What the duece happened to television???

I was not gone THAT long. Two hundred days. That is is. Seven months. NOT THAT MUCH SHOULD HAVE CHANGED IN SEVEN MONTHS.

But then I turned on the television (which, from here forward, will no longer be refereed to as T.V., because "T.V." is a nickname and nicknames are for friends. It seems the television is no longer a friends of mine....)

Turning on the television depresses me. It's not the news about the global economic meltdown that has me down. It's not even the news about the housing market, unemployment and gas prices that make me sad. I can even tolerate all of the election news.

But someone, for the love of all that is right, please explain to me what in God's name Cloris Leachman is doing Dancing with the Stars? We'll ignore the obvious syntax errors there and ask the obvious...WHO is the "star" in that equation? Her Wiki has her listed as being 82 years old! Who thought THIS was a good idea? Misty May ruptured her Achilles tendon but should we NOT be more worried about Leachman's hip? I saw a clip of her dancing and I have to say, I've seen more excitement in AARP ads. I was scared. That was not dancing. This is a show that can make retired NFL linebackers look graceful and light on their feet. Yet Leachman's version of the "jig" was more reminescient of a long hallway shuffle in an orthopedic recovery ward.

That's not it though. There is more. Today, I am mindlessly flipping channels when I see a commercial I honestly believed was a mock ad. Imagine my abject horror when I realized that they were serious! Have you seen it? Let me set the scene.

A 16 year old girl who looks like she was recently rescued from a polygamous sect living on a Texas ranch says "You've played the Legend of Zelda games and have been haunted by the intoxicating music. Now you, too, can be transported to another world with your very own ocarina. Available at stlocarina.com. Learn to play just like Link in no time..."

Qwhhhhhhhhhat? Huh? Come again? I had to rewind that one twice just to ensure I hadn't fallen asleep on my couch and started dreaming. I was certain there was a low-grade gas leak in the house and I was having mild hallucinations. So I visited the site. Alas - you, too, CAN own your ocarina starting at the low, low introductory price of $79.99 plus s/h. Take a look. I can promise you it resembles a hand-crafted Father's Day gift presented by a second grader, just after they graduated from making clay hand-prints.

Lastly, and this might be the one that pushed me right over the edge, was the Interstate Batteries commercial I saw this weekend. Um....it's about God's love. (www.interstatebattery.com/godslove) Sure, who doesn't want more of God's love? Well, expect those people who don't believe in God, of course. Since when does it make sense to take an animated commercial for CAR BATTERIES and mix in a little religion? Have you seen it? I won't argue the message. I just do not understand how the two go together in any form of commercial advertising...aired during a football game...on a major television network! I have looked for God many places (like at the bottom of the Nile) but never did I think to look under the hood of a '67 Chevy.

This is really enough to make a sane person put down the remote and pick up a book. However, I can read while watching television so I'm covered in that regard. I thought about giving up my regular programing after the events of this week, but if I were to do that, I would miss the bliss that is House, the comedic horror of Family Guy and the education experience of E!'s 101 Biggest Celebrity Opps! and who really wants to miss out on THAT?

Fast Roping

The Bravo 2-18 JCSAR "Stupid Human Trick of the Day" for Aug. 19th? It was a little game called fast roping. I thought about writing a long and witty description of what fast roping entails, but I decided that sometimes, video proof is just so much better! So if you'd like, you can visit: http://s123.photobucket.com/albums/o289/iamkati/?action=view¤t=080819-F-0986R-001FastRopeClip.flv to watch the video.

Their goal is to "fast rope" (read - FALL WHILE HOLDING A ROPE) from 90 to 100 feet above ground level before too long. Hmmm...Really? Why? Did NO ONE here see Black Hawk Down? Just curious. I know it was just a movie and all but come on people. When does it stop?!?

