12/29/10

26 Dec 10

A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Another month...  Another year?!?  I can't believe how fast time is flying by...  The reason that I have not updated the website lately was because I have been on the road almost all of December.  First I went out to Whiteman Air Force Base for a "re-blue" conference - basically they take anyone who flew the B-2 and is now out working on the staff and bring them back to discuss what is going on with the plane and then we tell what we are doing to support the warfighter on the staff.  It was great to see a bunch of old friends that I have not seen in several years - Ross even got to come out from Hawaii!

After that I went to the West Coast for 2 weeks - what an AWESOME time.  While I did do quite a bit of work while I was out there, I did manage to have some (read: a ton) fun.  I got to see Jay from up the road, golf with Matty B, run on the beach, have dinner with the Reins...  It was spectacular - the highlight was getting to go to my friend Jed's Weapon School graduation in Vegas.  We stayed at the Trump plaza (on the company dime) - kicked a LOT of ass!  While there, Matty B treated me to a Ruth's Chris steak dinner (with wine) in payment for a bet he lost a few years back...  A really first class weekend!  Big congrats to Jed for a job well done...

While I was off around the country, Pam was quite busy here with the boys!  She (of course) has done wonderfully getting them from point A to B when and where they needed to be there.  And she did it all with an overheating car!  Her white mini-van finally bit it and we were forced to get a new one...  We used USAA's car-buying service - highly recommended!  We ended up with a 2011 Toyota Sienna - VERY nice car...  Of course the dealer talked Pam into a nicer model in my absence, but that is okay...  She really likes it - and it is pretty sweet...  It was funny that we were trading in her minivan and we pulled into the dealer with a smoking and overheating car...  But we got to drive home in luxury!

Santa was VERY good to the boys again this year (and us, too!)  They got a ton of wii games, clothes, and toys.  Not to mention the VERY generous gifts from both sets of grandparents (thank you so much!)  Pam got a new GPS for her new car, and I got much sought-after slippers for around the house.  Pam calls them my Old Man slippers!  But they are just what I wanted...  And I even got an A-10 Warthog remote control airplane - cool!  We are very lucky and very blessed...

The weather here has been frightful - snow and cold - makes for some great sledding and playing on the frozen pond!  We are debating whether or not to get the boys some ice skates from Play it Again sports or something - we'll see...  Lots of great fun and frolic on the huge hill near our house - even the dog got into it!

This is our last calm before the 2011 storm...  Pam will be starting school again (as will the boys), and I will hit the road for another few weeks in January.  Makes keeping the weight off difficult!  But I am managing...

A few weeks back we took the boys to see Santa Calus at the Officer's club - besides the insane line, the kids had a great time!  They even got their faces painted...  Lots of fun...

I mentioned a few weeks back that cousin Mike was going to do a portrait of the boys - well it finally arrived and it looks great!  It is proudly hanging in our living room.  Thanks again to my Mom and Mike for making that happen!  We will treasure it forever...

Lots going on in our world - we hope that 2010 was everything that you hoped it could be and 2011 is full of more fun, laughter, and prosperity (and no broken bones)!  We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

28 Nov 10

Happy thanksgiving everyone!  We had a really nice time hosting some friends of mine from work while the kids played with their little children…  Pam and I had our fill of holiday cheer, so black Friday lived it up to its name.  This year we have the most of our holiday shopping online-if ever there was a time to buy stock in Amazon, now is it!

Our cousin Mike came out a few weeks ago to take a bunch of pictures of the boys in preparation to paint a portrait of them – Mike is very confident that he will be able to produce a masterpiece, and we can’t wait to see it!  My mom had purchased a portrait years ago of the girls for Terri and Peter, and she had been very excited to do the same for us.  We’re really looking forward to seeing it…

I finally went awry as the RV a few weeks back after the boys and I went down to Lebanon, Ohio.  Pam was studying for a final exam and was unable to go with us (which she aced by the way!), but we had a fantastic time with the last nice weekend in the fall.  The RV Park was located right next to a huge graveyard-ordinarily that would be pretty creepy, but this graveyard was filled with Geo caches-and the boys and I found them all!  Our new phones really kick ass…

Pam’s on a six week break from class, and she has been loving it!  She baked a bunch of cupcakes for Nicholas birthday, as well as prepared a Thanksgiving feast for Zander’s class…  Great stuff!  It is hard to believe that Nikolai is nine years old…  It seems like just yesterday our little cherub came home from the hospital…  His big birthday present this year was an iPod touch-needless to say we have not seen much of him since!  Seriously though, he has been very generous letting his brothers play with it, and as long as he continues to treat it with respect, he should be able to enjoy it for years to come…

As I am getting ready to do quite a bit of traveling for work over the next couple weeks, we have been getting our fill of family fun time – last weekend we want to go see the first chapter of the Harry Potter finale, and Pam and the boys loved it!  I can say that I was more than a little bit lost not having read one of the books – Pam had even reread the books in preparation…  And yesterday we went to a hippy farm and made our own candles…  Life has certainly been sweet for Team Tolmoff!

We went to Nikolai's school for a Veteran's Day celebration - there was a Gold Star mother (someone who has lost a child in combat) who spoke.  Needless to say, Pam and I were a wreck - and Nikolai turned around and he was a blubbering mess as well.  He was one of the only kids who was crying, and therefore one of the only kids who "get it".  We love our biggest little boy!

Funny Max story – we were walking in the woods, and he peed on a fallen log.  When we walked by an hour later, Max was very proud of his pee-cicle! 

We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

6 Nov 10

6 weeks?  What have we been up to delay an update by 6 weeks?  CRAZY busy, that's what!  First off - Pam and I are doing GREAT on our respective lower-extremity issues...  I am about 98%+, and Pam is probably 95%+.  We are VERY lucky...  I am still not cleared to run yet, but I have been riding my bike just about everywhere that I can...  For our anniversary (13!) on 11 Oct, Pam even got me a whole bunch of stuff for the bike to include bags/lights/locks/etc. - Everything to keep me safe!

We also got some wicked cool new phones - we ditched our blackberries for the Samsung Epic - it is an Android based phone, and it is cool as can be!  I still have been too busy to really get to mess with it as much as I have wanted to, but it is really amazing...  I even got a mount for it on my bike so I can see the live, moving map with GPS tracking over a satellite map while I listen to streaming Pandora music on my blue-tooth headphones...  This phone has really bumped technology to a whole new level!

We just had the kids school conferences, and I am pleased to report that they are all doing spectacular!  We would expect nothing less...  The teachers all raved about each of the boys - every day Pam and I realize how lucky we are to have such fun, happy, and healthy boys...  We are truly blessed!

We also got the chance to take the RV out on a few occasions - we went up to Maumee Bay near Toledo - it is a State Park located right on the shores of Lake Erie.  We even brought our bikes and had a great time riding around (even catching a sun-rise with deer in the field next to us), as well as lots of fishing and family fun time...  There is nothing quite like the RV for family fun time!  We took another trip to a State Park closer to home (Buck Creek) and the boys and I did a 20 mile bike ride - and they didn't complain once!  They are troopers...  Of course our destination at the half-way point was Dairy Queen - nothing like a good ice cream motivator!

I also went on two trips for work - one back to Whiteman (where I got to see the house - ugh), and one to McGuire AFB in New Jersey where I got to see my family (to include new Baby Zaiden!) -Overall it was a great pair of trips...  I even dragged my bike around the country with me and I would find bike trails and go bang out 20 or 30 miles on the bike to break up the monotony of driving - I will be damned if I gain any of this weight back!

The boys have been taking Tae Kwon Do and swimming - they are really taking to the marital arts!  Way more so than I thought they would...  They gave Pam and I a one-year commitment for taking the classes when we took them to a local dojo - too bad they wanted almost $5000 for all 3 boys over the course of that year!  I want the kids to get good exercise and learn a skill, but that was a bit ridiculous...  So...  We opted to go to the Y - they have a very good instructor and they are learning a ton - for about 20% of the cost!  If they decide to go far in Tae Kwon Do, we can re-address the high dollar dojo, but for now, the Y is just fine...  :)

We are also going to have them in swimming lessons until next summer - we are going to take a 30+ day RV road trip back to the East Coast, and then we will hopefully go to Hawaii at the end of the Summer to see the Peases (and meet their new baby, Seth!)  It is going to be way better than last Summer...

I surprised Pam by flying in Leah from California this past weekend - I timed it perfectly to coincide with my return from New Jersey - we had an awesome Halloween weekend!  Our neighbors had a party in their garage that led to much hilarity - the pictures tell the whole story...  Nikolai went as Mario, Zander as Luigi, and Max went as a Zombie - they were all quite convincing!  It was great to unwind with some good friends, although I didn't feel quite right for about 3 days...

And then I got called into the Commander's office at work...  Never a good thing!  Except in this case - he wanted me to be a deputy division chief - instead of having 8 people working for me, I now have over 80!  This is the job I should have come into when I returned from Iraq as it is more "fitting" of a Lt Col - but I have enjoyed the last 3 months (already?) not having a ton of responsibility...

