Letter From Afghanistan #19
As I sit in my nice warm room I keep reminding myself that I only have a couple more weeks here before I get to go home. I don’t mean to make it sound like I am excited to get out of here or anything, but I am excited to get out of here and to get back home and get back to normal. I look forward to being able to sleep in my own bed again, cook and eat my own food, not have to drag all of my stuff with me to take a shower or having to wear flip flops in the shower. Of course that is really only a small list of the normal everyday things that most people don’t generally think about.
As weeks go, this has actually been one of the roughest ones I have had since we have been here. Throughout most of this week I was attempting to deal with being sick. I imagine that there are worse place that a person could get sick but so far this is the worst place for me.
My week started out with my neck being a lot tighter than it normally is. I normally have very tight muscles in my back and neck that will occasionally cause me pain, but this was unusual for me. Most of the time, while I was awake, I had extremely strong headaches every time I would try to turn my head. There were times when it would become almost unbearable, and then it would subside enough to allow me to go about my day.
As if this wasn’t enough, a few days later I started to have an extremely upset stomach. At first I thought that it might be a touch of the flu and seeing that I got my flu shot a couple of weeks ago, I figured that my body would be able to fight it fairly quickly. A couple of days later and the combination of the upset stomach and the neck pain and headaches and I was starting to become worried that it might be something more serious. Mass hysteria took over and I started to think that I might have swine flu. As a general rule I’m actually not worried in the least of actually catching the swine flu because quite frankly I don’t understand how it is any worse than the seasonal flu that plagues the world every year. The news keeps telling us about it and the possibility of people dying but, in all reality, thousands of people die every year from the flu. It is tragic but really this version of the flu is really not much different. Another problem that I can see is that the media puts too much hype behind some information. By now I’m sure that many of you have forgotten about SARS and the mass hysteria that caused.
After I finally came to my senses, I decided to go see the doc in the hopes that he could give me something. During my time of deployments I have never needed to go to the doc so I wasn’t sure of what the procedure would be, but it was very simple. I explained to the doc what the problem was and he gave me a few things that would help. Of course they didn’t give me anything too strong because that can create addiction and in many cases it isn’t warranted, but doc Epps explained that if they didn’t work that I should come back. It took a little while but they did work and now I feel much better and am glad that a new week is starting.
Something else that happened this week that was quite interesting was that the 82 Airborne, the folks we are here to support, decided to hold a hale and farewell celebration on Saturday. Of course since we are deployed and we don’t have many of the comforts of home, it was a fairly simple ceremony. It was held in the dining facility and started just shortly after the dinner service was finished. It was started by the commander welcoming the new people into the unit that had recently arrived. I thought that it was a little strange that people were coming in and out of the unit in the middle of a deployment but when your deployments are a year-long, you have to come and go when there is an opportunity. After a proper introduction was made of the new folks, all three of us Staff Weather Officers (SWOs as we are commonly referred to as) were asked to stand. The commander thanked us for all of our work over the last months, starting with when we had to build the tents that we are now working out of. She then showed her appreciation by giving each of us a commander’s coin, which in the army is considered a very big deal. We were also give and another coin from the task force to show their appreciation. Next they called up a couple of other folks that would be leaving the unit shortly and the same respect and gratitude was shown to them. By showing us the same respect and gratitude that they showed their own folks it showed that they not only respected the work that we do to make sure that they stay safe, but also that they thought of us as members of their unit and thusly members of their family. After all of the welcomes and farewells were said, cake and near beer was served. I say near beer because since we are in a war zone alcohol is not permitted and many times as a joke and way to celebrate beer without alcohol is served.
Well on that note I will sign off for another week. As always I would like to thank everyone who has emailed, written, and sent care packages. This week I received a couple of boxes from my parents and in them were some Halloween decorations. Several people became very excited to see them and are now planning to decorate the tent for Halloween.
Last week I mentioned that I would include a list of others here that you could send care packages and letters to, but since I have been a bit sick this week I didn’t get a chance to work on the list of names. I will get the names together this week and include them with my letter next week. If you would still like to send a care package you can send it to me and I will share its contents with everyone here. In the chance that your package arrives after I depart, I will instruct them that they can open the box and dispense its contents amongst everyone if you don’t mind. If you would prefer that they still use these items, please mark the box that says “Redirect to Address Below” on the customs form and put in that block “Any Soldier” and that way they will know that they can still open it. My address is:
SSgt John B. Ferderer
Task Force Pegasus
HHC 2-82 (SWO) Task Force Corsair
APO AE 09355
If you would like to email me my address is john.iraq@hotmail.com. It may take me a couple of days to reply as it has been rather busy these last couple of weeks with getting ready for the new folks, but I will try to get back to you. If you have any questions please feel free to ask them and I will do my best to answer them. All of my letters can also be found online at http://johnbferderer.blogspot.com.
