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This week was Spirit Week at the kids school. Zeke has been a little disgruntled by the unacceptable clothing worn throughout the week by his siblings. On Monday, when we went to pick them up from school, he looked at all the kids and declared, “It’s not pajama time!” Zeke doesn’t quite understand why you have a pajama day, crazy hat day, and favorite team day. Yesterday for chapel, the high school cheerleaders came to fire up the Stafford campus. They did some stunts and a dance routine and led the classes in the cheer “Hey Eagles are you there?” Abby asked me what I thought about the cheerleaders. Abby’s teacher told her class that she would do away with the sport of cheerleading if she could. I reluctantly had to admit that I had been a cheerleader. I was terrible at basketball, volleyball, and track. I did play softball in the summer, but softball didn’t count as a school varsity sport. I desperately wanted to earn a letter, so I could wear a letterman’s jacket. Cheerleading was the means to the end. Abby asked if I wanted the letterman’s jacket to be cool. I had to admit that was one of my attempts to be cool. I never did quite succeed in being cool, but I did wear a letterman’s jacket. Gabe could not fathom that his mother had been a cheerleader, so I pulled out my old yearbook to show him the pictures. Josiah looked at the pictures and said we all looked like the people in the movie Back to the Future. Zeke looked at my pictures and said, “Mommy, what happened to your hair?” He did not care for the clothes I was wearing either. “What happened to your pants? What happened to your shirt?” Apparently the styles of the 80s don’t appeal to him.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a packet of letters from the kids in Gabe’s 2nd grade class at the Stafford Campus of Fredericksburg Christian Schools. It was very uplifting to read the letters they wrote and to look at the pictures they drew. I am encouraged everytime I think of these kids praying for me! Here are the letter and picture from Gabe:

The kid’s asked a lot of different questions. I’m still working on my reply. I really need to ge that finished this week! The most popular question is “What do you eat?” If you remember the DFAC post, I get to eat just about anything I like. In fact, every Sunday night a steak and seafood night. Unfortunately, the steak doesn’t come close to the steak in Dubbo. Another question that caught me off guard was “Do you have a pet?” That got me thinking about Army regulations.

As an individual operating within the Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) Area of Responsibility (AOR), I am accountable for the prohibitions found within MNC-I General Order Number 1 (GO-1). The purpose of GO-1 is to:

Identify conduct that is prejudicial to the maintenance of good order and discipline of all forces assigned to the MNC-I or present within the MNC-I AOR.

Some of the activities that are prohibited are gambling, possessing drugs, and consuming alcohol. Among other restrictions, I am also not allowed to adopt any wild or domestic animal as a pet or mascot. So the answer to the question is “No, I don’t have a pet”. While I don’t have a pet (or even a mascot), each evening, a gecko hangs out on my window eating all of the bugs attracted by the light.

The hunting must be good because tonight there are 5 geckos on my window!

While Mugs and the kids are sitting around eating bowls of chocolate frosted sugar bombs cereal while watching the Food Network, I’m dining on the fine cuisine of the FOB Diamondback DFAC. The Army DFAC is typically referred to as the Mess Hall for very valid reasons. On a normal Army installation, soldiers that live in the barracks are allowed to eat in the Mess Hall for free. Even with this authorization, most soldiers choose to eat off post as often as possible. There is always one person in the crowd that enjoys the Mess Hall. One such individual is Chris Coleman, a friend of ours from when we were stationed in Germany. He and Mugs were Platoon Leaders in the same company when we were Lieutenants. Once when we were on the subject of food, Chris commented that he loved eating at Waffle House. Seeing the looks of shock on our faces, he went on to explain that he preferred Waffle House because “It’s the quantity of food that matters, not the quality.” Hopefully that helps you put his enjoyment of the Mess Hall in perspective.

Anyway, the DFAC here in Mosul does not deserve the Mess Hall moniker. This is the most impressive DFAC I have ever seen. Due to OPSEC, I am unable to post any pictures of this magnificent structure. You may recall the explosion in a DFAC in Iraq around Christmas in 2004. The blast killed 22 soldiers and wounded 66 others. That occurred here in Mosul on FOB Marez, right across the road from FOB Diamondback. Because many soldiers congregate at DFACs, these facilities are considered high-value targets. So we take every possible measure to ensure the safety of our soldiers in the DFAC. I will not discuss anything here that violates or compromises OPSEC.

In the FOB Diamondback DFAC, the options are endless. At every meal the mainline has a couple of options for the main dish as well as several alternatives for side dishes. For example, at breakfast this morning, from the mainline, I got bacon, hashbrowns, and a biscuit with creamed beef gravy. While at lunch, I had General Tso’s chicken over rice, also from the mainline. But if the pickings on the mainline are not to your liking, other choices abound throughout the facility. In the morning, when I have a little more time on my hands, I wander over to the omelet bar and have a made-to-order omelet. For the fast food junkies, burgers, hot dogs, fries, onion rings, and even cheese sauce are in abundance. Some days it’s even possible to get jalapeño hot poppers.

But wait, that’s not all. If you call in the next 5 minutes, I’ll also throw in the Ginsu knives!

I’m running out of room and haven’t even mentioned the taco bar, pasta bar, potato bar, soup bar, salad bar. Have I left out any other possible bars? I guess the only bar not in this DFAC is the kind of bar not authorized for US troops in Iraq. But at least there’s Coors non-alcoholic beer in every cooler in the DFAC. I laugh every time I see someone with their near beer.

The entire time I resided in Australia, I was on the lookout for snakes. Australians are very fond of their venomous snakes. Abby and Gabe were the only family members to have a close encounter with a snake while we were there. We went to Phillip Island south of Melbourne and took a walk around a koala park while waiting to see the penguin parade that night. We were looking up in the trees at the koalas and not watching the path. Abby and Gabe were leading the way when Abby almost stepped on a giant black snake. The snake jumped straight up in the air 4 feet. Abby screamed and she and Gabe high tailed it back to us. The snake then escaped into the bush. Abby was the subject of much teasing after that. So, she was glad to witness what a ninny her mother was tonight. I was in the kitchen and turned around to see a small dark snake about 10 inches long and as wide around as a pencil slithering across the floor. I certainly had not expected snake encounters in Virginia, especially not in my house. I yelled, “SNAKE!”, and all the kids came to see. I decided to use the whisk broom to sweep the snake up and the dustpan to transport it out of the house. The snake was moving pretty quickly and was a bit hard to sweep into the dustpan. I finally got it and started moving towards the door. Just then, the snake decided to climb up the handle of the dustpan towards my hand. At this point, I screamed and dropped the pan back on the floor. Zeke was now crying hysterically, Abby was trying to comfort him, and Josiah was “back a safe distance” as he justified later. Only Gabe was standing at the ready to continue snake removal operation. Most likely because I stunned it, the snake got really still, so I swept him back into the dustpan and left it on the floor a few seconds. He didn’t move, so I told Gabe to hold open the door for me. After watching me throw a snake, Gabe decided it would be wiser to use the door stop then hold it open for his unpredictable mother. The snake was safely transported outside where everyone could comfortably look at it. It stuck it’s tongue out at us a few times which Zeke found quite amusing. Josiah googled snake pictures until we discovered it was a non venomous yellow bellied water snake. I pushed it off into the grass and am sincerely hoping it does not come back to visit.