Care Package List!

Here's a list of some of the things that Aaryk would enjoy-

Finally, here's a list of some of the things that Aaryk would enjoy in a care package-

First and foremost, news from home! Tell him what you're doing and what's going on here at home. He really misses that.

Pork Rinds (disgusting, I know, but he loves them!)
Good dark chocolate
chocolate covered espresso beans
Vienna sausages
Beef jerky
Cheese Pringles
Books (science fiction/fantasy are his favorite)
Comics
DVDs
CDs
Audio Books (on CD only)
Jolly Ranchers
Cinnamon Altoids
Big Red Gum
Nuts- Cashews, peanuts, pistachios.
Magazines- Games, computers, Hmmm maybe popular mechanics? Really, pretty much anything!

Stay away from anything with mint or coconut though...he can't stand either! He's also not much of a sweets fan, with very few exceptions. oh, and NO phone cards please. He bought a pay-as-you-go cell phone there, and will be using it to call me.

He will likely share everything with some of the guys who don't get much from home, and will trade books, music and movies with others guys too, so don't worry too much about what he has seen/heard/read. EVERYTHING will be appreciated!

I've also put a Paypal donation button on the side by the one star flag. We have a number of purchases coming up for large things that Aaryk would like for the next year. Things like a camp chair, a wireless router, a pillow with arms for sitting up in bed reading, a bicycle, time for his pay-as-you-go cell phone, and stuff like that. If you would like to help out with these sorts of things, that's what the Paypal button is for. Please please please don't feel obligated to give. I just wanted to provide another source for folks that want to help but don't want to send care packages.

Thanks again for all your support!

A couple of articles

I thought some of you might be interested in these. The first talks about how if all four brigades of the 82nd are deployed at the same time, another unit will have to take over as the nation's rapid response team until they get back. That's what Aaryk's brigade has been for most of the last 18 months.

Deployments Stress Reaction Time

This one talks about how they are looking at changing basic training to less of a classroom model and much more 'hands on'.

Changing Basic Training to Suit a Changing Army


Care package list, coming up next!

Where in the world is Aaryk?

Somewhere in the Baghdad area

I'm not too worried actually. I know more about where specifically they are, but until I see it in print somewhere else, I'm not going to post it here. He's working 12-15 hour days right now, trying to get the motorpool up and running.

He's also in charge of a squad at this point, and for their daily PT they will all be getting bicycles and biking the couple of miles to breakfast every morning, then to work and back to the barracks at the end of the day.

They do have access to a good sized PX there, so that's where they will get the bikes.

I rediscovered this site recently, it's a neat one- Half my heart is in Iraq

I like their logo-


Now they just need it in the ACU print instead of the old BDU one! Hmmm....I may be able to do that....

Here's a couple of other articles I found about the Falcons (that's the 2nd BCT)-

82nd Arrives in Kuwait, Ready for Action

A Blessing Before Battle

And lastly, here's a couple of sites that you can use to keep up with information on Aaryk's unit-

Operation Iraqi Freedom

US Dept of Defense


It'll be light blogging for a bit now, I'm heading to Illinois for a visit tomorrow. I expect I'll be back home around Feb 2 or 3. If anything important does hamppen in the mean time though, I'll be sure to post it!

News from Aaryk!

I just got an email from Aaryk, he didn't say where they were, but he DOES have an address!

It's-

Spc. Drake, Aaryk

#5922

B Co 407th BSB, 2nd BCT, 82nd ABN Div.

APO AE 09378


He said that he would have VERY limited abilty to call or email for some time yet, so I know he'll appreciate any letters or packages!

More later, I'm off to bed now!

How neat!

Since I have no word from Aaryk to talk about yet, I thought I'd share this-

Camp Lejeune Ballerinas

They are gearing up for their big Spring recital and in one of the numbers,

The dance number with the DDDs (Daughters of Deployed Dads) will be the 1940s song, "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me". The girls will have life size cutouts of a picture of their dad, which they will sing and dance to during the song. Those cutouts alone are $99 each. But of course these little girls will get to keep them after the recital.

