Send a card to a soldier from Xerox!!

This is s cool thing to do....you can't send it to a specific soldier, but it will be sent out with your name and town on it!  Pass this on to everyone you know!  Jack (and all of the kids in his class) did it in his computer class at school! I love it!

saythanks.com/Home1280.html,

TF Red Horse (Dave and his guys) in the news!

 Hey guys, cool article...even looks like a pic of Dave near where they have his quote!  You might have to scroll around to find things about them, just look for TF Red Horse or 1-113th out of Iowa.



http://www.cjtf101.com/en/regional-command-east-news-mainmenu-401/3759-t
http://www.cjtf101.com/en/regional-command-east-news-mainmenu-401/3822-t

Hello

Hi guys!  Dave is doing well. We haven't heard much from him, he has been very busy! (Although, he just told me that he ordered a poker chip set, so I am assuming that he is thinking he will have some spare time some time!) We get emails here and there, and they are usually short. He is a bit upset with the fact that he isn't able to go out on patrol with his men every time they go out.  Just like Dave...he wants to be out there in it too!   He hasn't been able to look into Skype yet.  ***If you guys don't know what that is, and don't have it, it is a wonderful free video/audio way of talking to people from afar!  We love it!  We chat with our friends in the Czech Republic and Greece as well as Iowa sometimes!****If he wants to do it, he may have to pay a fee of $70.....I don't remember if that was a one time fee, or what.  I will let you know if he does get it!  Although, they are 9.5 hours ahead of us, so it would take some planning to do! 
The kids and I are planning on spending a quiet Christmas here at home.  My sister Terry, (who moved in with us about 4 months ago) is braving the Illinois and Iowa winter and driving home to Spencer Iowa to be with her kids and hubby for the holiday!  We will see if she makes it back!  Any bets????
If I don't post again before hand, be sure to have a great Christmas (or what ever you celebrate) and New Year!  Think of Dave and all of the guys over there, and maybe have a toast for him while eating dinner!

Love to you all, take care!  :O)

President in Afghanistan

Hi all, in an email, Dave wrote:

"If you did not know, the President came to Bagram Airfield. As Bagram
falls in the Province of which I am the battle space owner I and my task
force were responsible for the security of the ground around the field.
We spent a few days with increased patrols and then really stepped it up
before the arrival.

Must have worked - no rockets or mortars while he was here ... of course
the fact that it was windier than heck certainly does not help the
accuracy of the incoming fire ;)"

Dave takes command

Hi all, just wanted to let you know that we got an email from Dave today.  He said "Today is the official day that I take full responsibility of the battle space."  He also said that he has to give a speech.  I told him that he should have someone video it or take pictures for him.  Not sure if I got to him in time considering the 9.5 hour time difference. We don't hear much from him since they are pretty busy switching over, and he has to share a computer...maybe now that he is in charge, he will get his own! :O)
We all had a great Thanksgiving, hope you did too!  Dave sent us an email that day wishing us all a happy day, he also said that being over there helps him focus on what we all should be thankful for. "As you see the violence, poverty, poor conditions etc here, you really see how well we have it." 

We don't often think about how good we have it here, and how terrible other places can be!!  So next time you want to complain, think about it!
Hope you are all doing well!

Talk soon, C

An email from Dave

Hey all, this is an email I got from Dave today from Aghanistan-


I am here ... we are currently 10.5 hours ahead.

Have some training the next few days then we start the "relief in place"
process ... then it will be all ours.

Another new address for Dave!!

Hey all, Dave is now sitting in Krygyzstan, and they will be leaving for Afghanistan tomorrow some time.  They are 12 hours ahead of us, if you Skype, see if you can get him!  I skyped with him a bit this morning and asked about the address I posted, he said it was right, but to make these changes:
Updegraff, Dave-HHT
1-113th CAV

all the rest is the same. He is estimating it will take about one week for packages to get there. He says it is in the 40s and they are all chilly!  He also sent some pictures...the guy standing alone is a Kyrgyzstan police man, the guys lined up by the plane are A and B troop.  I will try to post the pics including a map of where Kyrquzstan is compared to Afghanistan.

New Address

Hey all, we are back from our vacation!  We have been back for a week, it has taken me this long to get the time to post anything. We had a wonderful time, the house was beautiful, the beach was right outside of the house, and for the first three days it was in the upper 80's and the ocean was like bath water!  Dave and I slept with the windows in our room open and listened to the waves all night!  Wayyyy coool!  We saw egrets, some cute birds called some kind of tern...they sat on the posts in the water facing the sun and kept summing themselves, there were tons of hermit crab thingys and Jack collected 496 while we were there...believe me, he counted!....then there were fiddler like crabs with only one pincer, seagulls, sandpipers, pelicans and on the last day, the dolphins made an appearance to say good-bye!  On the last two days, it cooled down quite a bit, and got pretty windy, so we weren't able to go out on a boat to fish...Jack was pretty upset about it, but he got over it.  As you will see in the pictures, he was able to fish right in back, on the shore....but he didn't catch anything there.  He did catch two fish when he went a special place with Dave.  I could go on and on, but you will learn more by looking at the photos. You will see many posts in the water, they are remnants of the piers that were torn down (along with MANY houses) when Katrina went through!  Not sure how many I can post here, but all of them are on my FaceBook account, so go look there if you want! 

