Into Kuwait...

Good Morning Everyone,

Well we made it into Kuwait at 2:30 a.m. our time. It took two days to get here. We flew from Seattle to Bangor, Maine then to Lipzig, (Sp?) Germany and then onto Kuwait City. The flight was chartered and went very well. We are currently scheduled to leave here for Iraq on the 12th of October. We are currently living in a large tent and are in pretty close quarters. The food here is great and we all have to worry that we don't go home weighing more than when we left. The tent that we are staying in is air conditioned and for that we are thankful. The temperature here can turn a person into a nocturnal creature as the night is when the weather is tolerable. The soldiers are in great spirits and ready to get our mission started. I am so proud of all of them as they have gone through some pretty difficult training and have not complained in the least.

While we are here we will be getting briefings on the culture, customs, and courtesies, of the Iraqi people. We will also fire our weapons to ensure that they are functioning well and then we will have other misc. training. I would like to have a few of our guys go to a refresher course for CLS (Combat Life Saver) as I think our ambulance platoon medics still need some training. All of the medics are EMT certified but most of them do not perform these duties in the civilian world. I and the other providers conducted some training for them during the mass casualty exercise, but we will need to do more.

It will be interesting to be in this part of the world during our presidential election. We are all wondering what kind of changes, if any, that we will see, post-election. I pray that the people pick wisely. I pray that the Lord will bless us with a person who represents our Christian Values. I'll let you decide which candidate qualifies for that prerequisite.

I want to thank you all again for your prayers.

I would like to close this post with just two words of encouragement, "GO CUBS"!!!