012008 Remember Matt Maupin

Today we received some coffee from the Yellow Ribbon support Center of Cincinnati OH. It was basically a big box of 25 packages of coffee. This will last for a good month or so and it was very kind of them. The box was plastered with 'Remember Matt Maupin' stickers. Matt was abducted while on a convoy operation. His 'sergeant'(boss) at that time is now the Command Sergeant Major for the command where I am located here at Balad and he still remembers Matt and how he had to communicate the news of Matt's disappearance to Matt's parents. I've met some interesting people while over here. While at CRC in Houston a few years ago I met a retired Sergeant Major named Richard (Dick) Rambo. 'CRC' is the week long orientation that one attends before deploying to the Middle East. Long story short, Dick Rambo was a retired 'special forces' Sergeant Major simply working on his post-retirement career with KBR. I got to know Dick pretty well over the week and still keep in touch with him but it was only after we were both deployed to Iraq that I found out Dick was THE RAMBO which the Rambo movie series was based upon.

Here are some pics of the Combat Lifesaver Course instructors. I'll post pics of our final exercise tomorrow. The 'wounds' that we treated were pretty realistic looking.