Grilled cheese and tomato soup

Blessed grilled cheese and tomato soup, one of the staples of my diet back home.  I have a strange weakness for dipping grilled cheese sandwiches into tomato soup and they had both of them today at the chow hall.   Which made me a little sad because it reminded me of home, it's the small things that touch you out here and that also make you happy, clean sheets, cold air conditioning and a good pillow (which I think I left at home).

 

One of my corpsman came back from flying CASEVAC for a month at another base so my crew is back up to 3 corpsman and the flight surgeon.  We can now toss in a day or two off here and there with out it being a strain.  Not that our job is that stressful but it does help to change things around a bit.  

 

My first two trips out here, nether of my two units had a single broken bone, this trip 6!   Nothing even close to being life threatening but it is notable.  I've chosen a clumsy crew to work with but at least they give me some value for doing my job which the rest of the time is mostly killing trees and typing in Data onto the computer.  

 

I've moved back to my sometimes beloved swing shift which gives me some quality alone time which after a month of 12's, I'm holding quite dear.  My wife has taken my son Collin on vacation and I'm been receiving briefs and letters of their assorted adventures, I'm able to call he on her cell phone and check it but she doesn't always have access to the internet so the emails volume is rather lean.  Wish I could have been there to join them, they are my two favorite traveling companions, sounds like they are having a grand time.  

 

I'll be missing my first anniversary in a couple of weeks.  People who think that we're getting paid too much?   What monetary figure can you attach to spending all of these holidays, anniversaries and birthdays away from our loved ones?  Add on to that that chance that there could be a bullet or mortar with our name on it?  It's just another day but those days do add up, the missed memories and special moments that could have been.  I'm sticking with the job but it's definitely not for everyone.   I'm extremely lucky to have landed such a wonderful wife who's doing a great job at keeping the home fires burning.      

 

War's expensive which I think is a good thing good thing, the value of a human life should be worth a lot of money and not thrown away cheaply.  Every one of us is a book that has been unwritten, every loss is a possible Einstein.  I can't talk bad about the people who preach peace, I might not agree with them but I can't hold it against them that they don't believe in killing another human being.  It doesn't make them un-American, it makes them human.  That doesn't mean that they are right or that they're always wrong but there are some things worth fighting for, justice for the attack on the Twin Towers and fighting this organization who started it all by killing innocents without cause which put us on this war footing in the first place.  Should we have sat backsit back and let them get away with it?  This isn't about religion, yes they were part of one religion but we're trying to fight the mindset these terrorists have and to let them know that we won't let anyone get away with the acts that they have done.  Now they're reaping what they have sowed.