Well, I am figuring that we are somewhere under 100 days to go on this deployment! Please do not accept that as gospel (or authoritative) - I am not writing this on behalf of the command, nor do I know the exact day of our departure. You may accept it as gospel (in the sense that it is good news!) - which is what the biblical word means - as, 100 days - give or take a few, is doable I think.
I understand from other Paratroopers, and from Facebook, and from my wife (who gets right to the point from time to time), that 100 days doesn't necessarily feel like good news right now. I definitely get it. With eight + months down - everyone seems to be feeling the cumulative weight of separation. For all of you who follow this blog from home (FT Rich) - know that we feel it too. Still, Jamie reminds me that it is more intense on your end. We leave, and life becomes entirely different. The sites, sounds, certainly smells, everything - for a year of our lives, have changed. Sometimes, in the course of things here, I find that it is very difficult to spend much time thinking about home. As I have explained it to Jamie before, it is just too hard trying to live in two places at the same time - emotionally then, I begin to disconnect in some ways. I certainly care deeply about what is happening back home and am anxious to hear about it, but my living has to be done here, in the company of soldiers.
I understand that for a soldier's wife it just is not that way. A soldier leaves, and the family just goes on - with much the same routine . . . minus one. Many of the things that were done as a family are still done, and the absence of the one is keenly felt. That must be very hard.
Then, 0f course, there are the typical hard things - like a house full of sick kids! As I am writing tonight, my wife and both kids are sick - all together; and I am asking the Lord for a fast healing for at least one of them! Last time this happened our son recovered first, as I recall, and was summarily called upon to heat soup, refill glasses of Gatorade, and generally become a servant. At the end of the day, my wife and I were glad for the experience on his behalf, and proud of the way that he rose to the occasion. Perhaps this time the result will be again to the development of a Christ-like spirit. Of course, I am getting of track - and the point was, that this is an especially difficult time - chiefly at home.
Encourage one another at least with this thought - no Airman, now arriving in Afghanistan, will complete his tour before Task Force Denali returns home! It took us a long time to arrive at this point - but we are finally there! I probably should not so often give voice or text to my Air Force envy - surely the scriptures address such a poor spirit but sometimes I just can't help it. I spent three years in Panama - most of it in the jungle - while my Air Force neighbor was home by four-thirty every work day (of which I think there were relatively few!) :-) Too often I came home filthy, frustrated, exhausted to Jamie's first words of greeting - why didn't you join the Air Force?
At any rate - we are not too far off now! Many of us will have been home a month before the Iditarod gets started. That is worth celebrating. Truly, that is good news.
Below (or above - now sure how this thing will format) - you will find some pictures from Sunday Service (today's) with the guys from B Troop. Perhaps you will see someone you recognize! If you don't - and you were supposed to (like - if the soldier you're looking for is in B Troop) please tell him to go to church! It is good for him! - and that his chaplain, but most especially his God - loves him!
Alright - enough for tonight, I suppose.
Grace and peace to you all, from our Lord Jesus -
chaplain matthew
Note - Can't get the Images to upload correctly right now - will try again later, I promise.
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