Flexibility is the key component in the United States Army. Those of you without military experience may not fully comprehend the meaning of this statement. Our troops are working in 120+ degree conditions fifteen to twenty hours each day. Often times they get little amounts of sleep and have no time for R&R or working out. The picture of the pod is the living quarters for the troops. Each unit houses 4 soldiers…at least they are air-conditioned.
I can’t say thanks enough to all the troops doing service for our country overseas. The picture on my “Home” page is of the people assigned security detail for us, while we were in Iraq. They took great care of us and made sure our trip ran as smoothly as possible. A special thank you to these five individuals.

We flew into Kuwait and drove to Ali Al Salem (I hope I spelled that correctly) Airforce base. The Airforce took us to Baghdad via a C-130. You can see the pictures of the plane, as well as Randy and I in the cockpit. We visited that base as well as several others, and the Army transported us with Blackhawk helicopters. Weather conditions made it very difficult to travel from base to base. We found ourselves waiting for hours to transport to a new base, and in the process lost the time to make it to every scheduled base. Randy and I had a chance to do question and answer sessions, teach a couple of clinics, and eat lunch with the troops daily.

By the way, for those of you who do not know…the picture of me with the hand is the hand from the statue of Saddam the Marines tore down.