Del Rio, Tejas!

Patrick, Karen, Katie, and Slinky Dwyer now live in Del Rio, Tejas! We have completed our PCS move from Incirlik Air Base to Laughlin Air Forc e Base. I haven't posted in a while. I guess that's what happens when your are busy with a one year old and planning an intercontinental move. If you know us at all, you have been following us on Katie's blog located at ( adayinthelifeofkatiedwyer.blogspot.com ). Now that we are settled in Del Rio and our stuff has arrived, I will be posting again more often.

Looking Back At Landstuhl; Birth, Death, & Freedom

This is a photo Karen took of me as we left to walk over to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center to check into Delivery.  This was Sunday 13 July and we would literally be in the hopital awaiting the birth of Katie Dwyer just minutes after this was taken.

Katie was born on the 15th.  On 19 July we took Katie over to the Landstuhl Dining Hall and I bought a Stars & Stripes paper.  It had a story I was really affected by.  While the above photo was being taken there was a fire fight going on in Afghanistan and many Americans were wounded or lost their life.  The wounded ones were brought to Landstul and were treated while we were there.  I can't say we saw the guys mentioned in the below story but we certainly could have.  We certainly saw ones just like them.  So the story really brought the whole idea of the cycle of life home.  While we were bringing an American life into the world, there were other Americans losing their's and leaving children and wives without fathers or husbands.  That really hit me hard when I was reading this story in the Landstuhl dining hall with our four-day old Katie sitting next to me.  

I just found the paper again tonight while cleaning up and wanted to post this.  Credit goes to Stars & Stripes writer Steve Mraz.  I wanted to post the pictures of two of the guys but it keeps messing the text up so I will have to do without.  From Stars & Stripes, 19 July 2008:

____________________________________________________________________

Everything was on fire. The trucks. The bazaar. The grass. It looked surreal. It looked like a movie. That was what Spc. Tyler Stafford remembered thinking as he stepped onto the medical evacuation helicopter. The 23-year-old soldier would have been loaded onto the bird, but the poncho that was hastily employed as his stretcher broke. His body speckled with grenade and RPG shrapnel, the Vicenza, Italy, infantryman walked the last few feet to the waiting Black Hawk.

That was Sunday morning in eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar province. At a forward operating base — maybe as big as a football field — established just a few days prior.Outnumbered but not outgunned, a platoon-plus element of soldiers with 2nd Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team accompanied by Afghan soldiers engaged in a fistfight of a firefight.

After maybe two hours of intense combat, some of the soldiers’ guns seized up because they expelled so many rounds so quickly. Insurgent bullets and dozens of rocket-propelled grenades filled the air. So many RPGs were fired at the soldiers that they wondered how the insurgents had so many.

That was July 13. That was when Stafford was blown out of a fighting position by an RPG, survived a grenade blast and had the tail of an RPG strike his helmet. That was the day nine Chosen Company soldiers died. It was just days before the unit was scheduled to leave the base.

The first RPG and machine gun fire came at dawn, strategically striking the forward operating base’s mortar pit. The insurgents next sighted their RPGs on the tow truck inside the combat outpost, taking it out. That was around 4:30 a.m. This was not a haphazard attack. The reportedly 200 insurgents fought from several positions. They aimed to overrun the new base. The U.S. soldiers knew it and fought like hell. They knew their lives were on the line.

"I just hope these guys’ wives and their children understand how courageous their husbands and dads were," said Sgt. Jacob Walker. "They fought like warriors."

The next target was the FOB’s observation post, where nine soldiers were positioned on a tiny hill about 50 to 75 meters from the base. Of those nine, five died, and at least three others — Stafford among them — were wounded. When the attack began, Stafford grabbed his M-240 machine gun off a north-facing sandbag wall and moved it to an east-facing sandbag wall. Moments later, RPGs struck the north-facing wall, knocking Stafford out of the fighting position and wounding another soldier.

Stafford thought he was on fire so he rolled around, regaining his senses. Nearby, Cpl. Gunnar Zwilling, who later died in the fight, had a stunned look on his face. Immediately, a grenade exploded by Stafford, blowing him down to a lower terrace at the observation post and knocking his helmet off. Stafford put his helmet back on and noticed how badly he was bleeding.

Cpl. Matthew Phillips was close by, so Stafford called to him for help. Phillips was preparing to throw a grenade and shot a look at Stafford that said, "Give me a second. I gotta go kill these guys first." This was only about 30 to 60 seconds into the attack.

Kneeling behind a sandbag wall, Phillips pulled the grenade pin, but just after he threw it an RPG exploded at his position. The tail of the RPG smacked Stafford’s helmet. The dust cleared. Phillips was slumped over, his chest on his knees and his hands by his side. Stafford called out to his buddy three or four times, but Phillips never answered or moved.

