Can't Wait

We got a wonderful card in the mail today from Seth and Eli...one of those musical cards that plays a song when you open it. The Jackson Five....I'll be there...just call my name and I'll be there.
Family....always there no matter how much distance separates us.
Here's a video from an August 25 news report on the comeback of Gulfport, Mississippi:

Almost Done

I took these pictures off the FRG Website. FRG stands for "Family Readiness Group." This site provides families with updates and photos of the 3-116th. Each company has their own site and soon each platoon will have a site. Eli has been asked to be the FRG Officer for their platoon - a logical choice given his ability to talk and write. He's been taking lots of pictures - they call him for the "Kodak moments." When we get together in Mississippi I'll get all his photos and be able to post some of them here. The photos here are ones I took off the FRG site for Bravo Company. You can pick Seth out waiting his turn for Marksmenship Qualification. If you click on the picture you can enlarge it and see his smiling face.....actually, he's looking a little bored! The other photo is Bravo Company....Seth and Eli's company.
Jan and I took a walk with Eli last night. Or at least it seemed that way. Jan and I had just set out for our usual evening walk over at the Rehab Center. This is a beautiful walk around the lake and down through the woods that we enjoy. Right at the start of our walk Eli called. I put him on speakerphone on the cell and we walked and talked during the entire walk. When we were finished I thanked Eli for walking with us. They had just returned from five days at the FOB (a mock forward operating base where they can practice real life situations.) They had spent the week doing MPC - mounted patrol convoys. Eli had been pressed into service as a humvee driver since they are short of drivers and he has his humvee license. He is licensed to drive the humvee ambulance and I guess if you can drive one humvee you can drive another. They did a lot of scenario practice and Eli noted that when the 50 cal gun fired from the top of his humvee it shook the entire vehicle. Seth was manning the 240 in the humvee in front of Eli's so he got to watch Seth in action firing the big gun. The 50 cal is a mounted machine gun and as Eli has said the 240 is just a BIG GUN! Imagine how that shakes the humvee.
They leave Sunday for five more days of training at the FOB. Training will be over at that point and we'll be a few days from our time at the Gulf. There's no departure date set in stone, but the boys feel it will be the week after leave. They have been told that they'll go to Kuiwait first and probably spend about two weeks there before heading to their destination in Iraq. One step at a time.....looking forward to spending time in Gulfport, Mississippi.

Update from Mississippi and pics

Hello to all,

I am attempting to send an e-mail and some pictures, but the internet is acting a little crazy, so if you receive this e-mail more then once, or not at all, I apologize. For those of you that do not receive it, ask a friend or family member who did receive it if they could send it to you. Things here are going like one would expect, tiring and hot and full of things that make you scratch your head and go..."huh?" We have been doing lots of training since I returned from Texas. Just to give a quick overview

1. CIED 2 and CiED 3, which consisted of five days of learning counter measures to IEDs, implemented explosive devices. There was some classroom time, but a lot of it was practical exercise which consisted of driving around in humvess through urban and rural terrain doing vehicle maneuvers, coming into contact with "IEDs" and reacting appropriately and promptly. We had a night convoy one of the nights, and then one of the days we drove around all day in the humvees doing lanes, but for the morning part of the training we had to drive "tactically" which meant the windows of the humvess were up. The humvees we have to use at Camp Shelby have no air condition, the ones in Iraq do, we drove around in temperatures above 100 degrees with our windows up, all our gear on including gloves! This one made me scratch my head and go...."huh?" These were some long days.

2. The hardest three days we've had since we have been here was squad live fire. We had a mile long course where we had to do squad movements in full battle rattle, so a lot of running, getting up and down from the prone position, and crawling. The lane lasted between 20 and 30 minutes, but I felt like I had put in a full days work after just that short time. We had targets we fired at the whole way through. We did a walk through one day with no rounds, the next day with blanks, the third day we used live rounds. I was assigned to Bravo team and so at one point during the lane we came into contact with a bunker and my team had to run about 200 meters doing a left flanking movement up a hill while Alpha team (consisting of Seth) laid down suppressive fire, and then myself and another Specialist sprinted another 100 meters over the bunker and threw a simulation grenade into the bunker and then cleared it. A medic clearing a bunker? Scratch your head....I did.

