In between a rock and a hard place, there's usually an IED

It's 4 in the morning and my soldiers have already been up for 12 hours. We're stopped along a road. We are unable to move. Up ahead, our lead element has spotted a possible IED (Improvised Explosive Device). We can't be too sure since it's dark, but we're fairly certain. We are completely exhausted, but we wait for EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) to come and clear the IED. We wait for several hours. The sun comes up and they're still not here. We're going on 18 hours of no rest. Finally, EOD shows up, clears the IED and we make our way back to our base only to receive yet another mission which will last us all the way until midnight.

That was a recent scenario down here at JRTC. We just finished our rotation here. Our exhaustion level is high but we're happy with what we've done and look forward to what's next. A lot of people ask when we're heading overseas and I have to unfortunately beg off the question. We do know the date, but we're not supposed to be talking about. Suffice to say when we're overseas, I will let you all know via the blog and facebook.

Thanks to everyone who's called, wrote and kept in touch. I've appreciated all of them. Things are going to start getting interesting soon, so I really appreciate all the nice notes, e mails and calls. Take care and I will talk to you all hopefully soon.