Deadline Looming and We're Not There Yet

eMail Our Military





Deadline Looming and We're Not There Yet

Tomorrow is our deadline to meet the goal we set. We aimed for the stars this year since we received $1,115 last year from our Postage Patriots.

It is hard to believe the our deadline is tomorrow and we are not even half way to reaching our goal.

$954 is honorable and we absolutely appreciate it. Every penny will go directly to supporting the troops this holiday season with holiday cards and care packages.

However, we have not given up yet. You can still send in your checks, money orders, or use ChipIn and PayPal to get us to our goal. Every single dollar counts.

It doesn't matter if you can't do $5 do what you can. If you want to do more, please do!

We'll be snapping photos of our packages incoming and outgoing just like we did last year and we know you will enjoy the hardwork we put into this project that YOU made possible. (Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emom/sets/72157603422810438/ )

We will not let you down and we will not let our troops down.

Please help us reach our goal!

Please send your holiday mail and or payments to:

eMail Our Military
"Holiday Love"
8004 NW 154 Street, Suite 344
Miami Lakes, FL 33016

A quick plug for Tina, my Writer

25 page custom ghostwritten ebookfor free

Ok, if you're reading this post, you should probably know that I'm already going to win this contest, but still, thanks for reading :)

No, seriously!

Tina Mcallister is holding a contest. I met her recently on Twitter, you can follow her here:
TWITTER: @TinaMc
http://twitter.com/TinaMc

Tina is a Ghost writer. While she may at times write about haunted houses, that's not really what Ghost Writers do. From what I have learned, a Ghost Writer is someone who "helps" someone else write their book or article. Say you're a very busy successful person who would like to write a book. Great, right? Oh, wow, you can't really just walk away from your business for the next 3 months while you write your book. Plus, you're probably not very good at writing, are you? :) Well, say hello to Tina, your awesome new Ghost Writer! She will write your book for you, and it will be as if you wrote it yourself, in your "voice". How cool is that?

Ok, that's about all I know about this, go talk to Tina. But don't take up too much of her time, she's going to be writing my new book pretty soon, ok? Really!

Go ahead and ask me about my book sometime.

Later!

Follow me on Twitter! http://twitter.com/carlincomm
@carlincomm

Setting up the story...

My first 3 years in the Navy I spent at China Lake, California, at the Naval Weapons Test Center, in the Mojave Desert. Don't let the name fool you, China Lake is a dry lake bed, perfect for a bombing range, but not so good for fishing, right?

While I actually did enjoy it there, I had joined the Navy to see the world and the adventure. So when I saw a helicopter squadron in Guam on my list of choices, I was pretty excited. Not only that, but I got to spend 4 months in San Diego for helicopter training, first. Great deal!

I arrived in Guam, USA after about 16 hours flight time, crossing six time zones and the International Date Line. I was checked into Helicopter Combat Support Squadron Five (HC-5), at Naval Air Station, Agana. I spent the ten months working in corrosion control, as an aircraft painter. Again, not what I had really expected, but it was nice on a tropical island.

Finally my name was put on a detachment list. I was to embark on USS Niagara Falls, AFS-3, for PAC-EX 88, from September 90 to October 90, which was then followed by a full WEST-PAC cruise, from November 90 to March 91. The AFS stands for Auxiliary, Fresh Stores, or something like that, but the skipper called it Attack Food Ship, since it had two 3 inch guns on the bow. We deployed in support of various battle groups in the area, and replenished our supply of fresh fruits and vegetables every couple weeks or so.

We also had liberty calls in the Philippines, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bali, Muscat, Fugarah, and Australia. Along the way I had the "honor" of participating in Shellback initiation, when we crossed the equator. This is a time honored naval tradition where the "slimy pollywogs", the initiated are made worthy to be called Trusty Shellbacks, by doing all sorts of demeaning unmentionables, crawling on hands and knees, swimming in week old garbage, getting flogged with pieces of fire hose, and barking like a dog. Just ask any salty sailor about "wog day" or crossing the line.

I got back to Guam around mid March, and by mid June I was already going back out. I was scheduled to make a short cruise on board the USNS Kilauea, T-AE-26, from mid-June to late July. We went to Philippines for most of the time, and then made a quick trip up to Japan. The USNS Kilauea, which has a civilian crew, is part of the Military Sealift Command. The ships mission is delivering munitions to forward deployed battle groups. Munitions is things like bombs. Lots and lots of bombs.

We got back to Guam around the first of August, and stood down, took leave and relaxed. I was at the auto hobby shop, working on a car, listening to the radio, when I heard about the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. I just knew I was going to get more sea time and ribbons out of that. We stood up our two HH-46D Seaknights, six pilots, one warrant officer, and 27 enlisted maintenance crew in what was undoubtedly record time. If we had only known a few days sooner, we would not have stood down from the last det, as we took most of the same people.

Coming up next...
DAY ONE
18 AUGUST, 1990

In the beginning...

Forward...

This is based in part on a diary I kept during Desert Shield, and then Desert Storm. This is also based largely on the correspondence I received from numerous people "back home", which started with the "Any serviceperson" mail we were receiving so much of. We were receiving more mail than we were able to reply to, so since I had brought my computer, I made up a form letter, answering 20 of the most common questions everyone was asking, and then I tried to answer as many personal questions as I had time for.

My normal working shift was 1800-0600, so much of what happened during the daylight hours is not included, as I slept through it. As such, I will not pass this off as an accounting of the war, but rather as my impressions and feelings as things progressed that I actually saw. Besides, the average second grade kid saw more of the war on CNN than most of us out in the Gulf did. I was working 12 hour shifts during most of the time we were on station, 7 days a week, so I was writing back to people when I could fit it in, without loosing too much sleep. The saving factors were 1) the postage was free, since we were in a war zone, 2) people were sending out envelopes and stationary, and 3) I had my computer with a printer with me, to take care of the mailing list and doing the letters.

From the one hundred people I pulled from the bag, I ended up with about 40 or 50 who were writing back at least once in a while, up to people who sent food, cookies, video tapes of TV shows, paper clippings, cards, etc. Since my transfer to California, I still have about 20 people who are writing fairly regularly, none of whom I have at yet met, but I do plan on it, sometime in the future. Maybe that would make for a second book: ANY SERVICEMEMBER: 5 YEARS LATER.

(You'll notice a lot of jumping around from present to past tenses here. The above post was edited back in 1993 or 1994. I'm just now looking at this again, and finally going to finish it, one way or another!)

Thanks for reading!
Carlin
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http://twitter.com/carlincomm