***The last address I gave you has changed, this is the new one Dave me!
 Soldiers Name (Last, First)
 D Co., 1-113 CAV
 Bagram Airfield APO AE 09354 
..

They are planning to leave within the next few days....Dave can't give us an exact date.  ALSO, Dave is not able to see the Blog, he saw it for the first time while we were on vacation.....I am only getting comments from two people tho!  Come on, people, just sign up, it is FREE....and make a comment.  I will send them all on to Dave once he is able to get email!

AFGHANISTAN BOUND

Well, the time is almoset t here, Dave has told me that they are expected to be in Afghanistan on November 2nd.  Here is his address for once he is there, if anything changes, I will let you know!

LTC Dave Updegraff begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting
HHT/1-113 CAV
2/34th IBCT
Bagram Airfield
APO AE 09354

Back to Mississippi!!

Well, Dave and his guys are back in Shelby MI.  I posted pictures of the rock they painted before leaving California, if you didn't see it, go take a look. It is so cool!  I would love to just go there and walk through all of the rocks.  If I get any more, I will post them soon.  A week from today, the kids and I are heading down to Mississippi to visit Dave.  Everyone got a four day pass and they have been taking the leave in stages...Dave's ended up next week.  At first he just wanted me to go down and see him.  He didn't want to have to deal with the emotion of saying good-bye to the kids again.....BUT I really struggled with that, he wanted me to just not tell the kids where I was going.  It isn't like I take off on trips all the time, the kids would ask questions, my friends would talk about it, I just didn't see that working out well.  SO, we decided that we would all go down for the visit. (This was decided even after I got yelled at for 20 minutes by my sister Terry....she thought it would be great to just have a couples trip without the kids, and put her to some use taking care of the kids while I was gone, since she is staying here with us...I have found many other ways to put her to good use, such as painting, mowing, cleaning, cooking, driving someone to the ortho, etc, etc...so, no problem there!!)  Anyhow, Dave found a two bedroom beach house to rent for the week not far from the base.  They were only allowed to go 300 miles from the base.  The kids are so happy about it.....Dave said we would go out deep sea fishing, so Jack hasn't stopped talking about that, he loves to fish!!  Katie is happy that she gets to skip an entire week of school!  Dave's dad Tom is going to join us for a day from Atlanta too!  I will fill you in on how it goes, and post the many pictures I plan on taking!  It will be a rough ariplane trip home for us, (ME) so hopefully we will have had enough fun there so we can ride home on the high of that, not the low of Dave's shipping out! Wish us luck!!  :O)

After completing the training at the National Traning Center in CA,, it is tradition for each unit to paint a rock...check out Dave's unit!!

There is a tradition after finishing training at the National Training Center in CA. you paint a rock! This is cool!!

Happy Birthday!

Today is Dave's (_) birthday!  Wish we were there with you to help you celebrate!  We will celebrate doubly next year!

Love ya, Cindy, Katie, and Jack :O)

September 26th 2010

Hi all, we celebrated Katie's 14th birthday this weekend!  Man o live, 14!!  I am just hoping that "hormones" don't get any worse!!  I told Dave a few times that I will be having to fight more battles than he will while being home with a 14 year old girl!!  God help me!  Anyhow, we took her to dinner, because she already had her birthday party last month..she wanted to have it outdoors, and wanted it to be warm. Sooo, just a simple "family" celebration on Saturday. Jack, Katie, Aunt Terry, Grampa Gene and I all went to dinner.  Katie asked me to make her a chocolate cream pie for her "cake" choice.  It turned out wonderfully, if I have to say so myself!
So, why were Gene and Terry here?  Well, Gene, (married to Leanne, Dave's mom) has been working on finishing our basement, so he drives the 4 hours from Marengo, Iowa to work for a while, goes back home to have a normal life for a bit, then comes back to work some more!  It is looking so beautiful, I can't wait to see the finished product, it is going to be great!!  I am also looking forward to getting the television and Wii up and running down there!!!  It will be wonderful to have a place to send the kids! :O) That reminds me, I need to check if there is a lock on that door ;)  Aunt Terry (my sister from Spencer, Iowa) quit her job as director of the child care program at the YMCA in Spencer (and btw, they hired 3 women to fill her place...so, as you can imagine, coming here to help me out wasn't her ONLY motivation to leave the job!) and moved in with us last month.  Her kids are all in their 20's and living out of the house, so she just left her husband Mike and dog Nevel behind.  (Mike may also need to find 3 women to fill Terry's shoes while she is gone!) So, she is here, and the kids and I love it!  She is in the process of looking for a job, but not getting lucky!  She wanted to do something different, and a little bit fun for a while, instead of working with kids. She is a great people person, so she should be out there dealing with people!!  Any of you have any ideas, send them my way!! 
One of Katie's gifts, (and Jacks too, since his birthday is next Tuesday, the 28th) was an envelope that had a flight itinerary for a trip to Mississippi in it!!!  YES, to go visit their Dad!!  Dave will have 4 days of leave in October, and has known about it for a while.  At first, he wanted just me to go down, and leave the kids home with Terry, but I really struggled with that!  Dave didn't want to have to re-live the drama (mostly from Katie) of another good-bye, and lets just face it, he had "other" things on his mind that didn't include the kids;)
But, in the end, Dave decided that the kids should go also, and I got a 20 minute lecture from Terry on how I should be the only one going, etc, etc......:O) She thought it would be a great opportunity for just Dave and I to have some rare time alone!  Anyhow, Dave has rented a beach house in Mississippi and we will fly down there and get a few extra days of sunshine!!  I'll tell you all about it when we get back!
Right now, Dave is in California again.  They are spending two weeks out in the field, in the scorching heat in order to get better prepared for Afghanistan!  We will not be able to hear from him during the entire two weeks.  This should give us a taste of things to come once he gets to Afghanistan! (Scroll down for more)

