Closing the Loop

Okay, so I know I've been AWOL from the blogosphere for an intolerable amount of time but I 've had good reason...really...okay not so good, and not really "reason" as much as "excuse" and since it's not so good, I won't insult you by giving you a bad one.

My duties in Germany are, for all intents and purposes, complete. I have orders to Saint John's University in my hot little hands and we are busily preparing to (in Army slang) un-ass the AO. We will take off for Colorado on leave next week where we will help Mollie and Al clean out the house in Springs as they head for the Azores, then we drive to NY. After spending a few weeks house hunting and familiarizing we're off to Virgina for a couple weeks of school then back to Germany at the end or April. We'll be back here just long enough to see all our stuff get packed up, sweep out the house and say "Auf Wiedersen" before landing back in NY to report by the 1st of June.

Most people refer to leaving an assignment as "bittersweet" and while that may just be pandering to political correctness for the sake of those assembled, I have to honestly say that our leaving Deutschland will be much more sweet than bitter. There are certainly things that we love about Germany and a lot of great people that we've known here, but the last 3 1/2 years have been so turbulent and demanding that we will be glad to see it in the proverbial rear-view mirror.

To put things in perspective; during the first 14 years of my Army career, my most exotic TDY locations were Fort Chaffe, Arkansas; Fort Monmouth, NJ; and Fort Lewis, Washington. I never once left the country.

During the last 1,200 days I have been through 17 countries on 3 different continents, been shot at 6 different times, earned 1 badge and 4 different medals, celebrated Christmas mass in 4 different countries and been separated from Pam for 425 days.

Enough. It's time to trade the solitude and silence of the German village for the hustle and bustle of New York, the surliness of soldiers for the enthusiasim of cadets, and the suffocating bureaucracy of a command headquarters for the enlightened elitism of academia.
With that in mind, it is time to start closing down this blog. I still have a few more posts that I will make here regarding recent happenings, but I have opened a new blog, Red Storm Rising,(St. John's "mascot" is the Red Storm...see...it's a blatant rip-off of Tom Clancy for the sake of a cute little play on words there) which will be more appropriate for our continued adventures in the Big Apple.

Thank you all for your support over these past many months and I hope to hear from you there.