Nothing new here

but I thought you might enjoy this-

The War in Pictures

Very well done. I, of course, got teary-eyed during it.

And, also of ourse, said 'Hooah' whe I saw the soldier from the 82nd. Can you spot him?

The only thing constant is change

Well friends and family I have wonderful news to report today.

As of right now (subject to change at a moment's notice of course),

Aaryk WILL NOT be going to Afghanistan next year.

They have changed the plans for 2nd Brigade and they will remain stateside for the next two years.

There will be short deployments, hurricane relief, that sort of thing, but God willing nothing overseas.

Thanks for your continued support and prayers!

The end of All American Week 2006

On Friday we went to the JRTX, the Joint Readiness Training Exercise.

We missed them blowing things up, but were in time for the heavy equipment and CDS (Container Delivery System) drops. That's what this plain is dropping. The CDS boxes hold all of the 'extra' stuff the Paratroopers will need on their mission.

Unfortunately, the winds were gusting to high for the Paratroopers to do their jump. I hope to get to see them jump at some point while I'm here still!

They had several exhibits, vehicles, and other fun things for family members to do.



Here I am trying on the parachute and all the gear that the Paratroopers have to wear when they do a jump. Aaryk didn't think it was quite fair that the rucksacks were just filled with pillows and blankets instead of 6o pounds of gear!




I had a great time. I'll be putting together album pages with some of the other things we saw that day, and I'm sure I'll be showing them around!

As we were leaving, I stopped at the porta-john. There was a sign in it that just made me laugh-


You KNOW somebody had to have dropped both MREs and extra ammo in the porta-john at some point to warrant such a warning!

All American Week Roundup

Whew!

It's taken me a week to get all the pictures and stuff organized!

Let's start with a couple of links-

Division review brings pride to 82nd paratroopers

All American Week off to a running start

Paraglide Online

I didn't go to the run (way too early in the morning!), but Idid go to the Pass in Review on Thursday. Here's a couple of pics-



They started off with a Parachutist demonstration that was just too cool! Not the chutes that they use for combat, these are MUCH nicer (just ask Aaryk!)



After lots of formalities, they presented the colors. ALL the colors. From the American flag all the way down to the company colors for each unit.




Here's the 407th BSB Bravo Company passing in Review! Here's a high resolution version. If you enlarge it and look about half way down the second row, you can see Aaryk.


More on Fridays events in the next post!