Updated Pictures

Sad Farewell

Fatoon and her two pups arrived all safe and sound in DC!!! Robin and Mike who own Old Mill Pets in DC are friends of Vicki and Casey. They have been AWESOME and helped us all out tremendously. The kennel they were going to was apparently not a very good one so they offered to pick them up at the airport and take them back to their kennel and their vet for a check up. So they've been living the good life, getting baths and lots of TLC from Robin and Mike.

The male pup flew to CA today. Robin took him to the airport and called Casey crying because he howled and cried the whole time. I'm sure this has all been very confusing for him, but now he's been taken away from his mom and sister which only adds to his misery.

However, what he doesn't know is that hes going to an AMAZING home in Palm Springs CA where he'll probably be begging for a little bit of time off between Tracy's two kids, playing ball, running on the golf course, swimming in the pool... he'll forget all of his worries pretty quickly!!!

I can't wait to see pictures of his arrival in Palm Springs!! He's such a lucky dog, literally, to be going to live with Tracy, an amazing woman with a huge heart.

Don't worry, I'll post his pictures along with Fatoon and the female's pup arrival in Atlanta on Wednesday!!!!! REALLY excited for them to be able to fly in luxury on Pet Airways and to live the good life in GA.

Two Left

About two weeks ago I received some crushing news. 5 of the 7 puppies that we rescued here in Kirkuk have died. It all happened so fast, they got sick and died within a day or two over the period of four or five days. It was horrible. Such a tragic loss when they were SO close to flying out of this country. Fatoon and the two remaining puppies are doing fine and are scheduled to fly out of here tomorrow. They will arrive in DC on the 20th at 12:40 from Frankfurt. I'm super excited to get them into better vet care than what they have here in Iraq. Fatoon and the female pup, the lighter of the two will be flying on Pet Airways to Atlanta on the 25th. Vicki, Casey, Mom, Dad, Sarah, Tessa and Ellis will all be there to welcmoe them home. The male puppy will be flying out to CA to live with Tracy, a WONDERFUL lady who is probably more excited about him than I am, if that's even possible. I'm anxious to get these guys into better homes and I can't wait to post pictures of them arriving in Atlanta and CA.

Storms

We've had some pretty great thunderstorms here lately, but nothing like what's happening in the US right now. In a way we welcome the rain eventhough everything turns to mud afterwards. The dust has been horrible lately. We had a massive dust storm a couple of weeks ago that covered literally everything in dust. The grass was dusty, hell, even the dust was covered in dust. It does wonders for your complexion when you walk outside and you feel it beating against your face. It's exfoliating!!! Im thinking about sticking my feet out of my window on the next one and calling it a combat pedicure. so here are a couple of pictures of a pretty awesome storm rolling in and a picture of dust covered in dust.

Rock

Kirsten - I miss you and can't wait to see you. I also can't wait to meet the puppies and Fatoon.

Iraqi Puppies (24 photos, 1 video), by Kirsten Ellis

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Rescued!!!

Yesterday the Reed Security Company team came down here from Irbil to pick up ALL of the dogs, including the Mom!!!! Fatoon (the mamma) is headed to ATL to stay with Vicki and Casey and then with Fred and Ced!! Although I don't speak Arabic very well, I'm pretty sure she said she's very excited about it. The two female puppies have homes and we're still looking for homes for the remaining 5 males. So let me know if you're interested!!!!!! I'm sure mamma would love to have one of her pups close by to visit with. Anyhow, they are currently in Irbil Iraq and will fly back to the US the third week of April. I'll keep you updated as to how they are doing. We still need to fundraise money to get them all the way back to the US. I can't link anything in here, so please e-mail me at Kirsten_Ellis@hotmail.com or check out my facebook page for the link!! pass it around to as many people as you can!!

Operation Baghdad Pups

My SQ is on a mission to save the puppies here in Kirkuk. I found a group online called Operation Baghdad Pups which is a division of the SPCA International. They actually help soldiers get the dogs that they've befriended out of Iraq. It's EXTREMELY expensive, but it's doable. So we've set up a fundraiser page to save as many of them as we can.

Iraqi's don't see dogs as pets, so they don't exactly treat them very well. On top of that, they are living ON the airfield, so as soon as they grow up and romp around, they are going to be shot for safety of the aircraft. Unlike in the US when you don't adopt a dog, you know the chances of someone else adopting them is high. Here, we know that when we walk away, they won't be so lucky as to have another chance.

