Further Reflections

The signs that our time overseas continue to appear.  Almost every Clip/section seems to have made they own t-shirts to remember our time here.  The amount of personal items in the barracks is growing smaller by the day, while at the same time the amount of foot lockers being mailed to Iowa is growing.  Creature comforts that have been there for us for months are being sold off or given to our replacements.  Most importantly however, we have actual quality down time for the most part.

While not taking care of the fewer loose strings we have before leaving here, or surfing the web, or reading, or writing a possibly never-to-be-published article, I find myself reflecting more and more upon the last year.  Like everyone there are things I wished I would not have done, the hypothetical left turns that I probably should have taken rights on, and the things I wish I had either done more often or just done to begin with.  Overall though, I am happy for the most part with how things went these last twelve months as not did I personally, but the company as a whole accomplished a lot.

What do I wish I may have done different?  For one thing I have never been satisfied with how this blog has come out.  I think the impression people may have had in the beginning was it would be closer to a news-style source of information about the unit and our activities.  While I had certainly hoped to have news-style postings, I never wanted to lose the personal quality of what I wanted to write about.  At the same time though, this thing has just never felt quite "right" in tone and content.  I suppose knowing that almost my entire chain of command, as well as many of my fellow unit members, read what I write may have coloured things a bit.

I wish I had brought a Nikon dSLR over sooner.  The Canon I used up until Leave that KIMT provided was OK for vacation-type footage, but for anything more serious, or still photos, it was quite lacking.  The Panasonic I brought from home was set up perfect for what I wanted to do, but conditions over here (as well as being exhausted) prevented me from doing things I had written about before we left the States.  Someday I'm going to switch over totally to Panasonic, quite possibly with their DMC-GH1 model (a dSLR that shoots HD video with all the extras I want)...but that's a post for another day and a purchase for when my re-enlistment bonus shows up again in January/February.  During the year I did set up various trial blogs to see how things looked, but they usually only lasted a week at most before I decided they lacked the proper feel.

I also wish I had taken more pictures and videos on the road.  A lot of the others have their cameras going while we up/down-loaded, driving down the road in general, or just goofed off and unwound at the end of the work day.  I myself was always searching for just the right "look" before I'd even unzip my camera bag.  Two places I really wish I had more photos of are CSC Scania (forever my favourite place in Iraq) and Ur.  Due to a lot of changes in the last six years Ur was unfortunately out of the question.  What usually kept my shied away at Scania was I never did receive an authorization memo for using my camera in Iraq, and I still do not fully trust the Ugandan security forces there.  As I work on writing the previously mentioned article, I find myself almost regretting not having more photos of Scania and how the different market/shop areas were arranged.

All in all though I am happy with how this last year has turned out.  Things didn't go exactly as planned or came out perfect by any means (I certainly have some bumps in Life to smooth out when we get home), but over all I really can't complain.  Like I would imagine is the same with everyone else, I've not only changed during the last twelve months, but grown both professionally and as a person.  I've learned from my mistakes, celebrated the things I've accomplished, and in the end am a better person for it all...I suppose you could say I wouldn't change a thing.

For those wondering when our homecoming is, I honestly have no idea.  We've unofficially figured out when our flight window is, but any further details we have yet to be told.  Rest assured though, we'll be home by the end of the month as told last year down at Ft. Bliss.

Everyone be safe, we'll be home soon.

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