Chaplain Langston’s Newsletter: See his profile for the complete story

Received 7/7/14 by the Athletic Network:  Visit his profile for the full newsletter.

 I’ve been meaning to write well before this. The pace of our operations and the drive to meet all the requirements are at times exhausting and extremely demanding on me. I just returned from a short round of Battlefield Circulation with the Ground Combat Element Commander. It is always good to travel with a General Officer as you can count on the transportation being on time and billeting always being available. I travel with one of our three General Officers most of the time. I will be out again next week visiting some of our most remote units and Chaplains. That trip should be about three or four days.

When traveling with Chief Petty Officer Bousquet and myself it usually means late nights at the airfields waiting on helicopters and maybe sleeping on the ground or a corner somewhere as we travel to see our folks. We often get delayed because of weather (sand storms) and mechanical breakdowns. We’d rather be delayed than breakdown in flight!

The weather is getting hotter by the day. Our daily lows are now in the low 90’s and high’s in the 118-122 range. The hottest part of the day is about 1600 (4:00 o’clock PM). The last rain we experienced was in early May. We will not see rain until about late Oct or early Nov. Our most regular occurrence right now is the weekly sand storms. They come in from the west out of Syria and Jordan. They move across the Iraqi Desert picking up sand as they move further east. When it hits it shuts things down for 3-6 hours and leaves dust and sand everywhere. We get these about every 7 to 10 days. The one pictured below was a big one last year. We’ve only had two that resemble the picture below. This was Al Asad our major Marine Airbase.

 We regret the sandstorm pictures could not be posted.