How sweet! They are funded solely by donations, and there is a button at the bottom of that article you can click on to donate if you wish. You can also help by voting for the top military bloggers at VA Mortgage Center.com Soldier's Perspective is giving $2,000 of the first prize money to the ballerinas if he wins (He's down towards he bottom of the list for voting). Voting ends Jan 23, and you can only vote once.

Anyway, I just thought it was a neat article and a great way to support the troops by supporting their families.

Deployment and Pets

I'll admit, I hadn't given any thought to this. I forget that not all single soldiers live in barracks, especially National Guard or Reserve soldiers, and that there are couples where both are in the military.

Pets become war casualties

There is a shelter on Fort Bragg that takes in strays but is not taking pets that are surrendered, Shannon Lynch said. She is a spokeswoman for Womack Army Medical Center and Fort Bragg veterinary services.

There are private groups that help military families, Lynch said, and efforts are under way on post to set up a foster program to help deployed pet owners.

That means local shelters are trying to find homes for pets.

The Haven is getting between eight and 10 requests a day from military pet owners who are trying to find a home for their pets, Speer said.

Some owners are looking for temporary homes — families that will foster pets until the owners return. Others, Speer said, have no choice but to give up their pets for adoption.

“We’re desperate for people who are willing to do long-term fostering,” Speer said, “especially those who are willing to adopt older cats and medium to large dogs.”

How sad. The very last line though, nearly brought me to tears-

“We really have to solve this problem as a community,” she said. “It is unacceptable that the last thing a soldier does is put an animal to sleep before going to war.”

This just breaks my heart. If you are able and willing, would you please consider supporting our troops by fostering or adopting a military pet? Call your local military installation (don't forget about the National Guard!) and local no-kill shelters and see if there is anything you can do to help.

I know I don't usually ask my family and friends to do stuff like this, but with as many of you that are pet owners already, I didn't think you'd mind.

Thanks.

Extra prayers please

While I don't know anything for certain, I believe that Aaryk's unit will shortly be heading up into Iraq.

Prayers for his safety and my sanity would be greatly appreciated.

Also, I'm heading up to see the folks on Tuesday, so prayers for safe travel and good weather would also be welcomed!

More as I know it, I'm in the 'no news is good news' place again.

I'm actually doing alright at the moment. Times like this I'm glad I don't have TV though. I can check the news online but don't get overloaded with ALL the negative stuff. That's a big help.

Ceremonies and puppy teeth

Nothing new to report from Aaryk. He's been able to call me daily (and some days twice!) so that's been nice. Everywhere they go at Camp Buehring they have to go with a 'battle buddy'. So when one of the guys wants to go down to the phones or computer center (I guess they are close together) Aaryk offers to be their buddy. I have been promised pictures of the Camp eventually, and I'll definitely share them when I can!

One of the things I've been meaning to write about is a ceremony they had the night they left Fort Bragg. I wasn't there for it unfortunately, but Aaryk told me about it. It seems that sometime before they get on the plane, the Brigade had their hat changing ceremony. It's a brief and simple ceremony where they, as a group, take off their maroon berets and all put on their booney hats. This is done not because the booney hats are more functional for field work (which was my initial thought), but so that NO soldier has any marking that designates him as anything other than a basic, regular soldier. They also leave their jump wings at home (Aaryk left his in the car so I pinned them to the CD case on the visor). No point in giving the enemy clues as to who is Special Forces or Paratroopers!

When they get back they will have the reverse ceremony and all put their berets on again. It's just something that hadn't occurred to me but makes perfect sense. Watch the pictures from the war zones and you'll notice the only distinguishing things on the uniforms are rank.

