Letter From Afghanistan #04

As I sit here this morning you wouldn’t think that it is the 4th of July.  On any other base back in the states there are celebrations planned and everyone is excited to have a little extra time off, but here at FOB Lagman we continue to work even though the holiday is here.  When you are deployed you really don’t want to hear fireworks because that usually means that there were incoming mortars and that is never good.  A bit of a party is planned for the FOB for later today, but since I work the night shift it is pretty likely that I will not be attending because I will try and get some sleep.

This week actually turned out to be a pretty big week.  On Thursday evening I was woke up by someone knocking on my door.  It was the chaplain assistant and he was knocking to inform me that a Catholic Chaplain had arrived on the FOB and was looking to have a mass in a few minutes.  So I got up and went to mass.  At the end of the mass the chaplain announced that he would be here for at least another day and that he would like to hold a mass again the next night at the same time if anyone was interested in attending.  There was a unanimous yes from the crowd and so it was decided that we would meet again the next night.  This was a nice change for us since we don’t actually have a Catholic Chaplain assigned to the FOB.

When it comes to church services we currently have a Presbyterian chaplain on the FOB and also a Romanian Orthodox Chaplain that provides services to the Romanian Army.  When it comes to services for the Catholic community on the FOB we are graced with the presence of a chaplain whenever they are able to get away from their other FOB.  This is the first time we have had a chaplain visit us since our arrival here on FOB Lagman.  In order to maintain a sense of normalcy we have been holding Catholic Prayer Services, which I have been leading.  These are different from a regular mass in the fact that they are not lead by a priest but rather by a lay minister who leads the attendants through several different aspects of the service.  When it comes to a lay minister leading the service there are two different types of services that are able to be held.  The first one is a communion service, which includes the distribution of Holy Communion during the service.  The other service is a simple prayer service in which the parish will go through the readings for the day and say a couple of prayers.  The prayer service is the service that we have here because we are unable to store consecrated hosts and therefore are unable to celebrate communion without the presence of a priest.

This week I also received one of the first emails from you, the readers.  It was from a reader that took time to write when I was in Iraq and has taken the time to write again.  Mel Bopp from Iowa wanted to know how I got into weather as a job in the Air Force.  Was it a lifelong dream or something that I got into after joining the Air Force.

It was kind of both of them for me.  I had decided that I wanted to go into weather sometime around my junior year of high school.  My brother and I were talking one day and he had pointed out that since I liked math and science and also loved to watch the weather that going into meteorology might be a good career for me.  After giving it a little thought it made sense that it would be a good career path for me to follow.  Shortly after that I learned that I had a relative on my dad’s side that worked at the National Weather Service in Bismarck and offered to have me come down one day and follow him around and learn what it took to work in weather.  It was very interesting to see what went on behind the scenes at the National Weather Service and to see what they all did.  I learned that the National Weather Service monitored water levels in rivers as well as rainfall totals across the state.  This was in addition to tracking the weather patterns that traveled across the state and caused everything from flash floods to blizzards.  After that I really decided that I wanted to be in weather.

During the next year of school I spent some time looking into getting grants for college so that I could get a degree.  I was starting to realize that college was going to cost a lot.  The fact that we were a family of farmers meant that financial help from home would be somewhat limited and I would have to pay my own way.  At one point during my senior year of school the Army recruiter came in from Bismarck and talked to our class.  He informed us that the Army would give us money for college and all of the other perks of being in the Army.  After that I informed my parents that I was thinking of joining the Army.  They told me that they first wanted me to talk to another recruiter to make sure that I was making an informed decision.  So they took me down to Gateway mall and I went into the Air Force recruiter’s office and I was then informed that the Air Force and the Army offered the same benefits when it came to college and that the pay scale was the same.  After talking with the Air Force, I liked the answers that the Air Force recruiter gave me and then decided to join the Air Force instead.  The other upside to joining the Air Force over the Army was that the Army doesn’t have jobs in weather unlike the Air Force.  I left for basic training with a guaranteed job in weather and I have been doing weather since then.  Hopefully that answers your questions Mel.  Thanks again for you email and your question.  I enjoy trying to answer your questions to keep these letters something interesting for you.

At this point I will sign off for another week.  It is nearly time for me to get off of shift and then it’s off to breakfast.  I hope that you all had a great 4th of July weekend and that you were able to spend it with friends and family.

I would love to hear from you.  If you would like to email me you can send it to john.iraq@hotmail.com.  If you would like to mail a letter or send a care package you can send it to the following address:

SSgt John B. Ferderer

Task Force Pegasus

HHC 2-82 (SWO) Task Force Corsair

APO AE 09355

Some of the things that people around here can use or would love to get in a care package are: hand lotion, shaving cream, razors, hand sanitizer, movies, CDs, and books.  If you know of a group that would like to send cards and well wishes to the troops they can send some to me and I will hand them out to the people here.  We all love to get words of support from back in the states and it’s nice to know that we still have people that support us.  Have a great week and have a great Air Force Day!