Well everyone, not sure if you've given up on me by this point but wanted to check back in with those of you who may still be monitoring after a very LONG absence. I reached a point somewhere in the middle of my deployment to Iraq where the work load was just too intense to consider taking time to pound out a blog. Besides, my brain was so mushy that I'm not sure I would have been able to give you anything worthwhile. That said, what I'd like to do now is give you the short

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It appears that I am only getting around to having anything important to say about once a month. I really wanted to do a bit better than that but as I've been saying, talking about the things going on around me can be a bit challenging. Today, however, is going to be a bit different. I am going to attempt to relay to you a particular account of something I've done here, how the FAO training program helped me to do it, and why that is so significant. When I first arrived in

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Hello again everyone. I'm glad there are still a few of you looking on, thank you for taking the time to say so. As I keep saying, it is a bit harder to post updates nowadays because of the environment I'm in. But, that's not going to stop me from doing so when I get the opportunity and have something significant to say. In any case, I'm glad you are reading and I hope that those of you who are just hitting DLI are surviving well. I would like to throw a shout out to FAO

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Hello again everyone. Just wanted to take a few minutes to tell you all a few things about my experiences over the past few weeks. As I said before, writing is a bit challenging for someone working in my position because at this level almost everything has some level of sensitivity to it. It also requires time that I still have to struggle to find. Life in this senior staff position has been very taxing. As a member of the DCG-O CAG I am bound to my boss's schedule, and he is a very

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Hello again everyone. I know it has been a while since my last post, but things have been a bit hectic. I've been thinking for quite a while on what I may want to talk about, and it has been challenging. In the process of trying to figure that out, I've determined that my posts from this point on are going to have to seem very generic and repetitive. There are several reasons for this. First of all, the work I'm doing is not something I can say much about. I'll have to choose

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Hi everyone. It's been a very, very busy couple of weeks and I really have not had enough time (or focus) as I would have liked to detail all the nuances of trying to in-process Ft. Bragg and prepare for deployment in such a short time. Suffice to say, the last few weeks have been a blur. BUT, I've been successful in squeezing 20 pounds into a 10-pound bag, having the opportunity to visit my family and a few of my friends has really kept me going. As I write, I'm logging off my

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Hello again everyone. I've been enjoying a couple of weeks being back home and now it is back to the REAL Army, as they say. First of all, let me just say how wonderful it was to spend the holidays with my family back in the Land of the Big PX. Although I was met with a few challenges here and there (not the least of which was some wicked jet lag), time with family and a few friends is priceless. And to boot, the Carolinas received its first significant snowfall on Christmas Day in over

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And farewell to the most bizarre year of my life thus far. Looking back, I'm almost struck with a feeling of guilt that my life would be so enjoyable during ICT. I think this is a carry-over from DLI, where you are made to feel as it is forbidden to have any kind of fun while there is language to still learn. But then again, if I look forward... everything is in balance and nothing to feel guilty about. I will be in Baghdad by the end of next month. As I sit now, I'm in an empty

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The shadows are starting to get long here in Jordan, and there's lots going on as I finish out my year here. But first, let me catch you all up on what has been happening since my last post. I recently completed a regional travel trip to Saudi Arabia, a place I had not been back to since serving there between 2002 and 2003. It was very interesting to go back to Eskan Village, the place where I lived in my year there. A lot of it had changed but in most ways it still looked the same. Saudi

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Well sports fans, to quote Robert Burns, "The best laid plans o' mice and men oft go awry." As I followed my usual routine of stopping by the embassy for a few hours several days ago, there sat in my email inbox a surprise from the FAO MAJ/LTC assignments officer that went something like this: "MAJ Wall, Greetings from FAO Branch at HRC. The purpose of this note is to inform you that you will be PCSing for deployment within the next 90 days." The

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