Fatigue

Fatigue is a funny thing. It makes you kind of not think very straight. It also makes me ramble on and be less focused. It seems that in my younger days I could do with or at least deal with less sleep. Now that I am older, well, 3 1/2 hours of sleep and even a 2 hour nap was not enough. Caffeine and everything really doesn't help much either. So now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should not wake before I rise. I pray the Lord my soul to take. (see I would never write that if I wern't so tired). Goodnight moon, good night stars. Goodnight.

God works in mysterious ways.

It was a half-hearted request. Not something that I absolutely had to do, but well, physically, it didn't really make sense and lots of things had to work out for it to come true. Well today, I witnessed the awesome power of God. I kind of wanted to visit the main Air Theater Hospital here in Iraq. It is a really neat place, with lots of medical people doing, lots of good things. As a doctor, I kind of wanted to see it, since it was relatively only a hop, skip and jump away from me. Today God granted me that wish, not because I planned, schemed or worked on it, just because my Father in Heaven thought it must be something I should do. I am glad I did it. Not sure why, got to visit some friends and look around. Maybe in the near or distant future, I will know why. Just makes me have a warm place in my heart. Thanks God!!

Wars, Rumors of Wars, Pirates, Pandemic flu

I sure am glad that this is only a temporary dwelling place and not my true home. Like my commander here, he encouraged me to keep up my good attitude, cause people around me really do notice. So his wise counsel is much like my Heavenly counsel, to keep up the Christ like attitude and remember, this is all just a vapor. All the bad guys and all the disease, and all the sin in this world is only for a brief time. We may lose a battle or two here on this earth, but the war is won. He is victorious and on the throne. No suicide bomber, no pirate, no swine flu will change that fact. If that isn't a rock to stand on, well nothing is. I guess God is really good, I feel blessed this evening, even in the middle of a war zone. I just pray that a little bit of Jesus can peak through this sinful Andrew.

Luau day

Had a Morale day here. Was a really nice effort on the part of the group leadership to let this rotation get a really nice party. The Hawaiian contingent managed to get a pig to roast and the civil engineers made a real (or really it was a hose reel) nice contraption to turn the spit over the flame. Fun was had by most all and I think that overall it was really well received. Mrs Clinton breezed in and out of here, really didn't see anything but a really big motorcade with lots of really armored vehicles. I guess the windows don't roll down on the armored vehicles, so not even a wave to the troops. Not much else here this Sunday. Just another good Easter message, once again reassuring us that salvation is assured through Jesus and that the Holy Spirit allows us to understand the Bible and what God is telling us. Makes sense to me, I just don't always understand exactly what God is telling me. The chaplain had an interesting though, Peter was the Rock which Christ built his church on, but he also said before Peter got the Holy Spirit, Christ might have called him the 'rock' cause he had such a hard head. A lot like us, stubborn and bull headed, not necessarily what Christ is looking for, but he uses us in whatever condition he finds us in.

Keep focused

Keeping focused is the task for today. I gotta keep my head in the game and keep doing the best job I can. I pray that I can continue with a positive attitude. Don't want to get the "get home-itis" The reason I'm here is to serve, so I just have to remember that. Another surf and turf night last night, it's funny how if you get the same thing served over and over again, even something special like lobster tail, it is less special.

Wow, It's a dry heat

Today was the first really hot day. Not extreme, but up in the 90's with a really bright sun. Wouldn't take long to dehydrate in the desert. Thank you God for letting man invent the air conditioner and a water purification ROWPU. Other than the heat another usual day in the sandbox. It's amazing how much heat radiates off the T-walls at night, just even being next to them you can feel the heat. Just thankful for another day with God's peace.

Mesopotamia

It's hard to believe that Mesopotamia is the cradle of life. The river seems vibrant enough, but outside of the small confines of the river the land surrounding it is just like a sandbox. Only that which was cultivated is living and green. I guess too this would be the analogy to our lives without the living water of God. My soul apart from God is very dry and thirsty, when God opens the irrigation ditches to my life, only then does live spring forth from my dry an thirsty soul. It is interesting how I need to see this first hand, sometimes my stubbornness or stupidity does not allow me to see this until I see it with my own eyes. Move over Thomas, I am trying to get your place in God's doubt meter.

Dedicated Workers

You usually see the quality of worker when there is little work to do. When the work load is light most workers will show their true colors. The hard workers, will continue with constructive work which still gives the employers benefit despite the light load. The slothful worker, will take advantage of the down time and waste that commodity which is so valuable, time. I guess when you are busy, you just don't notice the slothful workers, because you are so busy doing your job, but when you have some time to look around, that is when you discover how your co-workers really work.

