baghdad, iraq

hello all,
just wanted to write a quick note and tell everyone that i fianally made it to baghdad. the jvb is a really nice place to be. the people here are pretty nice and my job is goin to be great. on my free time i can go fishin right out my back porch and hit golf balls out into the lake. when i get a chance i will take some pictures and put them up here. it is hard to believe that god has blessed me so much and putin me up here. it is also hard to believe that i am in a combat zone and not at a resort. hope you all are doin great and i will write later

camp buerhan, kuwait

we made it to camp buerhan in kuwait, i think this is how it is spelled. to whole trip took 21hrs. we flew from georgia to new foundland canada, then to iceland, then to germany, and finally ended up in kuwait. we were up for about 40hr until we finally got some sleep. it took only about a coupld of days to get used to the time change, we tried to stay up all day then sleep at night to get used to the time change and jet lag, it seemed to work.

it hasnt been too bad here, two days ago they had a country band here playin music for about an hour and so we got a milkshake from baskin robin and just sat there for about an hour and a half just enjoyen ourselves and it felt like bein back home.

we will be hitten some ranges in the next couple of days and the weather here is about 110 to 125, it sounds hot but it is dry heat so it isnt too bad. tomarrow or the next day they are calling for a sand storm to hit so that will be exciting to see.

i hope all is well for everyone back home, Erika i love you, and i send my love out to everyone else, thank you for all your prayers, and keep all my fellow soilders in your prayers as well

love you all
justin

mansion on forsythe park

hello to all

sorry that i have not written for a while, our internet here has been pretty bad, and i have also been pretty busy up till a couple of days ago. We are finally winding down from all of our training and getting ready to go over seas.

The three weeks i have at the hotel were pretty good. i got to know the chefs there and pick their brains. A couple of the chefs grew up in the south so i got to learn how to cook some pretty good southern dishes. We are going to be cooking for the govener of oregon and TAG of Oregon as well plus two hundred more on July 2nd.

It looks like we are going to get the 4th off and i here savanah has a pretty good fireworks show and to make it even better, the love of my life is going to be here for that, so that makes everything great.

I finally got promoted to sargent. It is a pretty nice step up in life. It has its good moments and bad, but it is all good.


God Bless

JVB Hotel at AL-FAW Palace Complex

Here are some pictures of the AL-FAW Palace Complex. The JVB Hotel is behind on the right with columns, which is where I'll be.

christmas

hey kristi,
good news, all the visitors and high ranking officers go home for the hollidays, so they told us that christmas will be the time we get to come home. I figured that you would LOVE to hear that

j.v.b

for all who has not yet heard, at camp roberts CA. I was part of a team who cook for some dignataries and the General of Oregon and other high ranking officers and NCO's, apparently i know how to cook because the meal that we served got me a ticket to the joint visitors beareau in bagdahd. which means that i will be cooking in a five star hotel for all the high ranking officials that come in from that states and also enertainers. so that is some new news from my end and i will keep you all posted on how it all goes. thanks again for all your prayers and support

Ft. Stewart GA

This is the first hello from ft. stewart GA. The first step I got off the plane it brought back memories of basic training. We got off the plane about midnight and the muggyness in the air sank right it. It felt like north carolina. from about the first day we got here it has been go, go, go. We havent had too much time to ourselves, a lot of traing. One of the reasons why i havent been updated this blog.

We have been here for about two weeks now, the first week consisted of uniforms being issued and also our weapons. We got our vehicles dispatched to us and been going to ranges firing out M4's and 50 cal's.

This last week was a full week of intense training. We got put into firing teams wich consists of three soilders. One driver, one truck comander, and a gunner(which was me). We had a pretty big lane and we rolled aroung in the humvee's taking out targets during the day and night. It was alot of fun the first day, we scored 788 points out of 900. the second day I couldnt hit the broad side of a barn. It sucked, my platoon sgt. was me truck comander and he lade it on me on how i was screwing up, stressed me out just a bit.

so we had to go back on the third day and re-qualify. we needed to get 280 pts to pass, which ment that i had to hit all the targets. it was a good thing i did or my platoon sgt. would have kicked my ass. Then we went to convoy live fire. it consisted of 5 trucks, we had day and night missions, and we engaged targets.

this traing took about six days and we just got back yesterday. we averaged about four hours of sleep during the week. so it is nice to be back to catch up on sleep.

hope you all enjoy the little video i put together and thank you for all your prayers and support. May God bless you all and until next time