New Experiences

Today I had the first time experience of having an inner ear imbalance. I awoke at 0530 planning to go PT, but found myself tired and dizzy. I racked it up to not enough sleep since I was up a little late working through a CD resource reviewing training for my upcoming deployment. So I went back to bed. But upon rising and going in to work, I found it was getting progressively worse and so made my way over to our hospital. After a thorough going over (partly due to my resting heart rate being so low from my being in good physical condition), I was finally diagnosed with fluid behind my ear drum and sent home with some medication. It is amazing how inconvenient a little bit of fluid in the wrong place can be. The rooms I occupy are still spinning from time to time.

A couple of days ago, I received an order from Integrity music that I made for worship resources to take with me on my deployment. I was extremely touched to receive the card that is shown here included in my order and with some items to take with me to facilitate ministry to our military service members out in the world. I wanted to post it here to show that not only is support still strong for our military folks, but to demonstrate the quality of the ministry performed by these folks at Integrity music.

These are also new days for the chapel program at Andrews Air Force base. We have a new NCOIC, a Chaplain Assistant, two new Protestant chaplains, and a new Senior Protestant Chaplain. Next week our new team is having an offsite to discuss planning for future ministry. But I can already tell it is going to be an incredible and dynamic time. I see a great deal of talent in our team members and am most especially impressed with the new Senior Protestant chaplain. I am truly looking forward to the next couple of years as I deploy and then finish out my first assignment in the Air Force.

Next week I am going up to Crystal City to help test some software that has been developed for the chaplain corp as part of a special team, another first for me. This week I gave my first formal briefing to the IDS (Integrated Delivery System: a committee composed of representatives from the helping agencies on base overseen by the Vice Wing Commander) on the topic of making some adjustments to how we reintegrate our people when they return from deployment. Due to short staffing at the chapel this spring, I found myself responsible for this program even though I am somewhat junior as a chaplain. I believe the briefing was well received based on the feedback I received.

And I am truly looking forward to deployment -- another first for me. The last time I was in the military was during Desert Storm. I volunteered then, but all the Navy wanted me to do then was to go to California and help with ammunition supply. I like to kid that I volunteered to deploy and got sent to California.

Finally, to note, in the last few weeks I've had to say farewell to two fine chaplains. One was an IMA reservist who stepped in as our interim Wing Chaplain while our current Wing Chaplain was recovering from an illness. He was an outstanding leader and I was truly blessed by his mentoring. The other is a man I am pleased to say has become a friend. A fellow Tennessean who grew up not far from where I grew up is separating from the Air Force. I will truly miss serving with him.

Buffalo spit, attack ostriches and sunsets

The last few days of leave have been great. My smallpox blister is coming along now - about the size of a quarter and starting to get a little tender, but it shouldn't last more than two or three more weeks.

The last day of camping I took the family to a nearby safari park. I'm not much of one to plug advertising for places, but this place is first rate. I recommend this to anyone with kids or anyone who just plain likes critters. It is located near Natural Bridge. (Their Website) The animals run free here and come right up to the car and sometimes parts of them are "in the car"! It was great fun, especially watching my family trying to feed the buffalo which we found liked to slobber all over the car. My three year old especially liked feeding the giraffe. I found myself on the recieving end of an ostrich who when I ran out of food decided to try to taste various parts of the car. He quickly found out it was a drive through restaurant.

So it was great -- we went from the altitude of the Skyline Drive across the mountains into the depths of the earth in local caverns. We sampled local cruisine and cooked some of our own over roaring fires. We fed the animals and we even watched a beautiful sunset. We visited the creation drama at the Natural Bridge, where God provided His own exclamation point in sending a huge meteor from the Perseid Meteor Shower streaking by visible through the opening under the bridge.

Tomorrow back to work -- already have lots of my calendar booked up, including a three day evolution off site testing a new computer system we may be using soon. And of course the number one priority now is to get ready for my upcoming deployment.