Pam and I are going to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra next week - we can't wait - always a great time!

That is about it for us - We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

23 Sep 10

Here I sit on my first TDY since I returned from Iraq...  I am in California for a few days on an INCREDIBLY dull meeting regarding Advanced High Frequency Materials to go on the B-2 - it is every bit as riveting as you might expect!

The GREAT news is that Pam and I are both on the mends!  I got my pin out a week ago, and I am still limping a bit, but overall I am doing rather well - Pam has been gradually putting more and more weight on her ankle and she is now up to 100%.  She is hobbling quite a bit, but that should get better over time...  Let us be a lesson to you all - be careful in everything you do!  2 seconds of inattention on both of our parts has caused weeks of pain-in-the-ass(foot)-recoveries... 

The boys are doing great in school - there was a rash of little "white lies" that the boys thought they could get away with, but fortunately we caught on rather early and made them carefully reconsider lying to us in the future...  :)  They are spectacular kids overall and we are very lucky!  I am glad that we ill now be able to go out and do STUFF with them!  It has been a long time coming... 

Short little update, but we do have lots of new pictures from when we went on our team-gimpy RV trip to Bass Lake - Lots of fishing, but no fish caught...  We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

3 Sep 10

Congrats to me!  I am now a Lieutenant Colonel!  Woo-hoo! 

We have had a few weeks of fun and frolic minus the frolic as Pam and I continue to heal...  The boys started school last week and Pam and I sit around the house bored to tears - we are ready to get out and DO something!  We are going to change the mundane by taking the RV out to Wright Patterson AFB and their Famcamp - it is nice and close so that if Pam and I find that we can't manage, then we can just pack up and head home...  The kids are wicked psyched that we will actually get out of the house and do something - there is going to be a lot of fishing and playing catch - all while on crutches!  Gonna be great...

The boys are loving their new schools!  We went to their orientations and met their teachers and they are all very nice.  Nikolai has started out this year better than any other year in the past - he has been inwardly motivated and in a GREAT mood ever since school started!  I am not sure what the difference has been, but I can't argue with success!  I can't believe we have a 1st, 2nd, and 4th grader - we're getting old!

My parents came out for a week to celebrate my promotion - we had a very nice ceremony at my work and we took a bunch of pictures - we then ate big sandwich!  Doris and Norm made it down from Michigan with some friends of theirs from Germany and Jeff Carter even met us for dinner that night - a great time!  After the ceremony, one of my co-workers started to read an award citation or my "heroics in combat" - and he started to talk about the Purple Heart (the medal that you receive for getting wounded in combat) - I got incredibly embarrassed thinking that they were actually giving me a Purple Heart since I broke my foot on my own buffoonery instead of in combat.  It turns out they were not going to give me the Purple Heart, but instead they gave me the Purple Toe!  It was very funny - they even had a gigantic medal that they gave me - the kids loved it!

Pam went to the Dr. the other day, and she can start putting weight on her ankle!  The Dr. said that she is healing very nicely...  I am jealous!  I should get my pin out in less than two weeks...

That is about it for us - We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

18 Aug 10

Wow...  I'm home!  I had the world's greatest homecoming from Team Tolmoff and Ashley, but...  I was walking with a cane and a broken foot!  Miracles never cease, eh?  I left Baghdad on Pam's Birthday and headed down to Qatar - I was able to get a full-up room (as opposed to a tent) that was air conditioned, had real walls, indoor plumbing, and free high-speed internet access.  I couldn't be more excited as I was on my way HOME!  I went to the airport to get my plane ticket, and realized that I had forgotten my  ID in the car, so I ran back out to get it.  There was nothing but a 2.5 foot concrete barrier that was separating me from my ID and my ticket to freedom...  I decided to hop over it like I have hopped over things for the last 34.5 years...  Except this time I didn't stick the landing!  That's right - I porked up a landing, landed on the side of my foot and broke my #5 metatarsal in my left foot...  I was in denial that I broke it, and Pam was downright peeved that I was not going to be able to help her out on my return, but we knew we could handle it all on the return - I just needed to get home...

Which I did!  And it was great...  Everything that I had hoped for!  Pam and the boys were accompanied by Ashley and 2 people that I work with and they met me at the airport.  I was exhausted and in a bit of pain - I was also directed to go straight to the Doctor upon my return as my foot had not been set, splinted or casted.  Turned out that I broken it so bad that I, too, needed surgery!  YGBFSM!  I went under the knife less than 48 hours after getting back to the states, and then got loaded up on pain meds (Percocet, Vicodin, and Tylenol #3).  Needless to say, I was out of it for the next week!  Our friends on the street even had a BBQ for my welcome home, and they were all amazed at how quiet and zoned out that I was...  Fortunately I was able to get off the meds completely within 5 days, and the new "normal" set in - Pam and I both hobbling around the house and taking our sweet time with everything we do.  We even have to shower sitting down!  Nasty...

The boys have been a super help in everything we have asked them to do - the whole time I was gone, they couldn't wait to play, wrestle, and go swimming we me - and now they have to put it off until the healing...  We even had to cancel a trip to Cedar Point that we were going to take in the RV to meet up with Terri and her family since we couldn't even imagine having to maneuver in the RV, much less maneuvering around the park in a pair of matching Rascals...  We will do it again at some point, I promise!

Pam's mom saved our ass immediately after the injury (thanks again so much!), and then Ashley came out for 3 weeks to keep the day to day grind from stopping...  Both were super-rock stars that really helped us out when we needed it!  We even got Ashley a little laptop to show some of our appreciation - thaks again to both of you!

It has been very nice sitting around and relaxing, but I am more than ready to be up and around - I am not one much for sitting around...  After I got off meds, I was ready to move!  We were going to take an RV trip to Terre Haute to meet up with Heidi Keeler and her family, but we cancelled our RV spot for the same reason as Cedar Point.  We talked it over and figured that we could manage in a cabin - which we did!  We had a great time being crippled at the KOA - even though it was wicked hot, we all had a blast - thanks to Heidi and her fam for putting up with our crip-ness!

Pam is wrapping up her first quarter of school, and it looks like she has found a way to manage straight A's in spite of all of the madness!  Way to go, wife!  Keep up the great work!  Only 50 more credits to go...  :)

I have found the time/ability to do a few little projects that did not take much moving around, but now I am running out of things to do.  We even had a TV go on the fritz, so we bought a new one, and it looks like we might be able to get the old one fixed for free!  If so, we will have a 2nd huge TV!  Sweet!

Well - that about wraps things up for us - we are looking forward to Ross visiting this weekend with my parents showing up on Monday (for my promotion - yay!).  We will be back to having a lot of help again - can't wait! We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

30 Jul 10

First things first - Happy Birthday to Pam!  Tomorrow she will join me in the ripe old age of 36 (including me?)  Happy Birthday, Baby!

THIS IS MY LAST UPDATE FROM THE MIDDLE EAST!!!  Woo-Hoo!  I am wicked psyched...  I can't wait to get home to the world's greatest family...  6 months is WAY too long to be away - I can't imagine doing this for a year...  I was here over 181 days which means that I get credit for a "short tour" - essentially that means that I get credit as if I was on a "remote assignment" for a year.  This is supposed to preclude you from getting tagged for another remote assignment away from your family after you have just done one.  Hopefully this means that 6 months will be the longest that I will have to be away from the world's greatest family...

These past 2 weeks have been quite busy - first of all, we moved to Baghdad from Kirkuk, and on the same day, my replacement showed up!  Needless to say it was a firehose trying to teach him everything that I learned in the 6 months that I was here in only 2 weeks...  He was a trooper, though!  Not that he had much of a choice...  We got ourselves set up to work with the Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) to help train the Iraqi Forward Air Controllers to operationally use the King Air 350 to do Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) as well as to use the Mi-17 helicopter to do tactical airlift.  The advisors of the ISOF are green beret US Special Ops troops called Operational Detachment - Alpha.  These teams are also known as "A-Teams" - pretty cool...  The guys were exactly how you would like your green berets to look - smart and built!  One of them was photographed by a journalist back in 2001 when he was coming out of a cave in Afghanistan - A chinese toy company got ahold of the picture and then the "Tora-Bora Ted" action figure was born!  I have never met an action figure in real life before (outside of Disney World), so I have to say that this was a first...

We also had my "farewell" from Baghdad - the guys on the team (Capt Dan Vaniman, Capt Oryan Joseph, and my replacement, Lt Col Pete Stapleton) got me this wicked plaque with all of my sayings and mannerisms - very cool - I will treasure it for years to come!  I have included a picture of the plaque...

Even though the days have been busy for the last month, the time has all but stood still...  I don't think I have ever been so excited for anything in my entire life!  The boys have been so tolerant of lending their Daddy to Iraq, and Pam (broken ankle and all) has done a stellar job holding life together for everybody...  I can't wait!

