Late One

What does it take to go away for four months? What do you find to hold on to to make it through….. Is it the beautiful person you married, or maybe your kids… maybe the area you live in, or something as simple as your own home made coffee? Have you started seeing visions of the person you love when you close your eyes? What drives you to start the day, to actually get out of bed in the morning even though it really feels like you just went to sleep? How about next year when you have to leave for longer thanks to politics you don’t believe in???  =|  How do you keep your sanity in all this?

In nine more days, it’ll be ten solid years of employment that has taken you around the world a couple of times. You’ve seen more foreign country than a rich man has seen of his own backyard. You’ve had to pack your clothes so many times; it’s pointless to create a list any more. What makes up for the time that you’ve had to leave? ….. sending flowers to let that special person know you haven’t forgotten them, emails ….surprise gifts in the mail.

Alright I get it.. you hate being away, your in absolute love with your family and can’t wait to get back to them, but all of this is a major part of your job….If that’s the case, is there a government job that won’t deploy my ass and let me continue to work in the same career field?      I miss you guys tons.. Everyone one of you. There is not a day that goes by that all of you are not in my thoughts. I got to see my Aunt Judy, Uncle Shawn, and my cousin Dustin last time.. AWESOME!!! My mom and sister, my niece Bre!!! My brother and his family. Unbelievable on how much can change and at the same time it’s still the same place. Lara and I went and saw Nickelback LIVE …  Now that was fucking awesome!!!! And then the day before I left this time around we got to take Phia to Water Country USA…. Couldn’t trade a day of any of that for anything.

Is all this really worth it though? To do miss all of these things. I never want to be away this much to help others when there are so many in our own area that need the same help and would line up for hours to receive it. After the last three months I was begging to go home and be with the one’s I had to leave behind. Along with a glass of crown of course to settle the nerves a bit and missing birthdays is defiantly not something I want to miss…. For my family or my immediate family.. My brother and sister, mom, and dad… Aunts, uncles..  At first it was a lot of fun… Stationed in Florida for two years.. HA.. I was 20 then. That was a blast. Doing this is like a split deployment of 6 or 7 months with some of the most horrible planners/logistics I have ever seen. There is a saying that goes around that says if you do nothing but complain all day, you will never be happy, but honestly…  I smile and say another Sunday has pasted instead and it doesn’t help a damn bit lol. Maybe that’s the politics of it though. Just do the job, don’t complain, and let me watch you fail a few times which I’ll yell at you about, but you’re trying really hard so I’ll let you continue to do the same job…. Common Sense maybe???  (laughs) there’s a phrase around here that we hear pretty often “If it makes sense, we are going to do the opposite instead because the other option is easier and maybe more cost effective”. You have a team of people that you send out to look at the same 10 to 20 things 10 days prior to you arriving there, and when you finally get there it’s still messed up one way or the other. I’m sure there is some major things that are right, but the things that are wrong aren’t exactly small things either. Is it because some things are just that way or that maybe you knew about what was going to be needed to be done and two months ago when you found out about it, nobody thought the research could have started then… You have masses of people at your control to move as you need to…

This is normally one of those times that you look at the person and say.. Damn, chill the hell out already… But how many yes people are there. If you have future notice and a different group of people have done the same thing before… common sense says maybe your last lessons learned needs to be re-evaluated and taken into heavy consideration. It’s like telling your cable guy to make a house call when you won’t be there, why try if nothing is going to get fixed. No common sense what so ever. So many different things to look for in 10days time and still it’s a failure. How many times will it take to turn on the light bulb?

 I’m no politician, but whoever’s idea this was needs to be beat again with dumb stick in 105 degree heat. This way when he’s sore from the beating and tired from the heat he’ll have a small insight of what this is really all about.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Moral Improves

The Beatings

 

The Storm

Every night we see the same thing here in Guatemala. Columbia was the same way except a little bit cooler during the day and always a constant over-cast. These lighting storms go on for hours after sunset and continue for most of the night. They do sit off the coast enough that we can’t hear the lighting strike, but the way they light up the sky is something totally different from what we see in the US. Back home on the east coast right now it’s in the 70’s, and I’m sure in other parts of the US it’s just starting to finally cool down after another heat wave of a summer.

Here it’s in the 90’s with the heat index pushing it over 100 everyday. People are loosing weight by just being out there and drinking water for 8 hours.

Going from country to country like we are, we sit at anchor the entire time of the Humanitarian visit which is normally a ten day stop before moving on. In for ten days, out for two maybe three and then another ten day stop. Amazing budget we are racking up just for this. So far alone we’ve spent over 123 thousand with Guatemala still pending as we start rapping up in the next few days and that is just for the mission itself. Not including our cost of fuel or what it takes to keep us going. The number of health care services so far over 36.9 thousand people and growing. It’s like walking into the worst town in your city, and then taking away normal health care services that we are accustomed to, paved roads, fresh water and a house that keeps out the weather all year round. We are use to seeing people with no shoes on their feet, have never been to the dentist in their lives and only home remedies as doctors of the house. We even brought a team of Army Veterinary folks with us who have seen over 9,149 to make sure your normal farm animals are going to survive.

So much I want to add with all of the pictures that we’ve captured, guess I need to go for a photo bucket account and see how well that works. Or maybe Flickr?

The biggest thing now is our half way point that we hit yesterday. People are getting restless to get back home. After seeing the same thing day in/day out it begins to get old fast. Not much to do unless you’re working on the beach or tracking who is going where and how. So basically if you’re a Seabee, Doctor, or some part of our flight crew. If the calendar is right today marks 61 days away from Norfolk now. With a dead line of being home around November 17^th that gives us another two and half month stretch.

So what am I missing back home????  Birthdays.. Eli’s first steps, my Princess Phia’s first day of school. Lara’s Birthday.. So basically another whole year pretty much of missing everyone’s birthday again, and from the looks of things it’ll happen again next year too. Hard to plan stuff when I’m this far away. When all else fails though, I still have pictures of the kids being sent to me along with video’s of Eli walking from Lara  <3 xoxo.  =D  Hope all is well, and hope to hear from you soon.

So Tuesday the 7th was the first day of school for my princess Phia.

 

I got lucky and caught an outside line to talk to her for about five minutes before she got on the bus. One of those things that will happen over and over again for years to come that maybe I’ll have a chance to be there for.

I was starting to get use to getting home around 6, getting out of uniform, and being with the family. Then someone came along and volunteered us again. It’s like being locked in a minimum security prison with a pair of boots, longer working hours, and way more politics involved.

  I did find a good thing though. I can now update my blog from email. So lets see how this works out. I’m looking for positive results