Divine apointments

When God is in control, you never know who you are going to meet, but it is always guaranteed to be a blessing. Met an old friend today and it had to be a God thing. You know that of all the places and all the times it is not coincidence or just plain dumb luck to meet a specific person out of the 6.5 billion people and thousands of square miles of land. Often times you are not looking for those divine appointments, but when they happen you have to pause, thank God and then rejoice that He is making your paths straight. It is kind of like evolution, after so many trillions and trillion of years, you would think that there would be something better than mankind. If I were mother nature, I would have thought that a self-destructive race such as the human one, would have self-selected for a more robust and less fragile creature. So it is, nothing is by chance, everything is for a reason, we were made in His Image. Problem is most of the times, I just don't understand that reason and that's OK. Cause He knows where I am going.

Families

Families are really important. You never really know how much they mean to you until you are away from yours. As a father and husband, I don't really spend that much time at home, in comparison to work, but when you don't have that daily time to even see your family it makes a big difference. The internet and all it's wonders do make partially up for the isolation, but there is still a dimension which is missing. The military does place you into another family, it is somewhat different, your father is a commander, and depending upon his/her leadership style it may be more or less like the father you have, wished you had, or glad you did not. The people around you are like your brothers and sisters and extended family. They will bend over backwards for each other. You spend an aweful lot of time with them doing the normal things like eating and living, relaxing and exercising. It's still not the same, but there is a bond that you make with the military members around you which is unique and not fully explainable unless you have been there also. I guess both families take care of each other, just at the end of the deployment you'll have a whole nother group of people that you consider family, but you just will never go back to a similar situation with them.

Fragile Creatures

I am always amazed at how close we are to death. Human life is really fragile. When you think about it only about 1/4 inch of skin covers some of the high pressure blood vessels in the body, like the carotid arteries that feed blood to the brain. All the technology in the world really can't keep a human being running if we are missing just a little more than 1/4 inch of flesh which covers these vital structures. Also we may say we are hard headed, but the two layers of the skull really are not very much protection from direct injury. I still wonder how we are "survival of the fittest" A dog's skin or a lion's skin is much tougher. Also a gorilla or chimpanzee has much more ability to resist damage, plus they haven't developed any real long range instruments of destruction, except for flinging poo. I guess it all comes down to intelligent design, cause if I were "mother nature" man certainly would not be the fittest animal on the planet.
Only one other thought, we must really be made in God's image, cause I am sure no one in his or her right mind would voluntarily put themselves in "harms way" for another human unless there was a soul which told them that that is the right thing to do. Cause once again, survival of the fittest (and I know some really fit soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors) would tell these really strong men and women to get the h--- out of Dodge, cause there are some really nasty men, who really want to kill them. And I don't think the $100 a month hazard duty pay is enough to really overcome that survival of the fittest/natural selection crap.

Saturday

Another Saturday has come and gone. It is holy week and the Catholic Chaplins have had services on Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat and will have one on Sunday. The Christian Chaplins only had a Wed night prayer service/bible study and a Easter Sunday service planned. Just an observation. Good Friday was not so good for Christ, not so good for me, but nothing bad, just another work day. Hoping and praying that Easter Sunday will be a quite restful day for me, I do know that it was a blessed day for Christ.

Rain

Rain,it is God's reminder that all living things need water. It is amazing when living in a desert everything gravitates toward water sources. You can have all the oil you want under the ground, but ultimately it is water that you need for survival. The rain was refreshing today, unfortunately, the ground does not really allow for the rain to do anything but run off into the ditches and streams. It is amazing how green grass and fields look so much different.

Another day

Sunny and hot today. Otherwise would have been a lovely day at the beach, just no ocean here, can't be outside without long sleeves and a uniform on. Big cement walls with razor wire on the top and the occasional MRAP or Uparmored HUMVEE driving around. Not too much dust today. A nice weather day. Just a little bit of busy work and some studying. At lunch we were discussing the fact that we got a lot of packages today, in WWII, Korea or Vietnam, we would be in a base, without A/C, not much mail, and no e-mail or Internet to connect with our families. Most of us would not be willing volunteers to be where we are, and many more casulties would be coming our way. War is still bad, it is just more cloaked in civility today.

Palm Sunday

Another dusty day here in the desert. Not much to report, other than it is a little bit hotter. Just a little bit more tired today, probably due to me running around more. It's just amazing all this money spent on Iraq and it's still a poor country. I guess that is what happens when you have terrorist still doing bad things, and you have to spend all the money on security issues.

Time

Another day, time keeps going. I don't exactly have any great revelations today. Just another day. One tries to add something to others, but inexplicably you are not always given the opportunities. I guess it is just how you act and react when people around you just happen to bump into you. No other explaination for God's providence, He just allows us to make our choices. I just pray that I am making wise and honoring choices. It's just funny how most people just count the days, wishing for something else, but maybe when something else happens, they are just wishing for yet something else. It's part of the old poem, God give me the courage to change the things I can, and the serenity to acccept the things I can't change.

Another day

Yesterday, things were the same. Routine, it can be good, it can be bad. When things are the same, they become predictable. Unfortunately, they tend to make you less dependent upon God. When something happens which is really out of the ordinary, well that is when my relationship with God really grows. I guess that is why there is variety in life.