Back To Work

Ok, ok, I admit it. I've been a little TOO lazy over the past month and haven't taken the relatively short amount of time to update anyone on how things are going. Thankfully I've been able to see most of you who read my blog, and should thus be up-to-date on me and the wife. However, I feel it necessary to briefly recap my period of "Block Leave" that the Army gave me shortly after returning from theatre.
On 5 December, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team began its 30 day period of leave, in which I felt compelled to make ANOTHER trip across the Atlantic (although it was under much better circumstances). This time accompanied with the wife, we backpacked across portions of France and Italy for about 11 days. For a more in-depth synopsis of our journey, I'll once again refer you to her blog (www.tnarmywife.blogspot.com). I signed back into the unit on 17 Dec; yet, the only work-related requirement I had was to show up for morning formation at 0630, which only occurred about 5 times thanks to the 4 day holiday weekends we got!
A couple of trips to Knoxville and Bartow, FL (Leslie's hometown) rounded out the rest of our travels over the holiday season. My four favorite f-words (Family, Friends, Football and Food) consumed a large portion of this time and the good Lord blessed us with safe travels all throughout.
This past week, unfortunately, our Brigade was required to return to work. The consensus among all my soldiers and peers was that the break went by way too fast. Luckily, we are slowly transitioning back to Garrison life. This term simply means work at home station. For those of you interested in knowing what this time consists of, that will be the main focus of my blogs this year. With the war on terror going on 8 years now, it's much easier to see what life is like during a deployment; however, I feel that the daily operations of life in Garrison also warrant attention and discussion. For that reason, I hope to continue my pursuit of shedding light on life in the military, both at home and abroad. This might not be nearly as interesting and informative as my time spent in Iraq, but hopefully it will show you how much time and effort is put into recovering after a deployment and then preparing for the next one, whenever and wherever it might be.
Hope the following posts are worth reading and please let me know if there's anything else you'd like to know.
Take care and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!