There is a lot to say about my time here - I certainly made the most of it...  There is a big saying painted on one of the walls - it says, "Don't count the days - make the days count..."  I couldn't agree more!  It would be very easy to fall into a "woe-is-me" lull, but I didn't do that.  I got into great shape, I finished Air War College, and I had an adventure!  I also got short tour credit, as well as 8 months tax free...  And I also think that I helped out this country.  A lot.  And that is what Pam and the boys sent me over here to do...  Overall, I'd say it was a very successful mission...

In that vein, I intend on giving a briefing to my military co-workers when I get back to Ohio.  Here is the briefing if you want to take a look at "What Puddy Did on His Summer Vacation".

But it was also 122 degrees today, so I'm not going to miss it all that much!

Well - hopefully the next update is lots of sunshine and lollipops talking about the great reunion!  We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

Pam

15 Jul 10

First things first - Pam broke her ankle!  Fortunately her Mom saved the day by coming out to take care of her - more on that in a minute...

It's so close I can *taste* it!  I should be home in 3 weeks!  I can't wait - of course there is a lot going on between now and then - I am still in Kirkuk, although I spent a week in Baghdad getting things ready for our team to move down there.  Last night we had our "farewell" from Squadron 3 - this is the group of pilots and Mission Sensor Operators (MSOs) that we have worked most closely with since I came here 3.5 months ago.  They are all an awesome group of guys - for our farewell to them, we got them a picture collage of all of our integration efforts that we had taken over the last couple of months - they loved it!  We also presented Dan with his Wing level Sijan award for leadership from not only his deployed wing, but his home wing as well!  And he even got an Army Achievement Medal for his work with the Provincial Joint Coordination Center for election support back in March - well deserved!  He and Capt "Juice" Joseph have been awesome to work with...

So...  Pam was walking to her car from school the other night, and decided her ankle was much too pretty without a 10" surgical scar on it, so she decided to snap it!  Apparently she did quite a number on it, too...  The doctor was able to get her all put back together before the swelling even started, so she should be on the road to a 100% recovery - Insh-Allah!  We were kind of in a pickle as to what to do with Pam being off her feet for 3 months, and me still having 4 more weeks here - If I left early, it is possible that they would not "count" the deployment, and I might have to do the whole thing over again - we both agreed that I would stay if at all possible so that we would not have to go through the separation again in the near future.  Her Mom dropped everything and has been nursing Pam back to health - thank you so much, Diane - you are a God-send!  Without a "responsible adult" taking care of Pam and the boys, I would be constantly wondering if everything was okay...  Diane leaves on the 20th, and then my niece Ashley shows up for 3 weeks to help out!  The boys are soooo excited - it is going to be a blast - wish I could be there to enjoy it, too!  HA!

Today we got a special treat - we were working with the 12th Iraqi Army Special Operations Company and they were using ISR from the Iraqi Air Force airplane overhead.  We got to see them "take down" a house that was full of insurgents and terrorists - very cool...  They were quite good at their job and they were armed to the teeth!  Granted, this was only an exercise - but there is no doubt in my mind that they could do this very well for real if the need arose...  Afterwards, the Green Beret advisors to the Spec Ops Company gave us certificates of appreciation for our help training their Iraqis.  It is very cool when you get a "job well done" by someone whom you don't expect it from (ie, not your boss).  I think we have made a positive impact on this country - and that is saying something...

It is hot here.  Ridiculously hot.  Like - 122 degrees hot.  Ick.  Your fingertips feel like they are on fire, and everything is so bright and dusty.  This place is brutal in the summer - Fortunately I had 4 months of relatively decent weather (except for the mud-rain), and only 2 months of brutality...  I hear everyone complaining about the 91 degrees and the "humidity".  I guarantee it doesn't tack on 30 extra degrees!

The kids have been doing great and Pam just uploaded all of the pix from the 4th of July - they are getting so big!  I can't believe that I have been gone almost 10% of Zander's life...  Hopefully we can get back to life as normal (albeit with a broken Mommy) soon after I return...  I miss my family!

I will probably make one more post before I head home - hopefully I will fly out of here (Bagdhad, then Q'atar) on 4 Aug, and be home on the 5th.  With a block party on the 7th, and an August that will be second to none!  It is going to be awesome...  Now I just have to get through the next 3 weeks...

We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

5 Jul 10

One month to go!  Very excited...  We have actually been fairly busy here - right now I am sitting in Baghdad trying to catch a flight back to Kirkuk.  Once again I was called down to the principal's office to discuss the future of my team - the general wants us to work with the Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF), but the ISOF is already trained well beyond whatever we could teach them!  We did get to go to the shooting range and shoot all of their machine guns - 7.62mm, 5.56mm, .40 cal, .45 cal, and 9mm - it was very cool - no limit on the ammo!  We shot as much as we could before it got dark...  Fully automatic...

Last night we were invited to the house of the Commander of the ISOF, MG Fadhel.  He had gained notoriety in 2003 for running into a building taking heavy enemy fire to save a US Green Beret when he was wounded and all hope seemed lost.  The guy saved the Green Beret's life, and from then on, he was kind of a "made man".  He was a major in 2003, and now he is a Major General.  Not too shabby, eh?  He lives in one of Q'usay Hussein's old palaces - complete with an alligator pond inside the house that Q'usay used as entertainment by feeding the gators with people who upset him...  The building had a massive foyer that had all sorts of trophies and presentos that the general had gotten over the years from various people - in the USAF, we say that we have a "Yay me wall" - basically a wall with awards and certificates - this dude had a massive room...  He likes himself apparently!  Lots of statues and sculptures - even a nativity scene!  Also on the grounds of the palace was a horse, some monkeys, and date trees - very interesting to just walk around and check things out...

While we were in Kirkuk, we were working with Squadron 3 (the Iraqi RC-208 squadron) and some soldiers from the 12th Iraqi Army Special Operations Company - it was hard to believe that these guys were from the same outfit as the smurf watchers!  They were very capable and fun to be around...  We need more of these guys if we want to guarantee success in Iraq!

We also went to a farewell for an advisor to Squadron 3, and the Iraqi track-suits came out in full force...  These guys dress in 1980s-era Nike and Reebok track suits whenever a formal occasion dictates - it makes for some great pictures!  We ate lots of really good Iraqi food - my immune system must be strong, because I have not gotten sick at all on my last few dining experiences - there are a few people, however, who can not seem to shake getting sick!  I even had an Iraqi hand feed me Tigris-river carp - yum?

Pam and the boys are doing great, and I can't wait to get home to see them - the homecoming is going to be sweeeeeettt...  The computers at home are starting to crap out, as is Pam's car - It looks like my work is going to be cut out for me when I return!  No problem - there is not place that I'd rather be...

We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

20 Jun 10

I can’t believe it!  When I first came here 4 ½ months ago, Father’s day seemed so far away-yet here it is!  I got to talk with Pam and the boys on skype this morning, and I even got to open the presents that they had sent me-the boys pick-up their own cards, and even send me a super dad tee shirt!  Pam reduced me to tears by making a “Tolmoff boys throughout the years” picture book-a whole bunch of pictures in a bound book capturing and celebrating the boys lives, and my life as a father.  It was awesome!  Thank you so much Pam-this was truly a needed pick me up while I wither away here in the desert…

The job here is still very interesting, and I am continually amazed at how challenging it is to get different groups of Iraqis to work together.  Most recently we have been working with the 12^th Iraqi army and trying to get them to work with the Iraqi Air force.  My team and I had gone out to the 12^th Iraqi army seven times with Iraqi Air force representatives and mission sensor operators to teach them how to utilize the air force.  This was all in preparation for a big operation by the 12^th Iraqi army where airpower was going to play a key role in the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance of the operation.

Needless to say I was very excited when the actual operation was underway.  The only problem was that the Iraqi army failed to turn on any of their radios!  The television that was going to be used for live-full motion video streamed from the aircraft overhead was being used to watch the smurfs.  It was very demoralizing to say the least…  I chewed out an Iraqi general on his unit’s failure-I was not very pleased to have wasted my team and the Iraqi air force’s time.

We had a new guy join the team-he showed up Tuesday afternoon from Vegas where he teaches an advanced maintenance officer class.  On Tuesday night we went to the Iraqi Air force squadron 3 operations building to supervise the mission briefing given by squadron leadership; they were celebrating a promotion when we got there.  There we were-three American Air force officers in uniform-surrounded by 30 Iraqi pilots wearing awesome 1980s era track suits.  Imagine what it would look like if the Sopranos was filmed at the 1980s, and you will get the picture.  They also had a big dinner in celebration of the promotion.  There were a couple tables pushed together-probably 20 feet long by 4 feet wide total.  There were no plates, no silverware, and no chairs-just 33 of us stuffing our faces with Pita bread, kebabs, and boiled vegetables all by hand.  That is an image I will remember for a long time!

