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More thoughts

I'm about finished here at Ft. Lee, and I an ready to get home (at least for a couple of days before I have to go back to Belle Chasse). I'm getting tired of being gone most of the time, but one more year will wrap it up and let the retirement begin!!! At least, let the Army retirement begin - we'll see about school later.

I'm excited about Christmas because just about everybody will be home for a while. Jessie, Bart, Brennan and Jackson get here next week, Jeni, Trent, and Brooklyn will be in Vidalia for a few days, and of course Justin is there. We'll miss Jason and Becca, but Linda and I are going up to see them for a day or so in January, after she takes a class at Nicholas Lodge's school in Atlanta. Everybody will get together at Mama's in Jonesville on Saturday, which will be loads of fun, and I'm really looking forward to it. We don't get together near often enough!

Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas thoughts

I guess I have not proven to be much of a blogger so far, but to each his own. I'm in Virginia for a couple of weeks, which is ok, but I'd rather be at home. I love Christmas time. It makes me travel back to when I was a kid, and to when our kids were small. I love the feeling of good cheer and goodwill that is widespread, but I don't like the "buy, buy, buy" that comes at us from every direction. When I was little, we got one big present from Santa Claus, and usually we kids got little presents for each other along with some small things from Mama and Daddy. We weren't gifted with lots of material things, but we had a pretty good family. I think many of us have too much today, and don't really appreciate what we have.

Here are some pictures from one Christmas (1964) out on Little River.

Up above are me and Mike, with Ed and Rosa in the other small picture. Ed really liked his stopper gun! I'm looking at my airplane, and Mike is showing off his pistols:)

This is Jane and her baby doll.

Weren't we cute? I think so, but then, I'm prejudiced. It was a lot simpler Christmas then.

Merry Christmas to all.

Woe is me (and a lot of others!)

The Tigers went down in a tough one today, and I'm sad to see the loss. At least they beat Alabama a few weeks ago, and I was tickled at that one, since I work with several Tide fans. I work with only one Hog, and will be off until next Thursday, so hopefully I won't catch too much flak when I get back to work. They're in the SEC title game, and will draw a good bowl, but the BCS title just slipped away. I know it's just a game, but it sure is disappointing when your team goes down to somebody they should have beat.

An empty mind?

The pictures:
l: Me in Kuwait on Christmas Day 2003 (2nd tour)

c: SGT Doug McClure (Daddy)

r: CSM Sam McClure (Uncle Sam - one of Daddy's older brothers)

The pictures of Daddy and Uncle Sam show part of the reason I have stuck with the military so long - it runs in the family.

The blog has been empty, maybe because my mind is empty right now, or because I've been otherwise occupied. I like that "otherwise occupied" better than empty, so that's what I'll go with right now. I had to go back to Ft. Polk earlier this week to finish demobilizing so I can start my final active duty orders. The orders are for 1 year, 1 month, and 17 days, ending on 31 December 2008 with my active duty retirement. YAHOO!!! I can't believe I'm actually going to be able to get an active duty retirement. I guess if you hang around long enough you can get pretty much what you want. I'm glad I won't have to wait until age 60 to start drawing the money. I never figured when I enlisted in January of 1973 that I'd still be fooling with the Army over 34 years later. I have had a good career for the most part. The multiple deployments to Kuwait over the past 5 years have not been real fun, but that's what made it possible to hit that active duty time I needed, so I guess even somewhat unpleasant experiences count for our good if we approach them with the right frame of mind. But, the deployments weren't too bad, because I had mostly good people working for and with me, and I had some good bosses. Attitude is everything.

Happy Birthday, Cay

Today (Nov 9) is my sister Cay's birthday. I won't say how old she is today, but I'm 54 and she's one year younger than I am. Next June our brother Mike turns 52. From his birthday until mine in August we are 1,2,3 in age, then I jump ahead.

Sizzling stuff for a blog, huh?

Hmmm...

OK, I'm going to join in on NaBloPoMo (or whatever it is), or at least try to. I don't think I can equal Jessie's creativity, since I no longer have small children around, and since I don't do much interesting stuff. We'll see how it goes.