Pre-Deployment Update

I have recieved a few requests for some photos of whatever it is I do and an update on what's been going on, so here it is.  Since last August I have been in and out of the field, all over southern California and even around the world.  I was in Mongolia for most of August (I posted some pics from that trip in September).  In October I spent a couple weeks down in Coronado, CA conducting training in preparation for the upcoming deployment.  In November/December I spent a month in 29 Palms, CA, where day to day you never know what is in store.  While we were there I saw sunshine, 50mph winds, rain, sleet, snow and everything in between.  Needless to say, I can't stand that place, but it is phenomenal for training Marines because of the opportunities for realistic training it provides.  In January I spent two weeks in the field, the first of which was great, the second it rained non-stop and never got above 45 degrees.  It took me a few days to regain feeling in all parts of my body.  Since the end of February I have been out on ship for two weeks, home for two, back on ship for two and now back home again.  We have been cruising around the Pacific Ocean getting ready for deployment by conducting missions from ship to Camp Pendleton and/or various islands off the coast that the DoD owns, then back to ship.  It has been good, but I don't like missing Kelsey and Callie so much.  Below are some pictures from various events that were sent to me from my Marines.  I'll post some more when I can and try to give updates from deployment if possible.  Enjoy.

Here is a winner of me, sitting on top of an AAV in 29 Palms

Here is a stuck AAV that drove into a bomb crater on accident.  Everyone was ok, but not happy.  Just to give you an idea of how big the hole is, the vehicle is about 25 feet long and about 8 feet high.  We used an M-88 Tank retreiver to pull it out.

Cool shot of an AAV waiting to be entrenched by a bull dozer for a batallion defense operation.  The sun was going down and a huge moon was coming up.  We had been working for about 12 hours already that day and wouldn't get a chance to sleep until two days later...yeah!

Picture of my platoon after a six day exercise aboard Camp Pendleton.  This was the last field exercise my old platoon sergeant would attend due to his promotion, so we decided to get a group photo.  I'm on the middle vehicle in the front right.

This is a picture from inside the well-deck of the ship of AAVs "splashing"/launching from the back toward land.  There is a lot of smoke in the picture, but you can see some of the other vehicles heading to shore.  This was at 630pm and we would return to the ship that night/next morning at 2am.  Night ops are fun, but a little nerve racking.