My Captain years

Here is a picture I got with Tami and Alissa the day I left for Missouri. I felt compelled to get it because the last picture I got with Tami was that one in my barracks room at West Point when she was trying to get Dave to rehydrate. Tami and I have known each other for a while now, and I miss her. I have gotten a chance to visit her twice in Dallas, which was incredible and changed my life. She and significant others have convinced me (almost) to move to Dallas upon exit from the army. We were neighbors at WP and then she was a significant reason that I went to Fort Hood as opposed to Germany for my first assignment. While she and I may not exactly see eye to eye on everything, I still can't complain about the time I had when we actually did link up and hang out. Thanks, Spicer. I still want to go on that cruise- when is the next one? Tami is now out of the army and working as an engineer in Dallas. The other person in the picture is Alissa, who spent a good amount of time with me before I moved to Missouri. She was always cool to me- but perhaps the greatest thing about her for my life is the fact that her roommate from Fort Hood days and I are now dating. Go figure! More on that later. Alissa, I wish you Godspeed in your dreams and I have a strange feeling that I'll see you again someday!

Alas Ben and I finally settled in our new apartment about 10 minutes from school. This first picture is of the Chevelle- 'Belle after we pushed it off the transport. I am fixing the thing up now (suspension and brakes) because I can't seem to part with the ole beast. The next photo is a quick picture of my room before Chris and Jacob moved out.

This picture is of me actually putting this page together. It took a bit longer than I planned, so next time I will probably use a more friendly page maker. I did all of it myself this time. I did want to start out writing the code myself since it gives me an appreciation of how the entire Hyper Text Markup Language works. This picture is of my team here in Missouri at the advanced course. We all got pretty close and I like them all. Look at the far right and see Federico "Fred" Luchini. He invited me to his wedding in Argentina in March 2003 but I couldn't go. Darned army- again. If you take my word for it, our junior leaders in the army and marines really care about the security of the United States and their soldiers. The fact that many of us aren't satisfied with their role in the military should tell us all about the systemic problems that are occurring today in our armed forces. Many times senior leadership writes us off as "whiners" and soft but if everyone is singing the same song, my thought is that we need to reevaluate our organizational processes. You see here from left to right, Major Hanna (Egypt), Ted Radtke, Steve Tabat, Jim Handura, Curran Johnson, Major Al-Ghamdi (Saudi Arabia), Rick Hansen (the group instructor), Shirle Fleming, me, Staci Gash, Eren Sitki, Erik Hendrickson, Rob Sayre, USMC Capt. Hall Bain, and Captain Federico (Fred) Luchini (Argentina).

During the advanced course, I did get an opportunity to travel a bit. Besides attending Jason and Jenny's wedding in Arizona, I visited with some of my Fort Hood buds down in the big easy. Good pick on the weekend again... This picture is of my friends from Texas (Dom, me, Nancy, Dan in the bottom row and Greg in the upper right corner) during a visit to New Orleans on Labor Day Weekend.

It was kind of weird because it was Gay Pride Parade weekend too, which certainly caused some unpleasant moments for me. Notice also the band aid on my forehead. I got nine stitches playing soccer the week prior and I had an X-Men band aid to cover the sutures. It was a great conversation starter, but I found that it was difficult for anyone to take me seriously with that thing on my forehead. Oh well. At the very least, Dan doesn't seem to be having any trouble seeing out of his left eye in this picture. You will have to ask Nancy about that because she holds the incriminating evidence. 

This portion of the page is devoted to six weeks I spent at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas at CAS3. To anyone in Staff Group 196, I just want you to know that I had a great time and this small shrine is meant primarily to show you how fun it was for me.

From left to right, you see Al Zehnder (Ordnance), Mike Slaven (Adjutant General), Andrew Ramos (Military Intelligence), Giselle Gant (also MI), Rich "Boomer" Arnold (Cavalry), Sharoyn Harris (Nurse), Jay Erwin (Armor), Steve Cram (Air Defense Artillery), Will Ashmore (Grumpy Old Artilleryman), Dylan Lawlor (Medical Service), me (Engineer), and Terry Phillips (Aviation).

Here is a picture of the staff group leader, LTC Marty Klein. Actually I made this picture because he played a two-star general a lot during the course. Maybe some motivated group someday will actually borrow one of his uniforms from his wife and have some stars sewn on it. Actually this isn't a photograph at all, it is a rendering by a talented artist who painted the portrait before cameras were invented. LTC Klein told the artist, "Make me look 10 years younger" and I think he did just fine!

