Jason's Page

Today I had the opportunity to go to a couple of local schools and hand out supplies and toys.  I was really nervous at first, but thought it would be fun to get out of the FOB.  So I suited up and headed out with about 30 other soldiers. We had a HMMV full of toys and supplies to hand out. On the way to the school I noticed that the children would come out of their houses and wave to us.  It was pretty neat to see them waving and jumping up and down.  There are convoys driving up that street everyday, it must be pretty cool for them to see so many different vehicles. We pulled up to the first school and the Head Mister was hesitant of letting us give out the supplies. He was afraid that we didn’t have enough for all of the kids.  However we had plenty.  The kids remained in class the entire time. We thought they would let the kids out to come and get some of the toys. So we walked around for almost an hour then we headed out. We all were taking pictures in the classrooms, but a few teachers didn’t want us near them.  It was neat to see how cute the kids were; they were giving us thumbs up and waving to us.  The teacher tried to keep control and I thought they did pretty good.  We met one teacher who was an English teacher, he spoke enough English that he told us he went to school for 4 years at a local University.  It was pretty cool to talk with him. 

We headed out to the second school and it was a lot worse that the first. Neither school had electricity and running water.  But they seemed to be well dressed and enjoyed the school. The kids were seemed happy, one of the female teachers didn’t want her picture taken.  I don’t know why but I didn’t bother her with pictures.  The second school was a lot more relaxed. The kids were happy about getting all of the supplies, and toys.  We had to wait for the leaders to go and talk with the local leaders came up and invited them back to his house for tea.  So we had to wait for them. While we waited school got out and the kids came from all over.  They all came up and said “mister watch” and they would point to there wrists.  They wanted our watches, glasses, rings, pens, and pencils.  We gave them bottles of water and pretty much everything we could.  A couple of the boys had a bike in which they had fixed up.  We had a dad bring his kids up, they were both handicapped, we all felt bad because we had given everything out. We found a couple of bottles of water and one soldier dug some salt water taffy out of his bag and walked over to them.  They thought that was pretty cool. 

It was really neat to go and see the kids, they were all pretty nice and all smiled.  It was really neat; one soldier with us said that this made the whole deployment.  I agree with him.   I was pretty nervous being going, but we had a pretty good show of force, and we had other soldier not far away if we needed them.  I am really glad I went and will remember it for a while.  The school system is sure different than in the states. The kids go to school 5 days a week, and for 5 hours a day. Then the younger kids go home and the older kids come in.  I have a video of one teacher teaching the kids but I need to figure out how to put it out.  I hope you can see some of what I experienced in the photos.  I hope to get some of the other pictures from other soldiers

 

Ok here I am setting in Germany waiting to leave. I found out today that I am going back to Ramadi. I am so grateful that I am ok and that nothing was growing inside my head.  I have had several people pray for me and also have had my name put on the prayer rolls at various LDS Temples.  I am so grateful to know so many people with the faith and knowledge to pray for me, and not only me but all of the soldiers who are serving. 

 

 I was sitting today thinking about a lesson that was given to me last month by my home teacher in Iraq.  They shared story and I don't remember the author of the talk, but it was about the gardner taking care of the garden. He has cut a tree back to where there was nothing left, when the tree said why did you do that? I was so pretty and big, my leaves where full, all the gardner said was I am the gardner and I will deciede what is best for you.  Well sometime later the gardner got sick and he prayed for help and to get better.  He had faith and had several prays on his behalf.  However things didn't work out and he passed away.  When he got to heaven he asked why he had to pass on, he was in his prime, and the only thing that was said to him was I am the gardner and I will deciede what happens to you.  This really hit me that we pray for things that we want hoping that is what the Lord wants us to do.  I have been praying really hard that I will get better and so far I feel this is what the Lord wants of me.  I am so grateful that he has given me more time to be with my family in this life.  I have seen several soldiers who haven't had that chance.

I don't know how many will read this but I just wanted to put it in here.  I am not much for writing things for others to read.  I have a hard time with it.  Thank you for all of you who have had the faith to pray for me. 

 

 

I wanted to drop a short note to explain my pictures. It rained here all day yesterday so i wanted to show what it looked like. This is after it rained here last week also. So I hope you enjoy the pictures

 

After 30 hours of flights and waiting and then another day of wait and flying I finally made it back to the the FOB. Or should I say the mud bogging pit.  I can't believe how muddy it really is. It looks a little bit like choclate milk.  It is a mess.

 

Anyway I am going to add some photos and hope to update this a little bit. Amy does a great job on her blog and she said I need to work on mine a little bit more.

 

Take Care

I am not much for writing on my page. I don't really have much time to add to it a lot.  We'll here it is Thanksgiving and we are all a long way from home. I can't help but think about all of the soldiers who are away from home this year and the challenge it is. I hope we all can remember the soldiers serving far and near.  Oh one last thing GO UTES!