for erika

if it wasnt for erika, things wouldnt be goin as well as they are. she is holding everything down back home. for instants, she is workin her regular job, which is alot of work, runnin buddha bellys, taken care of the house in the dalles, keepin our house in hood river clean, inside and out. the outside was my job and it took a bit of time. plus she takes care of everything in my life that i can not do.

people think that deployments are just on the soilders shoulders, but their wives, i think, have a harder job. we the soilders focus on our task at hands, but our wives, they have multiple jobs. They go and do everything for a year missing a complete half of themselves. Most of us would have a hard time being away from our spouse for a week, but think of them doin it for a whole year. Erika, you are the best wife i could have ever asked for. i think God for ALL he has us put through, it has gotten us ready for this moment in our lives and for the present and the long future together. This is for you, and how much i appreciate all you does and this doesnt even start to show how much i miss and love you Erika. so for everyone readin this, pray for erika and all the wives that are going through deployments without our wives support, deployments would be a lot rougher.
love you all

poor me

hey yall
from the last time i wrote and told everyone about the knot, or bump i had on my leg, well it has gotten alot worse. what started out down by me knee, has gone up to outside of my quad just about up to my groin area. my leg is about two to three times that size of my other one. been seein our medics but they cant seem to find out what is wrong. let me tell ya what, it hurts quite a bit sometimes. they got me on some good drugs though, i get knocked out about twenty minutes after takin them. since the doctors hear cant figure it out, they are sending me to an er room, maybe to get an mri, and maybe surgery. who knows, so i am leavin here this morning to go and figure out why my leg is so big, so i ask everyone to say a prayer for me
love you all
justin

Gettin in the swing of things

hello all from my grand palace.
things are startin to get repetive around here now. we are all getting in the swing of things and the flow of how it is all goin to be. not to much excitin has been goin on around here, wich is a good thing. we have been doin our thing and i have been putting out some pretty nice plates for the people we have been cookin for. once i get my camera powered up i will put them on here. i have been meeting some pretty cool people and we just added another cook, so that will lesson the load a little bit, (but it wasnt all the rough without him). i have been cooped up in my room for the past few days, the medics said that i have an imflamed muscle in my quad so i have been hoppin around like a bunny rabbit. it is not too fun, every buddy i go by asks what happened and it is gettin pretty old. i dont even know what happened. one day i was fine the next morning it wasnt. besides all of that just gettin into my routine, cookin, sleepin, workin out, and hittin golf balls. it is kinda hard to be me, i dont wish this on anyone:) life is too rough over here.
i hope all is well back in your neck of the wooks, ahh, since i am bed riddin for a while one of my privates just brought me lunch.
yall take care, love yall, keep prayin for all of us
justin

this is a little journey from the states to kuwait then up to iraq then is ends wth the pictures of the al fasad complex, i think that is how it is spelled. so this is what i get to see everyday while i am at "work"

mansion on forsythe park

here is a little video of myself and my section cooking at the mansion. enjoy

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