My only other news at the moment is that Percy is teething. I knew that when puppy's lose their baby teeth you hardly ever find them, but I lucked into two of them! Both times we were playing 'tug' and I noticed blood on the toy. I thought maybe I had scratched his gums so I made him stop so I could look. In both cases it was just a tooth coming out and still caught in his voluminous lips! Okay, it's a little thing, but it made my day...twice!

The Pentagon made the announcement-

So now I can finally talk about it a bit (thanks to Jeff for the link!)...

Army, Marine units tapped for 'surge'

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Six U.S. Army units are being tapped for the Iraq "surge" and three Marine Corps units are being extended, the Pentagon announced Thursday.
The 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg , N.C. , currently assigned as the "call forward" force in Kuwait , will move into Iraq.
The 1st Brigade, 34th Infantry Division, Minnesota Army National Guard, will be extended in its current mission for up to 125 days and will return from Iraq by the end of August 2007.
The 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, based at Ft. Riley , Kan. , will go forward with its already scheduled deployment in February.
The 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, based at Ft. Benning , Ga., will deploy in March 2007.
The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Ft. Lewis, Wash. , will deploy in April 2007.
The 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, based at Ft. Stewart, Ga., will deploy in May 2007.
Two Marine Corps infantry battalions will remain in Anbar province for 60 days beyond their seven-month deployment. The entire 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) will remain in Iraq for approximately 45 additional days.
Other combat-support and combat-service-support units may also be deployed as necessary once new requirements are assessed, the Pentagon stated.


We knew this would likely be the case. I spoke with Aaryk this morning and other than being tired and cold he seems to be doing well. He knows where they are going to be going, but can't say over the phone (or by email) until it's done. Looking at a map yesterday, I realized just how far it is from Kuwait to Baghdad. Prayers for safety for all our soldiers travelling into the war zone is greatly appreciated!

More as I'm able.

ABC News

Mom called me today and told me about a piece on ABC about the 82nd. I'm not sure if this is the same one, but I found this and thought I would share-

Being Deployed: Military Families Speak Out

Yes, they are talking about Aaryk's Brigade, and no, I don't know anything more. I probably won't know anything for some time, because unlike ABC, Op Sec (Operations Security) MEANS something to us. Aaryk has said he can't tell me anything, even if/when they may be heading into Iraq. (All the leaking and anonymous source nonsense bothers me just a bit, can you tell?!)

On the topic of Op Sec issues, Aaryk has really stressed to me the importance of being careful what I write about here. I have to write as though I knew the enemy were reading this too. Back during WWII they would have said, "Loose lips sink ships". It's no different today, in fact the various terrorist organizations are even more savvy to the Internet than you'd think. Just something I think is good for all of us to remember.

I'll still make sure I tell you what I can, when I can though!

Talking to Aaryk

It has been so neat. Aaryk's been able to call me several times since he got to Kuwait. The DoD has a system set up where you can call the local military installation and they will patch you through to the person you are trying to call. Since my cell phone has an AZ area code, he calls the switchboard at Luke AFB and they transfer his call. He does have a time limit (of at least 20 minutes), and there's usually a line, but it does mean that our guys are able to talk to their families here in the states.

That's made it very nice. Once they go wherever they end up from there it's unlikely they will have the same set up, so I'm enjoyinghearing his voice while I can!

A great suggestion!

Chris just emailed me a wonderful idea! As part of my motivation to keep exercising on my Gazelle, I'm going to 'jog' to Kuwait!

The ticker at the top here represents my progress. I've included the exercising from this week and we'll see if I can 'get' to Kuwait before Aaryk gets home! Of course, if I did it 1 mile = 1 mile, at my current pace I'd be at it for over SIX years! So, I'm going to figure 1 mile on the Gazelle will equal 10 miles on my journey. That makes it MUCH more realistic for a goal!

Now I'm actually getting excited about exercise! Thanks Chris!

In the news

Military.com has the story about 2nd Brigade getting called up, and provides a little more information about the kind of things the Brigade may be doing.

You can also read it in the Paraglide Online here. It's the top story on the 01/04/07 paper.