All of you know I'm really big into rescues, especially of adult dogs. So I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE to see the mamma get a good home. She is SUCH a sweet dog and I hate seing her kicked around by the Iraqi's. She's not abused, just not treated very well. Everytime I go visit them she comes running up to me with her tail wagging. She just wants to be loved.

Anyhow, I wanted to send a HUGE shout out to Ced, Sarah and Alyson who have all donated!!! I hear that Ced has also collected donations from people at Stammtisch to thank you to ALL who donated. It means alot to me, and it'll mean even more to those puppies that we can save and bring home.

Missing my family

I'm not sure why, but lately I've really been missing my family. I'm sure it has to do with all of their fun adventures of blue sharpies on the wall, and cabin weekends and stories of my pups... in reality I think maybe I'm just jealous! I love seing pictures of normal things back home. Something as simple as kids playing in the grass makes me homesick now. But the good news is that as soon as I get back I'm moving to NC!!!!!

I'm really extremely excited about my move and can't wait to get there. Granted I have to go back to TX and pack up in about 2 weeks to move. Then I have to go to Altus OK to requalify on the KC-135 but eventually (Jan 2012) I'll be in NC and SUPER close to my family. Its going to be awesome.

I guess having so much to look foward to when I get back makes me miss home that much more. Before I was just going back to boring ol Del Rio. Now I get a brand new car when I get back, I get to pack up my house and move, I get to go back to flying my girl (the KC-135) and I get to spend more time with my family. Unfortunatley for my mom that also means that she'll have my dogs longer. However she has threatened me with the fact that I may never get them back. (they are kinda great dogs you know.) I dropped them off in Nov and in reality they won't come to NC until I have a place all ready to go sometime in Jan. Don't feel bad for them though, they LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE being in ATL. Just ask Vicki and Casey across the street!!! I miss my family and I miss my dogs, but I know I'll be home soon enough. I'm almost half way through!!!

Kirsten

New Ride

So I bought a new car today!!!!!! Yes, it's probably more than I need, but it's probably also the ONLY time in my life where I can afford the car that I want, and not the car that I need. SUPER excited. I'll pick it up in July in San Antonio and road trip in it to ATL in time for Mom's 60th Birthday!!!! Wooooohoooooo!!!

Iraqi Puppies

Iraq tends to have a dog problem in the sense that not many people here keep dogs as pets. They also don't spay or neuter them, so like America, there is an over population problem. The Iraqi firefighters on base here have been taking care of a female dog who recently had puppies. They are SUPER cute, but I'm really worried about whats going to happen once they start running around. Because of the problem they cause on the airfield, airfield management ends up shooting them if they are on the airfield. They don't really have a choice, but it's still super sad. I wish I could take them to a shelter or do something for them, but I dont think I can. PLUS it's against the rules as Americans to take in pets. You're not even supposed to feed them or pet them. So SSSSHHHHH. Still breaks my heart to think of what will happen to these little guys. Anyhow, in the meantime, we're bringing back extra fish and rice from the chowhall over to the Iraqi Firefighters. Who knows what they do with the food. :-D

Second Solo

I flew with my second solo student today. He was a little more nervous than the last one and ended up with a couple of more times around the pattern because of go arounds. Although he was nervous, he did great! Here are a couple of pictures. The combat turtle belongs to a maintenance guy in my SQ whose son gave it to him at the airport before he left the US. So I took him up, logged him some combat time and took some pictures. Enjoy!

Exfoliating

So who thought that Iraq would be good for my skin? Kidding!!! I ran 6 miles today and when I got done, I wiped my face and it felt like sand paper. Although I feel like I have softer skin out here i can only imagine what it's doing to my lungs.

On a happier note, I got my next assignment. I'm SUPER excited that when I get back to the US in mid July that I have 1 month left in Del Rio before I PCS. i got my 1st choice assignment to Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro NC. It's only a 7 hour drive to Atlanta!!!! I can go home on 3 day weekends, bring the boys (Dad is excited about that I know) see TRex and Ellis more... Im SO excited!! On top of that, I'll be 45 min away from Parkers BBQ in Wilson NC, 1 hour south of Raleigh and hopefully I can start taking biology and chemistry classes up there and eventually get into Vet School. I'd really like to go into shelter medicine! I have to requalify in the KC135 first but I'll get to NC sometime in Jan. SUPER excited!!