This is a picture of the group of us students at University of Missouri at Rolla. We all received our Master's Degrees from the program in March 2001, so it was a really good program. I paid my tuition and books but the army paid my salary while I spent the extra four months to finish the degree program. It was pretty comprehensive but could probably stand to be a little bit harder. You can see in this photo, standing from left to right, Eren, John, Steve, Martin, Joe, Rick, Jesse, Eric, Ryan, JD, Josh, Chea, Curran, Chris, Ben, John, Tom, Rob, Jan, Chris, Scott, and Ted. Larry and I are kneeling down. These guys are awesome and I can't wait to see any of them again. Lots of them are out of the army already, but I did run into Martin here in Colorado. I learned in August 2003 that Josh, who was one of my closest friends in UMR and a project partner of mine on a very ambitious project, was killed by an IED in Fallujah, Iraq in July of 2003. I'll miss you brother but I know you are with the Lord and I'll love you forever.

Well after UMR I took some leave in Michigan and did some temporary study in Virginia, so I traveled around a lot and said hello to many of my friends. Let's just say that I stayed busy. I will address most of it in the New Stuff but it has been fun. I then left Kuwait to serve American interests back in America. I never made it to anyplace in particular while overseas, other than a weekend trip to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Darned terrorists. While that itself is selfish, I had to smile when a friend of mine here in Colorado told me about an article in "The Onion" after the attacks which gave a fake interview of the culprits of the WTC/Pentagon attacks. They said that they were surprised not to find 1,000 virgins in heaven but rather demons who ripped their toenails out.

Well, after going to Kuwait in May 2001, I spent some quality time there for about a year or so. I worked as the operations officer for the Department of Public Works, as well as the housing officer, environmental officer, and some other jobs. I definitely stayed busy, and even had a side job working as a field representative for City Colleges of Chicago, until November when I couldn't take it anymore.

Whilst in Kuwait I saw some neat things, such as the inside of my small room and some really cool smokestacks that spewed noxious gas at us 24/7. Once or twice they went down and stopped spewing fumes but then we lost power and enjoyed the 120 degree heat. I also got to travel around Kuwait a bit, looking at construction projects around the country. We spent some big coin over there, but luckily it was mostly Kuwaiti money. I did some neat things in my job, mostly in the environmental portion of it, but didn't get smiled upon on my rating. Colonels with their excuses really make me mad sometimes...

Desert Storm happened while I was in high school, but I got a chance to enter one of the vehicle graveyards while there. This picture, though intended to mean that I got all those kills myself with a pistol and a bad attitude, doesn't even begin to show the magnitude of the vehicle graveyard's size. It went on and on, row after row. This was only one of three such graveyards in Kuwait. I guess you could say the UN whooped ass in 1991.

You can also take a good look at the skyline and a popular landmark in Kuwait, the water towers. Of primary interest are the folks in the TGIFriday's picture. They were my coworkers and all were very professional, especially when dealing with angry colonels who broke their own darn toilet. Look for the guy third from the right- Rod. What a great engineer and true friend. I almost would take a job in Kuwait just for the guarantee of being around him. I got a chance to see Rod and Al, who isn't pictured here, both before moving into Iraq in April 2003 as well as upon returning to Kuwait in March 2004. Incredible! I went SCUBA diving with a friend of mine and the guy third from left, Farron. That was fun, but I didn't complete my certification. Oh well, time ticks on and if I never get another chance, it is something I did once, and loved. Well then after realizing that I wasn't superman, it was time to return to the USA. My next station turned out to be Fort Carson, in lovely Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Finally we get to my local situation. We deployed to Iraq in April 2003 where I served as TAC battle captain, TOC battle captain, Civil Affairs Officer, and company commander, which I am still doing. I am looking to exit the army this summer. Seems that the army has trouble keeping in its good officers. Now, I am not saying that I am any good, but after getting snubbed on my evaluation in Kuwait and coming to this god-awful army post, it's time to go. Now, I thoroughly enjoy the country (skiing, hiking, rock-climbing, you name it) but don't like the army. I want to be an actual engineer. I'll keep you all posted. I am considering staying here, or moving to Dallas.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my local area. I don't have any of me climbing the rock, because I don't know what happened to them. I have a convoluted hard drive right now. Also, this is a picture of Pike's Peak from a great distance. Nice view from there, but I would say that the view from the summit of Vail Mountain before skiing down is much better. The other tall mountains are much closer than they are to Pike. It sure is chilly up there though.

Bowling take me away from this horrible web site!
Back to my main page. On to my transportation assets.