Saturday, July 12, 2003

AND JUST WHEN YOU FEEL GREAT ABOUT AN EMAIL NOTE...THE PHONE RINGS!

Completely unprecedented...Patti and I got to talk for nearly half an hour today. Which means we were able to get past the "how are yous" and such.

For those of you who have asked if you can adopt a single soldier who might not be getting packages, hang on. CPT Patti was clearly annoyed that the list of those names wasn't complete. She assured me it will be tonight.

Among the things she said to me that makes me feel better - she said that all classes of supply are now being "pushed" to her company. What that means is the higher unit in the supply chain is delivering to CPT Patti's location. This greatly reduces the amount of exposure her soldiers have around Baghdad.

The exception to the above is that when there is fresh food available, CPT Patti's crew has to go and pick that up. That isn't happening a lot yet...hopefully as it picks up, the bad things in Baghdad will subside.

CPT Patti's troops may among the busiest in Baghdad. You see, her company provides the food, the ammunition, the spare repair parts, the water and the fuel for the vehicles for 4200 soldiers in Baghdad. Those supply items are consumed every day. So the Gators' mission never stops.

Not a lot of down time for the Gators.

But then, I'm guessing that a lot of down time in Baghdad is probably not a good thing these days. Keeping busy probably is.

CPT Patti says she feels very good about their mission. She says "it means everything to be the lifeline to these 4200 troops in the 1st Brigade Combat Team". (Recall yesterday about the necessity of soldiers believing in their mission...)

CPT Patti admits the MREs are getting old. (Quick note here - since some of you know I once was in charge of the Army Food Program and MRE development - Army doctrine says that MREs will be the primary food source for only up to 30 days. We are well beyond that now...not sure what is preventing more meals from being fresh food). Anyway, she says the dry and canned foods we send augment their meals nicely.

Please add Ramen noodles (beef or chicken flavors) if you are packing care packages for CPT Patti. And please get the "Cup o' Noodles" brand, the one that comes in its own styrofoam cup so she can add water and microwave (yes, they have a microwave oven).

She also is raving over some chewy granola bar that has "almonds, peanuts, honey and cranberries" in it. I've got to track that one down. But perhaps you know what she means.

I asked about TV and Radio. They do not yet have TV signals, but do have DVD players and such. And they haven't been able to find AFN radio signals yet either. I'll work on that.

She told me that their sleeping quarters all have at least a swamp cooler. (If you don't know what a swamp cooler is, read this site here.) Air conditioning is another matter, because they don't yet have sufficient power to push the air conditioning units.

And folks, she sounds terrific. I asked her about her spirit...she says it is good. She confesses to having the occasional down moment, "but it passes" she said.

Tells me they are getting their battle rhythm...which is an army term for adapting to the mission at hand, and perfecting their craft so that days become almost routine, instead of a break-neck pace of solving a whole bunch of problems for the first time.

And she tells me that the new battalion commander is just wonderful to work with.

If you will, keep praying for her. It seems to be working.

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