First week

Hi y'all. My first week is ending on a great note. I was just fumbling through my german directions and stumbled across a page that lets me change from german to english instructions, yea! Up till now my wonderful wife has been adding some of the pics to the page. Thankyou Honey.

Well where to begin, how about last Saturday and getting here. Landed at Bagram about 0030 last Saturday night, hussled around for a while, our bags were stuck with some of the SF guys stuff and we had to track it down before it left. We got to the R and R tent about 0200 local for alittle rest. First good nights rest in a couple of days, with ear plugs and night mask on to block out the jets and light.

The next day we were put on a 5 ton truck to the journey up here. Doesn't make you feel very safe sitting in the back of a truck, but they did have up armor on the sides to your waist. On the ride up saw some of the most beautiful mountains ever. They stood out alone like ours back home but looked more like the rockies in shape and grandure. Sat beside and airforce CPT who was on his 7th deployment, who was scaring me everytime we slowed down by telling me this was a good kill zone. Learned to ignore him about half way through and looked to the SFC to my right and his pose, much more relaxed. I only had my 9mm so I would be more effective at making the bad guys mad than anything else. The trip took about 90 minutes, drank too much water before getting on the truck, and with bouncing body armor it felt a lot longer.

After checking in and seeing what the place was like alittle, I was wandering around and found they have a woodshop here onbase, battle field happiness. Made a bed stand to raise my bed up and store stuff under it. Currently working on a new closet. My room is 7x8' in size with a window on the door. It is part of a conex (trailer), cozy. The area makes me feel at home though, it's called Legoland.

Sunday morning we had death by power point. Getting all the facility rules for behavior and safety. Went to church that night, got singled out by the pastor because I gave him his physical in Oregon before he left. Pretty good service. Did our first workout that day too. Very dizzy afterwards.

Monday started working some. Doing afternoon sick call. It started out slow enough. Army regulations must state your first patient must be different from your normal to welcome you to country, mine was hemoroids. He lived! Carl and I have been working on reorganizing supplies and materials to our liking and getting familiar with the clinic set up since we will be spending most of your time here. The patients have been picking up, mostly ortho and some minor wound care for me. Two progressive unstable anginas for carl. The clinic has a combonation of Army, Airforce and Navy working in it. All seem to be pretty well skilled.

Went to the closest base a couple of days ago for a meet and greet. Pretty cool. It is amazing how many countries are out here in support. Some wild looking uniforms too. It seems to be us and the British doing the tuff stuff though.

The food here is amazing. You could gain 20lbs a month if you tryed. 4 different food lines per meal, and you can go to all of them. A coffee hut across the street in the PX, Dairy Queen. I will continue to workout a lot!

Had an open mic night, (some very talented people), line dancing and a movie night for the clinic. Overall it is very different than I expected.

In closing I would like to say how much I have enjoyed all the support you have sent my way so far. Please keep in mind that not all of the soldiers have it as good as I do. There are a lot of very brave and determined souls out there who protect us (here and there), and I only hope I can do a small part to keep them healthy and well to send them home to the families they miss as much as I miss mine. Thanks all, please keep us in your prayers