A Message From Rob

Happy Greetings to all! May you be enjoying the season with Halloween, All Saint's Day, Election Day, and first frosts/snows (OK, maybe all except the last 2!) all at hand. It will surely be a busy week...

For you as well as me. As of right now, I do not expect to be stateside for any of those events. This is very likely my last note from Fort Bragg.

But, *boy* what a couple of weeks it has been. I had an absolutely wonderful time at home with Julie and the kids for one whole week. Got to feed Gideon his first solid foods, celebrated Zion's 2nd birthday a little early, joined Gabe for his first kids sports class at the Y... got to spend one whole evening with Julie (and the kids in the care of a babysitter), with family and friends for the birthday party, and with our church for the first Sunday at home in over 10 weeks! Ate at almost all of our favorite restaurants, fully enjoyed the fall colors of Western WA, and got most of the summer outside toys put away. It was a great week.

We returned to Fort Bragg less than a week ago. Within 24 hours I had my Dad and Joyce coming in from MI and Mom with her sister Jerri coming in from Atlanta, GA. They all arrived safely Friday night. Saturday morning the189th (our training brigade) hosted a nice deployment ceremony for us and all of our guests. On short notice, my good friend Joel, from MTU (now teaching in South Carolina) also drove up to join the clan.

We spent most of the day together Saturday and really had a wonderful time. By midday, Joel was on his way, by the evening I said goodbye to Mom and Jerri to spend the night with Dad and Joyce at their hotel, and by Sunday morning they were all on their way home. It was a short visit, but it was great to see everyone together in one spot.

Our CO was able to extend liberty to us for the rest of the weekend - the group of folks here that are my closest friends came and kidnapped me from the hotel to take me "south of the border". Mexico you ask? No, but this incredibly silly place that is a local tourist trip - just south of the North Carolina border into South Carolina on I-95 (only about 45 minutes from Fayetteville). Pedro reigns there and has carnival rides, free mini-golf, restaurants, and gift shops all under the "Golf of Mexico" (a large golf ball sign). This time of year the place is pretty quiet, but we did enjoy the mini golf!

As with all liberty, it had to come to an end, but having said that our work this week has been to be ready to go at any time. And on any day that we weren't scheduled to fly, we've had to catch up on personal stuff. It's worked pretty well for us to get a couple more days of light duty to finish up any last shopping or tasks on post before flying out. Tuesday was a particularly interesting day - one of our presidential candidates came through Fayetteville (I'll let you guess which one) offering free tickets to his rally. Having never attended one before, I was pretty excited to go -and managed to pull a good sized team of us to the local civic center. The place was packed, 10,000 or more by my guess. Regardless of any one's opinion of the candidate, it was truly a worthwhile experience to just be a part of the American political process. And last night I came back and finished up my absentee ballot and dropped it in the mail today.

All I ask is that you would do the same - *please vote* -either in the polls or by mail by next Tuesday. I've been told that you will have a clock time change this weekend - please take that into consideration for your trip to the polls on Tuesday! The race is close enough and this is too busy of a time in our country to just let Election Day pass us by. Thanks!

And with that, I guess the last thing I have for you is my new address. As always, please pass this to anyone who's interested - I won't be able to hit all of you by E-mail on the first shot.

(This is Julie, I've edited Rob's address out. If you know us and would like to write to him just ask via comment on the blog or e-mail and I'll get it to you. Thanks!)

It will take a week or so for stuff to reach me from the states. It will likely take a little longer for me to mail back to you. As always, please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers. Julie continues to maintain her blog as well of all the fun stuff going on around home.

It has been awesome to have all of you for support and friendship. My best wishes to all of us in these next several months. Godspeed and take good care.

Warmly,

Rob

A Message From Rob

Hi all,

Happy *almost* fall to you! It's hard to believe it's mid-September. I know that many of you are either back in school or have family back in school now. But apparently it's not quite time for the new fall line-up of TV to be in full gear. Not much longer for that I'm sure!

I don't have much time to update you today, but wanted you to know that I'm doing well. Where I had been keeping up with 2-week updates until now, the last 3 weeks have taken me quite off guard. You see, the situation at Tent City for internet was far more desperate than I was lead to believe before getting here. Additionally we have had a VERY full training schedule. The reward, however, has been a well-deserved day off today that the Army likes to call a "soldier maintenance day". I'm up on the main base doing some shopping, having lunch, and catching up with the internet. I'm being told that it's all down hill from here... for what it's worth, I hope so! Today marks the 1 month point for me going home on leave and it's great to see that light at the end of the tunnel.

If you've been keeping up with Julie and the home page you've had some great stuff to see lately! So have I! What a blessing. We tried the Skype connection the other day and while it was great to see each other, the connection was rough. So the home web page has been a great thing.


