyp'd my parents and Emily then promptly went back to sleep. That my friends is a good day.

I have plenty more accolades to bestow on family and friends so please read on. I have to start with Emily. Many of you know that I had asked that I not receive any gifts this year. I am a little concerned that my girlfriend did not heed my words, but at the same time it was sure nice to have a box full of fun gifts to open. We will address the not listening issue later ;) I got a whole bunch of little snacks and games and just fun kinda stuff. I have to give a shout to Helena, one of Emily's pals in DC. She is always out shopping with Emily and I wanted to say thanks for helping to pick out fun stuff. You're doing great! It was fun opening my gifts while watching Emily have Christmas over Skype. As usually she went above and beyond. I am a very lucky guy to have a girlfriend that doesn't listen to me...

Next up is my family. My mom, sister, grandmother, great aunt, and cousin all sent me stuff. Mostly cookies and treats from home, which are all gone! My Aunt Rita sent me enough almonds to last me a few months I think! She is so fun. Aunt Helen made some of my favorite cookies, little powdered white butter cookies with nuts. They lasted for like one pot of coffee! My mom sent her usual pile of yummy cookies and some other stuff just like I told her not to. Again, a very lucky guy to have women around me that don't pay any attention when I talk....Sometimes I think my mom is trying to get me fat so I can't be in the Army! My mom is a great cook and baker; heck shes a great mom all around.

My sister gets a huge thanks not just from me, but from the whole unit. My sister thought it would be nice to get some folks to send some cards to me and the soldiers I serve with. I don't think she expected the response, but I received over 300 cards and letters. I handed out all I could to folks around here. I took the rest up to another camp and gave them to a unit that was putting together a Christmas party. They told me they had plenty of soldiers that did not get very much mail or any at all. This was going to be a real treat for those guys. I want to specifically thank the following groups that my sister identified as having sent cards:

• Employees of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources


• Mrs Bender's class at Mayo Elementary School


• Mrs. Weissmueller's class at Sunderland Elementary School


• Ms. Kirchner's class at St Mary's school


• Stevensville Girl Scouts


• Bowie Girl Scouts

Thanks to these great Americans some young trooper far from home had a little bit brighter and happier day. I can tell you from personal experience, there are times when one single letter can make the difference between a soldier crying and a soldier laughing.

I also want to say a huge THANKS to Emily's family, all like 10,000 of them! I know there are some goodies in the pipeline. I don't know what they are but I know they will be great. More than for the treats and gifts I want you all to know how much it means to me to have such a supportive family. Being there as your daughter, sister, cousin, etc deals with loving a soldier at war is a difficult thing. It is a sacrifice, make no mistake you are fighting for freedom and America as much as those of us deployed. Thanks for your support of me and especially for taking care of Emily. I know she is OK because she has all of you. Knowing that lets me focus on my mission and my soldiers.

So that is Christmas from Arifjan. I hope yours was peaceful and warm.

Christmas Eve

I lucked into a Christmas Eve feast! I had to go up to another camp today and deliver some equipment to a warehouse there. We have contractors that run the warehouse and most of them are from India. When we got there they were having lunch and invited us to join them. What a great deal!

We had some sort of BBQ chicken, some curry shrimp and rice. Some vegetables and flat bread, it was great. Turns out there is a very good restaurant near where all these contractors live and they "catered" all the food. It was really good chow and I thoroughly enjoyed the visit and the food.

You can see by the picture that we are all enjoying ourselves and getting along just fine. Fairly ironic considering in the group there are Christians, Muslims and Hindi's! It is a surreal feeling to celebrate Christs birth in a Muslim nation with friends of Hindu faith. When we left to head back to Camp Arifjan all I could do was look north to Iraq and shake my head in wonder.