Well well well.....here I am again writing after it seems it's been an eon or two.  I've reached my destination of SD, and everything is back to normal; well, sort of.  It's hard to imagine everything that has transpired in my house since I left it, and it got a bit of a face-lift.  My living room is finally decorated tastefully, thanks to Caitie.  As I went tin to my bedroom, I was hit with a strange sight: my bedroom was packed with a couch, a love-seat, two queen-sized beds, a microwave, window air conditioner, and a toaster were crowded in there.  I literally had to climb over a couch and go around a frame just standing there.  I don't know were half of my stuff is, to tell you the truth.  It took me a long time just find one of my green uniforms.  What a mess!  I have a  lot of work to do.

    While I was here back home, I had some time to think about the past deployment.  All diabetics should probably skip this paragraph.  I went through a lot of trying times, and horrid leadership.  The trials that I faced were rough, but I had an anchor back home that pulled me through the entire ordeal.  I am referring to my wonderful girlfriend, Krysten.  Without her, I don't think I would have been so successful in overcoming everything that stood in my way there.  I am very fortunate to have her at my side, so to speak.  Krysten has been there for support since day 1 of training through day 189 of the deployment.  She has made me happy for longer than just my deployment and training.  I am a very grateful man because of that.  There's a lot more I could say about her, but I'll save that for perahps another occasion.

    My latest thoughts I've neglected to put here because I'm just feelin' too damn lazy to put on here.  Originally, I was going to write another mini-novel, but I just changed my mind.  That's just the way it goes sometimes. 

    Well, another day, another 3.50.  Yep, that's the per diem I get over here, and I will cash in on that when I get back.  That's at LEAST a small cup of Starbucks Coffee.  Isn't it nice of the USAF to buy me a cup of coffee a day while I'm here?  Not that I can enjoy it of course, but still, it's the thought that counts, right?  Sure it is. 

    I was at the PX today, and the thought crossed my mind about the Iraqis working with me here; I don't trust them.  Some of them are good people, sure, but they have no loyalties to us for any reason, and I just get the feeling that they'll bolt s soon as a better opportunity arises, or they'll sell out an American for just a few bucks.  Sad, isn't it?  Don't get me wrong, there are some really good people here.  But just like any other society, there are a few bad apples.  I have run into a few of them being the SOG.  I think I'll be able to rest a lot easier when I no longer have to worry about IAs, INGs, IPs, and FPS guards.  You know when they're not exactly loyal to you; you can just feel that vibe in the air.  It's hard to explain.  I just hate it when I get it, because I know there's nothing I can do about it.  They're all nice to your face, but I think they'd be really nice and all that jazz right up to the point where they slit your throat, or flick the switch to blow you up. 

    Not all of Iraq is all that bad tho.  I mean, sure, it has its strong selling points all geared toward the negative, but there are some good ones too.  We've helped a lot of people, and they show their gratitude towards us.  Unfortuantely, the nightly news doesn't like showing the good stuff, so they skip over it and show all the carnage so that they can keep up with America's short attention span.  I think that the media moguls like to get a rise of emotion from their viewing audience; after all, doesn't that bring in the ratings?   Why report something good on a controversial subject when you can fuel the fire by adding negative reinforcement?  It's easy to sway a person's view of a subject they know nothing  about by throwing all kinds of negative information about it; and making that person just furiously passionate about that subject later.  Funny how that works, isn't it? 

    On to other things...I am nearing the end of this wonderful little deployment, and I can't say that I am upset about it.  We've worked so hard for so long that it's going to be a shock when we get back to the states at how little we have to do on our break.  We transformed the most gawd awful piece of real estate that the Army was so "gracious" to give us.  Over 400 cubic meters of concrete, gawd knows how many pieces of lumber, sheets of steel, thousands of feet of cable later...we now have a working area that is a complete transformation of what we had.  We've outclassed the Army on many occasions here; we out-worked them, the quality of our work is WAY above theirs, and their leadership is without words to describe how shocked they are at our performance.  As much as I love working my ass off, this will also sadly be my last deployment in this job.  I will never again rebuild an area, or transform a useless area into something this impressive.

    I was notified that I am for sure nailed for cross-training.  They won't let me have any say as to what I want from here, but I can try when I get back home.  I have no idea what I could do yet.  I guess I'll figure that all out later.  There's no use in worrying now.  Suggestions?

    We're all thinking about what we're going to do when we get back home.  Most of the talk is about how much we're going to get laid, and how much we're going to be able to drink.  My guess is that there's going to be a rise in alcohol sales by quite a bit when we get back....and there will probably be a mini-baby boom 9 months later.  The reality of the situation is that the most dangerous parts of any deployment are right at the beginning of it, ad right at the end.  The end is where we're at now, and we're trying very hard to keep our heads in the game.  If you let yourself get dstracted, that's when the serious injuries happen, and people get killed.  We don't want this at all.  Every single one of us carries a weapon at all times, and it would only take one incident to ruin an entire deployment.  Our discipline is not slacking at all.  We keep each other in check. 

    There's more that I'd love to ranton about, but dammit, there are too many people in here driving me nuts.  I mean seriously, how can you sit next to someone and consistently cough on and on and on without realizing that, "Hey, maybe if I took a cough drop, I wouldn't be doing this so much?".  Maybe that's an Army thing.  I think these guys fail to grasp simple concepts a lot.  But, there's a rant for a different day.