Sacrifices

My dad has been doing a push-up and sit-up for every day Kirsten is deployed. He must be up to 60+ every day by now. He doesn't have to do them all at once, just through-out the course of the day. Mom has given up Margaritas, which is difficult as they have Stammtisch at El Azteca every Tuesday night. Also, as we get into the warmer spring/summer months, I'm sure Rita will come out more and it will get more difficult.

I finally decided to join WeightWatchers while she's deployed. I had gained some weight since I stopped nursing and was really indulging my unhealthy eating habits. I have managed to lose weight every week so far. Sometimes it's not a lot, but at least it has consistently gone down. I have not really been working out, only modified my eating habits. It's a little embarassing to think that I was eating that bad.

Anyway, we miss you Kirsten and are excited that you will be on the East Coast soon enough.

Weight Loss or Weight Gain...

Sarah's company all pitched in and bought us some girl scout cookies.. and by some I mean 60 boxes of them!!!! We took some over to the Iraqi's and so far their favorite are the Thin Mints. :-D The SQ's favorites so far have been the somoas. Here are some pictures... notice the bulk under the "fat man's" jacket, and the lack of purple boxes on the table...

Pictures

Some pictures in Iraq

Me sitting in a busted up broken down Mig

lift with your legs!!!!

Doing a preflight in the 208

Citadel of Erbil, the oldest town in the world

Soccer Balls

Soccerballs are like gold over here. My cousin Leigh sent me a football and a soccerball in a kickass care package. I don't see kids here on base... but all of my students and the instructors go home on "mujas" (vaccation) and they take gifts home to their kids. So I gave the soccerball to one of my students who is actually from Kirkuk to give to his little brother. It was a HUGE hit! Col Ayash, an IP in the SQ, said that his little boy would LOVE a soccerball. Then another IP, whose name is Saddam Hussein by the way, told me that he has a daughter exactly like me, pretty (he actually said that) and that she too would love a soccerball. (good ploy Saddam.) It's so strange how something that we as Americans take for granted is treated like gold over here. So if you're looking to send something to Iraq, soccerballs are the way to go!

Bulls-Eye

Here's a quick funny story. Tessa likes to watch Toy Story and in one of the movies, Woody (the main cowboy toy) has a horse named Bullseye. This horse;s character is like that of a big, goofy, puppy. He'll wag his tail in excitement and lick, just like a dog. One of Kirsten's three rescue dogs, Simon, only has one eye. Tessa has started calling him Bulls-Eye. I think it's just a funny coincidence that she calls the one dog that only has one eye, Bulls-Eye. GOOBER.

Different Culture

I obviously knew coming here that this would be an entirely different culture. As most of you know, I love different cultures and ethnic foods and what not, but some things I dont think I'll ever quite grasp. Not uncommon in most of europe and apparently VERY common here is smoking. Although I respect their decision to smoke and that it may be part of their culture, I don't fully grasp the lure behind smoking. Which brings me to my point. I was driving over to a chili cook off (run by the Americans) when I passed an Iraqi running. My first thought was "huh, eventhough they play alot of soccer, they still like to run to keep in shape. Good on you buddy!!" Then, as I looked in my rearview mirrow one last time I laughed out loud at what I saw. The kid was literally smoking a cigarette and running at the same time. Now THAT is dedication!!! And partcially coordination to run like that!

Anyhow, here are two pictures of the Chili Cook Off. With the help of some local Iraqi's and a couple of lambs we had some pretty awesome chili!

My very first update!!!

So.... I know you've been asking yourself... "why is Kirsten so lame and not updating her blog?" Well, if you see the picture below you'll see why. Sarah literally had to set it all up for me because my internet browser defaults to arabic with no english hyperlinks. Yay Sarah!

Life in Iraq is actually not bad at all. Oddly enough I don't really miss anything about my life in Texas other than my dogs! And the sad part about that is that they LOVE it in Atlanta. They are living it up at Omi and Opa's and get treats for literally everything. They also get to go to the cabin and have the run of the mountains. They aren't missing Texas either, that I can promise you.

Technology

I am just so amazed by Technology. Yesterday I was able to Skype with Kirsten. She finally broke down and bought a little Netbook. She has a phone in her room so we get to talk to her quite often and now we can video conference. Sometimes you can even forget that she's in Iraq. She might as well be in Texas. It makes me think about how we used to communicate with our troops during previous wars (WWII, Vietnam, Korea, etc.) Getting a letter every two-three weeks, with no contact to home. Sadly, a lot of people reeceived letters from loved ones after they found out they had been killed in action. I am so thankful that we can easily talk and communicate and it's GREAT being able to see Kirsten LIVE on Skype. Tessa and Ellis were awake, so Kirsten got to say hi to them, also.