On Leave

I'm taking a break from my incredibly hectic schedule of laying around and resting to write out a note. I'm on leave for a week between a couple of important functions related to my upcoming deployment. Just before I left, we went through an entire processing line. Most of my paperwork was able to be completed. And just in time for me to go on vacation, I recieved several vacinnations, including one for small pox. Having the scar from childhood does not count. It wasn't as bad as I anticipated, though it itches like crazy. So, off my family goes in our 14 foot camper. Actually so far the vacation has been mostly relaxing. The first night we had some heavy storms and our 3 year old was not sure how much she liked camping, but now she's loving it. We spent a day driving and hiking up on Skyline Parkway in the Shenandoah. Beautiful here. The little town of Luray is quite cosy as is also Front Royal.

Tonight we relocated to the Natural Bridge area. We are in a much more crowded and noisy campground. Before we were practically the only ones on our side underneath a beautiful canopy of trees. Now I have a beautiful canopy of adolescents around me. But I'm stretched out with my coffee (and it is coffee not motor oil as our new Senior Protestant Chaplain is fond of making) and a couple of good books. I'm reading The Ecumenical Luther and also Huntington's book: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. I'm trying not to be too involved in thinking about work issues after being soundly chastized by one of my NCO's (Non-commissioned officers) for responding to one of his emails. "No more emails!!!!" he said - "You're on leave!!!!!".

Been an adventure so far in some ways. Almost got the camper stuck in the woods trying to go up too steep of an incline. Having lunch at a populated stop, we suddenly were disrupted by a couple of babies and their mother walking through -- bears that is. Little later about 20 more miles down the road we saw another bear cub and about a gazillion deer. This morning, with about five minutes left in the campground we were leaving, I somehow, with great skill and luck, trapped a yellowjacket between my foot and sandal. Of course the bee was not too happy about it which meant that I wasn't too happy about it either. But my foot is the same size as the other -- which is a good thing. So tonight I'm going to be relaxing even more, but I am enjoying the slower pace right now.

Gear Up!

Gear up! The rally cry to get your gear and be ready for action. It is a constant cry in todays expeditionary Air Force with a high tempo for deployments. Everyone has the responsiblity to do their part. Now it is my turn.

Monday I started picking up gear for my upcoming deployment, uniforms and other associated "battle rattle" necessary for the location I will find myself in. Fortunately the Air Force has gotten wise in some regards and quite a bit of the gear will be there waiting for me.

The Air Force is certainly now an "expeditionary" force. We are on the move...constantly. The last few weeks I welcomed home troops from my Civil Engineering Squadron from Kirkuk, where the Air Force operates a fairly large airbase. These airmen were out of the wire doing convoys and repairing roads damaged by IEDs. (Read their story here)

This same day, I attended the change of command for the 316CES squadron here at Andrews. Lt Col Williams is moving on to a special assignment and Lt Col Duffy is taking command. And very soon more engineers will be heading for deployment. Lt Col Williams, in his last remarks to the squadron, mentioned how we are ready always, the CE rally cry here at Andrews. They are. We have to be, because we are always on the move.

CES is an amazing squadron. Last week I was contacted regarding a sick airman at Walter Reed who happened to be a Engineer from another base. This squadron has adopted this airman as one of their own. Family. These guys are family.

As I prepare for my own departure, I know my chapel team will be there for my family as will my neighbors on base. There a bunch of great folks at Andrews, a sense of closeness and trust that I think is fostered by an environment where loved ones go into harms way -- a sense of duty and dedication that extends beyond the service member to family. Today I also provided an invocation for an outstanding officer who received a well deserved promotion. The custom is to show appreciation to spouse with the gift of flowers, but he gave her something that spoke volumes more: he pinned her with rank one grade above his newly earned rank, to symbolize her importance to him.

Gear up! Its a call not only heard by the warrior, but by his or her family.