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ted by patrick eakes at 9 51 pm comments trackback wednesday june 08 2005 home at last the soldier has arrived home safely he actually arrived yesterday tuesday 6 7 05 but i did not confirm that fact until today i do not know if he will blog while on leave but i know we all wish him a peaceful and restful two weeks at home posted by patrick eakes at 8 07 pm comments trackback friday june 03 2005 come home soldier our dear friend the soldier will get on a plane in iraq in a few hours he is coming home to north carolina for a much deserved two week leave his family deserves the time with him too his steel spined wife has managed their home and three boys one an infant with unbelievable ease i suspect the soldier might change a few diapers while he is home the soldier is a good man and a good citizen hold him in your thoughts as he travels the many thousands of miles home posted by patrick eakes at 10 25 am comments trackback sunday april 10 2005 remembering the soldier and his brother the soldier lost his brother two years ago so he started a memorial golf tournament last year that tournament was organized in just a few weeks but it was a great event and raised 7 000 i played in the second annual tournament yesterday since the soldier is in iraq his wife organized the event with a little help from friends of the soldier and his brother we had a spectacular day as the clouds parted and warm sunshine negated two days of rain my team won the event last year but we finished fourth this year that mattered very little given the context provided by two fine men who could not attend i am not sure how much money was raised this year but i do know that it was a pleasure to be around so many people close to the soldier and his brother posted by patrick eakes at 11 40 am comments trackback sunday april 03 2005 the soldier s family we went to a cookout tonight with a few friends including the soldier s family his wife is impressive smart strong and taking everything in stride she is juggling the normal demands of running a home and taking care of their three boys aged nine five and six months the older two boys are quite the young men they have their fun like all kids but they do not take advantage of their dad being gone and keep things under control the littlest man is as cute as can be and i am glad his dad will be home for a 15 day leave soon to spend time with all of them posted by patrick eakes at 8 44 pm comments trackback wednesday march 23 2005 golf tournament the soldier lost his brother in april 2004 i never met his brother but the soldier told me so many hilarious stories about him i feel like i knew him last year the soldier his wife and some of his brother s friends organized a golf tournament that raised around 7 000 that money provided two fun stations for the pediatric oncology unit at duke hospital plus supported some other children s needs in a sad twist of fate the soldier learned he would be deployed to iraq the day of the tournament this year the soldier s family and friends plus his brother s friends are ensuring the tournament goes on it is april 9 at mill creek in mebane nc if you are interested in playing in or being a sponsor for the tournament send me an email i will reply with all the particulars posted by patrick eakes at 7 36 pm comments trackback monday march 14 2005 how can you help i asked the soldier how those of us who are stateside can help him he said if people want to help they can give prepaid phone cards to soldiers with whom he serves that will allow them to stay in some contact with their families without going broke he further clarified that any at t phone card works well from where they are stationed if any of you is interested in supporting the soldiers serving with the soldier you can send a prepaid at t phone card to me at patrick eakes p o box 16263 greensboro nc 27416 0263 i will collect the cards and forward them to the soldier who will distribute them to others serving with him in iraq posted by patrick eakes at 8 52 pm comments trackback friday january 28 2005 welcome since instapundit gave a shout out to this blog we are getting a visitor every ten seconds we normally welcome about 50 visitors a day for those of you visiting for the first time the soldier remains anonymous he is a reservist who has been in iraq for one month i am patrick eakes and i maintain this blog for the soldier if you wish to leave a comment i will be sure it is forwarded to the soldier posted by patrick eakes at 1 40 pm comments trackback wednesday january 19 2005 welcome the news record ran a front page article today on a recent attack in iraq that nick sowers documented in an email sent home the n r article included an information box directing readers to two blogs i maintain including this one if you are visiting this blog for the first time welcome this blog documents the life of a reservist who has been deployed to iraq the soldier remains anonymous and i post his entries for him blogs are organized so the most recent posts are at the top of the page if you are first time visitor i suggest that you scroll to the bottom of the page and read the posts from the bottom up which will be chronologically correct below each post you will find a comment tab click on it if you wish to make a comment on the post or send a message to the soldier please visit this blog from time to time to get updates from the the soldier posted by patrick eakes at 8 59 am comments trackback sunday january 16 2005 settling in another week has passed and although it can t go fast enough the time is flying by my team is getting settled and we received our room assignments this week which was a big morale boost it may not seem like much to most but we ve been living in transient quarters since we were activated in november and although it s not home it s what we ve got for now the guys morale is high as they take the lead in their new positions when i was here in 1990 i was a 2lt now i am major and i get a few extra privileges ironically the unit i deployed with in the first war is in my area now i visited the 2lt in the same position i was in back in 1990 a lot has changed in 14 years but the position is still there and some of the same problems still exist the outgoing unit leaves soon they have done an outstanding job here and we ve made some friends in our short time together they are a national guard unit out of new york it is amazing to sit back and here the two groups exchange stories nc vs ny the contrast is comical and everyone has had a lot of fun at the other s expense bottom line they spent a year here accomplished their mission and every one of them is going to make it back home safely this is exactly what i want my successor to say about us mortars we were attacked several times this week only one minor casualty from another unit the report is that he will be ok mortars here are a daily event yesterday one hit about 500 meters from our trailer what a way to wake up my guys reacted great we all got in our bunkers before the second one hit further away then we waited to hear the outgoing artillery you hear the shot wait about 20 seconds and then you hear the impact as bad as it feels to be on the receiving end of their stuff it really has to suck being on the receiving end of ours iraqi ng i watched the iraqi national guard training the other day on post as i watched them conducting basic drill and ceremony activities i wondered what kind