"When I saw Phillips die, I looked down and was bleeding pretty good, that’s probably the most scared I was at any point," Stafford said. "Then I kinda had to calm myself down and be like, ‘All right, I gotta go try to do my job.’ "

The soldier from Parker, Colo., loaded his 9 mm handgun, crawled up to their fighting position, stuck the pistol over the sandbags and fired. Stafford saw Zwilling’s M-4 rifle nearby so he loaded it, put it on top of the sandbag and fired. Another couple RPGs struck the sandbag wall Stafford used as cover. Shrapnel pierced his hands. Stafford low-crawled to another fighting position where Cpl. Jason Bogar, Sgt. Matthew Gobble and Sgt. Ryan Pitts were located. Stafford told Pitts that the insurgents were within grenade-tossing range. That got Pitts’ attention. With blood running down his face, Pitts threw a grenade and then crawled to the position from where Stafford had just come. Pitts started hucking more grenades.

The firefight intensified. Bullets cut down tree limbs that fell on the soldiers. RPGs constantly exploded. Back at Stafford’s position, so many bullets were coming in that the soldiers could not poke their heads over their sandbag wall. Bogar stuck an M-249 machine gun above the wall and squeezed off rounds to keep fire on the insurgents. In about five minutes, Bogar fired about 600 rounds, causing the M-249 to seize up from heat.

At another spot on the observation post, Cpl. Jonathan Ayers laid down continuous fire from an M-240 machine gun, despite drawing small-arms and RPG fire from the enemy. Ayers kept firing until he was shot and killed. Cpl. Pruitt Rainey radioed the FOB with a casualty report, calling for help. Of the nine soldiers at the observation post, Ayers and Phillips were dead, Zwilling was unaccounted for, and three were wounded. Additionally, several of the soldiers’ machine guns couldn’t fire because of damage. And they needed more ammo.

Rainey, Bogar and another soldier jumped out of their fighting position with the third soldier of the group launching a shoulder-fired missile. All this happened within the first 20 minutes of the fight.Platoon leader 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom and Cpl. Jason Hovater arrived at the observation post to reinforce the soldiers. By that time, the insurgents had breached the perimeter of the observation post. Gunfire rang out, and Rainey shouted, "He’s right behind the sandbag!" Brostrom could be heard shouting about the insurgent as well.

More gunfire and grenade explosions ensued. Back in the fighting position, Gobble fired a few quick rounds. Gobble then looked to where the soldiers were fighting and told Stafford the soldiers were dead. Of the nine soldiers who died in the battle, at least seven fell in fighting at the observation post.

The insurgents then started chucking rocks at Gobble and Stafford’s fighting position, hoping that the soldiers might think the rocks were grenades, causing them to jump from the safety of their fighting hole. One rock hit a tree behind Stafford and landed directly between his legs. He braced himself for an explosion. He then realized it was a rock.

Stafford didn’t have a weapon, and Gobble was low on ammo. Gobble told Stafford they had to get back to the FOB. They didn’t realize that Pitts was still alive in another fighting position at the observation post. Gobble and Stafford crawled out of their fighting hole. Gobble looked again to where the soldiers had been fighting and reconfirmed to Stafford that Brostrom, Rainey, Bogar and others were dead. Gobble and Stafford low-crawled and ran back to the FOB. Coming into the FOB, Stafford was asked by a sergeant what was going on at the observation post. Stafford told him all the soldiers there were dead. Stafford lay against a wall, and his fellow soldiers put a tourniquet on him.

From the OP, Pitts got on the radio and told his comrades he was alone. At least three soldiers went to the OP to rescue Pitts, but they suffered wounds after encountering RPG and small-arms fire. At that time, air support arrived in the form of Apache helicopters, A-10s and F-15s, performing bombing and strafing runs.

When the attack began, Walker was on the FOB. He grabbed an M-249 and started shooting toward a mountain spur where he could see some muzzle flashes. Walker put down 600 to 800 rounds of ammunition.  He got down behind the wall he was shooting from to load more ammo and was told they were taking fire from the southwest. He threw the bipod legs of his machine gun on the hood of a nearby Humvee. A 7.62-millimeter caliber bullet struck Walker’s left wrist, knocking him to the ground. A soldier applied a tourniquet to Walker and bandaged him.

Walker and two other wounded soldiers distributed their ammo and grenades and passed messages. The whole FOB was covered in dust and smoke, looking like something out of an old Western movie. "I’ve never seen the enemy do anything like that," said Walker, who was medically evacuated off the FOB in one of the first helicopters to arrive. "It’s usually three RPGs, some sporadic fire and then they’re gone … I don’t where they got all those RPGs. That was crazy."

