Living with Joe

Its been a few weeks since my last update so I guess its about that time.  The first thing I'd like to share is how wonderful it is to be living with and amongst soldiers....aka Joe!  Joe is a general term to refer to a soldier who has not yet grown up or figured out what he wants to do in life.  Joe struggles to maintain his individuality by wearing cowboy hats and large belt buckles instead of assimilating into the culture of his surroundings.

Joe also has a girlfriend.  Joe's girlfriend arrives every Friday night at the barracks via a taxi cab or bus and pulls behind her a rolling suitcase.  Joe's girlfriend takes the walk of shame down the hall of the barracks to Joe's room and then leaves sometime on Sunday or in special circumstances on Monday morning before PT.

So for the past month I have had the privilege of living amongst Joe with eleven Lieutenant Colonels and fourteen Majors.  I think we have all grown together due to our shared experiences.  For example, last weekend we were all awakened by Joe as he and his Joe friends tried to find their barracks rooms in a drunken stupor.  I smiled a little on the inside when I heard one of the Joe's tell the other Joe "happy father's day".

Tonight on the way back from dinner I passed a group of Joe's walking towards the Taxi stand.  Please see the attached picture.  The leader of this group was pushing a shopping cart for some reason while his underlings were dressed in mid-western wear...no doubt they were on their way to the club outside of Grafenwoher.

Okay.  Enough about Joe.

I received an email this week informing me that the Golden Knights...the Army parachute team...has made the decision to bring me on board after this deployment to be their air detachment commander.  Karen and I are pretty excited about that and we look forward to moving back to North Carolina.

I've finished up two weeks of Pashto training and we are all having a good time speaking very modest amounts of Pashto to each other.  In fact, much of our conversations at the chow hall and out in town have turned to three or four word Pashto phrases.  I'm glad there aren't many Pashto speakers in Germany because someone sitting near us would no doubt wonder why six Americans in a German biergarten were telling each other to put their weapons down, surrender, and sit down in Pashto.

This week has been full of advisor training as we've all been engaged in role playing scenarios and interpreter training.  We even had an authentic Afghan meal the other night.  I was thankful that a rival tribe did not ride in on horseback during the meal and steal all of our possessions....I guess it wasn't that authentic after all.

I am scheduled to head further East in about a month.  Its hard to believe that tomorrow is Carlie's 9th birthday.  She had her party today and grandma and grandaddy Hoke's house.  Due to the timing of this deployment I will also miss her 10th birthday....that isn't cool.

Ya'll take care and be on the lookout for Joe.

S.