Have a great week and have a great Air Force Day!
As weeks go, this has actually been one of the roughest ones I have had since we have been here. Throughout most of this week I was attempting to deal with being sick. I imagine that there are worse place that a person could get sick but so far this is the worst place for me.
My week started out with my neck being a lot tighter than it normally is. I normally have very tight muscles in my back and neck that will occasionally cause me pain, but this was unusual for me. Most of the time, while I was awake, I had extremely strong headaches every time I would try to turn my head. There were times when it would become almost unbearable, and then it would subside enough to allow me to go about my day.
As if this wasn’t enough, a few days later I started to have an extremely upset stomach. At first I thought that it might be a touch of the flu and seeing that I got my flu shot a couple of weeks ago, I figured that my body would be able to fight it fairly quickly. A couple of days later and the combination of the upset stomach and the neck pain and headaches and I was starting to become worried that it might be something more serious. Mass hysteria took over and I started to think that I might have swine flu. As a general rule I’m actually not worried in the least of actually catching the swine flu because quite frankly I don’t understand how it is any worse than the seasonal flu that plagues the world every year. The news keeps telling us about it and the possibility of people dying but, in all reality, thousands of people die every year from the flu. It is tragic but really this version of the flu is really not much different. Another problem that I can see is that the media puts too much hype behind some information. By now I’m sure that many of you have forgotten about SARS and the mass hysteria that caused.
After I finally came to my senses, I decided to go see the doc in the hopes that he could give me something. During my time of deployments I have never needed to go to the doc so I wasn’t sure of what the procedure would be, but it was very simple. I explained to the doc what the problem was and he gave me a few things that would help. Of course they didn’t give me anything too strong because that can create addiction and in many cases it isn’t warranted, but doc Epps explained that if they didn’t work that I should come back. It took a little while but they did work and now I feel much better and am glad that a new week is starting.
Something else that happened this week that was quite interesting was that the 82 Airborne, the folks we are here to support, decided to hold a hale and farewell celebration on Saturday. Of course since we are deployed and we don’t have many of the comforts of home, it was a fairly simple ceremony. It was held in the dining facility and started just shortly after the dinner service was finished. It was started by the commander welcoming the new people into the unit that had recently arrived. I thought that it was a little strange that people were coming in and out of the unit in the middle of a deployment but when your deployments are a year-long, you have to come and go when there is an opportunity. After a proper introduction was made of the new folks, all three of us Staff Weather Officers (SWOs as we are commonly referred to as) were asked to stand. The commander thanked us for all of our work over the last months, starting with when we had to build the tents that we are now working out of. She then showed her appreciation by giving each of us a commander’s coin, which in the army is considered a very big deal. We were also give and another coin from the task force to show their appreciation. Next they called up a couple of other folks that would be leaving the unit shortly and the same respect and gratitude was shown to them. By showing us the same respect and gratitude that they showed their own folks it showed that they not only respected the work that we do to make sure that they stay safe, but also that they thought of us as members of their unit and thusly members of their family. After all of the welcomes and farewells were said, cake and near beer was served. I say near beer because since we are in a war zone alcohol is not permitted and many times as a joke and way to celebrate beer without alcohol is served.
Well on that note I will sign off for another week. As always I would like to thank everyone who has emailed, written, and sent care packages. This week I received a couple of boxes from my parents and in them were some Halloween decorations. Several people became very excited to see them and are now planning to decorate the tent for Halloween.
Last week I mentioned that I would include a list of others here that you could send care packages and letters to, but since I have been a bit sick this week I didn’t get a chance to work on the list of names. I will get the names together this week and include them with my letter next week. If you would still like to send a care package you can send it to me and I will share its contents with everyone here. In the chance that your package arrives after I depart, I will instruct them that they can open the box and dispense its contents amongst everyone if you don’t mind. If you would prefer that they still use these items, please mark the box that says “Redirect to Address Below” on the customs form and put in that block “Any Soldier” and that way they will know that they can still open it. My address is:
SSgt John B. Ferderer
Task Force Pegasus
HHC 2-82 (SWO) Task Force Corsair
APO AE 09355
If you would like to email me my address is john.iraq@hotmail.com. It may take me a couple of days to reply as it has been rather busy these last couple of weeks with getting ready for the new folks, but I will try to get back to you. If you have any questions please feel free to ask them and I will do my best to answer them. All of my letters can also be found online at http://johnbferderer.blogspot.com.
Have a great week and have a great Air Force Day!
Labels: Afghanistan, New Salem Journal
posted by John F. at
2:48 PM
0 Comments