Two hours after the first shots were fired, Stafford made his way — with help — to the medevac helicopter that arrived. "It was some of the bravest stuff I’ve ever seen in my life, and I will never see it again because those guys," Stafford said, then paused. "Normal humans wouldn’t do that. You’re not supposed to do that — getting up and firing back when everything around you is popping and whizzing and trees, branches coming down and sandbags exploding and RPGs coming in over your head … It was a fistfight then, and those guys held ’ em off."

Stafford offered a guess as to why his fellow soldiers fought so hard. "Just hardcoreness I guess," he said. "Just guys kicking ass, basically. Just making sure that we look scary enough that you don’t want to come in and try to get us."

____________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for our freedom guys.

Now That's A Speech

Just when I thought there were no true economic conservatives out there.  Articulate, charismatic, and persuasive as well.  Somebody that actually understands that when we talk about money in today's world, we are not speaking about money in the traditional sense of human history.  Today money is simply imaginary digits created out of thin air.  We are walking a fine line between printing a functional valued currency and printing Monopoly money.  Here's Daniel Hannan, Member European Parliment. 

 

A Day In Incirlik Village 2009

Since Karen and I have been feeling a little better, we decided to venture into the Village today. Our firt stop was by the furniture store to see how the jewelry box Karen is having made is coming along.  This is where we bought Katie's bedroom furniture.  Katie says to Sunny, "That stuff is really nice."

Then Karen and I went by The Turkish Turtle to have spicey chicken sandwiches and Efes beer.
The village is actually in the process of removing their above-ground-wiring.  It's been funny to watch the process.  First, they just dug a two-foot deep trench in front of all the stores all the way down the street.  They didn't put any caution tape up or any warning signs.  The merchants just layed down pieces of wood across the trench and that's how people were expected to get across if they wanted to get into a store.  After the wiring was laid they didn't repave the street, they just covered the trench with rock.  You can sort of see this in the bottom left of the above picture.  The underground-wiring is not yet active and they haven't actually wired to the stores.  So what does a merchant do to get ready for the new underground wiring?  How can you access the new wiring if it doesn't come into your store?  Well you just drill a trench up to your front door!

But what if your electrical cords don't reach the sidewalk?  How can you power your jack hammer? No problem.  Just climb up to the still active, above-ground-wiring and plug directly in!
We also saw the bakery cart come by with baklava and other pastries.

I negotiate a shrewd business deal for some baklava.

A nice day back out in the village.  

Pack Me Up And Ship Me Home

"Just mail me home," says Slinky!  Even the Little Ghost is ready to go.  Just a quick note to let everyone know that things have been a little better lately.  Karen is doing well with traction therapy and loosing weight, all of which helps alleviate pressure on the spine.  Patrick is feeling better after a two week battle with some form of stomach virus.  We finally managed to both get back on the healthy track and are looking forward to a few adventures as we prepare for what may be our final Air Force PCS.

6 Months And Counting

I wanted to thank everyone for their concerns about how we are doing.  I haven't been on line much as we have really been focused on Karen and just getting through each day.  The good news is we have about six months left and should be watching the sun set and rise in America by September at the latest.  Hopefully, closer to early August.

Karen is doing much better but it still is difficult. She has returned back to work.  We found out she has one herniated disc in her lower back and one bulging disc (not quite herniated).  As the herniated disc protrudes out it touches and irritates the sciatic nerve causing extreme pain, numbness, and even muscle spasms down the entire length of her right leg.  The first time the spasms hit we ended up at the Medical group and they literally had to give her morphine to calm the spasms down.  The second time was almost as bad but we didn't go to the medical clinic.  So the plan is six months of good diet and light exercising with stretching.  We are hoping that can help alleviate the pressure on the nerve and Karen can avoid surgery.  Karen has definitley improved and can get through the day by being careful and moderating pain with medication. But walking long distances or standing is out.  As is lifting Katie or holding her while standing.

So it has been very hard on both of us I think.  Hard on me because I do almost everything around the house or with Katie, but even harder on Karen because she has to endure the pain and wants to carry Katie around very much.  

The Air Force certainly isn't making things any easier.  I have once again found myself in the position of working for a Medical Group that thinks nine hours days are not long enough.  So it's mandatory ten hour days right now. Except, I actually have to get up between 0400-0430 in order to get Katie up dressed, fed, changed, and to daycare.  So as far as I'm concerned they are 12 hour days.  And the drug testing job is the worse job I have ever had in my 27 years of working.  I'd rather be washing dishes back at Pantera's Pizza.  The job itself isn't too bad - it's the status and support of the program that are the big problems.  Karen has been able to start helping out with folding clothes and a little cooking while sitting on a stool.  But I would be lying if I didn't say it's been hard.  Katie is really the only thing that makes the day worth it for us right now.  We really need to be home and near friends and family at a time like this.

