Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Well HELLLOOO!! First, as always, thank you to all of those that continue to show your support to my brother and I. We always appreciate it!

Well, I apologize...I haven't written on here in some time. I could make excuses and give some good reasons...but..it wouldn't change much. I'm sorry. SO I'll try to make up for some lost time and tell what's been going on in my world....

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Christmas this year is one that I will probably never forget. I would love to tell you I won't forget it because I was 9,000 miles-ish away from home and being in Iraq was significant enough....well...I really wish that was the only reason why it will stick in my head for a very long time. Christmas morning was ok....Christmas evening my group and I enjoyed a nice dinner together at the DFAC and got our picture with Santa. Then we came back to the office and opened presents. I had some stockings made for everyone and they really enjoyed them. We all got the biggest kick out of it because they knew I had wrapped some small toys and put in the stockings...well...what I didn't know is that they wrapped a few gifts themselves and put in one stocking in particular. We were all sitting around and they kept telling the one female to look in her stocking and open stuff....the first odd thing was a fly swatter...it was pretty funny and she whipped a few of the others for a good laugh...but that wasn't it. They told her to keep digging...keep digging...well she pulled out this little 2 inch x 2 inch gift....she started to unwrap it and just started yelling and chasing the other females around the office....all the way out into the hallway....little did I know they had wrapped a peice of charcoal! It was absolutely funny! So after we got calmed down from the whole "lump of coal" in her stocking, we started unwrapping presents and everything. It was nice, I got a collection of UFC DVD's... NICE! A few others got clothes, gift cards, and I bought my person a bunch of cartoons. Bless her heart, she's young at heart and loves cartoons! So I got her several different cartoon DVD's. She loved them....and still is enjoying them. So Christmas evening was great. I finally got to call home around 2100 my time and was able to talk for about 15 minutes but that was it.... We all wanted to call home around 1600 or so but we weren't able to...(8am east coast) but at least we were able to call home.

Happy New Years!! Now last night was fun! We played some poker and watched TV and I hung out with some of my buddies over here. It was odd...we celebrated New Years at midnight last night, then again at 0800 this morning while we were watching the ball drop in NY...It was weird. I did get to call home and wish my family Happy New Year's this morning so that was good. I had a weird feeling about things this morning...and usually those feelings are pretty spot on some how...but today went by without a glitch....OH before I forget...the New Year's Eve program that we watched this morning with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Gifford...that was the worst New Year's Eve show I've ever seen. Kathy was absolutely horrible, rude, and unpleasant to watch...it's too bad it was our only choice to see the ball drop in NY. Even the guy that was in New Orleans was rude...he kept judging people, at one point he commented how glad he was to get off Burbon St. because of all the "happy" people were acting pretty crazy...HELLO IT'S BURBON STREET! Did he expect a street full of Christian school girls on a field trip??? Of course the people were getting drunk and having a good time but he shouldn't have insulted the entire mood of the folks and the people themselves....he finished his part of the broadcast by moving to a new spot to watch the ball drop...he commented on how they were going to watch the ball drop but didn't think many others would remember it in the morning... SO WHAT! It's their choice to drink and party...he shouldn't judge. I guess Kathy had me all worked up by the time he said all that crap...she kept interrupting the other anchors covering Time Square and just talking about some of the most random crap. The disgust on Anderson Cooper's face was SO OBVIOUS. You could tell he wanted to be finished with the evening's events and get away from Kathy. One of the last things she said, thinking that she was off camera and her mike had been cut, she told one person to "shut up", another to "get a job", and another one "I don't come to your work and knock the dicks out of your mouth...GET A JOB". Yeah...very unimpressed. Like I said, it was not a good New Year's Eve show like they normally have.

Anyway...so life is going pretty ok right now. I'm so ready to get the heck out of here! I'm more than ready to come home!! I seem to be pretty on edge lately...a little snippy, and a little short fused. I'm thinking that it will get better the closer we get to coming home, but it for now...I think it's the lack of good sleep. I feel there are a few good reasons why I'm short fused lately... it seems like I've got a lot going on in several different aspects of my life. My house that I let someone live in for free while I was over here so they could "babysit my house"....well, it's a wreck and it seems like there's not any "fixing" that's going to take place anytime soon. I've got a little situation in WV where we like to hunt so much each year. A distant family member said in the background of a phone conversation the other day..."if he thinks he has it hard over, just wait!!" Yeah....see that's were you're wrong. There's nothing that a distant family member can do to even get remotely close to what's going on over here....so don't waste your time trying. Then there's the "stuff" going on over here that is not combat related....adding a little extra stress here and there...but, it's all good. I'm not worried. I'll be home soon. I'll be far away from the people getting on my last nerve, and closer to those that touch my heart like nothing else in this world.

Well, enough blabbering for now. Well...almost. Do you remember growing up and kids running for class president, making all those promises they thought you wanted to hear...like, pizza for lunch every Friday, more time for lunch, snack machines and drink machines will be installed... you know all that stuff you wanted to hear just to get you to like them and vote for them. THEN when they got elected, the didn't do jack shit. It was only then they realized they couldn't fulfill all those wonderful things they said they could...then you found yourself looking at them like, "what the crap!" Isn't it amazing that no matter how old we get those same principals exist.

Again, I want to thank everyone for your support and love you've shown to my brother and I. I'll try to write more on here in the coming days. Thank you, and I love you all!!!

Somwhere in Iraq,

sgt wormy