Now, we talked about my fears (or perceived lack there of) back when I decided to do battle with the River Nile. That was the day I realized that while I think I'm fearless, I'm really not. I do have fears. I'm not afraid of heights. But I AM afraid of falling. So I think anytime I'm going to dangle above the ground I should be harnessed, tethered and secured. And I'd like someone roughly the size of Warren Sapp to sit on me just for good measure.

But fast roping doesn't afford one those luxuries. Instead, you sit in the "hell hole" of the CH-53 while grasping a rope roughly the diameter of a salad plate while willing your feet to gain traction on said rope. Then you go out of the bird. And by go, I mean you fall toward the earth from a hovering helicopter. Keep in mind though...Helicopters aren't stationary when they hover. There tends to be some...um...shall we say...movement. In all directions. Up and down. Left and right. Forward. Sometimes in a circle. You can't actually determine how close to the ground you are because it varies with each second. Doesn't this sound like FUN?

So, look at the photos on your left. This is what it looks like when it's done right. (I'm pretty sure the second photo is of Ray Mackey, using great form.) Hand on the rope, feet on the rope, body in almost an "L" shape to help slow you down. This is what it looks like. Sure, you can get by with the form in the photo above (holding on for dear life and once again making deals with God....) because either way, just like on the Nile, what goes up MUST come down. But Ray's form is so much better because he has some modicum of control. To his credit though, he also has more upperbody strength than I do. Okay, Cory is 13 and HE has more upperbody strength than I do. But that really isn't the point. Ray's just good at this crap. However, not every fast roping experience works out quite like that. There are times when you might slip, or not make full contact with the rope.

Evidence? Well, look to the right. That is Duff - my favorite little Soldier. Duff is the one I want to adopt and claim on my taxes. He's just so young and...clueless. Having Duff is like having a puppy - fun and playful and adorable yet not always apt to break something. But you can't get mad at him - he's a puppy; he doesn't know better! So look at Duff's form. Duff's feet never actually made contact with the rope on the way down, so he's flying down that rope, legs akimbo, and although I couldn't HEAR him, I'm pretty sure he too was making deals with God.

That's it for this week's installment of "Kati Plays with the Army..." For the entire Channel 4 news team, I'm Veronica Corningstone. Thanks for stopping by, San Diego.

P.S. - In TOTALLY unrelated news (ha, all kinds of puns intended), I did my first AFN news piece last week. It was a 90 second "Daily News Update" and was the first time I officially got to say the words "For the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, this is Air Force Tech. Sgt. Katherine Garcia." I'll send out the link as soon as it airs. I'm sure it's just more proof that print journalism was my calling and that I have no future in television. But it will at least give you something to entertain yourselves with while I languish in the sweltering heat of Earth's armpit, contemplating all of the wrong turns I must have made in life to end up HERE! But until next time...keep the cards and letters coming.

I eloped..........(okay, not really)

We've all heard stories of people who've been dating for years that just wake up one day and decided to get married, right? Maybe they're IN Vegas already. Maybe they juant off to the courthouse and get 'er done. No fanfare, no pomp or pretense. They just slip away to tie the knot and come back with a story to tell.

Well....on Aug. 7th I made a life-altering vow that is, in some ways, akin to eloping. The Air Force and I have been in a "relationship" for more than 14 years. We've had our ups and downs. I have almost walked away more than once. At times, ours has not been a match made in heaven. My time in blue started almost on a whim and there have been almost as many low points as there have been highs. But I came on this deployment with the realization that I was nearing the end of my contact. I was free to walk away once I got home and never look back - no harm, no foul. And I won't lie - in the past five months, that has been a tempting proposition. But 14 years into a 20 year stint is a big investment. To walk away now would be an incredibly difficult decision and one that would likely have ramifications for many, many years to come.

I had been dragging my feet about raising my right hand one last time. We had been mulling it over since late June, thinking of ways to make this last one count. If you know you'll never do something again, you might as well make sure you're doing it the way you want. But, knowing I had some time to make it happen, I figured I would get to it when I got to it....