Which brings us to our friends and family.  Thank everyone so much for all the stuff everyone has been sending.  It has been just astounding how much stuff people have been sending us.  So thanks for everyone's concerns.  We are making the best of the situation and will continue to post as able.  

Patrick & Karen Dwyer Blogging Hiatus

I will be limiting posts on this site for the near future.  As many of you may know, Karen has been experiencing some extreme sciatic nerve pain.  This has progressed rather severely since last Friday and we really need to look at how we spend our time and money.  At this point we are not sure what the future holds as far as Karen working, medical treatment, our ability to afford daycare, and many other "Incirlik" complications.  I think it best if we focus on being ready to get out of here so when the time comes we have everything in order.  Karen is having a tough time and all I can say is she is my hero for ever more. 

2009: The Year of The Dwyer's Escape From Midnight Express

The Dwyer's spent New Year's Eve at a Turkish carpet store in The Alley in Incirlik Village.   One of the local carpet guys often throws parties.  We didn't have anywhere to go on New Year's Eve so Karen did a little talking and found a party to crash.  I had told Karen I didn't want to spend New Year's Eve being pressured to buy carpets.  But it wasn't like that at all.  The owner, Nuri, had food catered and served beer.  He was very nice and never even discussed his carpets unless you asked him a question about them.  For some reason it's difficult for many of the Turk's to understand that Americans don't like pressured sales.  Nuri seems to have picked up on this long ago and it seems to pay off well for him.  I heard he sold $10,000 in carpets on New Year's Eve. 

Below: Katie models the hand made sweater Major Alicia Edward's bought her. Notice the buttons are actually Turkish "evil eyes."
Katie has removed her sweater to reveal the beautiful party dress made by her Zia Enrica Malone:

The carpets come out and people start looking:

Katie only made until about 9PM and really started to fuss.  She fell asleep on the cold walk home.  We stopped by our neighbors with the intention of seeing midnight with Katie but she woke up there and fussed util we took her home.  I think I fell asleep about 12:15 while Karen was talking to her Dad on the phone.

Dwyer's Christmas 2008

My concept of Octonodecembuary is that once you decorate for Halloween every day becomes a blur that can make Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day just seem like one quick month. Plus, I have my birthday in December, Karen has hers in January, and we have five close friends and family birthdays in there as well. So the most important thing of all is to make sure you don't let anyone rush you through it because time flies when you're having fun.

This Christmas was no exception. Katie Marie Dwyer's first Christmas ! ! ! It was hard getting prepared. We had "the incident" at the mosque in Adana that set back our decorating one entire week. And work...work has been very busy in December. With Karen having sciatic nerve problems, me not getting any time off due to base drug testing needs, and not having seen our friends and family in over 16 months - it has been tough. But it has also been one of the best Christmases ever just because of Katie. She can light up your day like....well, like a Christmas tree.

Karen and I want to thank all of our friends and family for everything they have done for us. Especially during the Christmas holidays. It was amazing how much stuff everyone sent us. I could go on for days and not have said enough about that.

I am going to just let the pictures tell our story. The first one above is Katie's first "face-to-face" with Santa Claus on Christmas eve day at the CDC. She had seen him at the tree lighting ceremony. But here she gets to really check him out and tug on his beard.

The Christmas season started with the tree lighting ceremony. The gradeschoolers put on a great performance. The video is very dark but it sounds great and you get the idea:

Below is 3am Christmas eve after Karen and I finally finshed getting the house just right:

Below: ELMO! ! ! ! Elmo does abso-frig-lutely everything. And I mean everything. He even farts and tells two minute stories. I am not kidding. Sometimes he will say, "Elmo has something to tell you. Squeeze Elmo's nose." And when you do he farts and says, "Excuse Elmo."

Below: Karen and Katie opening presents:

Below: the Grinch rears his head:

Below: A young girl after a very tiring first Christmas:

Starbucks At Incirlik Air Base

Starbucks has opened at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey!  And this is not a "We Proudly Serve..." but a full-blown Starbucks with mugs, desserts, and wifi.  In fact, I believe this is the first full-sized Starbucks in all of USAFE.  The base had been trying to get Starbucks to come in on a smaller scale but once Starbucks Turkey saw the base and the captured market, Starbucks offered to put in a full store.  I heard they paid for 100% of the construction in exchange for being able to keep all profits for the first year.  Sounds fair to me.  Thank you Starbucks!  

