Word from the front! Original Post 24 July 2006

Heard from Derek yesterday. He said all are doing well. They had not, as of yesterday, arrived at their final destination. They were at the "airport". Said the Captain was still in the process of getting them their spaces, but would be moving very soon. Said it was hot, they were tired and he is still tired of living out of his pack. I again asked if they had any word on the Israel/Lebanon disaster-said not much. He is just anxious to get settled.
Told him we had a box ready to send to him. He wanted to know what was in it. Told him most of its contents, however, he needed to have a surprise of two. He said to still hold off on mailing it till they get to their finaly destination. Said one of the soldiers had mailed something back form Kuwait and it made it in 6 days. His thoughts are that the mail is getting to them quicker than it had for so many others in the past.
I did some research regarding where they were headed. I was concerned at the level of insect infestation that I had been reading. He said he thought that was old info and that the Army had a better handle on that now.
His dad was really glad to hear his voice. The last few times Derek has been able to call, his dad wasn't home-so he didn't get to talk to him. So, I let him have him for much of the time.
One thing we did notice, Derek normally calls us on my cell phone. It never rang, never said I had missed a call. He then called my mom, and asked her to call me to see if I was home. I was and when Derek called the house phone, it didn't show up on caller id. Our thought was that perhaps where they were calling from had more security-and didn't allow calls to cell phones to go through or caller id to appear. So, you may want to consider that if a call comes in without showing if you have caller id. And it could have just been a fluke!
Hope everyone is well. Feel free to post if you have heard from your soldier, if you are frightened and just need a friend to talk with, or just want to say hi!
May God be with our soldiers!
Lou's Mom