And then it happened. Sam (who has been described as the "big sexy black man" who's a magician with a Nikon) and I were going flying with a few of my very favorite guys from Bravo 2-18...You remember them? They're the (HOOAH) grenade tossing, 50-cal shooting, hook things up to a helicopter friends I've made out here. The thought was that a small group of us would board the CH-53 for some helicopter aerial refueling and then a flight over Lake Assal.

HAR is when our helicopter flies close enough to the ass-end of a C-130 that I could probably play a decent game of patty-cake with anyone on their plane while they extend a basket and hose for fuel. We then fly into position so we can attach the basket to our probe and they pass us gas - at 6,000 feet in the air. Hmmmmm...sounds SO good in theory. In reality, it's like sitting in a dilapidated Tilt-o-Whirl at your local county fair without a lap belt and no assurance that the ride won't break apart at any second and send you plummeting to your death. A C-130’s propellers spin on the vertical; a helicopter’s spin on the horizontal. That means there are two different aircraft beating the air into submission while trying to mate in the air. This lends itself to something THEY call turbulence. I just like to call it a chance to revisit any meal I might have eaten in this fiscal year. But we all know I'm not fond of flying so I need not describe this process any further.

Lake Assal is the hottest place on Earth (really) and has the saltiest body of water anywhere (really). It looks pretty...it smells like death. So while it's 138 in Djibouti, it's going to be a good 20 degrees hotter at the lake. For those of you who've ever heard the phrase "Anything over 110 and you don't feel it..." I'd like to call shenanigans! You feel every single solitary increase in temperature. It's just that it gets too hot to care. You're no longer able to muster the strength to whine about it, for fear that if you open your mouth your tongue will catch on fire and you'll die a slow, hot, thirsty death.

Soooooooo anyway.... I get an e-mail at like 1 in the afternoon from Lt. Richards that says "Hey Kati, wanna reup TODAY?" Huh? What? Me? Kati who? And then I realized it couldn't be more perfect. It would be JUST what I wanted. I, an Air Force NCO, would be on a U.S. Marine Corp helicopter, being reenlisted by an Army officer while flying over the Gulf of Aden - in a "combat zone." It really doesn't get more "joint force" than that! So, Sgt. Drew Miller procured a flag. Sam had his camera. And we had our kick ass platoon sergeant, SFC Joe Taylor, and my favorite (sarcastic) squad leader, SSG Ray Mackey, on hand to hold the flag. 1st Lt. Richards was there to administer the oath. Nothing extra. No BS. No strap hangers. No hurt feelings because someone was or wasn't invited. Just us, a helicopter and a sunset.

Up until the very second I raised my right hand, I was pretty sure I didn't want to do this again. I have had hesitations every day for the past two years. I am tired of being away from home. I am tired of moving. But the second I stood tall, looked Lt. Richards in the eye and stated my name I knew -without a doubt - that I was doing the best thing possible for myself, my family and our future.

As far as WOW moments go, for me this was right up there. Yes, I have done some really cool things in my life, but the pure feeling of pride and the incredible sense of belonging were amazing. I was blessed to have some very good people with me to share that moment. I wasn't with my family, but I was with people who've made every effort to make me a part of theirs!

Because I can't leave well enough alone...

Today, I'd like to start by polling the audience. By a show of hands, who knows that I just can't leave well enough alone? Very good! I try. I really do. But there are just so many targets of opportunity in my day-to-day dealings that sometimes, my cup runneth over and I feel the need to act.

Case in point? The black flag! A refresher for my military friends; a primer for my civilian readers. The military has never been an organization fond of "free thinking" on the part of its urchins. To be honest, they like to inform of us everything. I'm fairly certain this "information" comes only from committees formed for the sole purpose of holding meetings to establish the need for meetings where they then hold a meeting to discuss the results of the meeting.