Karen and I love our Starbucks.  I don't care how commercialized people claim it is.  The ambiance and smell offer a comfort feeling that reminds us of home.  I'm a pop culture junkie anyway.  We spent four years at the intersection of Black Mountain and Mira Mesa in San Diego, where they literally had afour Starbucks - we miss our coffee!  We bought Starbucks thermoses that say "Turkey" on them.  They are the yellow ones onb the shelf in the photo above.  We also bought a little bear wearing a Starbucks 2008 jacket and waving a Turkiye (Turkey)  banner. We are hoping they will bring in mugs that say "Starbucks Incirlik" but we will see.  Starbucks may not want their name going on mugs with the name of a military base on it.  Incirlik is also the name of the village outside the base so it still could happen.

Below Katie is held by one of the Turkish workers on opening day:

Whirling Dervishes In Konya

NOTE: BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE VIDEO OF THE DERVISHES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.

Karen and I went to Konya on December 14th to see the "real" Whirling Dervishes. It was a long five hour trip up into the mountains and a sort of high desert area that looked a lot like the Antelope Valley near Edwards Air Force Base.   I took the above picture myself.

A quick Wikipedia explanation: "The Mevlevi Order or the Mevleviye are a Sufi order founded by the followers of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet, Islamic jurist, and theologian, in Konya(in present-day Turkey). They are also known as the Whirling Dervishes due to their famous practice of whirling as a form of dhikr (remembrance of Allah).  The Mevleviye, one of the most well known of the Sufi orders, was founded in 1273 by Rumi's followers after his death, particularly by his successor Hüsamettin Çelebi who decided to build a mausoleum for Mevlâna, and then Mevlâna's son, Sultan Veled Celebi (or Çelebi, Chelebi, meaning "fully initiated"). He was an accomplished Sufi mystic with great organizing talents. His personal efforts were continued by his successor Ulu Arif Çelebi. The Mevlevi, or "The Whirling Dervishes", believe in performing their dhikr in the form of a "dance" and music ceremony called the sema.

The Sema represents a mystical journey of man's spiritual ascent through mind and love to "Perfect." Turning towards the truth, the follower grows through love, deserts his ego, finds the truth and arrives at the "Perfect." He then returns from this spiritual journey as a man who has reached maturity and a greater perfection, so as to love and to be of service to the whole of creation.

The sema was practised in the semahane (ritual hall) according to a precisely prescribed symbolic ritual with the dervished whirling in a circle around their sheikh, who is the only one circling around his axis. The dervishes wear a white gown (symbol of death), a wide black cloak (hirka) (symbol of the grave) and a high brown cap (kûlah), symbol of the tombstone.

The Mevlevi Order was outlawed in Turkey at the dawn of the secular revolution and the dervish lodge was converted to Mevlana Museum in Konya by Kemal Atatürk. In the 1950s, the Turkish government legalized the Mevlevi order as an association and began allowing the Whirling Dervishes, who are chosen among the members of this authentic Mevlevi sect, to perform annually in Konya on the Urs of Mevlana, December 17, the anniversary of Rumi's death.^[1] In 1971, they performed in London with Kani Karaca as lead singer. In 1972, they toured North America for the first time with Kani Karaca, Ulvi Erguner, and Akagündüz Kutbay among the musicians. They performed in France, for Pope Paul VI, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Musicand other venues in the United States and Canada - under the direction of the late Mevlevi Shaikh Suleyman Hayati Dede. In April 2007 the order initiated another tour of the U.S. where they performed to sold-out crowds, in places such as Denver and San Francisco.

The order is still active in Turkey, currently led by the 20th great-grandson (22nd generation descendant) of Rumî, Faruk Hemdem Çelebi."

So I guess Rumî, Faruk Hemdem Çeleb is the guy in the picture in the black robe on the right side of the floor.  We were glad we went to see such a unique event but ten hours on a mini-bus is a long time.

This was also the longest time we left Katie alone. We left at 0600 in the morning and did not get home until around 1100 PM. Thanks to Larissa and Chris Cook for watching Katie on her first "long day" away from Mom and Dad.

OK. There are some errors on here I just can't fix. For example "Katie" text above being wrapped around so the "e" drops to the next line. The software literally won't let me correct it. Just part of living in Turkey I guess.

Our Turkish Christmas Birds

Two birds have been sleeping in our vine outside our front door every night.  I have never seen anything like it.  I didn't know that birds actually get close together and snuggle.  It has been cold here - in the 30s most nights.  And our vine is just about bare at this point.  But these two birds get up there every night just after sunset and snuggle together until the morning sunrise.  When they are puffed up like in this photo they seem to be asleep or almost hibernating.  there eyes are closed and I can actually walk up to about a foot away to take a photo like this.  While we are going in and out the front door in the evening, we walk within three feet of them and they never move.

I'm not sure what type of bird they are.  Our Turkish shoeshine guy at the Medical Group, Jaf, tells me they are Nightingales.  They don't look like the Nightingales I see when I google them.  But perhaps they are some Turkish variation.  

