I'm So Excited and I Just Can't Hide It

As I type this Geo is preparing to fly out of Afghanistan. He's headed home for some rest and relaxation.

Rest and Relaxation? If that is what you could call meeting your daughter for the first time, catching up on a year's worth of kisses with your wife, gossiping with your family, squeezing in "real" pizza, hot popcorn and sushi and celebrating all of the 2007 holidays in two weeks. Wow. sounds tiring just thinking about it.We've invited our families to our house this weekend for a delicious meal but as of now these are the only guests that we plan to entertain (and the only day we plan to entertain them). My hope is that we spend most of the time locked in the house, rolling around the carpet playing with Sophia and getting to know each other again.

I look forward to the little things:

Tea on the night stand in the morning,
Enjoying the NYTimes together (he always picks out the good articles for me),
Listening to Car Talk,
Bumping bums in the kitchen as we wash the dinner dishes,
George Schwartz Special Breakfast Sandwiches,
Watching him blow raspberries on Sophia's belly,
Our first walk downtown together,
Brushing our teeth together in the evening,
Having a set of warm legs in bed next to me (so I can rub my ice cubes on them!),
and
Being able to see his eyes when he laughs.

EDITED: Holiday Wishes to the Injured

For The Record
November 15, 2007

An email circulation the net currently, as well as part of a letter in the Morning Call on Nov. 13th is giving some incorrect information. Walter Reed Army Medical Center no longer is accepting packages, letters and holiday cards addressed to ''any wounded soldier'' or to ''a recovering American soldier.''

This decision was made to ensure the safety of patients and
staff at medical centers throughout the Department of Defense in 2003-2004.

Reference: http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/soldiercards.asp



ORIGINAL POST: When you are making out your holiday card list this year, please include a card to the following:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue,NW
Washington,D.C. 20307-5001

Our Cutie

I can't say that I wasn't warned about how fast children grow....but I have to admit that I could have never imagined just how fast!!!
She eats. She sleeps. She laughs (a lot). She sits up. She crawls from room to room. She can find and catch me. Then she eats. She sleeps. She laughs. ... .... ....

And then she laughs some more.

All Fired Up!

Dear Family & Friends,

For the first time in six months, everyone in the 1st Brigade is back together at Camp Darulaman.

This does not include our team mates, LT Mitchell and MSG Bittenbender, who have been working on the Police Mentoring mission at Camp Faez. It does include -- very happily -- LT Yartz, who returned to the team on Friday. Yartzie has to watch his diet, but looks great. We are all very glad that he is back, and everyone is also looking forward to seeing Mitchy and Bitt over Thanksgiving.

Despite this being the end of the Eastern Zone mission, we have been very busy back at Darulaman. We are guiding the ANA through "recovery" to make sure that weapons, vehicles and other equipment are maintained, soldiers are medically examined, and inventories completed.

We are also starting the process of turning over the brigade adivsory team to our French comrades. Due to this transition, our CPT Junguzza and SSG Kramer are now being reassigned to "Logistics Support Teams" working with French-advised kandaks. They will stay in these roles until our US replacements arrive next month.

Yes, I said that our replacements arrive in December, in about a month and a half. I have been corresponding with the team leader; the team is at one of our "favorite" places -- Fort Riley.

As we get closer, our patience is beginning to wear thin, and today I was about ready to send SPC Maritato home early and I almost succeeded but my lighter was out of fluid! We stopped for fuel at Pol-e Charki today, and near the fuel point there is a collection point for old Soviet vehicles, including these old SCUD launchers.
I hope the week goes by quickly for everyone, bringing us that much closer to coming home!

Best Regards,

GEORGE M. SCHWARTZ
LTC, AR
Team Leader/Senior Mentor
1st Brigade, 201st Corps (ANA ETT)

We Flew the Coop

The two Schwartz chicks flew the coop tonight. We packed our organic (additive, trans fat and hydrogenated oil free) snacks, apples and super cool glow bracelets to our lovely neighbor's house. If I were being 100% honest I would mentioned that I was just too lazy to clean and the idea of visiting was much more appealing... In any event, we had a fun filled evening.

