Good morning, dear readers!!

The intent today is to update you all on life here in "sunny" Georgia. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the coldest winter I've ever spent is the one at Fort Stewart, having sent my snivel gear forward. Which is, ultimately, my own fault. At first, I ranted about the "packing list" the sergeants major came up with, which directed us to send it all forward. Yeah, bad idea. Thank God, I have a wife who loves me, appreciates me and supports me. So, she's sent me my field jacket liner (oddly enough, nowhere on the official packing list), my winter boots (the gore-tex lined ones) are on the way (also should have sent those forward) and my REI package of a pair of gloves will arrive shortly too. Oh, and she sent me my underarmor thermals, so life is improving. Last night we had temperatures in the upper 20s, no heat and so this morning was chilly. Folks 'round here tell us that days begin to warm up quickly after January, so maybe in a couple of weeks, my feet will be warm during the day. It's all temporary, but just uncomfortable enough to be distracting.

Training has been good. We hit base defense, we're moving now into operation center based exercises, probably two or three weeks' worth of them. This will be interesting, as we're really trying to run two separate functions out of our company. We've been in contact with our counterparts in theater, and what our "trainers" are expecting us to pull off makes as much sense, according to them as, "a cop mowing a lawn in the middle of a domestic disturbance call." Nonetheless, we will do our level best.

I've had to really be careful and watch my temper and my mouth. Already I exploded on a lieutenant, who didn't deserve it. Granted, he had given me a couple real flip answers during the day, and then I saw red at some point, but the flip answers didn't deserve the intensity of my response. I apologized, beat myself up and such. Kim and I talked it all out, so I have some decent self talk going on to help out with it all. Learning to get beyond the immediate slight discomforts, the trainers who seem to not think, coworkers who have annoying habits (I do too, so it's not entirely one sided), senior NCOs who can't close doors behind them, etc, is the essential challenge. Learning to get beyond the immediate annoyances is the real work here.

All that said, it's still not too bad. It doesn't rain all that often, and when it does, the entire task force is indoors for most of it, so that's no biggie. The chow is still good, the DFAC is still open 24 hours a day and we have, literally, a virtual unlimited supply of Diet Coke and coffee. So,no real complaints. According to the weather man, temperatures are supposed to rise through the weekend, maybe I'll start getting out on the running track in the afternoons, pending training exercises. Would be a nice change of pace. That's life for now. We all are looking forward to the four day pass in March and finally getting into country, where conditions will be better.

Enjoy!