The day after he arrived, we got into these tiny Iraqi helicopters called OH-58s.  They were so small that each of us had to go in our own separate helicopter.  Mine was flown by a 23 year old Iraqi second lieutenant!  He looked so young that I could swear it was one of my boys flying it!  But he did a wonderful job-we flew at about 30 feet over the desert and even had to climb to go over trees and power lines!  I have never done that kind of flying before-very cool.  The new guy couldn't believe that he lucked onto such a wild team - you certainly don't get to do this kind of thing as a maintenance officer in Vegas!

The Tolmoff boys finished up baseball this season in first place!  Way to go cubbies!  They all got really cool trophies that they were very excited to show me over the web cam on skype.  I am very proud of them, and I can’t wait until I can watch every game next spring!

Pam also started school this past week-she is feeling very overwhelmed, but I know that she will do wonderfully.  I am very proud of her for making her dream a reality!  Way to go Pam!

I am already starting to plan a bunch of activities for when I return-needless to say the RV will be a central figure in our activities.  Hopefully we’ll even get to meet up with some friends and family along the way!

We hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

9 Jun 10

Where to begin?  My heart is heavy as I write this-my brother in law Peter’s brother, Donald, passed away in a tragic hit and run accident on the 4^th of June 2010.  He leaves behind a loving wife, and three little boys-as if the tragedy is not bad enough, his life circumstances hit a little too close to home.  Donald’s nieces (Ashley and Alexis-Pam and I’s nieces as well) created a very touching Facebook page celebrating Donald’s life.  It can be found here.  Rest in peace Donald-although it is terribly sad knowing that we will never see you on this earth again, it is comforting that you’re in a better place for all of eternity.

My life here has been plodding along, and I have less than two months remaining!  I had an interesting turn of events over this past week-the general that I have been speaking about (with his severe lack of leadership), summoned me to Baghdad for a “meeting” (it felt like I got called into the principal's office).  It is not so odd that the general wanted to talk to me, it was all that he did not want my colonel being involved in the meeting.  That means I knew I was going to get ambushed in one way or another!  Nothing like walking the green mile…  I was not sure on what topic I would be ambushed in, but I knew it was coming nonetheless.  He also did it while I was in the middle of an operation...  Way to stymie the mission, by having an administrative meeting directly in the middle of an actual operation! It turned out that the general’s plan was to get me working in a more streamlined chain of command where the general had more control of me and my team (ie not working for the colonel anymore).  While I really liked working for my colonel, if this was going to allow me to be able to do what I was sent over here to do, then I was all for it.  And so far, it has been smooth sailing ever since.  The general even allowed me to talk to the media without any “supervision” or even directed talking points.  For a guy who likes control so much, this was certainly out of character…  Maybe I dazzled him with logic and competence at the meeting!  Who knows...  In less than 2 months, I will likely never think of him again, except for maybe the "what not to do" thoughts...  HA!

Over the last two weeks, my teammate and I have traveled out to the 12^th Iraqi army division headquarters (about 5 miles away from where I work in Kirkuk).  The way we get there is by MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored personnel carrier).  It is basically an 80,000 pound tank on wheels.  It is amazing what American ingenuity can do when soldiers are dying due to improvised explosive devices.  We certainly live in an amazing country!

Being off of the FOB (Forward Operating Base) and out among the “normal” Iraqis is a very interesting experience.  You can see that they live in almost total abject poverty-there is trash everywhere, and they rarely have power from more than 2 to 3 hours per day.  When they do, it is too expensive to run an air conditioner-I can’t imagine living in a 120° desert with no air conditioning!  I took a whole bunch of pictures of the “countryside” so hopefully you can get a feel for how an "ordinary" Iraqi countryman normally lives.  Never forgets that America is the greatest country on the face of the earth!

While we were at the 12^th Iraqi army, Dan and I trained 11 soldiers how to operate, communicate, and integrate with Iraqi Air force ISR assets.  It was very slow going teaching them at first, but then we figured out the best way to teach: we had each Iraqi find his own house using the overhead aircraft, and then we had the wife or children come out of the house and wave to the aircraft - all while they were watching it live from 10 miles away...    They thought this was great fun!  We figured that if the soldiers could read a map and locate where their house was on the map, relay the grid to the aircraft, and then refine the location from the broadcast video, then they could certainly do it with a target house instead of the house that they live!  Nothing like convincing them that the technology works - Creative teaching at its finest…

Pam and the boys are still doing wonderfully-the boys have finished up school, and Pam has filled up the pool for the summer!  She has been great sending me pictures of all the fun and frolic at team Tolmoff’s lair.  Pam even starts school in less than a week!  She has done so wonderfully in my absence…  I am very lucky to have her!

The boys are still kicking butt in baseball, and they only have about a week left in their season.  Pam told me that she was thinking back to the beginning of last year in Alabama, and how the boys did not even know how to hold a bat!  My how things change.  The boys are growing up quick (although Pam will never want to hear me say that-ha ha ha)!

That is about it for now-there are a whole bunch of new pictures for you to take a look at from both sides of the world!  we hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

25 May 10

First things first - Happy Birthday, Mom!  Wish I could have been there!  But I was out protecting your freedom.  So hopefully you like that birthday present!

As of today, I have been here for 4 months!  The good thing about that is that I have only 2 months to go...  I am very excited!  The fact that I am DONE with Air War College, I have HAD an adventure, and I am DAMNED CLOSE to my weight loss goal translates to the fact that I am ready to get out of here!  I miss the family more and more every day, and the homecoming is going to be sweeeet...  I just KNOW that Pam is going to have the house spotless, the rug fixed, and a cute new dress to greet me off of the plane - and Team Tolmoff will pick up right where we left off!  We are already planning a little family getaway to Cedar Point - it is a massive roller coaster park that is only about 3 hours away from us - it will be our only RV trip of the summer - a far cry from last summer's mega-adventure, but we are still looking forward to the reuniting...

Mother's Day was a bunch of fun for Team Tolmoff - I called the boys on skype and I was going to help them cook breakfast in bed for Mommy while she slept.  Rather than risk them setting the house on fire trying to cook eggs or scalding themselves making coffee, we opted to go for toast.  Unfortunately, I forgot that our toaster broke right before I left.  Which left us with bread.  So they brought Mommy a few slices of bread for breakfast in bed.  Which the boys were all too happy to eat - but not before spilling crumbs all over the bed!  It was very funny to watch the commotion unfold on the screen in front of me - what I would have given to be there in person!  Regardless - it is a Mother's Day I will never forget...  The boys got Mommy a nice (authentic) Coach purse and a Mother's Ring that was custom made for her in Doha, Qatar.  Those crazy little boys sure do get around!

Life here is still chugging away - the only problem is that our General STILL won't let us do our job the way we need to do it to guarantee mission success!  I kid you not - I am deployed away from my family, and told to do a job, and then not allowed to do that job.  It is very frustrating, and that is the reason that I finished Air War College so quickly.  The bad part is now that I do not have a constructive time filler, and I am now well into Season 5 of Entourage (which is spectacular, by the way).  I have never accomplished so little in my entire life - and while I'm deployed, I thought I'd be the busiest!  It is very unfortunate that it is a lack of leadership that is causing these problems.  How this clown made General is absolutely beyond me...

I have gotten to go flying a few times in the last few weeks - that has been nice - the Iraqis love to fly with me because I make it fun - challenging someone's skills while making them laugh is a skill in and of itself!  After every sortie, I would go to the US dining hall and get ice cream for the crew that I flew with - always to the groans and jealousy of the other squadron members!  The other day, we figured out where they store ALL of the ice cream before it hits the dining hall, and I "acquired" a few cases.  So when I showed up to the squadron with 72 ice-cream cones, I was one popular little boy!  Ahhh...  The art of advising - it is not for everybody!

Some of the pictures in this update are from the AC-208's sensors - of the oil pipelines (and unfortunately the "trace amounts of oil" that the US would call an "ecological disaster"), as well as protests in the streets over a slain Kurdish journalist - we were training the Iraqi police, and they were working riot control - with our help, of course...

Well that about does it from here-we hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

8 May 10

First things first-huge congratulations to our biggest little man-Zander is a big, bad six year old!  I got to be on skype with him while he opened up all of his birthday presents-the bandwidth kind of sucks here, but it is still certainly better than nothing.  Happy Birthday, Zander!

And today is Military Spouse Appreciation Day - I love you Pam!  You are appreciated more than you know...  And tomorrow is Mother's Day!  Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mom's out there!  Especially my Mom and (and mom-in-law :)  ), and my beautiful bride...

Now that is what I’m talking about!  I got to do two, real-world missions that I can say truly helped the Iraqis.  Last Wednesday, my boss came up from Baghdad, and a group of Americans and some Iraqis went to the Northern Oil Company for a security meeting.  Over the last six months some of the major pipelines that connect Iraqi Oil to Turkish coasts have been attacked, the most recent attack coming on the 22^nd of April.  On that attack they had to shut down the pipeline for five days-when you consider that the pipeline moves 500,000 barrels of oil per day, it becomes readily evident that the Iraqis lost nearly $100,000,000 just because some jackass decided to tape a bomb to a pipeline.  It is our job to stop them!

