Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Happy Birthday
As my oldest stepson would say… Horaay for me!
Guess what I got to do for my birthday. My first Helicopter ride! (I sound like a little kid, but who wouldn’t after a ride like this?) We just criss-crossed around base, but it was ten times better than ‘Son of Beast’, the painful wooden roller coaster with a loop at Kings Island Ohio. Especially when we hit negative g’s… I let go of my water bottle and it hovered in front of my face for a while until I grabbed it. Definitely fun. Someone filmed a 30-second digital video of it, but it’s too big to send now. I’ll have to put together a CD. That was it though… another long day again.
We lost an Army troop this afternoon. He’s flying in now on the same Helo I flew on this morning and we’re going to have a memorial for him as they load his casket up on the plane. Definitely a bad day for us all. I can’t imagine being his Commander and having to write that letter home. He was about 24 years old. Ironic thing is that the plane that’s taking his casket was scheduled for troops to go home in. HQ in Qatar wants those troops to ride with the casket, but we’re saying that it’s disrespectful to the soldier and to all folks heading out. Qatar has messed all of our flights up for the last week, not to mention losing most of our bags and gear up here, so I think we’re just going to send the casket alone. It’s only fitting, and I don’t believe one person headed home would mind waiting a few hours for the next plane.
Don’t worry, I won’t go off base any time soon. Plus, the insurgent ‘Rocketeers’ are so bad at aiming what they launch at us, my chances of winning the lottery are better than getting hit.
posted by El Capitan at 6:24 AM
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