I am still at COB Adder. With luck I’ll be back at FOB Hunter tomorrow for the final push to finish this tour. It’s been a good break. I am looking forward to getting back to my team. Reading their reports for the past week it looks like things are nicely busy down there. Looks like they’re getting out to do some real CA work. That will be good. Quite possibly we will be given the chance to go out with some significant accomplishments.
Despite all my reservations about the Army — I still bleed Navy Blue and Gold — with any luck at all, I will be re-enlisting in the Army on FOB Hunter. I expect that it will be a good event. I had the chance to re-enlist in the Navy out on KAAOT on my last tour over here. I ended up extending my enlistment in the Navy after I returned from that deployment. The extension was a non-event. A purely administrative event the belied the significance of what I was doing. Based on that experience, I decided that I would re-enist on this deployment. Military service is an important part of my life. I have a lot of complaints about the Army. I regret not having managed my Navy career better so that I could have retired from the Navy. That was my fault. The Army is giving me the chance to continue a life that I enjoy. I enjoyed the Navy more but, at the end of the day, I would rather be serving in the Army than to end my military service. I owe a heart felt thanks to my chain of command, First Sergeant Luedtke and Lieutenant Colonel Clark for their patience and affording me this opportunity.
I look forward to continuing The Face of Iraq project, catching up on all the work Team RONIN has done while I’ve been goofing off for three weeks. I want to thank the team and especially my team sergeant, Staff Sergeant LaRocque for the opportunity to get a break. Now it is time to go back to work. Despite what a lot of the main stream media seems to be saying, Iraq is on its way to standing on its own two feet. I believe that Team RONIN and the rest of Alpha Company, 445 Civil Affairs Battalion has made a contribution to the province of Maysan in getting to the place where they can govern themselves. I believe that Iraq will succeed. I don’t know that it will be the success the United States would like to see but it will be their success. It will be a success defined by their culture, background and environment. That is as it should be.
Thanks for the break. Time to quit goofing off and get back out there.