another one to Iraq

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Rifleman1776

Rifleman1776

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Mountain Home, Arkansas, USA.
We are leaving in a few minutes to fly to Colorado to see our son-in-law off for Iraq. He is in the Air Force and will be stationed at Balad, Iraq. A DOD site says this city has been nicknamed "Mortarville, USA". Does not sound good. I'll be there for a while on business. My wife and daughter are driving back to Arkansas. Daughter will be here through the holidays. Thanksgiving will be tough on her. That is their first anniversary. Pray for him and all our service people. To the relief of some here, I'll probably be off-forum for two weeks.
 
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Just make sure the Air Force gives him one of the latest M-16's,
don't be sending him off with one of your Kentucky long guns, a cap & ball.
He will be in our prayers along with your daughter & family.

I'll miss you Frank [:D]
 
Frank,
Safe journeys to all, and best wishes for a speedy and healthy return for your son-in-law. Please tell him we appreciate the sacrifices he is and will be making.
 
Make sure you tell him how proud we all are of him and his dedication to our country...
And one other thing... tell him to keep his butt down... along with the rest of him..
 
Thanks all. We are with them now. Both are in good spirits. We had a tour of the AF base. This definately is not my (era 1959-63) Air Force. We are going to watch football together today. He leaves in about 48 hours.
 
He called this a.m. (Sunday) from Kuait. Was able to speak with our daughter for only a few minutes but I'm glad they were able to talk even if briefly. He is now in Kuait and will be heading to Balad, Iraq in a couple days.
 
Our daughter is staying with us through the holidays. This morning she received an e-mail from Andrew. Yesterday his base at Balad received their first mortar attack since he arrived. Fortunately there was warning and all got into the bunkers in time. No one hurt. That's the good news. Still not comforting.
 
Frank, I know first hand how disquieting this can be. All of our men and women onver there are still in our prayers daily. Our son (and youngest child) isn't due home until April, so this holiday season will be especially tough on LOML. We've always had at least one of the five w/us at Thanksgiving. This year it was just going to be the two of us and she's been having a rough go of it. Yesterday, our daughter in the Wooodlands (Houston area) called and told us she bought us plane tickets to Houston so we could be with them on Thanksgiving. LOML cried again, but this was a good one. This means I get to make another trip to Houston Hardwoods! [:D] What a daughter!
 
Andrew (my son-in-law) has been calling almost every day. Where he is is considered 'safe'. But this morning he gave our daughter some disturbing news. He and some other servicemen, a combo of both Army and Air Force, he is AF, had been ordered to build a building. The walls were up and the steel roof rafters in place. Yesterday while working inside it collapsed on them. Several men received minor injuries. Andrew and his crew were at an opposite corner. Had they been in the wrong place all could have died. The most disturbing part of this is that none of the men are architects or engineers. They are just guys with different specialties who were told to build a building. Some ranking (expletive deleted) idiot gave that order. I know what I'd like to do to that (expletive deleted). Better stop before I forget to delete certain words and thoughts. [:(!]
 
Gotta brag. Yesterday, my son-in-law, A1C Andrew, received a commendation for excellent work and equally excellent attitude. He has made us proud and Arkansas proud. Keeping up a good attitude there has to be tough. One way he does it is to volunteer (you heard me right) to do work in other units after his regular work day is over. He understands how destructive boredom can be and that physical exertion is good for preventing depression.
 
Frank, sounds like you have the right to brag! Sounds like a great guy, and we will continue to pray for his safe return. One of my students recently returned from the same base, he was medic and I think that is where all wounded go before being sent to Germany. He says it is hard to get used to working and sleeping without a Kevlar vest on.
 
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