At the meeting, we met a bunch of the high executives of the Northern Oil Company-they told us, “our job is to produce oil-and a lot of it.  Security is important to me, but I cannot focus any of my efforts on it.  We have an oil police force-work with them.”

So I did them one better-today we took up an RC-208 and took a lot of footage of the pipeline as well as over 500 pictures!  I was hoping that we would catch a bad guy in the act of sabotage, that there were none to be found.  Mixed blessings I guess!

In a lot of the pictures that you will see, I am holding a little cut out of a cartoon guy-my friend Joan’s son I mailed me a picture of “Flat-Stanley” and asked that I take pictures with him.  I bet they never thought that flat Stanley would end up logging combat time in Iraq!  Pretty funny stuff, and the Iraqis certainly got a kick of watching the U.S. Air force major take pictures with a cartoon cut out.

The boys are still enjoying baseball, and so far they’re 2-0 - way to go guys!  Other than that, things have been quite quiet here.  The guy who got medi-vac’d came back here for about a week, and then packed up his stuff to go home for good.  Not before we wished him a happy birthday, and some of the army contingent on the base gave him an Army Achievement Medal!  Excellent recognition for a job well done-hopefully I can carry on what he started with the same success that he has had.

Well that about does it from here-we hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

29 Apr 10

First things first -huge congratulations to Pam!  Pam will be a college student again starting in June at Wright State university in Dayton.  She will be getting her master's degree in pediatric nursing, and we couldn't be more proud of her!  Hopefully the air force complies with our wishes, and I will not have to deploy again, nor will I have to move the whole family before she is done in June of 2012.  Way to go Pam!

Another week has passed and I have to say that I am more than ready to go home!  Unfortunately I am only at the halfway point.  The good news is is that I and 99% done with air war college!  I have a “senior mentor ” that is reviewing my final papers-once he is complete with that, I only have to submit and then I’m complete!  I’m very happy to have that behind me…  It took way longer than I thought it was going to, and I had to put in a whole lot more effort than I thought I would need to-all in the name of “playing the game”, I guess!

Last week, one of our translators invited the team over for some “Dolma”.  It is a Middle Eastern food of grape leaves filled with various meats and spices, and served with Pita bread that is the size of a pillowcase!  She also had some fresh peppers from the local market-very hot, but very tasty!  We also conducted our farewell of two of our team members as they will be returning home soon.

While we were at dinner, one of the guys was complaining that his eye was hurting-the next day he went in to see the Dr., and the Dr. diagnosed him with uveitis-a fairly rare eye disease that can result in blindness if untreated.  He had to get medevac’d down to Balad to see an ophthalmologist who would treat his eye with steroids.  The ophthalmologist said that he was very impressed with the diagnosis and the call to medivac-if this was left untreated for even a few days, it is possible he would’ve lost vision in that eye!  Also, when the Dr. made the call to have a medivac’d, he was airborne less than 30 minutes later.  It is very comforting to know that the system works!

As we are still on base locked down from our one star general, we have had to find things to do to keep us busy, yet productive.  We’re working with one of the Iraqi squadrons for some advanced Mission Sensor Operator (MSO) training.  We came up with scenarios for the aircraft to track a vehicle around the base.  We simulated as if the inside the vehicle was a highly valued individual (HVI), and they had to track is every movement and report back to the operation center.  They did a remarkably good job!  I, of course, conned my way onto the aircraft for the first flight.  So I can add another on Iraqi Aircraft to my repertoire-the RC-208.  Essentially it is a single engine turboprop Cessna caravan with a very expensive camera/infrared/laser on the bottom of it.  It also transmits video real time to the ground so that with a portable ground station you can view exactly what it is that the MSO is seeing.  We bought the Iraqi some pretty cool stuff…

One of the pilots that was flying the RC-208 was a former MiG-25 pilot under a Saddam Hussein’s regime.  Although I did not ask him personally, it is rumored that leading up to the 2003 war, this guy was going to throw Saddam Hussein in the back of his MiG-25 and fly him to Syria as fast as he could if it looked like the Americans were going to attack.  The only reason that he did not do so, was that Saddam was afraid that the Americans would shoot him down.  I’m not quite sure how to bring this up in conversation to get the true story!

After each of the flights, we would go back to the squadron, debrief, drink chai, and then I would get my ass handed to me in a game of ping-pong by the MIG 25 pilot!  This dude is very good at ping-pong!

He also told us a bunch of stories that really give you the sense of how desperate it is over here.  He says there are no doctors, no quality control on medicines, and he can’t even tell his closest neighbors what he does for a living.  Doing so opens up his family to attack by the insurgents.  I can’t imagine living like that!  Hopefully Iraq will be able to stand on its own, and provide a much higher standard of living for all of its people.  As long as my boys don’t have to come back here to finish the job that we should have finished, I will be happy.

On a brighter note, the boys are playing baseball like little madmen-yesterday they got their team photos taken, and Pam said that they were absolutely crazy!  Those are my boys!  I have included a bunch of pictures that she took of them during their team photos.  Her one instruction was for them to not get their uniforms dirty-guess how long that lasted?  Ha ha ha!

Well that about does it from here-we hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

16 Apr 10

It has been a long time coming but I am finally writing to you from Kirkuk, Iraq!  After wasting several days in Baghdad after my four day rest and recuperation time, we hopped on a C-130 and flew nonstop to Kirkuk.  For the next few days I got to know the guys that are gonna be on the JAOIT (Joint Air Operation Integration Team).  As of right now there are two other guys in addition to myself as well as the outgoing chief.  Dan Vaniman is an intelligence officer, and Sam Brandt is a B-52 mechanic.  They’re both really good guys and will be very easy to work with.  The outgoing chief is named Ash Cannon-a dude with more energy than he knows what to do with!

The first couple days I got to meet a lot of the people that I would be working with, as well as get trained on some of the systems that I’d be operating.  I have seen a lot of the equipment in the past, so none of the training took too long.  We even had our colonel show up as they might be moving from Baghdad to Kirkuk-he is a good guy and very supportive of the JAOIT.  Unfortunately, his boss is a one star general who is an absolutely terrible leader!  He retains control on every minor and trivial aspect of every single person’s job that works for him.  How someone can micromanage on such a grand scale is beyond me!  How he made it to brigadier general I will never know.

It was so bad that we requested permission to do a mission and did not hear from him for almost a week.  When I finally queried whether or not we’re going to be able to do the mission, he started asking question after question-most of which was completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.  While we and the colonel were answering the questions (at 9:00 PM mind you the day before the mission), they dude just stopped talking to us!  By not making a decision on whether not we could do the mission, he made his decision loud and clear.  I have learned what not to be as a leader from this guy…

So as things stand now, I am at Kirkuk with no mission, no responsibilities.  I’m getting a bunch of air war college homework done, however that is not entirely what I came here to do.  I’m still not sure how I should politically progress in getting the job done with such a terrible leader at the helm.  Hopefully next time I report back with much better results.

Before I left Baghdad, I got to fly and a King air 350!  Part of my job in Kirkuk is going to be to integrate the Iraqi Air force with Iraqi ground forces.  Therefore I need to know what the capabilities of various sensor platforms are.  It was awesome!  The pilot even let me fly for about 15 minutes, and I got to manipulate all of the sensors-electoral optical, infrared, synthetic aperture radar, lasers, etc.  Very cool…  For a plane that is normally two million dollars, they put in enough stuff to make it cost over $13,000,000!  And the plane flew like a dream-I can’t wait to get back to the cockpit!

I am almost halfway done with my deployment, and things are just plodding along.  Pam and the boys are doing fine, although Pam has been fighting a nasty cough for the last couple weeks.  The boys have been doing baseball practice for 2 hours a day, three days a week in preparation for little league opening day on May 1.  I really wish I could be there for that!  But since Pam is awesome, I know that she will send me a whole bunch of great pictures…

Since we have not had a whole lot going on up here, every day after lunch we have had “nap time”.  I’m pretty sure that I am the only deployed team lead who mandates nap time for the team!  Ha ha ha…

There has really not been a lot else going on in Iraq.  The volcanic eruption in Iceland has stranded my mom somewhere between Eastern Europe and London-last I heard all of the London airports have been closed.  However if I know my mom, I’m guessing that she is mustering a pretty good time in spite of it all!

There’s some good congratulations to go around-first to Ross and Shelly who were expecting their second child on the sixth of November!  Also huge congratulations goes out to Alexis (my niece) who found out that she had earned a scholarship for a year in Germany to study for her junior year of high school!  Way to go Alexis-you’ll have a blast…

Well that about does it from here-we hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line whenever you get a chance, and as always check out the pictures!

