Next Stop: Georgia

As Rachel pointed out, assignments have been released. All I'm going to say is that I'm very happy and honored to have been selected for another A-10 operational flying assignment. So what does "operational" mean? Operational is a term given to military flying units whose primary mission is to support National Command Authority taskings, objectives, and missions. Uh, yeah, ok got it..........so what does it really mean? It means that the unit is constantly ready and always prepared to deploy in "x" amount of time anywhere in the world in order to execute combat operations. In more basic terms, we go to war. So how does that differ from Korea? It doesn't; it's just that Korea is a strategic and political operation and the war over there likely won't ever happen again, but we must maintain a presence. So how would an assignment to Davis-Monthan or Spangdahlem in Germany have been any different? It "could" have been different, but only at Davis-Monthan. Davis-Monthan has the unique mission of training new A-10 pilots, but also has a real-world operational mission just like Moody and Spangdahlem. How do they do all that though? Well, they have 1 fighter squadron, the 354th Fighter Squadron, that their mission is to deploy and support command authority missions just like Moody. If I would have gotten selected for that assignment, I'd be going to a operational assignment as well, just at Davis-Monthan in Arizona as opposed to Georgia. However, if I would have gotten selected for the training unit (they have 2 squadrons that are strictly for training), I'd still be going to Davis-Monthan, just not to the deployable, operational squadron, so no deployments to the Middle-East area of operations. Well, that sounds like a good thing right? No. Rachel and I spoke at length about this very topic. Honestly, I don't really need to explain it to anyone except her. The bottom line is that she is 100% supportive of me going to a squadron that WILL deploy to combat zones around the world. It was a mutual decision with multiple variables considered. She understands the sense of duty I have and she knows that our nation requires the people she has come to know to go and simply get the job done for our troops on the ground.

So that's it. Pretty simple right? Probably not and I understand that. My Mom has been trying for years to fully grasp the weird world of military life. It really is an interesting life that has many, many things that those of you in the civilian world may never fully understand. All you really need to know is that we are very happy to be continuing on in the A-10 attack community. Rachel and I have developed life long friendships and relationships and we look forward to keeping those alive, and forging new ones in our new home in the Southeastern corner of the United States!

PS - Remember, the guy at the top could be our neighbor down there!