“Do the next thing”

Fran has been in Kuwait for 2 months now. He has settled into his quarters, learned his job, and adjusted to the 4 acre plot of desert he calls home. With that under his belt, he is venturing into new challenges. What to do to keep the brain cells working, and not stagnating from the normalcy of the known and predictable?

So, his more recent off-time occupation is to help the guys who are maintaining the computer network used by the tents. This task promises to keep him busy for a bit of time to come, so that is good. After all, what would Fran do without keeping his fingers in the technology equipment that he lives with and rely’s on each day?

His camera sees things with a humorous eye at times. You might call it, Comic Rehydration, if you were naming it. In fact, he hopes to develope that idea into something tangible in the days and weeks to come. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t take his job seriously, but all of us in the midst of crisis or difficulty must strive to find the smiles and laughter. Joy exhists even in hard times. It isn’t always easy to see, but it is there and he does find it day to day.

One form of joy that perks up his days is the cards and gifts that he has been receiving here and there. If I begin to mention names I’ll forget some and then be in trouble! To each of you, however, I am thankful. I understand the time, effort, and money that it takes for these tangible gestures of caring. Fran’s thanks you to; his most recent two packages came during a week when he was feeling a bit down. So, consider your shipment well timed!!

Here is some text from one of his recent emails:
“I wish I could go into a lot of detail about my day, but it is either technical or somewhat a security issue. My routine, I get up (try) about 4 AM, stumble to the gym or the helipad to run. I take a shower, eat, have devotions and try to get to the shop by 7 AM…My day consists of taking care of every imaginable user, network, printer, PC or software problem that you can think of….While I am doing all that, I have to make sure that the other commo stuff is taken care of by the rest of the crew. Things like radios, crypto gear, electronic-countermeasures and other electronics in the gun trucks. Given that it is the Army; there is a lot of paperwork, accountability checks and redundant data calls….Nothing here is hard, too harsh or unbearable. What makes it arduous is being away from you!”

Ok, I slightly blush pasting the last line, but so be it!

Pray that Fran’s days will continue to be uneventful, but interesting. How else can I phrase that?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 2:55 pm and is filed under The Daily Grind. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.