3. We did weapons zero and qualification of our M-4s along with NBC qual which is firing with your gas mask on, and we did night qual. Seth and I were both a first time go on all of the qualifications. Seth also qualified on a M-240, which is simply a "big gun."

4. Land Navigation was fun, but the worst part was it started at 3:00am so you were up at 2:00am to get bussed over there. We used the new GPS systems which are fascinating things, and for our practical exercises we were put into the swamps of Camp Shelby and made to find three locations that, when we finally got there, had a sheet of paper with numbers that you had to record to prove you made it there. We traveled in pairs and returned with mud up to our knees. We then had to find locations all around base driving in the humvees with the GPS systems. The technology is pretty amazing.

We've had plenty of other things going on as well, but those are the main things. Tomorrow starts MCP (mounted convoy patrol) which I will be a driver for because we are short drivers and I have a humvee license. We will head out to the FOB (forward operation base) tomorrow to sleep in tents while we do MCP, which will last five days. After that we have our final event which puts everything we've done so far together.

Only a little over two more weeks and I will be enjoying the Gulf of Mexico with my wonderful family for a few days of leave before we ship! I can not wait!

The attitude here has done a complete 180. When we got here everyone was saying "we hope we stay at Camp Shelby as long as possible because it will keep us out of Iraq." Now everyone is saying, "get us the hell out of Camp Shelby and over to Iraq!"

Hope everyone is doing well. Enjoy the pictures! Take care.

Love,

Eli


ps. I saved this e-mail as a draft as I was having problems, and I tried to send it this evening and was unable to send it with the pictures, so I sent a few to Dad and he'll be posting them on the blog, so that's how you can view them.

Extreme Smoker and Mandatory Fun

That's how Seth described the last two days....Extreme Smoker! Imagine putting on all of your clothes, a couple extra sweatshirts and carrying a book bag filled with bricks. Then picture yourself walking, running, falling to the ground, jumping up and running some more. Now do all this in 100 plus heat! You get the idea. The last two days have been spent practicing field maneuvers. As they move down the road they practice engaging an enemy, taking defensive and offensive positions and most importantly disengaging from the enemy. As they move forward shots are fired and they practice over and over how best to respond to each scenario. The idea is to make their actions second nature....training kicks in and they respond. Of course they're dressed in full battle rattle the entire time in the Mississippi heat and humidity - an extreme smoker! Tuesday they completed this exercise with no ammo in their guns, yesterday they used blanks and today (Thursday) they will be doing it as a live fire exercise. Jan can't imagine why they need to be shooting real ammunition and just hopes they'll be careful. On Friday Seth will be on the 240 Range. This is a mounted large caliber automatic weapon that he used in Afghanistan. THEN......it's a mandatory fun outing. The platoon is going to the mall for an outing. Everybody must attend, hence they're calling it "mandatory fun." Seth and Eli have both said that ordinarily they wouldn't be looking forward to spending four hours at a mall, but given their current circumstances they'll gladly go......the thinkning is dinner and a movie! Life is good! Exreme smoking and mandatory fun!

Tough Day for Virginia

Two Virginia Soldiers have been killed in the War on Terrorism and one soldier died preparing for the fight. A Virginia soldier has been killed in Afghanistan (remember that war?) and another has died of an IED in Iraq. A third soldier from the Virginia National Guard died in Wisconsin while training to deploy to Iraq. He apparently contracted a bacterial meningitis during training and died. All other members of his group have been tested and found free of meningitis. I was talking to someone the other day and mentioned Seth's time in Afghanistan. They wondered if we were still fighting there......It's a sad comment when we have soldiers being killed in a war people don't even remember we're fighting. Who weeps for these soldiers other than their families and friends.....

