Almost Done

Okay, time here is running short and there are signs everywhere that our time here is almost over. Since we arrived, I have been buying internet service monthly. Well, the time has come for me to begin to pack the bags and along with that, goes the computer.

This Friday, 11 December, I will make submt my last update from Baghdad. After that, I will send House Hold 6 updates and she will do the posting duties for me. This is how we will finish the last couple of weeks, because that is what we are down to; a couple of weeks. Yippee.

Along with the computer, I will pack away, two duffle bags, a rucksack and a foot locker. I will likely load up on Saturday and then the room will look very empty and I will begin to live out of two duffle bags. It is amazing how much stuff we bringand then it all gets stuffed away in a couple of bags.

Before we completely pack up, everybody must lay out all of the gear for a customs inspection. After all, we cannot bring back any illegal items. One of the most common mistakes is the home made movies that were so popular in Korea and are equally popular over here.

Anyway, I will write my final post on Friday, but believe me, it is not a sad event, but a very happy one because it means I am almost home!

Tis the Season

Tis the season for so many things. At the beginning of the month, a few very important events occured. As with the beginning of so many months, we will promote Soldiers and while all of these promotions are important, some are more special than others. This month we had the occasion to promote one of our own. We promoted him to E8, which, if we were in the civilian world, would be the equivilant of going from department head to management. A very special day indeed and we are all very proud of his accomplishments.

As with most promotions, there is cake with the tradional sword.......

a closer view.............

and the ceremonial cutting of the cake......

December also marks the beginning of the Christmas season and we took the opportunity to spce up the place and set into the spirit. In case any of you were wondering, all of the decorations we sent over by HH6 and the rest of the section's families back home. It was a wonderful surprise and made us all feel a little brighter.

The decorations included something to attach either to a window or the fridge.......

Strings of red and green.............

A few hats.........

Decorating in progress.......

and I even took the opportuniy to spruce up my room. Some may look at this as the "Charlie Brown Tree," but I look at it with happiness and love. HH6 sent it with love and I look at it every day and think that this seperation does not conquer the spirit of family.

Finally, as we are in the penultimate phase of this deployment, I saw this and thought that it was very appropriate, that the moon is setting, signaling the end is near.

We are doing well and looking forward to coming home soon. We will get though Christmas and New Years and then we will be home. Almost done.

Once again, thanks for everything.

Thanksgiving Day Pictures

Okay, now Thanksgiving is over and like many others, we here had too much to eat. Some of the highlights were; shrimp cocktail, roast and smoked turkey, steamship round and prime rib, ham, cornish hen, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, stuffing, veggies, dessert and topped off with eggnog. What a day, and they repeated the whole thing so we all would get the feeling of leftovers.

As we all expected, the Dining Facility staff exceeded all expectation and the place looked amazing. There is a sizable number of the staff that have food service experence aboard cruise ships, so they are all used to decorations.

Some of the cakes; the top one says "God Bless America," the middle one is the Eagle and the bottom one is our unit patch.

More cakes.......

I thought this one was cute with the turkey running away.....

They of course had carved ice sculptures, but this is the carved fruit display. Just amazing.....

Outside was something that I had never seen before. This is colored rice. I had to stand on a table to get this shot. Outside our DFAC is a gazebo where we had a combo playing and this is the floor of that gazebo.

This is colored sugar......... Lots of time and dedication.

Fox News was in our DFAC conducting interviews and getting some shots. This is actually GEN Odierno getting interviewed. I did not recognize the Fox guy.

We all went to lunch together as a section which was very nice. All in all a very good day; Thanksgiving 2009!

Happy Thanksgiving

Well, Thanksgiving is here and like many others, I am thankful for the obvious of health and happiness, but the more I thought about it, I am thankful for so much more.

I am very thankful for Household 6, my Princess and the Big Man as they, over the past year have made me proud beyond any imagination. One of the marks of success is that your team will succeed in your absence and my team has done that. Amazing!

