Me, a Guiness, and Joe Montana

     I want to first thank everyone who made my going away party something to truly remember, at least the parts that I can remember.   :-)   I really enjoyed seeing everyone there,   and sharing the time together talking,  laughing,  and carrying on.  It was very surreal for myself,  almost like being at my own wake.  I know that sounds morbid,  but if I were going to have a funeral for myself that I could attend,  I would want to be just like that… simply awesome.

     Here’s an update on what’s going on so far with my first couple weeks of Army stuff.  We have been spending our time learning as much about Afghanistan’s landscape,  history and people as possible.  It truly is an interesting country with a long and proud history.  If you ever have the spare time you should Google it.  The more I learn about the country,  the more I look forward to getting there and becoming immersed into the culture.

     Here’s the downside,  as many of you already know;  we have been spending some time trying to learn some of the two major languages we are going to need to know.   It is certainly not an easy task for myself,  it’s the old  “old dog,  new tricks”  philosophy.  So far with what I have learned,  I do no think that I possess the skills required to order myself a sandwich.   I think what would happen is that I would end up with trash can lid full of week old table scrapings that had been left in the sun.   I’m working on it as best I can,  I think by the time we are ready to come home I should be able to get my sandwich.

     We’ve also been spending a lot of time mastering other military skills that will make the time spent in Afghanistan safer,  such as weapons training and life saver skills.   The life saver course we took part in required us to be able to successfully start an IV into a real human arm.   I am thinking I’d rather spend time trying to learn Arabic than stick needles into another persons arm.   I really didn’t think I could do it,  and I was sure my partner was having the same thoughts about my needle sticking skills.   I decided to let my partner go first,  and in this way he couldn’t get  “revenge”  on me when I screwed up trying to get the needle into his arm.   My partner did a great job getting the IV in,  of course this made me even more nervous,  and now I am thinking of a way to apologize for all the bruising his arm is going to experience when it was my turn to do the deed.  Thankfully I was pleasantly surprised when I was able to get the IV in and going without him losing too much blood.

     All in all;  life is pretty good as far.   The hard part comes next week,  as we are moving onto our next stop on this journey … Mississippi.   From what I have heard it’s not the most pleasant place on the face of this earth,  and I will certainly let you know when we get there.   I wish you all well and thank you for the prayers.

Sincerely,
Mark