Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Well, Thanksgiving is over, everyone's stuffed stomachs have now shrank back to normal size by now, and that last bit of left overs are probably getting finished up. I hope that everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, that the food was good, and that time with family was fun and as stress free as the holiday times allow. I'm finally off of that 2 week detail in the 'Green Zone' in down town Baghdad, and I have to say, the end of that COULD have come sooner! One thing that was a bummer was that I was there for Thanksgiving, and the food was so bad it is almost funny! The mashed potatoes, oh my gosh, were so devoid of flavor that it almost hurt my tongue! I put two of those single serving butter things into it, a load of salt and pepper and I STILL could not taste anything... yeah, weird. The Gatorade was good though! Then again, it does get shipped over here, so it is impossible for the cooks over here to screw that up.

I also have some very good news for everyone! Now, this is subject to change, as is everything in regards to the military, but none the less, they said that we could tell this to people. That fact alone leads me to believe that this is more than likely going to happen more than it wouldn't. Ok, so I'm sure the suspense is killing everyone, so here it is: We got word that we will be leaving about an entire month early! That puts us traveling back to the states around.... late April, early May, roughly. I obviously couldn't tell anyone the exact date, even if I did know which I don't, but because of that fantastic thing called OPSEC! But either way, I've just jumped one month closer to home! I'M OVER HALF WAY DONE!

At first I was thinking, you've got to be kidding right? Well, the reason for this 'change in orders' was because someone, either in Washington or a high up Military official, was concerned that we would go over our 400 day total deployment. Why the concern? Well, because we are the first National Guard group to get deployed in this brand new 400 day deployment length. It would look pretty bad if they screwed up with the first group that went over, even if that was what all of us was expecting. To be honest, I was expecting to get extended a bunch of times. Not nearly as much as the last group from Minnesota that was here for 22 months, but still getting extended closer to the standard deployment length of 15 months.

So that's the news here! Pretty good stuff too, I might add! I'm definitely excited. Oh yeah, and it gets down to around mid 40's here at night! Man, I though that getting down to the 60's was cold, it feels like the dead of winter here! I'm sure everyone knows what that is like right about now, 20's as the low? NASTY! I never was one for the cold to begin with. How that ever happened to me being born and raised in Minnesota I will never know, but I like it a little warmer... ok, quite a bit warmer than 20 degrees! Well, I'll talk to everyone later; peace out.

Brandon

PS - JOHN BOWERS! You must email me or post your email! I never got your email. I tried to get either Pat or Doug to get everyone's emails together for me so I could keep in touch, but I never got them, whatever the reason is I don't really care. I don't even know if they are still at Brown or not! It would be really cool to touch base through an email; I'm itching to find out who's still there (obviously you still are!... right?), how everyone is, and what you guys have been doing! My email should still be up on the side of my blog somewhere... and if not, I will put it back up!

PSS - I'M COMING HOME A MONTH EARLIER! WOOT! (that's a gamer term, hehe)