Life on the Vine

A Brief Foreward:   In the past three weeks I've worked with our local VA hospital to surprise our Hometown Hero, who will fly with the USAF Thunderbirds at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base's upcoming Air Show.  Attended my last Military Affairs Committee event, which highlighted the Navy and Marine Corps facility located on DM.  Lined up a final Airman for an on-court 'Hero of the Game' recognition at the University of Arizona Basketball game.  Did three read aheads for Wing leadership, who were attending off-base community events.  And conducted my final civic leader tour, which was for military leadership and community leaders from Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska. As all of this has been happening, I've been doing a lot of reflecting because yesterday was my final out at DM.  Actually, my final out working for the Department of Defense.  I'm just one month shy of 22 years.  Next Monday I'll in-process my new job with the U.S. Department of...

The week after Thanksgiving I had a chance to travel to Africa for a work trip.  It was a whirlwind trip...we were in a different place every night.  Our first stop was Gabon in Central Africa.  I wrote a blog for AFRICOM's website and thought I'd re-post it here.   View of Gabon's capital Libreville Gabon in Sub-Saharan Africa straddles the equator and is one of the least densely populated countries in Africa.   The nation, which is about the size of Colorado, has an estimated population of 1.54 million people, which is smaller than some U.S. cities.   The week after Thanksgiving I had a chance to visit Gabon while supporting a senior leader visit by Ambassador J. Anthony Holmes, U.S. Africa Command’s deputy to the commander for civil-military activities.   The visit’s main focus was maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea and regional cooperation, but we got an opportunity to visit the Gabonese military’s HIV/AIDS program at Camp Barak...

It was kind of hard to miss that a royal wedding was being planned with all the non-stop press coverage for the weeks and months leading up to the big day.  Many of my co-workers were following the news specials and festivities and suggested we have a Royal Wedding party in the office.   It was a simple plan.  All the ladies would sport colorful headgear in homage to British hats.  We'd have theme-appropriate snacks and then all we needed was a TV.  Check, check and check!  And, to our good fortune, being in Germany and all, the wedding happened right around lunch time.  So don't worry...your tax dollars weren't too terribly wasted this day! And truth be told, it has been a long, busy, sometimes stressful few months for our office.  The United States being part of the coalition to enforce UNSCR 1973 in Libya was certainly no small part of it.  So, honestly, the chance for us to be a bit silly, dress up and watch something...

Didn’t mean to go so long without posting a blog.  Tom and I spent two weeks in Arizona over Christmas and had a very nice holiday.  We enjoyed time with family and got to see our property for the first time.  We flew back to Germany on New Year’s Eve.    I had a couple weeks in the office before traveling to Nigeria for a work trip.  With a population of 152 million, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa.  It was a trip with our deputy to the commander for civil-military activities (DCMA).  My story about the trip is on the AFRICOM website.  The trip to Nigeria was supposed to be to Lagos (Nigeria's economic center), Abuja (the capital) and Kano but there were some mechanical problems with our plane, delaying our departure from Stuttgart a day and a half.  The Lagos portion of the trip had to be canceled entirely but the activities in Abuja and Kano went forward.   We flew up to Kano, which is located in nor...