of lives they lived before all of this started and what would their lives be like from this day forward they looked as if they came from all walks of life young and old rich and poor and like us they are citizen soldiers serving their country the american soldiers training them have had good things to say about how they are progressing i hope to get the chance to know some of them better as the year goes on the news has reported the abu ghraib sentencing of the soldier convicted of mistreating the iraqi prisoners comments here are as i expected most are shocked that he received 10 years and that what was reported as torture was more like humiliation most soldiers believe the beheading and disfigurement of those captured by the iraqis is torture but the news doesn t seem to be interested in that it is obvious those soldiers involved used bad judgment and they along with their leadership will be held accountable but relative to the bad judgment used by our enemy the u s soldiers crimes seem insignificant to better illustrate how differently soldiers think the other day i spoke to a soldier that i ve notice moping around after some small talk i asked what was bothering him and his response was one i ve heard before especially from young soldiers he explained i just don t feel like i m getting enough action in his mind he wanted to engage the enemy and strike the decisive blow that would destroy the enemy s will to ever fight again this particular individual used to be a line soldier and now holds an administrative position i know it sounds crazy to some people who hear this kind of talk but it is this mentality and training that allows sane men and women to knowingly go into harms way we spoke for a few minutes about friends we both had that were escorting convoys and having daily contact with the bad guys we laughed at how strange the military mind set can make us look at situations and i got the feeling he realized how strange his original statement was i am still amazed at all of the functions that go on daily to make this whole operation work the synchronization of all the forces along with the civilians is incredible soldiers from every branch of service are working together in harmony soldiers are taking initiative at all levels to do things right and right is being acknowledged and praised as much as i miss my family i m glad to be part of this operation what an honor to serve next to the soldiers here i wish every american could experience this feeling and i hope that my words will allow some to understand the process a little better take care and god bless posted by patrick eakes at 12 09 pm comments trackback monday january 10 2005 arrival in kuwait and iraq my unit arrived in kuwait safely we had a commercial flight chartered by the army my commander csm and i passed up an opportunity to fly first class and we sat with our troops for the 20 hour voyage i don t know if they appreciated the gesture or thought we were foolish for not moving up anyway it seemed like the right thing to do our time in kuwait was minimized because of our motivation to get out of there our reception was not well organized and if you sat back and waited on the system to process your unit you could be there for weeks we made some contacts identified the key training events that we needed to hit and coordinated our move north to iraq we were originally scheduled to convoy our vehicles were not up armored and this was our biggest concern in my 15 years of service i ve learned that the military may be bullish but it does change i found an active duty unit similar to ours that was going to the same place as us and after some conversation i discovered that they too were not up armored but they were not going to convoy puzzled i asked how they were going and to my delight i discovered a method to get our troops and equipment flown my commander and i were floored in the past six months as much as we requested this option was never given to us our soldiers flew out 48hrs after we discovered this option and everyone arrived safely our equipment will follow so the unit we are replacing will let us use their equipment until ours arrives all here is going well my soldiers morale is high and we are settling in our replacements were excited to see us and are doing a great job showing us the ropes i work out of an old hangar that is said to have housed saddam s private jets who knows what went on here soldiers can conjure up the best stories we live in trailers and walk about 200 yards to the bathrooms and showers it s not too bad i had hot water this morning the weather is about what i expected cool now but not to cold nothing here is easy even going to the bathroom in the middle of the night you have to be fully dressed the unit we are replacing should leave in a few weeks so i expect things will get better then our first morning here we were greeted with a mortar attack not everyone reacted the same i met one soldier in the bunker we went to and asked him why he was here and his roommate was not his response was classic he simply said that he had not had the best of luck lately and was not taking any chances he told me that within the last week while driving his vehicle he hit an ied ed improvised explosive device and was involved in a firefight he was a young guy from the alabama reserves he was very upbeat about things and stated that he was scheduled to go home in a few weeks after listening to his story i explained to him that he was mistaken about his luck i told him that i felt good about being near him because to me after hitting an ied and being in a firefight and coming out physically unscathed his luck seemed pretty good i was proud to share a bunker with him and to hear his stories for the next hour when we received the all clear sign i shook his hand and wished him the best take care and god bless posted by patrick eakes at 10 47 pm comments trackback saturday january 08 2005 good news from iraq i spoke to mrs soldier yesterday she said that the soldier made it to kuwait city fine he was there a few days then traveled by convoy to his final destination which is outside fallujah the soldier told me before he deployed that the convoy would be unescorted meaning they would not have significant defense if attacked so we are all glad he made it to his compound safely posted by patrick eakes at 7 26 pm comments trackback monday december 27 2004 it s time to go well it is the eve of my deployment and my troops and i are ready it is not clear if all of them know exactly what they are getting into but as one of their leaders i know they ve been trained we all got to spend christmas with our families and that was a pleasant surprise from uncle sam you see when i was on active duty my wife and i were married for only 6 weeks before i deployed for desert shield storm 1 i signed into ft bragg on aug 1st as a brand new 2nd lt and kuwait was invaded on the 2nd i was instructed not to move my wife to town because i would not be there long myself that was how we spent our first christmas the next year after being home for about eight months i received a no notice deployment to guantanamo bay cuba and that is how we spent our second christmas thus we have three ornaments that say our first christmas so you can understand why i was skeptical about getting to spend this christmas with my family i m glad i lost that bet we are scheduled to fly into the theater of operation and receive more training before we go to our d...