02 54 27 32 15 16 22 04

Last night I woke up at 0200 in the morning wide awake. My sleep patterns have been a little bit off lately, between the virus I've been enduring the past eight days that has been spreading around the squadron and between all the excitement and anxiety about the trip home, I haven't gotten a solid night of sleep for about a week now. I decided to get up and walk around a little bit. I went outside and looked up at the night sky. Thousands of stars twinkling before me. It was beautiful. I also noticed that the temperature was quite cool, and a shiver overcame my body. When I walked up to one of my Marines who was on Bus Driver Duty, he said that the temperature up at the squadron read 54 degrees! This would make the coldest temperature I'd seen here in Al Asad and also the coldest I'd felt since last Christmas when I flew home to PA. It was refreshing, but I was glad I was wearing my fleece just the same.

It looks like everything is tracking, as they say here, and if all goes as planned, the beautiful tradewinds that blow through the Hawaiian Islands should be hitting my cheeks by the 27th.

One of the Angels asked for before and after pictures of "RJ's Al Asad Workout". lol. While I actually don't even have a digital camera right now, I can tell you that I measured my waist yesterday and it was a lean 32! This is a sharp contrast to the thirty-six inch waist I was pushing at one point in the deployment when I was bulking up, and I'm excited that two months of strictly hard work at the gym and dieting have paid off. I'm ready for Puerto Vallarta, which is in a mere 15 days!

AT 1600 today some of my Marines and I had a ceremony. I took all of the letters, package slips, cards and mail from the Soldier's Angels and I put it in a burn barrel and had a bon fire. Much in the same way that when a flag has reached the end of its useful life, it is burned out of respect and honor, I have done the same with all of my mail. I re-read each letter, looked at all my cards one last time, looked over all the items that were written on the postage slips to be sent to us - Strawberry Oreos, decorations, sandals, socks, cookies, toiletries, lubricant, etc - and one by one put them in the fire. I said a prayer and expressed my gratitude to each of the souls who contributed to the bon fire. I feel like it was one final expression of my gratitude for all that everyone has done for me here - my friends, family, and angels. Don't hate me because I'm not a packrat like my sister. Let me say again - each of those items had a purpose, and they are a part of me now.

Well, its almost time to take the 2200 bus back to the barracks to change and hit the gym. I figure if I can do some cardio I can burn off some energy and hopefully fall asleep. The last number is the remaining number in the countdown.

One more thing. When you leave your comments, please leave your full name and e-mail address when you comment (if you're comfortable with that). That way I can keep in touch with everyone and let you know when I next make a blog entry. I'll try to post once more before I leave here though.

Bye for now...