29 Mar 10

R&R ROCKS!!!  I had no idea it would be this good...  The Army has a program that - anyone who is in theater for 6 months or greater - gets to go on "R&R.  Basically, that means that they go to a base away from the shooting and mayhem of typical combat.  Mind you - my "combat" has been anything but typical (what with the palace tours, helicopter rides, cigar clubs, etc.).  It gets you to a place where you can sleep comfortably, wear civilian clothes, and unwind for a bit.  Or, if you are like me, you can go-go-go!  I have been on the move since we got here.  The R&R is hosted in Q'atar outside of Al-Udeid Air Base in an Army Camp called Camp Al-Asayiah.  They have everything that you could possibly want/need here - high speed internet, clean/cool/comfortable rooms, Big screen TVs w/ movies going 24 hours/day with bean-bags and leather home-theater seating.  And don't forget about the 3 beers a day!  The beers are the only thing that you have to spend money on if you want to...  But it is well worth the price!

They also have a thing called "venues".  These are various locations and tours put together and run by a local company - QIA (Qatari International Adventures).  They do all sorts of things - I went on a "shopping" expedition down to the Souks - the Qatari cultural bazaars - as well as a Dhow boat cruise around the Qatari captial of Doha.  All of which kicked ass.  I never would have realized that Doha was such a big and modern city!  But the people werer VERY traditional - lots of burkhas for the women, and white robes with head-dresses for the guys.  Besides all of the traffic, the city was beautiful - lots of commerce, very clean, and certainly a safe taste of the middle east!  And the food?  Delicious!  I was doing great on my diet until I rolled into here...  HAHA!  I even ate brains, liver, and some baby camel - yum!  Don't knock it 'til you try it...

One of the other "venues" that we went on was to take an SUV 4-wheeling through the sand dunes - scared the crap out of me!  Pretty funny though - we had an Egyptian driver who was an absolute psycho - the angrier his music got, the more nuts he drove - we were cheering/fearing!  When we were done with the drive, we took a bunch of pictures and then made it to a beach for a picnic - we got to go swimming in the Persian Gulf (VERY salty - you floated like the Dead Sea), and we even got to ride a camel.  After all was said and done, we retired to massive Arabian tents to lie on pillows and smoke Hookahs.  I felt like Lawrence of Arabia.  It was awesome...  Then it was back in the SUV for some more tear-assing on the way back home...

Then next day we got on another Dhow boat and we went out to an island where we went tubing and jet-skiing.  It ROCKED!  The weather was spectacular, and I think I even avoided getting sunburned in the hot sun - tough to do! 

Then - the capper of the trip - Our LNO (Liaison Officer in charge of us) took us shopping for Cuban Cigars, jewelry, and then to the best restaurant I've ever eaten.  We sat on the roof overlooking the city, and every morsel of food brought to us was better than the last.  It was REALLY that good.  I was stuffed and happy.  And the LNO picked up the check...

How I get so lucky, I'll never know...  :)

Even though this trip is only supposed to be 4 days, we are on day 5 and there is no end in sight - the air travel situation is untenable.  Just my luck again, I guess!  Sweet...

Pam asked me, "Who gets to do these kinds of things while deployed?"  I don't know, but I'm glad it's me...

The boys are now playing baseball, and Pam uploaded a bunch of new pix to Facebook - I copied them and saved them.  They look like they've changed so much - even though I've only been gone a few months.  I can't wait to see them!

Well - that about does it for me...  We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance-and as always check out the pictures!

23 Mar 10

Time keeps ticking and the days keep flying by!  I actually leave for my four day pass in the next few days to head down to Al Udeid Air base in Qatar for my rest and relaxation.  I’ve heard from a bunch of different people that it is actually pretty cool-there are opportunities to go to different restaurants, shops, as well as even hit the Persian Gulf for some water activity (jet skis, boats, snorkeling, etc.).  I’m gonna be going with a few people from my air advisor class that I took in fort Dix New Jersey-it should be a fine time!

The last week has been very uneventful here.  I have taken my third air war college test-I only have three to go!  I will be leaving for Kirkuk within a week of when I return to Baghdad, so I have not been doing too much from the work front (not that that is different from normal-ha ha ha!) I am looking forward to moving up there and starting the next phase of by Iraqi adventure.  It will be sad to leave some of the Iraqis-I have actually made pretty good friends with them!  As it is March, an air force tradition is to grow mustache (fortunately only in the month of March)-as we are here advising the Iraqis in the development of their AirForce, they are advising us in the growing of our mustaches!  We call them our “mustache mentors”-the Iraqis got a big kick out of that!

While I’m here, Pam has had her hands full of dealing with the kids and their ever increasing list of extracurricular activities.  The most recent was baseball tryouts and baseball practice-I can’t wait for her to send the pictures of the kids doing awesome.  I’m guessing it will be pretty remarkable what a difference one year makes!

That is about it for now-we hope that all is going great with you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance and as always, check out the pictures!  I have included a bunch of "professional" pictures of what the Victory Base Complex looks like.  You can see that this place has a lot of potential if not ravaged by 7 years of war!

16 Mar 10

Hello!  Besides the never ending string of groundhog days, I have been managing to enjoy myself quite a bit…  This past Sunday I went to two different palaces-the Al Faw palace, and the Victory Over America palace.  The victory over America palace was a tour that they put on every Sunday, and it was quite well attended.  The Al faught palace, however, was not a tour-it was merely a chance to fulfill a promise that I had made to the boys before I left.  I told them that their daddy was going to fly a small remote control helicopter inside of a former dictator’s home-I carry through on my promise!  It was pretty funny trying to sneak past the Ugandan guards with this tiny, little, yellow helicopter.  Of course they saw the helicopter, and laughed.  I took a whole bunch of pictures of all of the different palaces that we were at.

There are two palaces that are right next to each other, the victory over Iran palace and the victory over America palace.  Both of them were to commemorate the various victories over the wars fought against Iran and America.  Of course they lost both of the wars, however when a better way to celebrate and change history and to build a massive palace claiming that you won!  It showed what a psycho that Saddam Hussein was!  We heard lots of varying stories about his crushing rule on the country-no two stairs throughout the victory over America palace were to have the same size stairs.  This was supposed to be so that Saddam Hussein would know the palace like the back of his hand and anybody who was chasing him would fall on the irregular stairs.  With thinking like that, how could you possibly be wrong?  Ha ha ha.

The victory over America palace was never finished-we had driven Saddam Hussein out of power in 2003, and bombed the hell out of his building.  It was very interesting to see what the other side of a 2000 pound GPS guided munitions can do to a place!  Unfortunately it was not B-2s that did this, however it was my original choice in pilot training, the F-15E strike eagle.  We really made a mess of the joint!

We also saw his grandchildren’s palace-they really love the Flintstones, so Saddam Hussein had it built in the same motif as the Flintstones.  We also saw one of the few remaining murals of Saddam Hussein as well as the Ba’athist headquarters.  This was the first target that was struck in 2003 by a tomahawk cruise missile.  We had some intelligence that Saddam Hussein was at a meeting there with some of his governmental bigwigs.  And we were right, however he had left 15 minutes before the missile arrived.  It hit a massive conference room and killed 200 people-150 of which are still buried inside.  Just 15 minutes earlier in this entire thing might have been avoided…  Inside the Ba’athist headquarters was a swimming pool.  Not the type of swimming pool that you would actually go swimming in, the type of swimming pool that you would shoot people in it he didn’t want to have a big pain in the butt for cleaning.  You could even see the blood and the brains of one of Saddam Hussein’s unfortunate victims.  Nasty!

Will that about wraps it up for me-Pam says that she is going to write something about what she has been up to lately, and when she does I will get it on to the website.  We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance-and as always check out the pictures!

9 Mar 10

My, O, my…  Where to begin?  The last few weeks have been incredibly busy as we led up to the Iraqi parliamentary elections-the Iraqi Air operations center was going to provide security and over watch of the elections by exercising the command and control of their air force.  It was our job is air advisors to make sure that they had all their I’s dotted and T’s crossed.  I’ve gotta say that it has been quite a while since I’ve been that proud of a group of people!  They did absolutely amazing!  Their entire air force consists of 87 aircraft (reconnaissance, helicopters, armed over watch, and training aircraft)-20 of which are training aircraft.  That leaves 67 aircraft fly.  When you start to subtract the number of aircraft that are down for maintenance (modifications, routine maintenance, and just plain broke)-you’re down to about 45 airplanes.  On election day, March 7^th, the Iraqi Air force flew 134 sorties!  And our counterparts in the air operations center had commanding control of every single one of them…  I was very proud of all of them-they did not have the standard computers and the high Tech Software that us Americans have, nor did they have any of the radars or Airborne surveillance aircraft that can watch what they do.  They have a huge White Board and they manually tracked all of the takeoffs and landings by radio and by phone calls.  It was primitive by our standards but it was certainly effective by theirs!  Way to go guys!

