Ali Baba and his 40 Thieves

Mah salama! That is neither spelled correctly nor used properly but it’s about the best I can do on my greetings in Arabic. I heard a lot of people use it on the radios when flying over the Persian Gulf as they would say goodbye. I wasn’t really listening when they said hello.

So I guess that I can tell you that I’m home! As I stepped off the plane after 23 hours in the air, the poetic words of Hank Williams Sr. came to mind, “Abilene, Abilene…prettiest town I ever seen.” Fact of the matter is, I’d have sung a song about the beauty of Tulie Greenland if given the chance. I have missed vegetation elevation and Declarations of Independence.

Thanks in no small part to our bus driver managing to get us lost in a town as small as this we arrived after all the other busses to our base and so as the second to last person to climb off the bus, I was the last of my squadron to in process and be allowed to go home. The line took about three and a half hours, which normally would have driven me bonkers. However, on this day I was blessed with a beautiful wife and a genius son who kindly sat with me and spent the morning sitting on a cool and windy airplane ramp waiting for my turn to give blood.

It was about 40º cooler than in Qatar and the company much more pleasing to the eyes. I am so glad to be home. I am so glad to be with my family. I am so glad to be wearing civilian clothes for a day or two and sleeping in my own bed.

Some of you have wondered what I did over there, so here is quick rundown.

I went to Kenya, I walked in the waters of the Indian Ocean, flew over Mt Kilimanjaro, chased monkeys down the road in some remote landing strip near Mobassa. I landed and put my boots on the ground in Kandahar, Kabul, Bagram and Jalalabad Afghanistan. As well as Tal Afar, Ali al Salem, Al Taqaddum, Mosul, Basrah, Balad, Baghdad and Tikrit. We carried fallen soldiers out of harms way, bus loads of wounded troops to better care, USO comedians, big tires, small biquettes of charcoal, admirals and colonels, as well as beans bullets and letters to guys on the front lines going door to door with evil around the next corner. I saw rockets raining down from helicopters and flew past tracers that couldn’t see us. I stood in the hanger where the Taliban made its last big stand, and put my finger through the bullet holes in the tin behind them. We were a part of history, in our small way.

I’m glad to be home. I’ll be back again, pretty soon. But for now I’ve had enough and am happy to be where I am and to be with my family.

Let me tell you about my son. Brigham has discovered the beauty of gross motor skills. He is a crawling foolio. The second you set him on his hinnie he flips around and over to his hands and knees and off like a rocket he jets to what ever container is still full of something he hasn’t dismembered. Just this afternoon he emptied, piece by piece: the shoe bin 3x, the cd drawer 4x, the Tupperware cupboard 3x, his mothers purse 2x and his living room toy box 153x. He has yet to play with a single toy he removes - the obvious objective is nothing more than entropy.

The little man giggles like a smurf and eats coffee cake like the Cookie Monster. We chase him until our backs ache for Advil and frustration peaks we tag team to the other. I don’t know how Michelle did it for two months and I commend her for her success. She is a wonderful mother and I love her so much.
It is good to be home. Call me when you get the chance