I wasn't going to subject Sophia to the trauma of having photos taken of her as a child in some ridiculous Halloween costume that her goofball mother purchased to make the rest of the world laugh....so I stuffed her into this chicken costume. (No danger to permanent damage, right??)

After one run in with a group of hooligans that refused to obey the "Lights on=Welcoming Trick-or-Treaters" law we packed up our goodies and headed out. We planned on a peaceful evening. I would sit on the floor sipping some sort of cider concoction, our Sophia Chicken would flap her wings and wobble around on her new found crawling legs, and we'd offer our slightly healthy Halloween snacks to creatively dressed children.....

Man were we wrong...

There was a terrible accident on the block! While hiking up the street to the neighbor's we were passed by speeding emergency vehicles (VERY unsafe, considering the narrow road!!). We hurried to see the tragedy causing this "Gaper Delay" on Leonards Lane only to find .....
Onlookers were horrified...


We are still a little shaken up. Who would have even imagined using the ol' Cubby as a weapon?!? It's hard to shake the terrible images from our heads as there are still straw all over the yard.

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeennn!

9 Months Down!!

Dear Family & Friends,

Time is marching rapidly on. We officially hit our nine-month mark in country today and have started the last 90 days of our deployment. It was also a year ago tomorrow that we departed for Fort Riley. While we were often frustrated during our time there, I don't think that we will mind being there so much when we go back there in January: our stay will only be for five days and we will be quickly coming home!

With Halloween now just a few days away, it is not surprising that we all received gift boxes from "Mama Tato" filled with holiday goodies. Thanks to the Maritato family! I also received a hamper full of school supplies and other goodies from Tess Mitchell's church that I intent to deliver to "our" orphanage school (see below) within the next week or so.

We continue supporting the ANA brigade's transition out of the eastern zone. More and more of the team are now back here in Darulaman, and the rest will be returning soon. Our unit's rotation puts us in one of the hottest parts of the country (Jalalabad area) over the summer, and then back in the mountains (above 6,000 ft) over the winter.

We are still cycling people through leave. Our Robert Gerrity just got back from leave where he was promoted to Sergeant (E5) in a ceremony at the armory in Scranton that was attended by his parents. Congratulations, buck sergeant! I will be the last person from our team going on leave, hopefully arriving home on Thanksgiving Day.

While we continue to wrap things up in the east, we are helping a new French team of advisers prepare to take over another one of the kandaks from one of our USMC teams. This team is also from their Mountain Infantry Brigade, but this one is largely made up of soldiers from the French Foreign Legion battalion in the brigade. Because we have to provide the French team with a small US liaison team, over the next month some of our guys now working in the 5th Kandak will be moving into new roles to create the liaison teams.

Attached is a newsletter published by our higher headquarters, the 201st Corps. There are several articles about our brigade, including the cover story about the newly renovated "orphanage" school, the arrival of the French replacement team for our 1st Kandak, and the work our Marine team is doing in Naray.

Best Regards,

GEORGE M. SCHWARTZ
LTC, AR
Team Leader/Senior Mentor
1st Brigade, 201st Corps (ANA ETT)

Family and Friends Update

Family & Friends,

Just a quick note this week. Things are moving rapidly around here in the East as we do final preparations for our movement back to Darulaman, and we are working closely with our replacements now. The weather here in the east has been nice, but at Darulaman the days have been in the 70's and the nights cool.

The volatility of this geographic region was clearly evident after the bombings against former Pakistan Prime Minister Bhutto last night. Although it was a terrible event, the reaction in Afghanistan so far has been interested, but muted. The Afghans seem to have a love-hate relationship with their neighbor. They are very interested in the upcoming second round of the Peace Jirga that will take place in Pakistan because one of the main anti-coalition leaders will participate.

Our next group of French advisors is arriving and we will be busy for the next month getting them integrated.

The 24th marks our one year anniversary on active duty. You may recall that we mustered at Scranton and had some briefings. Although there are moments when time seems to crawl along, in some ways now, it has seemed to fly by.

Best Regards,

GEORGE M. SCHWARTZ
LTC, AR
Team Leader/Senior Mentor
1st Brigade, 201st Corps (ANA ETT)