I also had a turning point of my trip during the election-I got into a conversation with an Iraqi major-we talked about all sorts of different things; about our family’s, about our jobs in our respective air force’s, as well as about the future of Iraq.  This air force major held up his finger and it was purple (signifying that he voted that day).  He was very proud that he voted and that his Air Force was sticking it to the insurgents by flying overhead and watching out for the people of Iraq.  I hadn’t really thought of whether or not I “believed” in the mission.  But you can bet your ass I believe in it now!  Whether or not we got into the war for the right reasons, we have given new hope to over 19,000,000 people here in Iraq.  Yes Iraq will still be making the news over the next couple of years, but by the time my boys are 20 years old, I bet that Iraq will no longer be in the news.  And by the time they are 30 years old?  I would bet we have massive trade on going with Iraq…

I also found out some information this week about the future of where I will be while in Iraq-I’m going to be the team lead of a joint air operations integration team (JAOIT).  My job will be to work very closely with the Iraqi Air force (smaller units) and to make sure that they are supporting the Iraqi army.  It will also be to train the army to ensure that they know what the capabilities of their air force are.  It is going to be a significantly more difficult job than the one that I have now, however the opportunities for greater reward are certainly there!  I will be working much closer with the Iraqis, and I will be doing it from all across Iraq.  I have gotten to enjoy my Kush life in camp victory, however I’ve come here to have an adventure and this job seems to fit the bill!

I have taken a whole bunch of pictures of the Iraqis that I’ve been working with lately-in the days leading up to the election we had to give briefings to all sorts of dignitaries.  I’ve got my picture taken with Lt Gen Barbero (who is the commander of the Iraq training and advisory mission), as well as Staff Lt Gen Anwar (the Iraqi Air force chief of staff).  The Iraqis that I’ve met here have been very nice people, and they keep calling me Abu Nikolai (Abu means father, and then you use the first name of your firstborn son) Saeed (which means happy).  Hopefully have had as much been influence on them as they’ve had on me!

One other thing I wanted to mention - I have been listening to a book on tape (Cd - .mp3, actually) called Heroes Among Us - It tells the stories of the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. In their own words.  I listen to it while I am walking around the base for my 6 mile walks.  I walk around all of the palaces and bombed out areas.  A lot of the Iraq stories center around what an A-hole Saddam was, as well as the crushing oppression that he had on his people.  And a lot of them focus on when Baghdad fell into the Coalition's hands.  Stories of heroism that happened just a few years ago, in places that I am walking today.  Very surreal and sends chills through my body.  Not a better place on earth to get into the "mood" of a book!

We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance-and as always check out the pictures!

21 Feb 10

The adventure continues!  I just recently returned from a quick trip up to Taji, Iraq.  Myself and two other guys from the Iraqi AOC went up there to watch the United Arab Emirates fly an unmanned aerial vehicle (also known as a UAV).  We were up there to make sure that all of their communications were an order, as well as to make sure that they did not go into any air space that we did not want them to.  Overall the trip was a resounding success!  I even got to see a few of my friends that I made while I was in Fort Dix New Jersey for my air advisors course.  They hope this up with a car, as well as a place to stay.  I’m certainly happy that I am in the victory base complex and not in Taji fulltime!  Truth be told, it was kind of a shithole.

I forgot to mention how I got up to Taji-we were supposed to get a ride in a UH 60 Blackhawk helicopter from the army, however they were full on the flight that we want to go.  We were gonna have to wait until about 10:00 PM before we went anywhere.  Then we got a phone call telling us that on Mi- 17 helicopter was ready to go, and we were to be on it!  This was very cool for several reasons-the first of which is the fact that it was a Russian airplane being flown by and all Iraqi crew.  If you had told me that I would be doing this 10 years ago, the only rational explanation would have been that I had been a captured prisoner of war!  Ha ha ha…  I took a bunch of pictures, and the crew was pretty sure that I was nuts!  I have found that the Iraqis have started to call me, “Sai-yed”.  This is Arabic for the word “happy”.  Not a shabby nickname if you ask me!

Last night on the flight home (also on a Mi-17), I was sitting in the very back and the crew chief had lowered the back ramp.  I have a bird’s eye view of all of Iraq with not so much as a window impeding my view!  Besides the noise of the helicopter in the vibration that went with it, it was a very quiet and peaceful night.  Right up until the gunner opened fired!  It scared the * crap * out of me!  I was unsure whether or not he saw anything and was shooting back at somebody who was shooting at us!  Fortunately I found out later that he was only testing his gun to make sure that it worked.  A little warning would’ve been nice!

Pam and the boys are doing great and Ohio –they have been surviving massive snowstorm after massive snowstorm, but it looks like the worst is behind them as the next four days are forecast for rain.  Pam is working part time at the pediatric clinic, and they don’t accept part time workers-it is very possible that this is the last week the issue will be working there.   : (  --oh well, her working has done a lot of good for the family!  I have been here three weeks already, and although I will not say that the time is flying by, I will say that it is going by quicker than I expected it to.  I’m in a very sustainable routine, and the fact that I get to see Pam and the boys whenever I want to make things a lot easier.  But trust me when I tell you I am looking forward to getting home!

We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance-and as always check out the pictures!

15 Feb 10

Well I can finally say I am now in the groove of things-I am sleeping like a champ, eating healthy, and I have never felt better!  I am on a good routine now where I wake up around 6:30 AM, go to breakfast, get showered and then go to work.  Sometime during the day I walk between 4 and 6 miles, and the rest of the time I am advising Iraqis.  I have even started to take my Air War College tests!  My three goals while here were to finish air war college, lose 50 pounds, and have an adventure.  I’m on my way to having all three!

Yesterday we went to the international zone (also known as the green zone).  There are two ways to get to the international zone-one way is to take a mine resistant armored personnel carrier (also known as a MRAP, or a Rhino).  The other way is to take a helicopter-I got to fly in a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter!  It was very cool…  I took a whole bunch of pictures while we were flying-they actually came out quite well.  One thing that surprised me about the Iraqi countryside was that it was very green-I was not sure what to expect, but when I was in Kuwait everything was a various shade of brown.  All around Baghdad are these massive orchards of palm trees or date trees ( I’m not sure which)-it is actually quite picturesque.

While I sit and enjoy the nice weather that an Iraqi winter holds, Pam is getting bombarded by massive snowstorm after massive snowstorm (and from what I understand she is not alone)!  I have only seen a few of the pictures so far-it also always appears that she has to drive to work when there is some snow covering the roadways.

That about sums up the adventures here so far-I have already been in Baghdad over two weeks, only 24 to go!  Ha ha ha!  Besides missing the family, my spirits are still high…  We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance-and as always check out the pictures!

3 Feb 10

Wow, that was a long trip!  I finally made it into Baghdad on the 29^th of January 2010-I was notified that I would be flying out with a showtime at 6:00 AM.  Unfortunately for me I found out at 8:00 PM the night prior…  What that meant is that I got exactly zero sleep that entire night!  My sleep had been so out of whack ever since Pam and I headed down to Orlando, and try as I might I still could not sleep.  In my tent of about 25 people, 23 of them decided to up and move right when I was trying to go to sleep.  The only good thing about that whole part was that I got to talk to Pam and the boys one last time before I left Al Udeid.  It was then that I started to feel that I was coming down with a cold…

When they say that the showtime is 6:00 AM, what they really mean is that the flight is not going to take off until 9:30 or 10:00 AM.  There was a lot of needless waiting around-not the way I want to spend my time when I am doggedly tired!  We got onto the sea 130 airplane at AL Udeid, and it had to fly to Balad first.  The first thing I noticed when I sat down, wasn’t there are six cartons of human blood-I was certainly hoping this was not a foretaste of how the flight would go!  The flight was smooth enough to Balad, however no sleep for me-we were on the ground in Balad for about 2 hours before we took off and headed to Baghdad.  We had to wear our IBA (individual body armor)-it was a full of bulletproof vest, as well as a helmet designed to decrease your likelihood of getting killed while descending into Baghdad.  Nice!

My sponsor was there to meet me of when I landed, and when we left the terminal he got me believe pulled over for speeding-ha ha!  I ran some errands in order to pick up things like cough medicine, got some food, and was sound asleep by 7:00.  Unfortunately I fell like crap!  I didn’t sleep great, but it was better than I had been sleeping in a tent full of 30 of my closest friends…  The next day I went for a walk to get my bearings around the base.  It is a very secure base, however they want everybody to carry a gun “just in case ”.  As a matter of fact you cannot even get into the chow hall without your weapon!  Initially I thought the base was very chaotic, however I soon started to figure out my way around and things did not seem so bad anymore.  There were many beautiful man made things here, however 10 years of war tends to ruin things…  Everywhere you look as far as the eye can see there are 12 foot tall T-walls.  These are 1 foot thick concrete walls that surround anything of value.  The premise is that if a rocket or mortar comes in and strikes of target, that target is going to be the only thing destroyed.  Conversely if the rocket or mortar comes in, and misses-whatever is on the other side of the T wall will be saved.  I have to say that it is very impressive how many of these things are on this base-there have got to be at least a million and I’m not exaggerating!