First Solo Student (28 photos, 5 videos), by Sarah Ellis

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Solo Flight

Below is an e-mail from Kirsten regarding her first Iraqi solo student. And too quickly clarify the 2nd half of the e-mail below, in the Air Force after you solo for the first time, they young pilots have a tradition of throwing you in a pool. Sometimes they are nice enough to take your boots off before throwing you in. I need to find the videos I have of Kirsten getting dumped and post them. She said she would post some pictures and videos on Snapfish so when she does I'll post those.


So I had my first solo today. My student, Jasim, is a 29 year old former microbiologist who worked for the Ministry of Health before joining the Iraqi Air Force. I've flown with him on three other occasions and he's a pretty good pilot! He actually went to his commander and requested to solo with me. He wanted to be the first Iraqi male to be solo'd by the female American pilot. Needless to say he was super excited about his solo today. The way it worked is that we took off together into the pattern. He had to fly a pattern breakout (where he exists the patterns and reenters), a go around and a landing. So that's exactly what we did, after the full stop, we taxied off of the active runway, did a 180 on the taxiway and stoped prior to the runway. I gave him my wings, wished him luck and got out. He did tell me not to worry... at least 5 times before I made it out the door. It was cute. He then taxied out, took off and flew three patters. They are required to do go arounds and then one full stop. He taxied back and had about 20 of his friends waiting for him.

His friends grabbed him, and I do mean GRABBED him out of the airplane and drug him literally through the mud. They found a nice muddy puddle and dragged him back and forth threw it about 10 times before stuffing a large rock in his mouth and moving on. They drug him over to the tire and sat him in it. They then proceeded to dump three buckets of muddy water ontop of him and finally poured sand down his back. As gross as it was, it was hilarious and Im glad to have been a part of it.

Love you tons!!
Kirsten

Scary Student

e-mail from Kirsten on 1.22.11

Anyhow, I flew with the WORST student today. He was on ride 10 and flew worse than a kid on his first ride. It was 1.7 hours of sheer terror for my life. It was terrible. I came back to the SQ and ate nutella with a spoon (thanks to Jason and Kate) in order to calm down. It's kinda like taking a tequilla shot, but when you don't have tequilla as an option nutella makes a nice substitute.

Love you tons.
Kirsten

Iraqi Fish BBQ

Here's an update from Kirsten. Below a link for some pictures on Snapfish from her Iraqi BBQ


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A long overdue update, I know. So first and foremost OBVIOUSLY I do not have a computer and this is why my sister has to update everyone for me. It literally broke the morning of my departure, which with my luck I couldn’t be surprised. Even less surprising is the fact I mailed it home on the 4th of January and it still hasn’t arrived at my parents house. So until the US postal service figures out where my computer is, delivers it to my mom so she can to take it to the Apple Store, they figure out the problem, fix it and she mails it back to me, we’ll have to settle with updates from my kick ass sister.
My trip over here was completely uneventful; it was just extremely long. It was 27 hours from the time I took off out of Atlanta until the time I landed at Al Udeid Qatar. It would be another 6 hours until I finally got the chance to lay down, in a bunk bed, in a tent with 30 other female soldiers. I spent about 16 hours at Al Udeid before catching a C130 to Baghdad, spent the night there and caught another C-130 to Kirkuk the next morning. I’ll spare you all the boring details and get straight to the good stuff.

My commander had a talk with me because he was unsure of how the Iraqi’s were going to receive me. He assured me that his door was always open if I needed to vent or if someone was out of line. The rest of the guys in my squadron are like older brothers and are protective. To be honest though, I don’t think they have anything to worry about. The first Iraqi I met at Kirkuk was Col Bassim who is the Flying Training Commander. He’s in charge of all of the flight training here at Kirkuk. He was very receptive and greeted me kindly. I spoke the little Arabic I knew to him and he seemed impressed. The next Iraqi I met was (and I’m not kidding) Sadam Hussein. He introduced himself as “the nice one.” He was much less interested in talking to me. Since then, I’ve found that the younger generation has (mostly) no issues with me, but the older generation is a different story. Although they are professional and courteous, at the same time they are very standoffish and uninterested in anything I have to say. I can tell that Col Bassim is trying hard to convince them, but in reality it hasn’t affected the job here whatsoever.
I flew my first student sortie with a kid named Ali Adnan. His English was pretty good, but it occurred to me quickly that teaching these kids would be nothing like teaching the kids back home. It’s hard to tell if they aren’t listening or if they do not understand. I have to come up with creative new ways of saying things in much simpler terms. The Iraqi culture teaches them that saying that you do not understand something that your teacher taught you is rude. It’s as if you’re telling that teacher that they aren’t good enough to make you understand. So if you ask an Iraqi “do you understand” they will say “yes, yes, yes.” We have a running joke here that he third “yes” negates the previous two. The language barrier makes the flying interesting. Something else to consider, when you fly with these students on the first few rides, is that many of them have never been in an airplane and most of them have never even driven a car. Saying that flying with them keeps you on your toes is a HUGE understatement.

