Next Mission - Africa

After receiving three changes to our deployment since December, the fourth notification was a "GO"…Africa bound for 11 months. The U.S. Military has 10 Unified Combatant Commands; six regional and four functional. Our mission will be to provide airlift capability for United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), in support of humanitarian and counter-terrorism efforts.

There are just 7 personnel on this rotation, 5 warrant officer pilots and 2 enlisted.  We expect another pilot to arrive near the end of December.  We have already spent 5 days at Fort Benning, Georgia completing medical, administrative and training tasks. 

On November 19^th, the unit departed TN for Norfolk NAS in Virginia.  The long flight to Africa will be initiated from Norfolk.  I used some downtime to walk the Norfolk shipyard, where aircraft carriers are based. The U.S. has a total of 11 aircraft carriers and two happened to be in port. 


                             USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77)

                                       USS Enterprise (CVN 65)

The unit was able to briefly return home after Ft. Benning and visit with family.  I used that time to spend with my beautiful girls…who talked me into a family portrait…here is a preview of our Christmas card.

Joshua 1:9 was a foundation scripture for our family during the last deployment...the words still ring true;

Be strong and courageous, Do not be afraid or discouraged, For God is with you wherever you go.