As far as the job goes, we’re helping the Iraqi Air force “get going”.  They’re at the very basic stages of becoming an air force, and they are nowhere near where the United States Air force is.  It’s very challenging for us to remember that!  The Iraqi colonels and generals that I’ve met so far have been very pleasant and they have a very good command of English-much better than I speak Arabic!  I think the job aspect here will be very rewarding, albeit a bit frustrating at times…

I have high speed Internet in my room, (which happens to be a single-woo Hoo!), so it is very nice to skype with Pam and the kids.  I even skype with my mom and dad last night for over an hour-it was spectacular!  Today I ran around with another guy and took over 100 pictures of the various sights around the base.  Although it’ll give you an idea of what this place looks like, I can assure you that it does not do it justice.  It is just surreal.

 That is about it for the update - thanks for stopping by!  We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance-and as always check out the pictures!

28 Jan 10

It is 0352 am, and I am sitting in Q'atar.  BRUTAL trip!  I almost missed my flight out of BWI because apparently you are not supposed to pack empty 9mm or M-4 magazines in your carry-on luggage - whoodathunk?  I had to go check a small box w/ my verboten items, and then when I went through security again, they found another one that I overlooked!  They were not overly pleased... I told them that they could keep it - again, not the correct thing to say...  I had 4 cops (not TSA dudes - gun toting cops) do a background check on me while they tore my bag apart.  I said they could just throw it out, and they said they could not do that - someone had to "take possession" of it! Fortunately one of the cops took it - otherwise there would have been a ton of paperwork, and I would have likely missed my flight...  Dodged another bullet!  Now - why a military charter could not have unloaded weapons paraphenalia is beyond me!

The first leg of the flight was to Ramstein, Germany.  I slept ~ 1.5 hours.  When we got there, it was freezing rain, so we had a 6 hour delay on the ground!  Lots of hurry up and wait did not translate into any real sleep - I was dragging!  When we finally took off, we had a 1 hour flight into Aviano, Italy.  Another 3 hours on the ground (where I dropped my computer- F*#K!!! - fortunately there was no real damage), and we were back on our way into Q'atar.  For some reason, I was the ONLY one who could not sleep on this flight, either.  We landed in Al Udeid, AB at 3:10 a.m.  And then the real fun began - 5 hours of inprocessing!  Station to station, paperwork, equipment, storage, armory, chem bags, etc.  Took forever!  It was actually rather efficient, but it was a lot to take on 3 days with minimal sleep...

I now had a choice - do I sleep right away, or try to stay up as long as I could to get my body on the right clock?  I putzed around for a few hours (and got a MUCH needed shower where some Q'atari dude grabbed my socks and started cleaning a shower with them), but I was micro-napping, so I finally crashed out for 3 hours...  I felt MUCH better when I woke up - but this is going to take some time to get used to!  I am still on hold in Q'atar until they can find a flight for me into Baghdad...  I'm going to go out for a 5-6 mile walk now - time to start shedding those lbs!

No new pictures as of now, but I will post when I have some worthy pix - We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance!

25 Jan 10

 Hello from Baltimore!  Specifically, hello from the USO lounge at the Baltimore airport...  I am now on my big adventure, headed to Iraq!  It was not a whole lot of fun leaving the family this morning.  I think it finally hit the boys how long 6 months really is.  Fortunately there are lots of technological solutions to help us stay in touch...  I have a feeling that I am going to be a Skype junky - there is so much stuff that you can do!  I am even getting a phone number so that people can call and it will ring my computer - pretty cool! But things weren't always this easy...

Pam had herself an awesome girls weekend last weekend to New York City - there was hardly a stone left unturned as she, Norah, Jenny, and Jen painted the town red!  I will let her fill in with pictures and stories under separate cover...

While Pam was out of town, I got the boys all to myself for the whole weekend.  We had guys night, and we even got to go to a hockey game - it rocked!  They are so much fun...  And outings and adventures are getting more fun by the day...

I took Pam right off her girl's weekend and whisked her away for a little R&R w/ me.  In September, I got bumped off a flight from Atlanta, and was compensated with 2 round trip plane tickets to anywhere that Air Tran flew - and we went to Orlando!  Pam's parents came out from Mass to watch the boys (thank you so much - we really appreciated  it!  We had a spectacular time...  On Friday, we went to Universal where I drug Pam to all of the highest flying roller coasters that I could find.  That night, we went to a murder-mystery dinner, and even went to a comedy club afterward.  There was not too much sobriety by the time we went to bed that night.  I do have to say, however, that it was some much needed "away" time before I left town...

Saturday morning was a slow-go for both of us - we eventually made it to Universal Studios by 2 that afternoon...  We had a nice day putzing around and riding the rides that interested us, and then headed for the Blue Man Group by 6.  What an amazing show!  Pam and I had no idea what to expect...  All that I knew was that it was 3 dudes, painted blue, banging on stuff.  And did they ever!  There were some really funny parts...  Highly recommended!  The only thing that got a little bit weird was the fact that they unrolled about 250 rolls of paper towels over the audience.  Made the girls behind us shriek like bansheas!

On Sunday morning, I got a great idea...  I remembered that Sea World had a "free for military and their dependents" promo going on.  And boy did we ever take advantage of that!  It was awesome - literally free (besides parking).  We got tons of great pix and enjoyed the awesome weather (not to mention the kick-ass company...)

But...  All good things must come to an end - and we had to head to the airport for our flight.  As I was leaving town the next morning, I was quite paranoid about missing my flight!  We were at the gate 3.5 hours early!  Pretty funny...  We did make the flight (and watched Manning win the AFC Championship - blech!), and rolled back home at 10:20 p.m., only to have to wake up at 3:20 a.m. and head back to the airport!  Needless to say, I am quite tired...

Well - I will continue to keep this updated for the duration of my travels!  I will include many more pictures and stories here than I will on Facebook - so be sure to check back often! 

We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance-and as always check out the pictures!

3 Jan 10

Happy new year everybody!  I will quote the Tolmoff boys on this one when they say, “this was the best Christmas ever!” Santa Clause was very good to the boys this year, and not too shabby to Pam and I either-Pam got her much anticipated Kindle, and I got an AirHog’s helicopter.  I had one of these while we lived in Alabama, but it had broke and I had not gotten to fix it yet.  They are a ton of fun!  I also gave the kids a bunch of sweat shirts that I had gotten while I was at the University of Massachusetts in October.  They also got a metric ton of Wii games (thanks Grandma and Grandpa Rossi!)-they have been playing Wii nonstop for their entire vacation…  Grandma and Grandpa T also got them some big-kid bikes to ride for when the weather is nicer...

Pam also got me some super-sentimental pictures for me to take on my trip to Iraq.  Baby - you're the greatest!

Between Christmas and new year’s, Pam had to work-I took the boys out of town up to Columbus to go stay at Fort rapids water park-it is a huge indoor water park, and the kids could not have been happier.  We did learn a valuable lesson while we were there are however-one of the nights we tried to go see the Columbus blue jackets hockey team, and they got sold out about 10 people in front of us.  If you wanna do something make sure you get there early!  Instead of saying the hockey game?  We went to Hooters!  The kids love those owls…  J

The lesson was not lost on us, as we were the first people in line for the water park the next day.  All of us got pretty beaten up with all of the huge water slides and the fighting going on.  We also went to the second best science center in a country-COSI-the center of science and industry.  They had a ton of hands on exhibits that the kids love to play at-we were there for 5 ½ hours!  Following that we went to see Alvin and the chipmunks two-the Squeakuel.  There were some funny parts!

When we came back to Fairborn, Pam was nursing a bit of a cold and had to call in sick - but that didn't keep us from catching the Harlem Globetrotters at the Nutter Center!  Nikolai originally started by saying, "I hate basketball!"  But his tone soon changed when the Globetrotters took their antics to the court!  It was a VERY funny show.  Good stuff! 

Our new years eve was very low key with just our family celebrating we played board games and Wii games, and we all watched the ball drop at midnight.  We also talked about what we are thankful for in 2009 as well as all of the things that we did in 2009-the list was very long!

The past couple of days we have been relaxing and enjoying the last few days of our vacation.  Today is my birthday-woo Hoo!  Pam and the boys got me a replacement helicopter for when the Xmas one breaks (it is getting quite a bit of use!) As well as one that I can bring with me to Iraq.  I’m gonna pack a ton of batteries because I can guarantee this will get a ton of use and I will be flying it in Saddam Hussein’s old palaces.  Nothing says we won the war like a 36 year old major flying an air hogs helicopter in your palace!

Last night the Minor family stopped by on their way back home from Iowa-it was great to see them and the kids had a ton of fun playing with the girls…

Well that about updates you on team Tolmoff!  We hope that all is going great for you and your family-drop us a line when you get a chance-and as always check out the pictures!