As a farewell to the contractors who were teaching the academic classes as well as the simulators and doing the flight scheduling, the Iraqi’s hosted a fish BBQ. I’ll spare you the details since most of you saw the snapfish photos. The Iraqi’s LOVE having their picture taken with you, so I felt like the paparazzi was all around me snapping pictures. I’d be in the middle of taking one picture when I’d hear a “Ma’am, I take picture with you? Yes?” One of them was a Maintenance guy who speaks very little English. I promised him that I would print out the picture and bring it to him. As I was leaving the flying squadron, he was waiting for me in the parking lot and asked me if I had printed the picture. Mind you that he doesn’t speak English and I obviously don’t speak Arabic, but somehow we managed to communicate that he was leaving on his mujas (vacation) the next day and that I would run and print the picture and be right back. I came back with the two pictures and he was extremely overjoyed. He managed to tell me that he plans on taking the picture back with him to Baghdad to show his wife and kids that there is an American female pilot that he works with. As weird as it may seem, he appeared to be proud to be able to show her.

The last thing I want to explain is my job over here in Iraq. Yes, I’m here to teach Iraqi pilot training, but that comes second to my job as an advisor. We are here to guide the Iraqi’s to producing 100% training and equipped Iraqi pilots. For example, their contract with the Americans ran out to teach their academic classes, their simulators, scheduling and so forth. So the contractors had to up and leave and not the Iraqi’s are forced to run the show on their own. We as advisors had to step in and guide them on how to do this on their own. One of our pilots is now teaching a maintenance captain how to maintain the simulator. He’s teaching the instructors how to run the simulator, how to run a profile, how to turn it on! We’ve finally managed to get them to teach their students the academic courses, but all of this is just in the beginning stages, and it’s just a very small example of what we are trying to accomplish over here. We have very limited time to do the job and the Iraqi’s don’t have the resources like we do in the US to accomplish things. They also have a lack of support from the Iraqi Air Force. Another example is that they do not have current charts of the area that they are flying in. In the US if you do not have a current chart, you do not fly, it’s that simple. Here they are unable to get charts for their students to fly with so they make do with what they have. It’s extremely frustrating from our stand point and very hard to understand how their leadership doesn’t see this as a problem. Anyhow, I just wanted to explain a little more about my job and how I’m an advisor first and an instructor pilot second.

I’m sorry this was so long winded, I’ll keep them MUCH shorter in the future and more frequent. Thanks Sarah for posting this for me!!!!!





I'd like to share my Snapfish photos with you. Once you have checked out my photos you can order prints and upload your own photos to share.
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Finally.

Kirsten FINALLY got my package. It took two weeks plus. But Lindsay's got there before mine and she sent it AFTER me. She really enjoyed the two GIANT boxes of Nerds I included. I also sent her my Nintendo DS, so if anyone has any games they want to send I'm sure she would appreciate that. And puzzles. I sent her several puzzles and one of those puzzle mats that you can roll-up while working on one and you don't mess up anything. She said she has already started one in the Squadron so that they can share.

I bet she did NOT share those Nerds, though. I probably wouldn't either.

Updates

Kirsten e-mailed this to us on 1.11.11

So, I finished my MQT (Mission Qualification Training) today and I fly my first student ride tomorrow. Kind of exciting, but at the same time I'm super apprehensive since I'm now instructing a foreign student, in a foreign country, in an aircraft that I have maybe a total of 15 hours in and a total of 5 hours flying in the local area. So yea, that's "exciting." I'll let you know how it went tomorrow night. Love and miss you all,
Kirsten

Tessa can't wait for you to get your computer fixed so that we can iChat/Skype. Here are some fun pics we took tonight.