When it comes to the ambient temperature, we're not trusted to simply "feel" whether it's warm or not. Someone, somewhere (surely with the help of a committee and contracted scientists who held studies) decided we needed a "system" in place to let us know just how hot it is. I know, I know... My techie friends like to take a more direct route and actually open a door or window and decide for themselves what it feels like outdoors. There is also the camp that likes to get crazy and switch over to the Weather Channel to decide how hot the day will be.

But not the military. The military has settled on FLAGS as the best means to announce the temperature. Before you scoot over to http://www.m-w.com/ to look up the word "flag" and any alternate meanings, let me stop you. By flag, I clearly mean a usually rectangular piece of fabric of distinctive design that is used as a symbol, as a signaling device or as a decoration.

Our flags are much like a color chart for five year olds. Green means good. The weather is nice, you're free to wreak havoc outdoors. Yellow means use caution; it's getting warmer. Red means it's rather hot and you should think before spending a prolonged amount of time in the sun. Then there's black. The black flag means (and this is a loose definition) good lawd it's hot out here. Get indoors. You have no business being out here. Stand in one place too long and you just might burst in to flames.

The problem with this system, for me at least, is that we are in "black flag" here by 8 a.m. - consistently. So as I walk to work in the morning, I see that 3' by 5' piece of nylon mocking me from its place atop the flag pole. It's right there on Main Street for all to see. It would proudly snap in the wind here, but there is NO wind and therefore it hangs there limply, like my spirits each morning when I see it. We're in a place where the LOW (as in l-o-w) was 102 the other day. That's not low - not in golf, not in age, and certainly NOT in tempature.

Now, by 2 p.m., when the mercury has climbed past Africa Hot and is working its way steadily toward 100 and stupid, a black flag just doesn't do justice. The flag has now been on the mast for more than 6 hours of the day. Birds have fallen from the sky simply because it's too hot to fly any farther. But there's the flag - taunting me.

So I decided we needed something that signifies how hot it really is here. Enter the Jolly Roger. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is me in the photo. I walked proudly down Main Street at 2:30 in the afternoon, lowered the understated and offensive plain black flag and replaced it with something I deemed much more fitting for the temperatures of mid-July in Djibouti.

Wait, wait... Before you think "Kati, won't you get in TROUBLE for this?" let me tell you. I did my research. It's not vandalism - I didn't actually willfully or maliciously destroy or deface public or private property. It's not theft - I returned the original flag to its rightful owner immediately. And it's not malicious - no one was harmed in the raising of the new flag. I even went so far as to research the regulations regarding the "flags" and read that it must be "black in color and made of nylon or cloth and be at least 3' by 5' in nature." No where did it specify that it must be "unadorned."

WILL I get in trouble for this? Possibly. I'm sure there is someone, somewhere on this camp who will not see the humor in this exercise. I may be accused of "making a mockery" of the flag system (valid) and I might be accused of being "insubordinate" (guilty) but I can tell you this... No one, in my entire life, has ever yelled louder than my father, and a little verbal dressing down never hurt anyone.

I promise you this: should I get reprimanded for my little stunt, I will certainly post the transcripts right here for all to see. And if it comes in the form of a written counseling, I will be sure to ask that they detail my actions. And then I will frame it and hang it for all to see.

Start collecting bail money please. There is a pool being conducting right now "aboard" Camp Lemonier and the smart money has me incarcerated before I actually get on a plane out of here. I don't think it's EVER smart to bet against Kati, but we'll see!

Until next time!

(Look at the random guy taking a pic of my flag as he walked by. HE thought it was funny!)

Am I crazy?

That's me on the far left of the photo, hook in hand, waiting for the CH-53 to drop low enough that we can attach to it.

(Before I start, let me mention that the LOW day before yesterday was 102. So maybe it's the heat getting to me...)

I think I'm crazy. It's official. Remember my "friends" from the Army's 2-18 FAR? The ones that left me in the middle of the Djiboutian desert in the middle of the night as "training"? The same ones who taught me to throw live grenades? Well... here we go again.