About 3,500 members of the "Falcon Brigade" headquarters will replace the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit as CENTCOM's forward-deployed on-call force, ready to respond quickly to a full range of contingencies, he said.

***

The Falcon Brigade is slated to leave Fort Bragg early in the new year for a deployment expected to last up to 240 days, through September, Whitman said. Once in Kuwait, they will be prepared to respond to contingencies, not just in Iraq, but throughout the CENTCOM area of responsibility.


A couple of comments on these two paragraphs.

I'm always amused when they talk about the "Falcon Brigade", because the 407th BSB is the only battalion in the brigade that is NOT a Falcon. All of the other units are Red Falcons, White Falcons, etc, but the 407th are the Golden Griffins. They keep trying to change them to Gold Falcons, but they have so much history as the Griffins that they are...resistant to such a change. Here's a page that tells about their history. It needs some updating, since in the last year some of the little things have changed (BSB, not FSB, 2nd Bridage Combat Team, not Task Force).

On a more serious note, it seems that what 2nd Brigade will be doing is much the same as they did here at home. They are the contingency force. At home they were the DRB, or Division Readiness Brigade. Basically it means that they are always ready to deploy on a moment's notice. They will stay in that state of readiness in Kuwait. Yes, it is likely that they will get called into Iraq. Aaryk has drilled that into me, so I won't be too worried when it happens.

The other thing that got drilled home was that we needed to prepare for them to be gone for a year, not the 8 months the article says. IF they come home early, that's super, but not to count on it. A standard deployment is 12 months and that's what we are to plan on.

As always, I will keep you posted when I hear anything!

He's arrived

Aaryk called me yesterday afternoon at about 3:30pm (11:30pm Kuwait time) to let me know that he'd gotten there safely. Turns out that they have phones there that they can call military bases in the US and they will transfer the call to your loved one. Since my cell phone has a Phoenix area code, he called Luke AFB and they transferred the call to me.

The flight was long, but uneventful. They had stops in Maine and Frankfurt Germany, but they were both short layovers.

When I asked him how he was he said, "Freezing and tired" but otherwise okay. He didn't have long to talk, because not only was it nearly midnight and he had to get up for PT at 6, but there are a limited number of these phones and there's always a line for them (even at midnight!).

So, he's getting settled in there, and I'm getting stuff done here. I've got a specific prayer request this morning. I know I'll be fine with getting the regular stuff done; paying bills, packing, cleaning house, but I need a little extra motivation to keep exercising. I usually put a DVD in and work out for 30 minutes on my Gazelle, but I'm already struggling with wanting to just sit and watch instead. So prayers for continued motivation would be greatly appreciated!

That was cool

It's 9am and I just got a call from Aaryk! They're at a 2 hour layover in Maine and the USO had 'loaner' cell phones that the guys could use. He called called to say 'good morning' and to let me know he was thinking of me.

That just made my day!

Oh, by the way, if you want to email Aaryk, you can do so at his Army account. It's aaryk.drake@us.army.mil

He'll have access to that account regularly, and I know he'll appreciate hearing from folks! When I get an address for him, I'll pass that along with a list of some of the care package type things I know he'd enjoy.

Well, I'm off to run some errands, you all have a great day!

Leaving, on a jet plane...

I just got back from saying goodbye to Aaryk. They were here an extra day which was very nice. He had to be at his company building at 10pm, and I stayed with him until right around midnight. It was nice to see other wives and family members, and to see how we all pull together in times like this.

They would have been shooing us all out of there soon, so it was nice that Aaryk was able to walk me back to the car to say goodbye. I cried. Of course I cried, but I'm doing alright.

They don't actually fly out until tomorrow morning, and then it's an 18+ hour flight. I imagine they'll all be sound asleep shortly after takeoff!

I'll have some pictures and more information in the next couple of days, and I'll certainly let you all know when I hear from him!

Thank you all for your love, your support, and your prayers.