I apologize for not giving more details about my recent phase of training sooner, so I'll try to catch everybody up.

I've been at Fort Riley for a little over a week. My crew from Fort Lee arrived via limo (10 person stretch, actually) the evening of February 17th and spent the first 3.5 days at Fort Riley drawing gear and uniforms, and getting paperwork out of the way. Thursday, I officially joined Team 10 of the Multi-National Security Transition Team - Iraq (MNSTC-I, or pronounced "Min sticky"). Since then, I've gotten to know my team and I've done some drivers and convoy training, communications and global positioning training, and wandered around a lot in my body armor with my weapons. I haven't quite figured out how to upload pictures at the right size, so you'll have to harass Mike about doing that for me...

...Which leads me to my next point: my husband. Mike has been my rock through this as I've bounced from post to post and dealt with the uncertainty of tomorrow. We appreciate all your support through this endeavor; we're now 7.5% complete with this separation!

I'm sending Mike some pictures tonight so hopefully he'll upload some relevant ones to my more recent blogs. So, until next time, dear friends and family; I miss you tons!!

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pictures added 2/26/07 2200 hrs.

Marissa in full battle rattle - (click image for full size picture)

This is my actual barracks room here at Ft. Riley