Bravo Platoon Sergeant - "Hey Kati...wanna come to sling loads with us?" (Grunt, hooah, grunt)

Kati - Sure, sounds GREAT... (Type, type, enter...Kati frantically looks up the definition of "sling load" on Google. God bless Google, right?)

So I'll save you the search on the world wide web and explain to you what I had no clue about... Here's how it works. You fly on a CH-53. Just so you know, the CH-53 is 88 and a half feet long. It can carry a crew of up to 55 (although that's a bit much and 37 is more standard). It's an inch shy of 25 feet tall. The rotor has a 72 foot diameter. And it weighs 33,500 pounds. So it's not small.

They fly you out to an "airfield" (in Djibouti that's a fancy word for some hard ground in the middle of NOWHERE!) in the desert and you get left (hmmmm...it's becoming a trend with these guys).

There, parked in the middle of the "airfield", is a humvee. This is what you're going to "sling load." You take some pretty churched up ropes and some chains and hook them to the humvee. Then (and this is the part even the Web fails to mention) the helicopter comes over you and hovers. And by "over you" I mean that while this Winnebago with wings is beating the air into submission, you can reach up and slap the belly. It's not like you're standing under the Channel 7 Eyewitness News 'Copter, right? No, it's more like Good Morning Vietnam has landed on your head.

Oh, and just so you know, slapping the belly isn't a wise move. Rumor has it (and I certainly wasn't going to try to disprove THIS theory) that as the helo hovers, it builds up static. So if you touch it before someone grounds it, it will send 75,000 volts through you. Doesn't seem like a fun party trick to me so I decided to avoid that part.

Well anyway, while you're under the helicopter, it's pretty calm. But as it comes in, it's pushing down 194 knots of rotor wash (that's like 220 mph winds for normal people) so you're getting blown around. To combat this, every "hooker" (yes, today I was a hooker - let's just choose to pass that one up please...) has a bracer. A "bracer" is someone who hunkers down, grabs your waist with both arms and braces you to the ground using your weight and theirs. The goal is to combine weights to obtain more than 350 pounds (not too difficult, considering we're all wearing 35 pounds of combat gear and these are grown men). The intent is that you don't want to get tossed around the desert like Raggedy Andy (or in my case, Raggedy Ann).

So there is a "front" man and his bracer, the ground guy and his bracer and the "leg" man (moi) and my bracer. Plus there's a spotter and a safety guy under there. All in all, we're throwing a little party under a machine that God never intended to fly. The intention is that the helicopter will come in, hover, you'll "ground" it and then the hookers (yes, yes, I'm a hooker) will attach their chains to giant hooks extending from the bird. Then you need to get out of there ASAP so they can take off without smacking you with the humvee as they lift it off the ground.

So here's how you get out...You run - backward - as fast as you can. And once you get to the point where the wind is too strong, you drop down to your knees. Then, you pull your feet up, push off with your hands and SLIDE backward on your kneepads as far back as you can, as fast as you can. Really...that's how it works. So now, close your eyes and picture ME, in a helmet and goggles, 35 pounds of body armor and gear, dressed in knee pads, getting tossed around by rotor wash and sliding backward on the hardpack. No, really, try hard. Come on... You can do it! Not so much? It's okay - I wouldn't have believed it either.

As we were under the helo for the first iteration, I looked up and realized that I had the WHEEL of a helicopter swaying at shoulder level and 15 some odd tons of steel bouncing inches from my dome. It was right then that I thought "Maybe this is it... Maybe this is the time I actually went too far and got in over my head..." But as quickly as I had the thought, it was over with, the hook was there, I was connecting the clevise to the hook and getting the heck out of dodge.

Once you're out of the way, the 53 takes off, humvee dangling beneath, flies around the desert and then comes back. It drops the humvee back to earth, shakes off the ropes and flies away. Then we get to reset the ropes and chains and get in position for it to come back and pick up the vehicle again. This, my friends, is sling load training.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about Kati and the joys of spy rigging, but really, I will only have so many "GI Kati" experiences in my life - I want to be able to milk them just a little.