HH6 has her Ya-Yas which are irreplacable, and I know she will be thankful for, but the husbands are pretty good as well, we just not have a cool name for the club.

I am thankful for my parents. My Mom has seen over the course of life my ups and downs and, as I have said before, she has been able to participate in all of the ups.

Whether across the table or across the world, the Roper Clan will be together and I am thankful for that. For those that will wonder, today is a day much like any other except that the decorations in the Dining Faclity will be different and lunch will be amazing.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not say thank you to all of the family, both immediate and extended and all of the friends, who are just as important, for all of the wonderful thoughts since I have been here. I will be home soon, which I will especially thankful for.

Nov 19th Update

I haven't provided an update in a while and I thought that I was due and today gave me the excuse, but more on that later.


In case some of you were wondering about the local weather, it is now the rainy season and along with buckets of rain, it is very cold. As I stroll to the office in the morning, I happen to walk right by a thermometer adn during the heat of the summer, we all complained that it was 130; for the last three days as I walk by at 0800 it has been about 45 degrees. Rememer that this is on top of the buckets of rain. Everything here is just cold, wet and muddy. Truly, it is time to come home now. I recently went to visit a place that I had been to previously (and got stuck) in the middle of the summer, so now I have been there walking around in the 130 degree dust storm and walking the same ground in 35 degree rain. Too much fun.

We had a bit of excitement today as one of our own re-enlisted. As a leader, there are three good things to do, give awards, promote and re-enlist and today, I was fortunate enough to perform one of those events. It always makes me feel good when, as a team, we celebrate like this.



Also, I had a surprise visitor. Someone from a recent past life was in the building and stopped by to say hello. I was very surprised and the first thing (after the man hug), was to get a picture.




This was our backyard neighbor while in Korea.

All in all, a very good day and Thanksgiving will be here soon.

What a week

What a great week!!

On Monday we were able to celebrate the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down......

Some of us were there while the wal was up.

On Tuesday, we are able to help celebrate the Anniversary of the Marine Corps.....

This year, they will celebrate 234 years of honorable service at the Gaylord National Resort in Maryland. I am sure a good time will be had by all.......

And on Wednesday, we will all celebrate Veterans Day; and just be make sure we all understand, I did a little homework. No, there will not be a test. :)

An Act (52 Stat. 351; 5 U. S. Code, Sec. 87a) approved May 13, 1938, made the 11th of November in each year a legal holiday—a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as "Armistice Day." Armistice Day was primarily a day set aside to honor veterans of World War I, but in 1954, after World War II had required the greatest mobilization of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen in the Nation’s history; after American forces had fought aggression in Korea, the 83rd Congress, at the urging of the veterans service organizations, amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word "Armistice" and inserting in its place the word "Veterans." With the approval of this legislation (Public Law 380) on June 1, 1954, November 11th became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.

Later that same year, on October 8th, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued the first "Veterans Day Proclamation" which stated: "In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose.

There are about 117,000 Servicemembers with me in Iraq and some 60,000 n Afghanistan although that might change, 7,000 in Africa and let's not forget those that are forward deployed without loved ones in places like Korea, Japan or aboard ship. All these are honorable veterans.

Thanks for everything that you do and what a week this has been and will continue to be.

Happy Hallowen

Well Halloween is over and there was enough candy here in the building that we all snacked all day long; yummy. I hope that all the kids, whereever they happen to be all had a good, safe night. I have been told that next year, I will take the kids out while HH6 stays home and handles the dispensing responsibility. I have to begin to plan my costume early, because my kids have always wanetd Daddy to dress up and next year is that year.

Along with Halloween, today we pased another important milestone; October is over. That means that we are now into November and we can notch another month into the belt. We will get by Thanksgiving and Christmas and then we will all be home!!!! Yeah. October went by really fast, let's hope the same for November.

Stay safe and I will be home soon.