MAIL! MAIL! MAIL!/Ornament/Yellow Ribbon

After 17 days of no mail, we received LITERALLY 5 tons of mail yesterday. Fortunately, the post office crew was about to change over so the outgoing and incoming workers were here to deal with the distribution. So, I received lots of mail as shown by the stack. The oldest took 3 weeks to get here. Nothing broken or frozen despite the huge load and subzero temperatures. Many thanks to: Louis, my father-in-law who sent a nice note and wonderful Italian goodies; Teddi and Bill, good friends (football "relatives") who sent Vernors Ginger Ale (Michigan product) and yummy stuff; my bro Mark who sent a souvenir flag from his visit to Portugal (Deschere is derived from a Portugese name); and the chaplain corps in Afghanistan who sent a Tupperware with toiletries and snacks.

I have mentioned my terrific roommate, Don. We bunked together during training and room together here in Herat. He is a "mustang", a former enlisted who then commisioned as an officer. He started out as a Navy medical corpsman, deployed with Marines, made Chief Petty Officer (senior enlisted and elite) before getting a nursing degree. He is a lieutenant commander like me, but has been in the Navy 26 years longer than me. A wealth of help and info. Anyway, he and his wife Kathy gave the the ornament shown as a souvenir of deployment. It has 2007 and "Operation Enduring Freedom" on it as a momento of this year in Afghanistan.

Don and I are both from Naval Hospital Pensacola. NHP is a small hospital but has deployed 100 sailors. They placed large yellow ribbons on the compound for each deployed sailor and Don's wife Kathy took pictures. Shown is mine with my name and the deployment dates. Only military can access this area but she managed to get photos. Thanks Kathy! I enjoy their pictures of their first grandchild, Kaelyn.