Dad's Deployment

Dad and Baby Charlotte just before deployment

As you may or may not know - my dad is serving a brief deployment in East Africa and the Middle East. I'm including a few pictures, links, and clips of emails he's sent us in the last 2 weeks.

His main jobs are:

1) Troop morale
2) PR for the military and the United States - which means outreach to local people groups, tribal elders, refugees etc. (Very much like missions work)

3) Planning and organization for future deployments of the military bands

Links:

Al Udeid Airforce Base - his home base. He returns there between fields assignments to Djibouti, UAE and Iraq. This link has lots of cool pictures.
http://www.weekspace.com/Qatar/qindex.htm

Article with quote from my dad:
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123057541

Email clippings:

"We are very close to Somalia. we visited a village today and could see the border in the distance. This area is patrolled by the Marines and the French Army to prevent the insurgents from coming north from Somalia. We went to a small village today. The people are hanging on from day to day. The marine unit at the camp has adopted it. Today they brought a little hair clip for each little girl. We set up our band and played. The weather got so hot I had to put my trumpet into the Marine's ice chest to cool it down enough so I could play. We were surrounded by dozens of little children. Yesterday I was asked to go to an orphanage and help feed infants. They have 60-70 children who were found abandoned by the road. After feeding the infants a bottle we went to a room with 30-40 6-9 month old kids crawling and squirming around on the floor. You grab one, take it outside and try to feed it some potato/yam mush and them release them to play. They you go back and grab another.The children recognize the American servicemen and smile when they arrive. This has been quite an experience. Next week we head to Baghdad."

"I just got back from the baby orphanage. The children have a name and a number you can tell Mohammed # 4 from Mohammed # 8. It is a madhouse at feeding time. There are so many kids if a child will not eat they get set aside and you pick up someone ready to eat. There is non stop screaming and crying. I walked into a crib room with at least 25 kids standing up crying. One little boy climbed over the rail and began to escape the room. I will go to the evening chapel program in 30 minutes. "

"All of the things we have been doing are part of the total public affairs community relations package. Yesterday we went to an orphanage for boys. We took our rock band they played for 45 minutes. Last night we went to a town called BaBala. BaBala is a sprawling slum on the outskirts of Djibouti. We went to an English language school which was a 2 room, dirt floor building made of scrape lumber and sheets of tine. The The room was packed with students who are studying English. Our job is to participate in a discussion on a pre selected topic. Last night it was preserving Somali culture. Most of the people in this slum are families of refugees. The format allowed students to speaking to the group using their English. It was great. My job was to write the comments on the board. The funniest moment was a young man who made an impassioned speech about the problem in Djibouti is they allow western culture to destroy their roots. The next speaker responded by pointing out the previous speaker was wearing a tee shirt with a picture of the rapper "50 cent."We travel with armed Marine security and the camp tracks our travel when we go outside the perimeter of the camp. Our call sign is Falcon with the number of AF personnel in the vehicle and the Marines are call sign Rhino. I find that appropriate. Today we will be back at the baby orphanage and doing another discussion group tonight. "