Gone Fishin!

Its graduation week for the Civil Affairs Qual course! Pictured left are my team-mates from CAT-31. The civilian dude is Dale from the McKinney Lake Fish Hatchery, he happened to get in our picture. From left to right are Joe "I've never been fishing" Sotile, Csaba Lukasc "The Enforcer", Brandon "Yes I do have an appointment!" Kreitz, The Chaplain, Dean "Hillbilly" McCoy, Ty "Ranger Joe or Catfish" Short, Beau "Mastiff" Dobbs, Casey "West Point" Baldwin and Ed "no nickname" Vela. I could not have asked for a better team to work with. Everyone worked so hard and pulled together and made our team efficient, but it also made it fun to train with them. We grew close and I now have friends for life. I thank God for allowing me to be a part of this class with these fine people. Brandon and Dean are leaving soon for downrange missions and Joe follows on later in the year, keep them in your prayers. The rest o

This is Isaam. He's a new freind of mine. We met in an unsual way at FT Bragg of all places. He's a role player in some of scenarios that we are put through in our training and Isaam played the part of the religous leader in the village we were training in. I noticed something in his eyes as I spoke through a translator. There was a kindess in them as you can see. We played roles all week long and finally at the end of training we got to meet as men, not actors. The first thing he said to me was, "He is the Savior!" and then I knew as I had suspected through those penetrating eyes, that Isaam was and is a believer. We hugged and got to spend a few very special moments together. I work in world where faith in Jesus is not something people talk openly about if at all. Only Chaplains wear it literally on their uniforms. To be able to just talk about the goodness of Jesus with this special man was worth the 20 mile road march and choking down all the MRE's of a 7 day