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who s your baghdaddy who s your baghdaddy welcome to my oasis on the web i began this blog to chronicle my year of deployment in iraq in support of operation iraqi freedom iii my favorite reads prev list random next join powered by ringsurf saturday february 25 2006 this is it it has been quite some time since my last post which i closed with a promise to post more i ve noticed the same problem with other milbloggers as well especially reservists like me when i peruse the blogs of others who have journaled from inside the war zone and have recently returned home there seems to be a trend of posts that state i m going home i ll post more soon but those follow on posts never really seem to materialize of course i can t speak for others but i can definitely share why i went from a dedicated blogger to having nothing more than crickets chirping since i ve returned its not that i have stopped caring to the contrary i think about the war every single day and i think about the blog almost as often i think about the troops that are still there and how their story needs to be told and i think about the loyal readers i had while i was still in iraq and telling my story when i think about the latter i actually feel a bit guilty that i have somehow left people hanging by not continuing to post as i had promised the reality however is that i can t tell that story any more since i m no longer there while i was deployed this blog became my outlet and i was passionate about making every single post as compelling as possible i wanted to tell stories that kept readers interested by revealing people and places they wouldn t see anywhere else but i don t have those stories to tell anymore even more so those stories have been replaced with just good ole regular life back in the u s after i returned i took the family to disney took a few weeks off and now i m back to work at my civillian job i m not a politician or an activist i obviously have my opinions but at the end of the day i m just a guy trying to be the best husband and father i can be and who also happens to be a resrvist that got deployed for a year in iraq i m proud of what we accomplished there in fact my only regret is that i personally didn t do more that i didn t try harder to make a difference there are days when i wish i could go back with the knowledge i have now and do things better my wife is gonna hurt me when she reads that but my turn is over and we still have the best trained most professional military on the ground and they will continue to do the stellar job they have always done they still need your support so keep lifting them in prayer and keep the care packages flowing despite our short attention span as americans this war is not over nor will it be any time soon so let s not forget about those who put themsleves in harms way on our behalf as for me i m going to get on with the business of living i still have a lot of lost time to make up for and i intend to do so to the best of my ability i want to thank all those who supported me while i was deployed sometimes it was an encouraging email or post and other times it was a care package that came at just the right time so many of you i have never even met which makes it even that much more appreciated i will forever be amazed at how this blog became so much more than i ever intended and i am glad i was able to share my small story with so many people the local news did a story on my return which is archived here this is panther 4 out posted by john at 5 23 am 36 comments monday december 12 2005 home our plane finally touched down at ft hood texas at approximately 3 30 in the morning on december 4th this was a full twelve hours later than we were originally scheduled to arrive the major part of our tardiness was due to the plane out of kuwait being delayed by nine hours by the time we actually landed all 250 soldiers on the plane had been traveling by either bus or plane for over 43 hours needless to say we were all a little travel weary by the time we touched down but it wasn t enough to quell the elated cheers of of every man on the plane as soon as we felt the texas terra firma beneath the landing gear once we unboarded the plane we processed in turned in our weapons and boarded a bus where we waited for what seemed an eternity before being shuttled to the gymnasium where our families were waiting we formed up and ran in to the sound of loud patriotic music playing and the ironically appropriate haze of a fog machine we all stood there in formation and my eyes darted back and forth across the stands as i tried to locate my family once i spotted them an uncontrollable smile broke across my weary face and i locked eyes with my best friend and my wife amy there was an appropriately short speech from our commanding general and after the command of dismissed was given every man burst from the ranks and found their objective as quickly as possible at last we were home no words can describe back together again me and my best freind this is not my final post i still have more to say until then j posted by john at 7 10 pm 33 comments monday november 21 2005 on the way this will be my last post from inside the borders of iraq just typing that sentence and reading it back in my mind seems surreal this place these people and this war have been the major part of my existence for the past year of my life reaching the end of this journey has been a