Gentlemen, welcome home. I’m glad you felt welcome. I enjoyed spending the weekend with you and meeting your very delightful wives.
And yes, there is a TON of pic’s. Between the professional photographer that came in for the early afternoon pic’s, the Taboo Girls’ photographer that came in later in the afternoon and the personal cameras, I’m guestimating about 500 or so pics to sort through. I’ll be getting one of the disks tonight and should be able to post some of them tomorrow.
Now, where to start?!?! It was such a great time!! The Baghdad BOTLs arrived around 12:30 and after we showed them around they made themselves comfortable while I threw the Salmon and Halibut that Swissy sent on the grill. (Jim, all I can say is WWWWOOOOOWWWWW! That was GOOD! Thank you). The chow was buffet style so everyone could smoke and eat at their leisure. Along with the fish there was Barbequed Brisket, Chicken, and all the trimmings.
Dean brought some amazing cigar box clocks and handed them out (and thank you for the WOAM that you stuck in mine) and Wyatt twisted my arm until I finally gave in and smoked a Shark that he brought along. :whistling:
Then I had the pleasure of presenting them with another gift that Swissy sent. I set a box on the table and challenged them with “You’re in the middle of the desert with nothing to drink for a hundred miles” then I placed a fork on top of the box and said, “Now, improvise”. It was a perfect example how the military chain of command works. MSG Dean “tasman” Parks and FSGT Rodney “Outlaw VII” Byus dug right in, LTC Kelly “high-n-tight” Sandifer assisted as needed to keep things moving in a positive direction while CPT Wyatt “Brickhouse” Bickett surpervised and encouraged with exhortations such as “ Wow, that looks like hard work”. After about 10 minutes, Rodney was able to break free the first of three bottles. About 5 minutes later, Dean was the proud owner of his very own bottle at which point Kelly demonstrates to us all why he is the LTC. He reached over and pulled the remaining block of hardened foam over to him, reached into his pocket and extracted a soldiers most valuable tool, a pocket knife with a bottle opener and proceeded to pop the exposed top of the remaining bottle and then lifted the entire block up to his face and began enjoying his prize. :laugh: Afterwards, they each shared with everyone around.
After more conversation and cigars my family made it to the shop and Wyatt said he had something for my son Matthew and called us all into the media room. He called Matthew up to stand with him and then presented him with a unit coin for his help with OpFTH and his hard work in running the half marathon for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I was overwhelmed by it all. ( Sunday morning, Matt (who’s 17) pulled the coin out of his pocket and tossed it to me and said “You owe me a beer Dad” I looked at him and said “I don’t think so” I pulled my own challenge coin from my pocket and tossed it back to him and said’ The way I see it, You owe ME a beer.”)
The girls of TABOO showed up a few hours later and….well…there are some cigar girl pics coming at you. After they had been there for a while they taught BargoPrincess (who just turned 6) how to do the runway walk, it was priceless! I had to leave after that to go do the HO HO HO thing so I’ll leave it to the Baghdad Brothers to fill you in on the rest of the evening and anything else I missed.
IT was a great time and pic’s will follow soon! Thank you Brothers and WELCOME HOME!
