Starting to Say Goodbye

The NCOIC is the first to leave. His replacement and one of the new airmen arrived late last week. We've given gifts to our food service workers and their supervisors.

Today dawned beautiful and relatively cool (only 80 degrees). But soon another dust storm rolled in. That halts the convoys (no fresh produce) and our mail (no box from home). But, more importantly, it makes it difficult for the medical choppers to fly. So some folks get stuck at the Combat Surgical Hospitals (CSH) and have to wait there before we can move them forward to Germany.

The Medevac Unit here is known as "Dustoff". 2-641 AVN moved their operations to the helipad next to the hospital a few months ago. I helped them get things set up for on-call personnel to have their meals at the hospital DFAC (since they cannot be more than 10 min away from the choppers). As thanks their command chief presented me with one of the Commander's coins.
















Last Friday we hosted the final results of the second round for "Fit-2-Fight" (our weight lost competition). This time around we put emphasis on fitness and body composition rather than just weight. My team got 2nd place (average 5% fat loss amongst the four of us).



The hospital Commander called me up in front of the participants and presented me with his coin to thank me for all the work I have done at the hospital this year. He cited the remodel of the DFAC, bringing in some new food/beverage items; the Halal meal contract so our Iraqi patients would eat more (helps in wound healing and decreased length of stay), and the Medical Nutrition Therapy (clinical care, nutrition support, diet education).