Merry Christmas

First of all MERRY CHRISTMAS! I hope that everyone enjoys this Holiday Season.

Julia and I have been very busy the last several months. Julia has been working diligently on her grad school and I have been working hard getting ready for another inevitable deployment.

During the last weeks of October and most of November, I have been in the field training for Iraq and was able to come home for Thanksgiving only to go back to the field 5 days later. It was a little stressful, aw who am I kidding, it was really stressful but that is the idea. I was busy working on so many things that it’s all a blur for me. We spent 30 days in simulated Forward Operating Base (FOB) Operations. We did everything that it involves including patrolling, raids, counter fire (that’s firing back at mortars, rockets and the like that are fired at us) and day to day operations. It was surprisingly realistic minus the 3-5 inches of snow on the ground.


We were together for the five days at Thanksgiving and then I had to right back to the field for some Gunnery. I was able to go to the OP with the guys to shoot some mortars and that was pretty good training. I was disappointed that we didn't get to shoot and Artillery but that will come soon enough. All of the guys did a great job and some of the new guys got to shoot live for the first time. It was cold again there with snow on the ground and being up on "the hill" made the temperature colder then back at the barracks.






Julia and I had the opportunity to go to Rothenburg, the famous Medieval, walled city for one of the Weihnachtsmarkts, German for Christmas Market, while we were there. It was really fun and cold. There was no snow, clear day and lots of sun but no heat. We went to the Kathe Wohlfahrt Christmas store and museum and got some really nice Christmas ornaments. We also went to the Medieval Crime and Punishment museum and got to see what types of punishment were used 800 years ago. It was…interesting for sure. Then at night, we took the Night Watchman’s Tour of the city. He took us around the city to most of the major sights and talked about the cities history. The city is pretty amazing.


Now Julia and I are looking forward to Christmas and New Years together. We are going to keep it low key this year.

Again Merry Christmas to everyone!