daily obsession since i set foot into this desert land and now that the time has finally arrived it is almost catching me by surprise i took a final walk through my area today and was amazed at the well of emotions that rose to the surface it s hard to believe but i have actually become attached to this place i can only think that it is some sort of stockholm syndrome which refers to the emotional attachment hostages grow towards their captors for the past year this place has held me hostage from everything i previously knew and now by the grace of god i am about to be set free i have learned much about myself during this time and though this experience has been difficult i have no regrets being here has changed me and i know that ultimately it will be for the better i once read somewhere that going into a combat zone is a one way door since the person that leaves is not the same person that returns this new person returning is committed to being a better husband father and friend i have felt the pain of leaving all that i hold dear and i will not take it for granted again this is not my final post i will continue to write once i return home and share the experience of my homecoming but it will take a while to make my way from here to finally being back in the states until then j posted by john at 10 04 pm 24 comments wednesday november 09 2005 this was probably the last time i will interact with the local iraqi people my unit will be going back home soon and i need to focus all of my efforts on redeployment activities regardless of how many times i go on these types of missions their impact is always the same i am continually impressed and frustrated with the local populace and i am always a sucker for the kids if there is anything that will be forever impressed upon my memory from my time here it is a profound hope for the future of the iraqi children this particular trip was to a school at a local village not to far from our base camp we were able to sit down with the headmaster and the village sheik for a brief visit as usual the conversation quickly turned to the topic of what the americans can do for them and poignant questions about particular projects they would like to have done in their village our civil affairs officer cpt sean walton tired to explain to them that we do not have the liberty to randomly choose what projects are done and which village receives them he also encouraged them to utilize their newly elected local leaders to lobby for the help they need the concept is so foreign to them they just don t seem to get it and before sean could finish explaining what they need to do they were repeating their plea for american help i could tell he was getting frustrated but he handled it very professionally but i m not confident they got the point afterwards it was outside to hand out some goodies to the kids i ve expressed before about how they can be extremely forward and demanding i tried to instill some order and at one point shut the vehicle cargo hatch and tried to explain to them i wasn t giving anything else out until they got in line and waited their turn that lasted all of about a nanosecond and they were back at it again at the end of it all however i m just a softie and a sucker for kids in general besides how do you say no to a kid who has no shoes rags for clothes no running water and intermittent electricity you don t you just give posted by john at 7 40 am 15 comments monday october 31 2005 false alarm late last night as i was sleeping i was jolted back to consciousness by the screeching sound of the camp siren the siren is referred to as the big voice and it is used to sound the alarm in the event of enemy attack so here i am sound asleep and i hear the unmistakable sound of the sirens blasting in the dead of night my immediate thought was mortar attack and i quickly jumped out of bed and started heading for the bunker despite my sleep induced grogginess i quickly realized there was another noise that was noticeably missing the sound of mortar rounds exploding this is an important point since no one would know to sound the alarm until after the first mortar round had impacted at about that moment the siren fell silent and was quickly followed by the all clear which indicates the danger has passed as i stood there in nothing but my shorts and flip flops i was completely befuddled by what had just occurred surely that wasn t a drill i thought to myself as i made my way back to bed it took me a few minutes to get my heart rate back down but i soon drifted back to sleep the next morning i found out the truth some klutz in the toc had bumped into the siren control panel and set it off not cool not cool at all posted by john at 9 47 am 16 comments about me name john location round rock texas united states i usually live in round rock texas with my beautiful wife and 4 children i also usually work at dell as a marketing professional as you can see i am also an officer in the texas army national guard and my unit was activated for deployment in august 2004 view my complete profile previous posts this is it home on the way this was probably the last time i will interact wi false alarm on the edge of history the sacramento bee shadow run endurance what the archives january 2005 february 2005 march 2005 april 2005 may 2005 june 2005 july 2005 august 2005 september 2005 october 2005 november 2005 december 2005 february 2006 iraq austin tx since march 2005 hit counter web counter