A Busy Fall

So this is my first time ever writing a blog but I figured I should give it a shot and help out Rebecca. We have both been super busy this fall but I think she takes the cake. Rebecca has been doing an amazing job planning a wonderful wedding. I am so proud of her and all of the hard work she has been doing. I have heard that planning a wedding can be very stressful, but somehow Rebecca is managing to do it all without me around. I dont know, but maybe that is actually helping as I would probably just be a distraction like usual. Although it may seem like I am trying to get out of the whole wedding planning thing, I have been very busy with the army.

At the beginning of October, all of 1st Brigade left for Ft. Irwin, California, home of the National Training Center. It was two weeks of hurrying up and waiting with two weeks of very realistic training sandwiched in the middle. While the logistic nightmare of getting all of our Bradleys and Humvees was not at all enjoyable, I had a lot of fun during the actual training. My unit, B Troop, 1-7 Cav had a small Joint Security Station (JSS) set up next to a fake Iraqi town complete with about 50 real Iraqi role players acting as town mayor to shopkeepers. My main jobs in Iraq as the FSO are going to be running the Troop Intelligence Support Team (TrIST), coordinating all fire support assets (the job I was trained to do), and initializing projects and handling all of the money used to help the Iraqis. Usually, I will be the Troop Commander's right hand man. I will go to meetings with the town officials as well as religious leaders and help him negotiate with the Iraqis. So, like I said, the training was very realistic and I had a good time.

Now that I am back at Ft. Hood, things have settled down some. We have been recovering all of our equipment and getting ready for some Observed Fire Training that I have to miss because I am coming home for the wedding! Every day my excitement grows. I absolutely cannot wait to come home and marry Rebecca and go on our surprise honeymoon. If you do happen to know where I am taking Rebecca, make sure you you don't let her know!

Being Veterens Day weekend, I get four days off. Rebecca is back in Yakima working out final details about the wedding. She is staying very busy everyday meeting and calling everyone in order to make sure everything goes just as planned. Well, there you have it. A quick update on our busy lives. I can't wait to get married and finally get to spend some alone time with the love of my life. Oh, and one more thing. Sorry there are no pictures with my post, I would have loved to have some pictures from NTC but my camera has suddenly stopped working. Hopefully I will get a new camera soon.