Guess he didn't want to go......

According to the Associated Press an Iraq-bound Kentucky soldier and two guns missing from Camp Shelby

The AP reports that authorities are searching for a Kentucky National Guardsman who disappeared from Camp Shelby, Mississippi, while he was training for a deployment to Iraq. Officials say two guns are also missing. Private First Class Ryan Longnecker was at Camp Shelby with the Kentucky National Guard's Battery B, Second Battalion, 138th Field Artillery unit. Post spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Doril Sanders says Longnecker was discovered missing on Monday. Sanders says a nine millimeter pistol and M4 semiautomatic rifle were also unaccounted for. The Kentucky unit has been training at Camp Shelby since early June. The troops will be headed to Iraq within the next two weeks.

Video of Al Asad Sandstorm

The following is a video from You Tube from the air base that Seth and Eli will be posting to......enjoy the Sandstorm

Middle School all over again

To say that there are some fundamental differences between Seth and Eli would be an understatement. Seth is a man of few words.....Eli can talk to anyone about anything. Seth is the Reader's Digest Condensed Version.....Eli is the whole story with lots of appendixes. Eli is neat....Seth....well, Seth can be a slob. When they were little as a Christmas present they got plastic tubs filled with paper, markers, scissors, crayons and a variety of others things to get their creative juices flowing. After one month, Eli's tub was still organized and neat. Seth's was a jumbled mess filled with anything and everything, including a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Seth and Eli shared a bedroom. You can see where this is going. Eli's closet was full of hanging clothes organized and cross referenced by color, style and munufacturer. Seth's closet is the entire house - wherever his clothes happen to fall. This diffenence in neatness led to some knock down drag out fights and eventually to the construction of another bedroom in the basement. When Seth and Eli stopped sharing a bedroom peace reigned at the Lovell household. True, we lost a den as well as gaining a bedroom......Seth's mess flowed out of his downstairs room into the den making both rooms uninhabitable for most people. But that was the price we were willing to pay so the boys wouldn't have to share a room.
When we talked to the boys this weekend we learned that room assignments had been made for their posting to Iraq. You guessed it....Seth and Eli will be sharing a room. Does the Army really know what they're doing? The living quarters sound fairly decent. Seth noted that his time in Afghanistan involved some questionable living conditions....he froze, he sweltered, he didn't have much room, the roof leaked. Conditions at the air base they will be stationed at sound much better. There are apparently six men to a hut with three bedrooms. Seth and Eli will share a bedroom. The base does have some ammenities including internet hookups and cable TV. Soldiers must purchase their internet connection and cable TV from a private contractor on the base if they want this kind of access. Seth and Eli will definitely get internet access.
The boys have finished CIED training (Counter Improvised Explosive Device Training.) They spent a fair amount of time on this as they should since this is the single biggest threat to our soldiers. Personally, I don't know how you counter this threat other than staying as far away as you can from anything that looks remotely suspicious. The base sounds big and safe. Seth and Eli will be involved in convoy security which will take them off the base, but when there they should have many of the comforts of home.

Norris the Chaplain

Norris Burkes is an Air Force Chaplain and free-lance writer. He pens a spiritual column that is carried by our local newspaper and I admit I'm on his email list. I receive a copy of his column before it printed in the paper and I get occassional emails about his other activities. I enjoy reading his column because he readily admits his failings and his failures to be the person that God wants him to be. He seems very real to me....not one of those writers who presents as perfect and perfectly in touch with God. I was touched by his latest column and wanted to pass it on to those of you who read my blog:

This month I met a chaplain who refused to pray for an Air Force general. If
that shocks you, I think I should add I greatly respect him for it.

I suspect some of you are saying what my mom used to say, "You'd better explain
yourself PDQ."

