Afghanistan My Last Tour

I am at Embedded Training Team (ETT) training at Fort Riley, Kansas.  First order of business -I signed up for 2 months of unlimited wireless internet connectivity on the post for $39 a month. So now I can communicate with the world.

Yesterday seemed to last for an eternity!  After departing Tampa, we landed at Dallas/Ft Worth 20 minutes early.  After a quick layover, I headed to my next flight. Everything was fine and our plane taxied to the end of the runway.  As we started down the runway, I noticed the flaps were going down and we started to lift up.  However, I got concerned because I knew we didn’t have enough runway speed.  Within seconds the pilot set us back down on the runway and we aborted the mission.  We taxied to another gate and maintenance determined the plane couldn’t fly and we would have to wait for another plane.  Because of this, we were delayed over 2 hours.  We finally arrived at the airport in Kansas and was delayed waiting for another military member whose plane was delayed.  So we spent another 2 hours hanging out at the airport and then we endured a 2 hour bus ride to Fort Riley.

After arriving at Riley, we had to inprocess and unload the bus with everyone’s bags.  My yellow embroidered tags made it easy to locate mine.  Then we had to trudge our bags a hundred yards to our temporary quarters.  Each one of my bags weigh over 66 pounds along with the laptop and my gym bag.  I finally made it to my room and met my roommate Jason.  The room is actually divided into 2 rooms with doors on each room.  We share a bathroom and a small common area with a microwave and refrigerator.  I was suprised they roomed me with a SSgt/E-5, but he is pretty cool.  He helped me with my bags and then I spent an hour unpacking, making my bed, and accessing the internet.   By now it was 1130 pm here or 1:30 am Florida time and I finally crashed.

I woke up at 5 am because I had a difficult time sleeping in my twin-size bed and I forgot to turn on the heat button last night.  The current temperature is 15 degrees outside…..brrrr…..brrr….brrrr…  None of the rooms have television or a radio, so we have to rely on our laptops for entertainment, media, etc. The shower curtain in our bathroom is torn and held up by two clips and sags in the middle.  A garbage bag would be more effective.  The chow hall doesn’t open for brunch until 0930 and I am a bit hungry.  Later on today we are supposed to meet with our team leaders and they will provide us a schedule of activities.  On Friday, we are supposed to move out of these “nice quarter” and relocate to Camp Funston to start our training.  The accomodations there are much more sparse and less enjoyable.

I know these next 14 months will be a bit of a challenge, but together my wife Liisa and I will get through it.  It’s not easy being away from her and the “boyz” – my two furry children, Goldendoodles Charlie and Sam. But I have to stay focused on the positive aspects that this will be my last deployment and after the deployment I can request for retirement.

I need to get ready for my day.