A Little Break

Hello everyone! It's been a while... I've gotten a good taste of how crazy inventory-ing all of our gear is going to be. Very crazy. It took a little over two weeks and a lot of re-tracing my steps. I updated my gear tracker though so it should be a lot better next go around. (5 days!!!)

Exciting news... about a week ago we took small groups back and forth from the dam to go swimming. The water felt AMAZING and the marines loved it. It was a good morale boost for a proven tough week ahead. I'm glad we made the time for it. We also found a boat down there that does not work too well and we didn't use it for any boat rides, but we did hook it to a trailer and bring it to the FOB with hopes of fixing it up nice.

I'm sitting here eating White Cheddar Cheez-it's, drinking Arizona "Southern Style Real Brewed" Sweet Tea and watching The Office. That is what I call IDEAL. I'm pretty excited about this moment right now.

As another month wraps up it is hitting me again how fast time is going. I'm still enjoying it up here. I have such a unique opportunity with this battery and I am not taking it for granted. I'm already looking forward to my future B-Billet which is another 3 1/2 years long where I get to give back to the Marine Corps some and teach. I know for a fact this experience here will be the topic of many discussions.

The tough times we've had the past couple weeks has really brought us together and made us think about how we are running things. Here's an issue I'm learning. When you always win, you think about how you just won and therefore try to keep doing that same thing. Now, when you lose, you think about how you can not ever lose again. Therefore, after a while, the loser has the advantage because they have to force themselves to think outside the box and find a way to be better. Yes, I haven't gotten too good at explaining myself but hopefully you catch my drift. As they say, knowing is half the battle and realizing this will help us continue to see progress in the area. Speaking of progress in the area, the locals are starting to trust us more. We no longer have to pull information from the farmers. They are now starting to come up to us to talk about all kinds of good information. Also, they started telling the insurgents they don't want them in their town anymore because they only bring harm to the area. All of that means it is a very fragile state right now. We have to be very careful not to make any mistakes. The more we show we are here to help and provide stability to the area through training up the local police, it will only get better. The local police are much more disciplined than the Iraqi's were so thats at least one plus!

Alright well I'm going to run! Look me up on Skype as marinemiller29 or Roy F Miller IV. It's turning out to be the best way to communicate. Ta ta for now