I know before that I told you they would be heading out for the big A in October, but, now don't be surprised at this change, they won't be going until Nov.
Got to go, more later!  Love to you all!
****Don't forget, I can add 10 people to a list so they get an email when I post a new post, let me know if you are interested!

Cool Video!

Hey all, watch this video, it is cool!  It shows how quickly an Army jeep can be taken apart, then put back together!  ENJOY!!

http://www.tvkim.com/watch/457/kims-picks-army-mechanics-build-jeep-in-minutes

Try number two on this picture

Okay, thought this was posted, but something happened, or did anyone see this??

This is a photo Dave sent me of him and his staff.  The vehicle they are in front of is a MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle.  Pretty cool, huh?

And another picture

This one is almost the entire1-113 Cav Squad group, some are out for training. What a cool picture!!!
Can you find Dave?

Dave and his staff.

Here's Dave and his staff in Mississippi in front of a MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles. 

Pretty cool!

American Grass in Iraq

I got this in an email.........thanks Dotty!!

Here is a soldier stationed in Iraq , stationed in a big sand box.  He asked his wife to send him dirt ( U.S. soil), fertilizer, and some grass seed so that he can have the sweet aroma, and feel the grass grow beneath his feet.  When th e men of the squadron have a mission that they are going on, they take turns walking through the grass and the American soil -- to bring them good luck.

Another pic of the first trip over to Afghanistan...warm towels, drinks, movies, and fun for all!

Kuwait in June, next vacation spot??

Dave in Afghanistan when he went in July. (Or is that Kuwait? Dave?)

Leaving Iraq!!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ms-newequipment,0,4434788.story
Hi all, you may have all already seen this, but just in case you stay out of the news like I do, I thought I'd put it in here.  It 's a start, let's hope it will pass on over to Afghanistan and Kuwait although they are saying that a lot of guys are just leaving Iraq to go to Kuwait and Afghanistan, is that any better?  Well, if something were to happen and the guys who are now in training in Mississippi weren't needed over there, I am not sure how happy a lot of them would be.  So many of these guys have trained hard and are chomping at the bit to get over there and use their wicked skills. I think a lot of them would be upset and let down to not go!!!  Hard to believe, but I know how Dave thinks, and I am sure that there are many more like Dave out there!  I know that a lot of people think that it is crazy that soldiers are actually looking forward to going into combat, how could that be?  BUT, in my experience in living with a soldier (and a really hard core one at that!) they want their chance to go over there and use the skills that they have been building for years and years and to be able to have a part in helping spread peace!  Not that I am saying that I like it, or that I don't think that they are CRAZY for feeling that way, but I do understand it! And to be truethfull, those are the guys who will fight to their very deaths without giving up...and they are the very ones that we want over there!! I hate war, am not for it, but have to put that aside and support the soldiers who are over there putting their lives on the lines for us!
Below is a link that Dave sent me about new uniforms, a bit zzzzzzzzzzzzz, and I would have like to see pictures, but it is additional information anyhow.


Talk soon guys, Chttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ms-newequipment,0,4434788.story

Below is a picture Dave sent to me from Mississippi...pretty cool!

My first post!!!

Hey all!  This is my very first post on this blog, or any blog for that matter!  I even set it up myself, yeah me!  So, as I've told many of you, this blog is about Dave.  I will be posting where and how he is during his deployment!  Right now he is in Shelby Mississippi and has been for almost 3 weeks.  They are all doing some kind of training down there.  After a while, I don't know the exact date.....they will go back to California for more training, then off again to Shelby MS, where they will deploy to Afghanistan from.  The date for deploying to Afghanistan is in October, but I am not sure of the actual date.  I will let you know as soon as I do!
The photo at the start of this was taken of Dave on the airplane on his first trip over to Afghanistan last month.  He went over there for three weeks to meet the guys that he and his guys are replacing over there.  Look closely at the photo, this is how they travel "first class!"  I will try to post the other few ones I got from Dave while on that trip.

Well, this is it for now folks, just wanted to get this up and running!  If you know of anyone who would like to keep track of Dave, and doesn't have the link, please pass it on to them!

:O)