Almost my birthday...

Well, it is another beautiful day here in the Stan. Highs are in the low 100’s, and we have had some pretty wicked thunder storms lately. I decided to take my squad for a little surprise walk this morning. We went up to one of our OP’s just after first light. It is only about 1.3 km in distance, but the elevation is a kicker. We went up about 531 vertical feet in that distance. That is we just walked right up the side of a small mountain, well hill I call it. But with all of our gear on, it takes a little bit of the oxygen out of you. We finished in under 30 minutes, which isn’t too bad, but we can do better. That’s ok though, as our times will improve each week. Yes it is my birthday on Thursday. Just another day here, but I can’t wait for my wife’s homemade cookies. I don’t care if they are all crumbs when they get here, it will be so good. We are staying busy mentoring the ANP (Afghanistan national police), and it is a good challenge. They are motivated to do their jobs and take it seriously. One key thing to make this all work is having a good interpreter. My terp is outstanding. He has been doing it for a couple of years and he is one of the best I have ever worked with. He just had his second child recently, a daughter. I think he will keep trying until he has a boy. Well, not much else is going on here, just doing our thing and trying to pass the time. Thanks to all of you who have sent packages and letters and emails. Every little bit helps the morale here. Gotta sign off for now,
Russ…

Happy mothers day!!

SORRY FOR THE LATENESS….

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!! Hope you all have an enjoyable one and I wish I could be there with my wife and kids so I could make her breakfast in bed. Thanks to everyone for all the packages. I usually get them in mass quantities, due to the infrequency that we get to pick up mail. I just got a few from www.operationcarepackages.org. Thanks to all of the volunteers and supporters of them. I am spreading around the goodies to my soldiers, so everything is being used and appreciated. Well the average high for the past few days has bee a balmy 105 degrees. Don’t worry; it cools off to the 80’s at night. Well, what else has been going on? We are staying busy as always, doing our thing here. We are helping mentor the Afghanistan National Police. It is similar to what I did when I was in Iraq during OIF 1. I like these guys better though. They take more pride in their country and work. They have pretty good training, so we don’t have to waste a lot of time with that. We mentor or oversee their progress. Kinda show them what works and what don’t.
The pic on the left is of some of the training of the ANP that we mentor. It is fun when they demonstrate on us and do something wrong and we can show them how easy it is to turn the tables around on them. The next pic is of us taking a break and just joking around and blowing off some steam. Then of course is some of my squad getting ready for another day's work. Then I have some playing cards we were using for target practice. I shot these at 25 meters, and also I shot a dime at 25 meters but we couldn't find it. Oh well.
I suppose some of you know my birthday is coming up this month. Yes I will be @( years old. No really, I will be 29. Don’t worry about getting me anything, save it until I get back. I have to pack up all the stuff I have when we come back, so I don’t want too much. Hopefully my leave will be in about 4 ½ months. I can’t wait. My kids are trying to grow up so fast with out me. That’s ok, though as the web cam and phone calls and DVD’s I get help a lot. We are blessed here at our camp to be small, but with some good MWR. I remember in Iraq, my phone calls to home had an 8 or 9 second delay and half of the time we got cut off. Things have improved here greatly. This country definitely has the potential to be beautiful one day, but it will take some time and work. Most of the locals we talk to are sick of the fighting and ready to move on and rebuild their country. Well, I will quit before I ramble on too much. Thanks for all the love and support from everyone. I will try to update this as regularly as possible. Love from near the Pak-AFG border…Russ