Merry Christmas From Patrick, Karen, Katie, and Slinky Dwyer!

Meeeeerrrrrry Christmas everyone! I have one minute to post this! they now have a time limit set on the computers and they automatically log you off. In fact I am going to log off right.....NOW!

And now I'm logged back on and have 55 more minutes but the library closes in five so let me get in what I can. Octonodecembuary is blowing by and time is literally flying. I posted as many pictures as I could of Katie on her site. She is wonderful and talking (or she thinks she is at least)...a lot! They have made it even harder to do stuff on government computers including at the libarary. Flash drives and active x controls are disabled to some extent. I found a way arounfd loading the pics though. Karen had a hell of a time accessing e-mail and Facebooks.

I'm still collecting pee at work. I can only begin to tell whay an absolute thrill that is. I don't actually have to collect it but I have to manage the program. We are trying to get cards and stuff out to everyone but please expect delays. We appreciate everything everyone has done for us or sent us. We miss everyone! Oh, the pedal car. I drove that thing around the entire base perimter - 8 miles. It absolutely killed my legs! It was to raise money for the Combined federal Campiagn.

Our holiday greeting videos ran in St. Louis missouri on KSDK and some station in San Diego. If anyone has a way of capturing that in file format, please send to me. We miss you all. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night....

Long Time No Post; Getting Short

It's actually been more than a month. Wow. I'm telling ya - Octonodecembuary is in full swing. We haven't had time to blink since October got here. We just put the Halloween stuff away today. And we are getting short. We should be home about nine months from now. When Octonodecembuary rolls is over we will essentially only have 5 months left and we will be shipping our stuff 3-4 months after Octonodecembuary is over.

I am going to try to start coming by the library one night per week to blog so hopefully I will catch up soon. A quick summary of events: I gave my last guitar lesson a week ago, I am still the base drug tester with no end in site, my Mental Health Flight won the paintball championship yesterday, we had a nice Halloween night giving out candy (Katie slept through the whole thing), and Katie will be 4 months on November 15th. Some recent photos:

Below, our house on Halloween. That's Karen's boss, Rada Ford on the left and a prop on the right...or is that Rad on the right? No Rada is on the left:

Below, Karen and Katie in the living room just prior to Halloween:

Below, the hedgehog that seems to be coming through our back yard every night. So far Slinky seems to know to stay away. That black dot is his nose and the smaller black dot just up and to the right of his nose is his eye:

"Little ghost, little ghost, your the cat I love the most." Some of our Halloween decorations sat out on the patio until today when we had time to put them away. last night was a little cool so Slinky warmed up to the skeleton bride below:

The Fence Is Down

I know we posted before that we are enjoying the fence being down. Just wanted to post a few more photos. Below Slinky is amazed to see there is a whole other world on the other side of the fence. This is the first time he was ever able to see past the fence much less walk out the back gate. Remember, we had a five foot tarp around the whole fence.

Another shot of our banana tree. Actually, it's our neighbor's banana tree but this year it has grown so much we have one stalk that has sprouted up on our side of the fence. We have a smaller one on the other side of the yard as well. This tree below is over two stories tall:

Now that Karen's back to work and things have fallen into a routine, we have found time to venture back in the alley. Below is Katie's first trip to a bar. We went to The Turkish Turtle to have their famous chicken sandwich. They were excellent! Below is a shot of Karen and I over by the grafitti wall.

There is a good shot of Katie in the bar that I will post on her site at adayinthelifeofkatiedwyer.blogspot.com

Well Piss On All Ya!

That's right, I am now the official Incirlik Air Base Drug Testing Program Administrator. That means I am the sole urinalysis tester. For all practical purposes I am actually the Program Manager as well. On paper, the Program Manager is our new OIC but since I am the only one actually in the office doing the testing and coordination I would say I am doing both jobs. So I am now the NCOIC of the Mental Health Flight, the base DTPAM, and also perform the Demand Reduction Program Manager duties. I was crunching numbers the other day and I calculated our Mental Health staff has shrunk by 42% since I first arrived. Since July of 2007 we lost our Family Advocacy Outreach Manager, our New Parent Support Program Nurse, our DoDs school alcohol and drug counselor, our child psychologist, our Demand Reduction Program Manager, and one mental health technician. Now I will get a tech back in June of 09 and we did regain a new Child psychologist, but I also see the potential of loosing two more positions so a 42% reduction hurts hard.