It happened, or perhaps I should say it didn't happen, in Leesburg, Va., last
week where I attended a conference for Air National Guard senior chaplains and
chaplain assistants. It had been a good week, but by week's end, most of us had
one hand on our luggage and one foot pointing toward the door.

Suddenly from the back of the room, someone called the room to attention, "Ten
hut!" and a man walked in who had most of us seeing stars -- three of them in
fact, all on his collar.

The man was Lt. Gen. Craig R. McKinley, and he is the director of the Air
National Guard. This is a rank so high it makes me want to type this column from
a standing position.

However, during the next 30 minutes, McKinley demonstrated spiritual warmth that
nearly made us forget about his rank. He solicited our ideas and made good notes of our remarks. For all of
this, he received a sincere standing ovation from us.

At the conclusion of his speech, our senior chaplain voiced a prayer request. He
asked us that if we would commit to daily prayer for the general, we should
remain standing. If not, we could take our seats. No doubt, this was a
well-intentioned request, but it gave me some pause.

On the one hand, given the scriptural admonition to pray for those appointed
over me, prayer was certainly an appropriate strategy. But on the other hand,
doesn't honesty demand I admit this glib request wasn't likely to be met with
any kind of regularity?

After all, my regular prayers are reserved for people I know best, and in that
category, my grandson outranks them all.

I felt my knees flex as they challenged my integrity. Would I, could I sit?

Well, if you follow this column because you think me a spiritual hero, you've
not read enough of my columns. Nothing doing. I stood with the herd.

Everyone stood. Everyone, that is, but Chaplain Stan Giles. Stan had decisively
taken a seat.

Upon hearing the request, he had commenced an integrity check. He knew what we
all know about our prayer habits.

He knew most of us find it easier to ascent to casual requests for prayer than
to take prayer seriously. We promise our prayers to people as casually as we say
"bless you" with a sneeze or "have a great day" with a gas station purchase.

From his chair, Stan seemed to be reflecting on his prayer commitments, and he
knew he had neither the time nor the stamina to regularly pray for someone he
didn't know. His prayer list was full.

Truthfully, I admire Stan for his nonstanding stance. And I suspect the general
would admire him, too. Because at the end of the day, the people I want praying
for me are the people who know me best and who have real integrity in their
prayer life -- people like Chaplain Stan.

Last night I had a what can only be described as a panic attack. Jan had fallen asleep and I continued to read for awhile. Thoughts of Eli and Seth intruded along with the news of the day about four more soldiers killed in Iraq by an IED. Seth and Eli's recent training has been about dealing with IED's. All these thoughts rattled around in my brain with a force that I couldn't stop. I prayed to God to remove these thoughts from me, to help me relax and know that everything would be okay. Reading Norris Burkes column today I thought about all the people who have told us they are praying for the boys, their wives and us. I know what my prayer life is like and how every day problems and activities drive my time. I don't always follow through on things I say I will do. I know some of those "We're praying for you" statements are statements of intention only. I also know that our family is surrounded by a great host of wonderful family (church and otherwise) who do hold us in their prayers and thoughts. I know that whatever happens in the next year we will be supported by our family and our God....Thanks to all the people who continue to read this blog (and thanks for Tylenol PM.)

Live from Mississippi

Seth hasn't had access to email while at Camp Shelby, but he does have his laptop, printer and digital camera....all resulting in a lovely letter from him this week with a couple of pictures. The quality of his picture isn't great on my blog as I scanned it from his letter, but it does show smiling faces. Eli is on the left, Seth on the right and the soldier in the middle is a friend of theirs from the area, Phillip. The heat we're all experiencing on the east coast is equally oppressive in Mississippi. They have been having heat and humidity making training in full battle rattle difficult and a little dangerous. The group has suffered several heat related injuries. They usually stand down in the middle of the day to avoid the worst of the heat. They have had several night training exercises which also helps to avoid some of the heat.

