Proud New Owner

That's right, I'm now the proud new owner of a Glock Model 23 handgun. This is something that I have wanted since I turned the ripe old age of 21. Now I have seen my dream come true 4 years later. What better way to spend some of that hard earned combat pay?

Update: my Dell laptop is working once again and I didn't even have to reformat and start all over again. Thanks to the diligence of Aaron and his father. Though in light of recent events, and the fact that external hard drives are so friggin cheap, I am going to invest in one so I will not lose my precious files and pictures.

Its Official

Yep its official, I hate my Dell Laptop. Its been almost a month since it just went crazy on me and decided not to boot up and give me some weird error message. It worked fine during the many months of the summer heat and dust of Iraq, but on the way home, it gave up on me.
Normally, I wouldn't mind this all too much and would just reformat the hard drive and reinstall everything. Though this time, I have a great deal of pictures and videos from my deployment that I really can't live without. So right now, I am having Aaron and his dad look at it for me. There is hope, I think I will be able to save my personal files.

In other news, over the weekend, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines were honored at the Cleveland Browns game on Sunday. I was able to get a ticket to go and about 20 of us were put on the field during the singing of the National Anthem. It was a pretty amazing feeling hearing the whole stadium cheer for us. We were also able to meet the Romeo Crennel, the Browns head coach, and former Marine Commandant General Krulak. Overall it was a pretty good day, except when the Browns lost.

Also, work at the reserve center in Columbus is going pretty good. I mean, we come in at 0900 and leave by 12 or 1300. That a bad deal really. As for the work part, just cleaning a couple of rifles a day and today was the hardest day so far; we had to count all of the issued gear. That took about 3 hours, then went home for the day. Oh, I just got a phone call and now I don't have to work tomorrow! 3 day weekend, what to do...

Trouble Sleeping

One of the things I've been have trouble with lately is my sleep. This was never a problem while I was in Iraq, but now that I home I find it hard to sleep but 1-2 hours before I wake up. I usually just lay there and then fall back to sleep to only be awoken a couple of hours later. The reason for this is probably due to the amount of security/fire watch that we had to do during the night when we occupied buildings in Iraq. You could only get a few hours of sleep in before it was your turn to due an hour or more of watch. Now this makes it difficult to get a full night of sleep and makes me feel very groggy during the day. At the same time, I occasionally have some bad dreams involving combat related events.

I've talked with some of the other Marines and find this to be somewhat common occurrence. That makes me feel a little better and I believe with a little bit of time, things will eventually go back to normal for me.

Also, I wanted to take the time to give a thank you to Chugach Man, from Flickr, for giving me a 1 year Flickr Pro account. This will allow me to keep all of my pictures that I have posted this year and to contiune posting numerous pictures in the future with few limitations. So, take the time to view his work and leave a comment or two for him.

Homecoming

Well, it's been awhile since my last post and that is mostly due to the fact that I've been just relaxing these past couple of weeks (also my laptop died on me the last week in Iraq). If anyone is interested in what kind of homecoming we had, check out this link and watch the video because words can not desribe the show of support we got from the community.

http://www.nbc4i.com/news/5065738/detail.html

So far, I've been just relaxing at home and a large number of friends have came by to visit me. I've also had a chance to visit my older brother in Akron last weekend. In all, it has been really great to be back and see how everyone is doing. And, of course, being treated like a hero around town, which can be nice sometimes.

Now, I am back in Columbus working at my drill center because I volunteered to finish out my orders till January 3rd. Then its off to college again at Wright State University.

Heading Home

The soldier is alone... as he is never alone in battle

The weight of all he has seen and done bears down on his broad shoulders. The soldier's personal war is over: he is Heading Home.

-Thomas Kinkade



Lima Company is coming home tomorrow (Friday) morning.

Back in the States!

Finally, after a couple weeks of "decompression" time spent at Al Asad, Iraq, and in Kuwait, Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines is finally back in the states.