My picture taking has been hindered a bit lately with the breaking of my brand new camera. I think I'll be able to get it fixed since it is still new, however working that issue from Fort Bragg is a monumental challenge to say the least! Still, here's one of the latest and greatest for your viewing. Life at Tent City.

Here's a quick look around Tent City with some of my peers in the foreground and some typically awesome big skies in the background. I'm really enjoying my team here and am glad to be serving with such bright and capable folks as we see our Afghanistan destination on the horizon.

Take care all of you,

Rob

A Message From Rob

Hi all,

Well, as promised, things have gotten harder here in order to be able to keep in touch now that I'm in the great tent city at Fort Bragg. Locally, it's referred to as FOB Patriot - a simulated forward operating base which we will be training on for the remainder of our time here. I now live in a"spacious" 16-man tent, with only 10 people in it for now. So we do have some room to spare. Most of our troops are in similar arrangements, but some have already grown to have all 16 people inside and that makes for fairly tight living. Some time later in September, my tent will also inherit another 3-4 guests and then we'll know what that feels like!

These last 2 weeks have flown by. I haven't had a day off, but did have areally great birthday last Friday. Thanks to all of you who shared in someway to send me best wishes and gifts through E-mail or real mail. I have to admit, it was a memorable day. Perhaps my favorite moment of the day was when I got a new driver's license - yes, I'm now qualified to drive Humvee's for the Army. Woohoo! In order to get qualified, we had to take turns in all of the positions in the vehicle. Which meant that I also got to ride as the gunner once or twice. See the attached (inset by Julie) picture!

Rob in the gunner seat. (It's a lot of fun riding up there now, especially since there are neither weapons nor people shooting at you. Good to enjoy the good moments while we can.)

It was good that my birthday was nice since the rest of the weekend I spent under the weather - my small pox vaccination got the best of me, leaving me feeling feverish and without much of an appetite. By Monday that had cleared up and I was back in the saddle getting through my rifle qualifications. Beyond even my expectations, I managed to qualify everything on the first go around. Even got to do some night time firing with night-vision goggles. It's amazing the gadgets the Army has to work with.

This weekend will not be "off" for us either, but our training day ended early and I found the Internet hot spot in tent city. The rest of the weekend we're going through combat-related first aid classes and even on Labor Day we'll be training. Still, I wish you the best in whatever downtime you get to enjoy. Thanks for keeping up with my family as well and may you all enjoy some well-deserved rest. We're under 50 days now until we get a leave period. Time sure is passing quickly and I'll be glad to get home for a few days. Until next update...

Rob

A Message From Rob

Got an e-mail tonight:


Hi all – to Family and Friends,

Well, it’s been a very quick week in San Diego. So much so that we’re even leaving a little bit early to head to NC. I’ve cleared everything I need to do for the Navy before going and am now cutting over to the Army.

Some highlights of the week:
· Human pin-cushion – any of you who have had adult immunizations can probably relate to this, but I had several immunizations I needed to be updated on. 5 shots in one day and still a couple more once I get to NC!
· Free movies on base – I got to see both Indiana Jones and the Happening for free this week (with the exception of snacks that I had to buy)
· New uniforms – yep, that’s right. I now wear Army boots – and the desert uniform that goes with them. They’re hot, but they’ll do.
· New users of Skype – got to see Julie and the kids twice today online. What a gift!

Blessings and peace,
Rob

A Message From Rob

Hi all,

I got to realizing today that military life is not the norm for most of you, even if it seems routine to me. In case you’re wondering, here’s a little snippet of my life back on active duty regarding a favorite pastime for me – eating!

All 3 meals were eaten in the galley today – or the onbase cafeteria. I don’t have to eat there, but as a friend pointed out today, we got to eat all 3 meals today and spent a grand total of what was less than $10!

Breakfast included: strawberry yogurt, fresh cantaloupe, oatmeal, and some juice.
Lunch was 2 tacos, nacho chips and cheese, a red plum, 2 chocolate chip cookies (nice and soft, just like I like ‘em), and a Diet Coke (not my favorite, but the Coke was out and I preferred caffeine to supplement an afternoon full of PowerPoint briefs).
Finally, dinner was a turkey-based meatloaf, rice, green beans, corn, a piece of chocolate cake, and an iced tea.

Good to enjoy the food while I can – remind me to retell the story when I’m in Army facilities starting next week! I also have to fast overnight for a cholesterol check in the morning. Yippee.

In hometown news… we got a prayer request from our home church in Bonney Lake for Dan Packer’s family today. He was a firefighter there who was battling the wild fires in Northern California, but was overcome by the fire changing course. Still, you can read about him here:
http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/breaking_news/26001394.html
As you think to do so, remember the Packer family and all service members this day – whether military or not.

Good night all,
Rob