Letter From Iraq #26 - Finally Home

Two weeks is almost over and that means that it is almost time to go back to work.  After a deployment the Air Force gives it’s members a couple of weeks of time off when we return so that we have the ability to get things back in order and to spend some time with our friends and family before we have to go back to work.

The flight home was the longest flight of my life.  A few days before I made the majority of my voyage, I flew from FOB Diamondback to Al Udied Air Base, Qatar.  I was there for a couple of days with not a whole lot to do other than just hang out and relax.  The night we were scheduled to fly out of Al Udied, we were informed that our flight was going to be delayed 23 hours due to bad weather over Italy, and so the plane wouldn’t be able to make it in.  So we ended up spending another night in Qatar before we were finally able to get on the plane at a ridiculously early time.  From Qatar we flew to Aviano Air Base, Italy where we had a short lay-over of about 2 hours and then it was back on the plane.  Then we were off to Germany, where we would have another short lay-over and pick-up the remainder of the passengers for the trip.

From the time that we took off in Qatar until I landed back in Seattle I would start and stop my stopwatch because I wanted to see how long we were spending in the air.  By the time I did finally walk off my last flight I had flown for over 22 hours, but now it’s all over.

Since I have been back I have been spending a lot of time relaxing and getting things back to a sense of normalcy.  As I type I am sitting here reading watching the Price is Right.  I guess you can’t get much more normal than that.

Last weekend I also got a great surprise.  My girlfriend, Megan, informed me that her brother was coming to Seattle to visit a friend during his spring break and so we were going to pick him up at the airport because his friend was going to be busy on that Friday.  So we went to the airport on Friday afternoon to pick up her brother and while we stood there my mom magically showed up there.  She decided to come out for the weekend to visit just to make sure that I was actually back.  So we stayed up in Seattle Friday night and then Megan and I took her around on Saturday to see Pike Place Market where they throw fish and it’s also the home of the original Starbucks Coffee shop.  We also made a trip over to the Space Needle.

After we spent the day seeing the sites we headed home.  When we got home we set up my new Wii.  My parents got me one for Christmas and now I think I play that more than I watch TV.  I like the fact that with the Wii you have to get off the couch to play for a lot of the games.  After a long evening of playing bowling and tennis and golf we spent most of Sunday just taking it easy.  After church that evening I organized a card night so that my mom could meet some of the people that we like to get together with on the weekends and play a good game of Hand and Foot and eat some good food.  We spent Monday and Tuesday relaxing and seeing a few things here and there in the area until I had to take mom back to the airport Tuesday afternoon.  It was a great visit and now my mom can say that she has seen where I live and work.

As I sign off I want to thank everyone again for all of the support that you all gave us during the last six months.  It was nice to hear from all of you that enjoyed my letters.  Hearing how much you all enjoyed them made it a lot easier to write each week.  Sometimes it’s hard to write an article each week when your days are exactly the same from day to day.  It’s also very important to receive the support that we got during a deployment.  A lot of times all you see on the news is all of the people that are opposed to the war and the military and that makes doing our job a lot more difficult because we feel that no one appreciates what we are doing.  I would like to encourage everyone to continue to support the members of the military.  In New Salem alone we have many people who are serving in the military and I’m sure that they would all love to hear about how New Salem supports them.

This will be my last regular letter to the New Salem Journal.  I will try to send in a letter every once in awhile.  I still like to hear your comments.  Please feel free to email me at john.iraq@hotmail.com.  I love to hear from you all.