Afghanistan

This is a very true article and everyone should read this. In my personal opinion I believe we should support our troops and support the original intention for going into Afghanistan. I believe in sending more troops to help execute the strategy will have a faster result on getting the job done. So we can get the hell out of dodge.

Busy Times

So it's been awhile since I have posted anything new. I received orders to Kadena AB a few months ago and will be heading there in a few weeks. Anybody in the military can understand what a busy time this is for me. As well as receiving orders, I married my love, my best friend and my soul mate Aron. Aron in in the National Guard and for the last few months we have been contacting all of our sources so Aron can come with me to Japan. He was supposed to deploy but with his deployment and training this summer that will keep us apart for about 2 years. Any with our marriage so new that makes it tougher. But we are swinging until we hit the ground and we are supposed to know something pretty soon, so keep your fingers crossed.

Blogging in the Air force world is starting to grow. I was approhed by public affairs here at whiteman a few weeks ago and they are very interested in getting a blog started for the base. I think it would be great in my personal opinon. It's the new way of commiuncating to the public at least with the younger generation. I think eventually they could grow with a blog and maybe discontuiue the newspaper. But this is a touchy subject. some people are not ready to get rid of the newspaper. Yes the newspaper is a classic way of learning current events, but the base paper is maybe 5 to 10 pages long and takes about 5 minutes to read. Really who actually reads the paper every friday when it comes out. I'm not sure how many they actually print but I'm sure it's to many. To me I think it is a waste of time and money that could be used in other areas that would benefit the public affairs better. But that's just my opinon.

I hope to keep up more with my blog especially when i pcs to Kadena. I'm sure I will have plenty of interesting things to write about there.

p.s. any opinons on bases blogging?

The Royals Home Opener 2009

Friday April 10th, 20 Air Force members from Whiteman were selected to hold the American Flag on the Field of Kauffman Stadium home of the Kansas City Royals. Well I was one of those members! Friday was the Royals Home Opener, but it was any ordinary home opener. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the KC Royals. So the folks at the Stadium put a wonderful pre-game show together. Which took some practice.

On Wednesday we all met at the Stadium in KC to have a dress rehearsal. A 4 hour practice!!! Well it was worth it. It was actually fun. There was a lot of waiting so in the mean time I took pictures. We got see a preview of the video they put together for the show. We were the first public eyes to watch it because it was a big secret!


Well I anxiously waited for Friday to come along as I was really excited to feel the rush of being on the field and hear the thousands of fans in the stands. My friend Carlin and I met up early and joined the many tailgaters in the parking lot. When I mean early I mean early. We were there around 1130am. (we had to be there by 1400.) We walked around and enjoyed the smell of the barbeque's going. We eventually made it into the stadium and walked around and around and around. We made it down to the dugouts were we got to watch practice.

Last year I was at a game and caught a foul ball. Well I brought this ball back with me and I'm sure glad I did. I got three autographs from the royals. Which included Miguel Olivo catcher, Alex Gordon infielder, and Trey Hillman manager of the Royals. I do have to say I am a big Yankee fan but unlike the yankees the royals were right there for autographs. Damm those Yankee's who make to much money and think they are to good for autographs (Had to get that out)



















Well it was time to meet up in the tunnel with the other AF people to get ready for the show. Each of us got in are positions with the 100ftx50ft flag to go out on to the field. We walked onto the field to hear the crowd roaring. What a feeling that was. We were against the outfield wall until everyone got in there spots. The had a very nice opening to the pre game show.

They gave us the cue to move up to the grass and then to run out with the flag. This was the greatest feeling, being able to run onto the field and open the flag up and hear the crowd go wild. Then the Star- Spangled Banner starts and as it end 4 A-10's from the 442nd Reserve Unit at Whiteman make a fly over the Stadium. It was so amazing I actually got goosebumps from it. I found this picture taken of the field of the finale of the show which has all of us in it. And also the video is so you can hear the crowd from the field.
















It was probably one of the best baseball games I have ever been to! The Yankees beat the royal 4-1 so i was happy.

I want to take this time to to thanks all the kind people at the game who bought my food, beers, drinks and Ice cream. That was so thoughtful. I didn't have to pay for one thing!

Earth Hour to Earth Day Challenge

So I have been following Napmom's Blog and she has been doing the Earth Day Challenge. Well I was debating whether or not I was going to do it since I already try to live green the best way I can.. But then I came across this website when I was trying to find a used book for my upcoming class. It's called Better World Books. Here is what the Online Book store with a soul has to say:

Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide.
With more than two million new and used titles in stock, we’re a self-sustaining, triple-bottom-line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for all our stakeholders.

They help raise money for Global Literacy. Also they save books from landfills. By doing this they are being green as well. They are recycling books so when a reader is done with there book they can sell it and then another person can buy it instead of buying a new book. Which saves trees from getting cut down. Not only does it benefit the earth but it benefits the seller and buyer. The seller can make money to buy a new book while the buyer saves a great deal of money from buying a used book. This last purchase I made saved me $144. I bought my College Algebra book for $8 people! It was in great shape too.

So check it out and do your part in saving the Earth.

One Year

February 13th was one year being Active Duty in the Air Force and one year since I left for basic training. Well this last Friday was one year graduating Basic training. So much has happened since then and I am well on my way to a successful career in the Air Force and each day getting closer to the day I get my Commission.

The picture to the left was taken the weekend I graduated basic. The picture to the right was graduating Tech School.

Here is a short slide show. The 1st pic was taken the weekend of bmt graduation. 2nd pic was graduation tech school. 3rd pic was taken at my promotion event at whiteman when I first arrived and the 4th pic was taken a few months ago on a Honor Guard Detail.

Silver Flag

Hello everyone. I know I have not been good about keeping this blog up to date. But I'm going to get this blog going again.

So as you can see my last entry was about going to Silver Flag training. Between the dates of 7 February and 14 February I went to Tyndall AFB to do some CE Prime BEEF training (It's pretty much warfare training for CE). Most CE troops play it off like it's nothing mostly because they have gone through the training before. But me being a new airman and my first time here I loved it. I learned more then I had ever thought I would and gained experience in other areas I was familiar with. The cadres put me in some leadership positions which taught me how to be a leader in some stressful environments. For the most part I came home with more knowledge then I had expected to and shocked everyone when I told them I had a great time.

When we were there we had to sleep in tents on cots for the week. Which wasn't bad at all. We also had to eat MRE's, they are the military ready to eat meals loaded with calories and vacuumed sealed food but if your lucky you might get a pack of m&m's or skittles. We were not allowed to leave the camp while we were there until the last day. Which happened to be Friday night. So when we were released a few of us met up with an old friend from Whiteman who moved to Tyndall a few months ago. He took us to the old town Panama City called St. Andrews. We eat on the rooftop of Uncle Ernie's. Let's just say we feasted on seafood and Martini's. I strongly recommend this restaurant it was excellent.

I put this slide show of pictures I took while I was there.



Here are a few very cool videos I took I think you will enjoy them.


This is the day we bombed the runway. If you saw some of the pictures from the slide show you will notice that there were some pictures of craters. Well they were from these bombs going off. You have to wait a little in the video there was a slight delay.

This video below was a practice fire on a C-130 for the firefighters.

Going Away

Well I'm off to Tyndall AFB for Silver Flag. Which is wartime training for Engineers like me. We will work hard and long hours and train for contingency. I will be gone for a week and back on Valentine's day.