So when Karen and I are at home I try as hard as I can to forget about all the work stuff. We have been busy trying to get our back yard looking nice. Here is Katie and Karen in the back before dinner. Don't let the banana tree fool you. There's something about a banana tree that can make everything look like paradise. Trust me it's another world beyond that fence. but that's the whole idea. A paradise backyard. It's a little blurry but I was trying to get far enough away to capture the effect of the whole yard:

Karen has started back to work at NAF and Katie is at the CDC. Karen actually was moved to the corner office of Building 833. Well, she had the corner office and now she has the one next to it - but they are both NAF offices. Normally, the Air Force sticks NAF in a really crappy location so Karen and her boss, Rada, are happy to have one of the best views from the building. It's actually a commander's office that somehow went vacant.

Katie is thriving at the CDC. All the ladies love her and she is always busy. They actually had her make an art project last week. hopefully, I can get a picture of that soon. If you want pictures of Katie, you should know where to go for that. If not - just ask.

Slinky is busy doing his best to help out with his little sister. Here, he inspects Katie's new exosaucer:

I finished my 30 education units to recertify my alcohol and drug counseling certification. Now it's time to take the 6 unit CLEP before Christmas. Octonodecembuary is almost here!

Flashing Before Our Eyes

Well it seems like I won't get time to post as often as I like out here until we get home internet. When we do find time to go to the library, I have just enough time to post the daily photos of Katie. Remember, you can find those at: http://adayinthelifeofkatiedwyer.blogspot.com .

There is some interesting stuff going on at work and some nice changes to the house. Karen and I are going by the club on the way home from here to get a Club Card application. Gives you a discount for the internet. So after we get signed up and buy a modem we should be good to go.

Karen had a bunch of neighbor wives over for margaritas and I am trying to finish up my distance education hours so i can recertify my CADAC (Certified Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counselor) . I some how crammed in 30 education hours in the last two weeks.

It's starting to drop out of the 100 degree days in southern Turkey now. Once we get some snow up in the Tarsus Mountains it should be really nice. Unfortunately, this is the time of the year all the farmers burn their fields and the air is REALLY bad in the afternoon.

Hope to write more soon.

Dwyer's Update

Life is great with Katie. We need 72 hour days but life is great. Just a few updates. We sadly said goodbye to The Matriarch of Incirlik Mental Health, Major Alicia Edwards. She is headed to Misawa, Japan. We received an opening at The CDC (Incirlik Day Care) for Katie, so Karen will be going back to work in early September. We are tentatively planning to get internet services in the coming weeks so hopefully some of our friends and family will hear from us more often. I'm trying to accumulate 15-30 CEUs online in two weeks. It's really tough with trying to work, teach guitar, and have time for Katie but my CADAC expires in September so I'm up against the wall. Can't wait to get the CEUs out of the way. And the strike by Turkish local nationals was averted on base so we will still be able to buy groceries and baby supplies- that's always a good thing. See you soon.

A Day In The Life of Katie Dwyer

For those of you that want to watch Katie grow up before your eyes: http://adayinthelifeofkatiedwyer.blogspot.com

MArk it to your favorites Grandma and Grandpa.

The Return From Germany

I know everyone knows we have made it back to Turkey with Katie, but I haven't had a chance to describe the flight yet. I really try to avoid sounding negative out here. Hopefully, this will only sound funny now that it is over. Here is the story of the the Dwyer's flight from Ramstein to Incirlik.

Let me start by saying I to fly. I used to love to fly. But since 911, it is such a hassle and the airlines provide such crappy service, it's not worth the money any more. And it's such a long ordeal. I don't think it's fair for an airline to say a flight is, for example, 3 hours if you have to arrive at the airport 3 hours early and it takes a minimum of an hour to get your luggage and depart the airport. Well, with Karen and I, our flight adventure started several days before the flight. We flew The Patriot Express or The Rotator, as some people call it. This is a fairly regular flight from USA to Incirlik with a layover at Ramstein or sometimes Ireland. The DoD contracts the entire plane and staff with Orion. We flew what is known as Space Required. This means we have a lower priority than someone moving from one assignment to another but a higher priority than people who are trying to fly Space Available. Space A is essentially catching a free government flight for personal travel. Now, one of the requirements to fly Space R is having official orders saying someone is paying for the flight. Well Karen was on roundtrip orders and I was on roundtrip orders. But Katie had no orders. Incirlik's aerovac office was required to "amend" Karen' orders to show we had a new dependant requiring flight. We were ble to get Katie's emergency passport back from Frankfurt on Friday, 18 July. So I started calling Incirlik's aerovac office to get Katie's orders so we could fly back to Turkey on Wednesday, the 23rd. Incirlik kept telling me there was one guy that could amend the orders and he would be back later...which turned into by 4 o'clock...which turned into "call back Monday." So on Monday I called. This time later turned into "after lunch" which then became "...he's actually not going to be in today. Try back Tuesday." In the meantime, I have Ramstein's passenger terminal telling me I had to have the orders in by the day prior to the flight. So when i got up on Tuesday, we had eight hours left for Incirlik to get me the orders. Adn the I still had to GET them to Ramstein. Remember, we were not at Ramstein but at Landstuhl about 5 miles away. I start to call back every hour and I finally reqch the guy and he says, "Sgt Dwyer, don't worry about it. I do this all the time. Sometimes I even get the orders to the terminal five minutes before the flight." Now, the guy cutting me the orders is a great guy. I know him. But I find myself saying, "Well, yeah, maybe you have gotten them there five minutes before the flight before - but Ramstein is telling me that won't work." And Ramstein has the plane! So I was leaning towards their point-of-view. I finally got the orders around 1PM, just 2 and a half hours before the Incirlik guy went home.