Katy and the broken dog

How did this story begin......two years ago I found out it was a good thing I didn't have daughters. I usually didn't have trouble saying "no" to the boys, although Jan will tell you differently. Two summers ago after finishing their sophomore year at Bridgewater, Katy and Eli asked me about getting a dog. My first (and correct) thought was NO! Kids in college don't need a dog. They had it all planned out though......Katy would be living in a house next school year and could keep the dog there. Besides, they had already been to the SPCA and found the perfect little puppy - wouldn't I just come and look at it with them? Big mistake! Between Katy looking at me with those big sorrowful eyes and the cutest little puppy sitting in my lap at the SPCA I said yes..........without even asking Jan! Long story short....Colby lived with us for the summer then moved in with Katy at the start of the school year. That lasted less than a week when the puppy proved more than a house full of girls could handle. Colby moved back to live with us while Katy and Eli finished their Junior year of college. Once they got married between their junior and senior years Colby would go live with them. UNLESS you rent an apartment that doesn't allow pets! Colby continued to live with Jan and me and actually became a pretty good member of the family.
Finally, with Katy firmly in place at their new home in North Carolina, we moved Colby to be with Katy. Unfortunately, we took Katy a broken dog. The night before going to North Carolina I noticed a spot on Colbys rear leg where she had licked all the hair off! Katy had to take Colby to the vet's and the diagnosis was a bacterial infection. The result: topical cream, pills and a funny looking cone to keep Colby from continuing to lick the spot. Katy was also advised to give Colby Benedryl to make her sleep. I'm happy to report that Colby is on the mend and is trying to figure out her place in her new home with Katy....how the story will end...I don't know. Will Colby be a great companion for Katy......stay tuned for Cobly and Katy updates!

Meanwhile....back in Mississippi

You've seen some emails from Eli while he was in Texas. Computer time in Mississippi doesn't happen, so we won't get emails from Eli for awhile and Seth has not had the chance to send any. Seth has been busy with his training and just finished MOUNT training. I'm not sure I've spelled it correctly, but it is an urban warfare training. They spent about six days in the field doing this training. They have an authentic Iraqi village set up with about 50 Arab speaking individuals who role play with them as they go through different scenarios. Seth said that they conducted raids on different houses in the village to find weapons. Apparently they do their best to provide very realistic training. The last two days have been spent on the range doing weapons training. I've spoken to Eli since his return to Mississippi....he is well and seems happy to be back with Seth. Right now we're focused on their leave and enjoying time together. Hurry September 5!

Leaving Texas..........

Eli is now back in Mississippi. Here's an email he sent before leaving Texas:
Hello once again,

Tomorrow will be my last day in Texas, and as much as I complained about the humidity and all the rain, I will be sad to leave because of what I'll return to.......heat and mosquitoes. Camp Sheldy is not much to look forward to I'm afraid. However, I do look forward to being with Seth again, but I really enjoy being around all of the medical staff, and so I will be sad to leave.

Tonight we ordered Chinese and then ended up having a big water fight with some water guns some of the medics bought. There is a hose in the bathrooms, and so we lured the "bad guys" down to the bathroom and then proceeded to soak them. For the first time since coming on this deployment I felt normal, even if normal meant feeling like a kid again, it felt good!

The past several days we have been out in the field waking up at 3am and starting our training by 4am. Although 3am is way too early to start work, it was good training. We did a lot of simulated combat medical exercises with simulated gunshots and mortars going off, we used each other as the casulaties and put on fake blood and gore, bandaged eachother up, drug eachother around to reach "safety", and so pretty much we just played. The only thing that was not play was the IVs, which I gave several of and received several of. We went around talking to each other saying, "in the real world, how do you feel" or "in the fake world, how are you".

We'll "graduate" tomorrow and then leave at 2:00 in the afternoon and reach Shelby at 4am on Thursday (just in time for some infantry training!). It will probably be awhile before I am at a computer again, but thanks for all the e-mails people have sent me while I was here at Texas. When I get a chance I will update you from Mississippi. Take care,

With Love,

Eli