I never thought I'd....

Hunter S. Thompson created a brand of journalism known as "Gonzo journalism." It's a style of journalism where reporters involve themselves in the action to a degree that they become the central figures of their own stories. I have never been a big fan of this style of writing - for my job at least. But I am a firm believer that if I want to write about something, I should at least experience it to some degree.

Now granted, you don't need to subject yourself to near death in a fiery building in order to describe it to your readers. They all know what "hot" feels like and can imagine, on their own, how miserable smoke inhalation may be. But in other cases, I think it's important to actually DO something before you tell anyone about it.

This is where the mission of 2-18 FAR's Combat Search and Rescue team comes in to play. This group of 30+ soldiers is deployed from Ft. Sill, Okla., to Djibouti for the better part of 15 months. And their mission, should it come down to it, is to pull Americans out of harm's way when things go wrong - terribly wrong.

I wanted to write a feature on these guys and what they train for. So I decided to join them on a few of their training missions. Little did I know that my version of "observer" was vastly different from theirs. They asked me to go with them on Sunday night to take part in a simulation (this is a KEY word - because to me, simulation means pretend; to them, it's a different beast all together). I met them on the flight line and geared up (flak vest, helmet, goggles, face protection, night vision goggles, and so on) and they start giving out assignments. The drill calls for four "injured personnel" to be recovered from an aircraft "accident" in the middle of the desert. And guess who one of the "victims" will be?

So I troop out to a running CH-53 helicopter with my three Army "friends" and off we go. We fly for 15 minutes and I realize it's getting awfully dark and I have no real idea where we are... And then we land - on what looks like the surface of the moon. There is nothing out there but lava rocks and powdery dirt. With the bird still running, we're sent out the back and told to start walking for about 100 meters and then lay down and act "injured" - and they take off.

So now I'm in the middle of a desert, in the dark, with three people I have known for a whopping 45 minutes. I think my dad might have warned me about this at some point in my adolescence, but it's all a little vague now. So we start walking - okay, they're "walking" and I'm half running to keep up. We walk for what to ME seems like a few miles but they assure me they have been counting and we're where we're supposed to be.

Out of nowhere I hear the sound of a helicopter coming over the mountain - and then I see gun fire! Yes, SEE. Because the 50 cal in the helo is shooting tracer rounds - about 25 meters from where we are.

I have one "IR" chem light on me. This is a glow stick (like the ones kids have on Halloween) that allows the guys in the air to see you on the ground through their night vision. At this point, I broke open several more, cracked them and starting sticking them anywhere I could find space - just to be SURE the boys in the air could see me.

After 20 minutes of laying down fire, with dust flying everywhere, 15 people came out of NOWHERE to rescue us. It was like a scene from a bad movie - guys in black carrying weapons advancing out of the smoke and dust. They did their "thing" to make sure we were who we said we were, picked us up (literally) and threw us back into a helicopter (the same one that dropped them off, but not the one that was still flying over shooting 50 caliber rounds uncomfortably close to where I was).

After what seemed like a LONG flight back to base, they said "hey, we're going to the range on Tuesday. Want to come blow things up with us?" I guess I was still shell shocked because before I knew it, my head was nodding "yes" even as my mind was screaming "YOU IDIOT - THEY TRIED TO KILL YOU ONCE.... GET AWAY...."

So Tuesday morning, at the crack of dawn (these boys like the dark I guess), I head out to the middle of the desert (yet again) with these guys. This time, we're going to throw grenades (by we, I mean me too, but I took photos so you can all see the proof - I really DO throw like a girl!), fire the AT-4 (the AT part stands for Anti Tank) and the 9mm.

Grenades make a MUCH bigger boom than I ever thought. And the whole John Wayne pull with your teeth and throw shtick? NOT SO MUCH!!! It's funny how your bravado tends to wane just a little when there is a threat of blowing yourself up!

