New Day, New Blog Title.

Here I am with a blog. Never thought it would happen. It's an experiment in economy of effort to inform as many friends and family of what's happening during this excursion. I thought the title OP Kilo 09 makes sense though, as that will be part of my job--to observe what's going on and to help make things better for the good guys doing the really heavy lifting, the Afghans they protect, and by extension, folks in the free parts of the world.

I'll use some acronyms occasionally. Fur' instance "OPSEC" or Operational Security. When I say OPSEC it means I am limiting what I say because it pertains to our mission and the information is potententially sensitive. I realize that if you are from certain large media organizations (NYT comes to mind), U.S. Forces' OPSEC requests don't matter. But the rest of you "get it."

So, there's not much happening for the next three weeks except for preparations to move to the training sites enroute; Ft. Jackson, SC for a couple of weeks, a week at Ft. Benning, GA, then off to Europe/Kuwait/Baghram Airbase/Kabul. At least one small glitch could occur as I might not pass the Ft. Jackson physical exam and be declared "non-deployable." If that happens, I'm back home and back on the job a few days later and "End of Mission." Hope not. Oh yes, to all, the question of the day for tomorrow: "Who is Punxatawny Phil, and why do we care?"