So now we rush over to Ramstein to turn in the orders around 6PM the night before the flight. You would think sigh-of-relief and good-to-go right? Nope. They looked at my paperwork as if they had never seen anything like it on our planet before. But after a half an hour they said we were checked in and all we had to do was, the next day, go to a specific counter they pointed out to me and get our seats. The flight would be around 1:50 PM and we were to show at...ready for this...9PM! Almost five hours before the flight.

The 23rd rolls around and Karen and I are out of bed before 5am so we can pack, clean the room, check out, and get to Ramstein. All is well. I go up to the counter and they say, "No you have to go to that counter over there." "Are you sure? We went to that counter last night." So I go to that counter and they say there is no record of us having ever checked in and again looked at our paperwork as if they were written in another language. They finally figure it out and simply say they have redone what must have fallen out of the system. Whatever. At least I can now check my luggae over at the last counter. Until I hear, "There is no record of you having checked into the system." I explain that this would be the third time we have tried to check in the system. This time it takes even longer but when I leave the counter we all have boarding passes so I didn't care what the system thought after that.

So then we cram onto the flight with a bunch of people Incirlik bound and so more that will be continuing on to the Kyrgyz Republic. Finally get situated. We get a row of five seats for the three of us. Plenty of room and katie is being perfect. We ate our meal and were about one half hour into the movie when we hear the pilot say, "Attention. We need to announce that we are turning around and heading back to Ramstein. We have a hdraulic leak that is causing the landing gear not to move automatically. We will lower the landing gear manually so you will hear some noise. Unfortunately, this warrants attention back at Ramstein." Well crap. We were finally three hours from home and now we have no idea when we will get home. Then a second announcement, "We will not be heading to Ramstein. Instead, the US military has requested we land at the former Hahn Air Base." hahn is near Ramstein by the village of Lautzenhausen. When we landed, I heard an officer behind me say he could see a line of hydraulic fluid on the runway as we were towed back to the other end of the runway after landing. This was probably true as a fire truck and two safety vehicles seemed to follow our path scrubbing the runway where we had been.

Once we arrived to the spot where they were going to attempt to repair the aircraft, they had us disembark with our carry-on luggage. We were bused about five minutes away to a VERY SMALL terminal and told we could not leave the area. The plan was to fix the plane before 11PM as the flight crew could not take off after midnight due to flying restrictions. This part was . Some people did very well. A lot of the active guys moving on to deployment just played cards and drank beer. But we had an 8-day old baby! Katie did well but got fussy after a few hours. We went through several feeding and diaper cycles. We started to get worried because there was no place for Karen to pump or breast feed and we were down to only three bottles of formula. And Katie was really starting to fuss. We couldn't get her to sleep because all the other kids on the flight where running around screaming, but we couldn't take her to the quiet area where the soldiers where sleeping because we didn't want to wake them up. I was completely convinved they were going to send us to a hotel when they announced the plane was fixed about 10:45PM. So we made it in the air by midnight and landed at Incirlik after 4 am, 24 hours after we got up to head to the airport for our "four-hour flight."

One other funny note about the flight. At one point, Karen was trying to sleep with her head on a card table in the corner of the room. We had also just gotten Katie to sleep. Well a lady three tables over was playing cards and continuously shuffleing the cards very loudly. No big deal. But I guess her husband and teenage son were getting irritated beccause they couln't sleep due to her shuffleing. So what did she do? She moved over next to us and started shuffleing! Her famil asked her to move because she was too loud so she came nect to karen and an 8-day old baby to keep them awake. We just moved (we moved several times due to other similar incidents). So the funny part is the women turns out to be the wife of a very high ranking Medical Group leadership member. They were on their way to Incirlik! It's going to be interesting when I say, "Yes, I have met your wife. We were on that flight together."

I wanted to document this here. It's not that I'm furious about the whole thing. I mean, it was a pain, but now it's just a good story. I just want Katie to someday be able to read about the ordeal she went through to get back home...or at least back to Turkey. Home will come later.