The AT-4 has an amazing concussion...it jammed not one but two of my cameras (and these are GOOD cameras). But when they'd fired the 12th of 18 of these shoulder-mounted rockets, we had a dud. This means it fired but didn't go "boom." So now the nice (yet totally crazy) boys from EOD got to walk out to the middle of the desert, find this 84 caliber round of unexploded KABOOM and drop some C4 on it.

It was at about this point in the day that I realized the people I was writing about are straight crazy... All of them... and that just as I don't need to light myself on fire to image that it would hurt, I also don't need to follow the boys from CSAR around anymore to know that their job is SCARY!!!! So I will sit down in the next day or two and finish the feature on them. But I will complete it without anymore "hands on" experiences. Because I don't need to include myself in their story to the point that I become one of the central figures in some painful "training" accident!

In all honesty though... If it does go wrong one day and someone has to come get me, I hope like hell it's the boys of the 2-18's Charlie battery. I have never met a group of people more dedicated to what they do or more willing to put it all on the line to make sure we all get home safely. So may hats off to them. They're better men than me!

Stop the madness!

It is with glee, gratitude and gladness in my heart that I plead with you to STOP THE MADNESS! After today's mail call, the Triscuit Total (just the unopened boxes, not the ones we've already plowed through) stands at 12. There are officially 14 cans of Easy Cheese still waiting to be consumed. I have Goober in grape AND strawberry. And I have lost count of the vast number of Hostess products that have past through my hands (and lips!). There are cookies and candies, cakes and cards. There are lotions and potions and even an inflatable beach ball!

The contributions to SAIA have come from far and wide. Leigh in Italy tracked down Chewy Runts and endured looks of disdain from a Shoppette cashier (you work at the SHOPPETTE - are you REALLY in a position to look down on someone?) when she bought out their stock. Michelle, who is in the middle of a PCS move, bought out the commissary's pastry aisle just to have her "badass kids" (her words, not mine) eat the cache before she could mail it. She found a Conoco and a CVS and was able to pull it together, though!

I have gotten contributions from people I've never met - Cindy's Aunt Cindy in Pa., for example, made sure my diet NEVER gets back on track. Ian's wonderful girlfriend, Aubrey, has included a little something in each of her care packages that makes me smile. And there have been contributions FOR people you've never met (Cindy is stocked up on Swedish Fish for life - and she says thanks mom!) My parents sent (among other things) bacon cheese to add to the Tricuit goodness. Michele's mom (who has enough to worry about, as her own daughter is serving in Iraq right now) made sure I have what it takes to pamper myself (smell good lotions and pedicure stuff to last for months!). Scott's mom found a way to get homemade cookies here fresh and almost in one piece. Aaron sent Mother's Day cards and roasted garlic goodness with letters from my boys. Rick sent his own Mother's Day love in the form of more calories than I have a right to eat this year... And the list goes on. So, to all those I've mentioned (and those of you I haven't) - THANK YOU!!!!!

My entire office loves you and you have made sure I am smiling during each and every mail call (which are not many, but I ALWAYS have something to look forward to). But we're out of space (both in the office and in our pants!). I no longer need to walk to the chow hall for meals because I have enough packaged, processed, preserved foods to endure a large nuclear holocaust. I honestly laugh with each and every box that comes in. I feel more loved and thought about than I ever thought possible.

Many of you have told me I'm in your prayers. For that, thank you! Just knowing that helps me to sleep much better at night. Honestly!

We're halfway there! I'm five days away from hitting double digits. I am trying not to count days, so I'm counting more manageable milestones. Right now I have seven rotators, eight paydays and 16 Malaria Meds left until I can have REAL Mexican food (chips and salsa here I come!!!).

Thank you again for all your love and support. I really appreciate all you've done to make me smile day in and day out. Please keep the e-mails coming and I'll post new photos as soon as SOMETHING happens that is worth blogging about. And please keep me in your thoughts as I head to the gym to undo the damage of the past six weeks. And if you're looking to send love in the form of tangible gifts, I can always send you the link to my Vickie's wish list!