Thanksgiving

I am a bit late with the Thanksgiving post. Sorry! We had a brief the other day and our 1SG showed us this quote an just thought I'd share with the group. This was written by a soldier in 2005 I think..
As America wakes up this morning they will turn on the TV to see why we are fighting in these wars. Today is supposed to be a special day for our country, to celebrate why we are thankful and to gather family. For guys like myself, I will break bread with the men that I serve with here. We’ll play it off and pretend that we don’t care but deep down inside we all do. We all know what it’s like to be home and be with out families. That is not the case this year.
I am here now and I am thankful for being able to serve our great nation. The ability to serve is something that I wish all American’s could experience. What are you thankful for this year?
Although I am half a world away from my loved ones I have not forgotten what home means to me. Between the hustle and bustle of normal life I can see where people can forget what they are thankful for.
So when you break bread this afternoon, say your grace and appreciate the opportunity to be there with your family and loved ones. Don’t allow the bullshit that others are trying to do to spoil your day. Turn the news off and know that those who serve will take care of this mess.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Just thought it was kinda cool. My Thanksgiving was definitely one I will always remember. They went all out with the meals, I think they included anything they had ever heard Americans like. Let's just say if I told you what all they served you would think I am not actually in Iraq ha. It made me remember that not everybody deployed right now was in a position to have the kind of meal we had, or even to get the day off. I am sure most people in Afghanistan had a very different experience than we did here. So I am thankful to be where I am.
I was also thankful that we are experiencing these holidays at the end of the deployment. I can honestly call many of the people here family now. I cannot imagine how difficult the holidays would be at say the first month or two of a deployment. Things sure have changed here during the last couple of months. We have started realizing that our time together is coming to an end and most of us are not even from the same state. It will be difficult to see each other once this deployment ends. I have enjoyed the extra time we have spent hanging out recently, whether at the softball field or in front of the Xbox, ha.
After lunch we went and played some Xbox of course. What would you rather do on Thanksgiving than play Halo? We followed that up with another big dinner (same food from lunch ha), and then just hung out outside the rooms all night. Turned on some music, had a bunch of near-beer, and just hung out.
This may have been the most random Thanksgiving ever, but will def. be one I don't forget. It will also always be a memory for the Thanksgivings to come to remind me to appreciate the family time I get when I can get it. I missed being with the family, but I know this will come to an end soon. It is funny to think about because we are nearing the end of deployment and they are starting to talk to us about going home. I feel like I never thought these days would come. The whole deployment process I worried about what it would be like to get here. Talking about what to look forward to on the way home is just crazy. I hope everyone has a great day and that y'all can pull Auburn through today. I know we will have a large group of family at the game so I am looking to you to get the win. Do not fear though, I bought chips and dip, and some mountain dew and we will have our own Iron Bowl party here in Iraq. I love you all!

Sooo I am really hyper and decided I should update my blog. My roomies think I am hyper because I was eating M&Ms. My theory is that it is because I was able to talk to Mom and Dad both for like 20 minutes... And I could actually hear them! Ya'll don't even understand how nice good sound quality is until you lose it! I have also decided what I am getting everyone for Christmas which is fun. Even though it is a way off, and my Christmas is even farther off than that (sorry guys, not getting presents from me until I am home to give them!). But it is nice to know Christmas is right around the corner because it means going home is right around the corner! Wooh wooh.
We have a really light work week next week which is exciting as well. Even though it means the week will go by slower. We will get Thanksgiving off, Friday is maintenance day but we took our truck today so we won't really do anything that day, and Saturday is another off day! It's almost like a real weekend! Sounds like loootttsss of Halo 3 on the Xbox for us. (I'm actually getting pretty good, I can beat some of the guys and they do noootttt like losing to a chick on video games ha). It's cool though because all the xboxes here are connected so we end up playing teams with like 12-15 players total. Lots of army/ air force rivalry there ha.
Softball may be wrapping up soon. We have 3 more regular season games. We have to win 2 of the 3 to make it to the playoffs. Our star player hurt his back yesterday so he will be playing hurt tonight. Should make the game interesting.
Have I mentioned how super proud of my family I am recently? It's fun watching everyone grow up. You got the adults, like Carrie working off in the real world, doing some really cool things with her kids. Ashlyn is right behind her with her awesome internship at Southern Living (some very nice blogs that I have gotten to read). Kristi with Miss Auburn and starting to look at the real world now as a big bad junior. Kristen repping the Kappa Delts with lots of good times in college to come! (just do me a favor Kristen, don't be a 20 year old freshman like me ha.) I'm sad that I won't be around during Christmas to hear what everyone has been up to recently, I am sure there is a lot more cool stuff going on that I just don't know of. Thomas doing well with his tennis, wish I could have seen him play while I was on leave but I was very glad I got tosee him for a bit before the match! And of course Wesley with all of his big ideas about army men. I am just really proud of everyone and glad to be a part of this family!
Today is a good day. The weather here has finally decided to become fall (we're only a couple of months behind). Tonight at my softball game I will be wearing sweat pants and underarmor... I guess Hell has frozen over, atleast Iraq! Highs around the 70s with lows in the 50s. The days feel amazing though, just stinks when they start at 0600. You feel pretty dumb wearing a jacket in Iraq ha.
I love you all and hope everyone's day is as good as mine has been!

this picture ^^^ is horrible. But oh well, kinda shows you whats up.

I have been wanting to make thispost for a while ( I actually just typed the stupid thing but it got deleted halfway through so now I am stuck redoing it!). On Thursday, while we were on mission, Craig through a water bottle at my truck and i almost caught it... with my nose. He was up above me so I could not see it until it landed. It wasn't too major, I ended with a busted nose and a couple of black eyes. He def. did not do it on purpose, and he felt really bad so I didn't want to get him in trouble (We had a couple of important people with us on mission that day). It will be awsome today though because our new Brigade is coming to talk with us and I will get to explain to a couple of Colonels why I have 2 black eyes ( I of course volunteered to miss the meeting so it would not come up, that got shut down really quickly).

Another exciting mission today, I got an IP thrown in jail. He was I guess, in a normalwork evironment it would be considered sexual harrassment. It wasn't anything major but I told my NCOs and they went to talk to the station commander. They consider it a major offense so he will be in jail for a couple of days, docked pay, and transferred to another station. They made like a formal apology to me and everything, including telling me I had the right to press charges with them and take him to Iraqi court. I just said they knew better what the punishment should be under their laws and that I trusted them to handle it. It was kinda crazy.

Softball has won our last 2 games so it looks like we're on a roll now. I am still workin on making the adjustment to a slowpitch swing, not working all that well for me!ha havea good day