To Whom It May Concern

The Time Is Near

15 months is a long time. I mean, I say it, I know how long it will be, but it really hasn’t hit me yet. As I sit in this apartment, with boxes stacked all around me, paperwork strewn across the living room floor, a list of ‘to do’ close to 2 pages long, I don’t really have the time to really comprehend what I’m about to embark on in 5 short days.

As odd as this sounds, I think Wednesday is going to actually be a relief when it finally arrives. Everything leading up to that day has been so hectic, a lot of it very stressful. When I walk thru the doors on Wednesday and show up for first formation, it’s going to like breathing a big sigh, ‘finally’, because of all the work that has to be done to get ready, even now of course. A lot has been done but there is so much yet to do.

Basically everything we own is going into storage. Except the cats of course, which my mother will watch for the next 3 months. I have to get all of my mail sent to my parents until belly is situated, at which point we may FINALLY have a permanent address. Until then though things are still going to be a little hairy, because we have to coordinate bills and mail thru my family.

Wednesday starts a 4 day process of paperwork and packing at our home station in Wayne, from there we drive to Ft. Riley in Kansas on Sunday. At Ft. Riley we will spend roughly 3 months, gearing up and training up, doing all the things that need to be done to bring the unit up to speed and proficient for deployment to Iraq. We send the majority of our gear over to Kuwait in shipping containers by sea. Sometime in early November, roughly the 8th or so, the unit will fly over to Kuwait, and link up with our gear.

This is tricky, because we have been told that there are more than 100,000 shipping containers located in Kuwait, so they use GPS tracking locaters on the containers themselves, with tracking devices that we get to locate the containers within the mass of boxes on the ground there. You have to be absolutely sure to install new batteries however, in order to insure that your tracker doesn’t go dead, or you’ll spend up to 2 weeks checking each individual container’s numbers by hand so to speak.

Back to the present time though, to look around our apartment. This is where we first lived together, shared so many experiences, exciting highs, devastating lows, it’s going to be difficult the day I click the lock and walk away from the door, especially doing so alone, because I know belly wants to be here too, to help me get all of this done.

Exciting, frustrating, glum, enthusiastic, my feelings are running thru a gauntlet today, I hope to have the apartment completely empty by Sunday night, save for my gear going to Wayne and maybe the laptop and a chair. So much to do though, so much. I best get back to it.

Current Lyrical Ramblings

She packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the earth so much I miss my wife
It’s lonely out in space, on such a timeless flight

Rocket Man – Elton John