This was my second time here in Iraq … and very likely my last. A couple of weeks ago, I was working pretty hard doing 12 hour shifts. The Iraqis were having an election, and since the American military is still here, we were providing support. Especially compared to the last election they had, a few years back, March 7th was relatively successful and...

** Note: the following information covers the period of my deployment to Ali Base from Oct 09 – Apr 10. I am now back in Texas. If you know of anybody who is currently at COB Adder/Ali Base, who is blogging about it, please let me know via the contact form, so that I can link to them from this post … thanks. I was tasked to put together a welcome...

Within the perimeter of our base lies the ruins of one of the oldest cities in the world, and one of the best preserved Ziggurats in Iraq and Iran; The Great Ziggurat of Ur. The chaplains here on post organize occasional tours. We got to climb up on the Ziggurat, take some pictures, and even got a professional guided tour of the ruins where it is said the...

In some ways, being deployed is almost like getting to experience childhood again. I have someone cooking all my food for me. There are plenty of “after school activities” at the Rec center. And best of all, “doing laundry” consists of putting it all into a canvas bag about once a week; dropping it off at a little building, which is...

Happy New Year! This is a picture of the flag pole here at Ali Air Base, Iraq, that I got up and took early this morning. I plan for this to be the first in a series of “pictures of the day”. About a month back, I got a comment on my don’t be an invisible blogger post from a young lady who goes by curious illusion. When I went to visit...

Well, after 8 long months here in Iraq, I’m finally going back home to Hawaii in less than 3 weeks.  Obviously I spent a lot of time (probably too much) griping about things I didn’t like about being here … I missed my family!  But just to keep things in perspective, I thought it was important to also write down some of the things I liked. First,...