E-mail from my oldest son

I thought that I would let this message age a bit (from Sept 15) before I shared it with everyone. Notice that the first video is far different from the usual AF "Aim High" crap. Relax and inhale the testosterone!!

I'm back in Okinawa, slowly getting my house back in order. I neglected to count on the jungle's need to devour my house. I have about 2 feet of gravel around my concrete porch, in my absence weeds and vines took over. I spent about 6 hours combined now cutting them back. Add to that, I think the Geckos ate the insulation in the AC unit in my living room. The drain is now blocked and I have a bucket catching the water in my living room. I only guess it's the Geckos, as there was a nice little collection of terds on the floor under said unit, should be fixed tomorrow, I hope. Thankfully, I got the hot water heater fixed today. Don't really know what the problem was, given that the fixit guy spoke limited english, but it now works. It wasn't all that bad though, once the water that was trapped in the house got flushed out, the incoming water was warm enough that showering in it wasn't a painful experience at all, semi-tropical environment and all.

I'm starting my scuba cert this Sunday, should take about a week, then who knows. After that time to explore the depths.

I'll try to stay up tomorrow night to make a phone call possible, but in any event thought I'd share some cool guy videos/pics for you guys:

First up, a video put together by a gunner from the CA Guard, his civi job is putting together promotional videos for the DoD, makes for really good production value. Should be ok to show mom all this, nothing too jarring I guess, but my barometer is a bit off these days, the "puff and flash" during the gun pass is an RPG shot at the filming aircraft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWaehyJb0pg

Next is the independent reporter Michael Yon, he's a prior Green Beret and spent about a week embedded with us out at Bastion. I mentioned an "interesting day" in a previous email, well that was the day that my flight lead got shot down, Yon mentions it briefly. In short, they got shot up, and I landed to get them. I didn't want to put it over the interweb, but I guess the jig is up so whatever, his pictures are awesome as is the norm with him. The crews he flew with were on the opposite shift as me, but the ops tempo was about the same either way, and pretty representative as to how I spent my last month over there. Unlike other reporters I've been forced to interact with over there, he was pretty genuinely a good guy with no axe to grind, and it's worth looking at his coverage.

Pedros

Anyways, hopefully I'll be able to talk to Mom tomorrow night (my time) I'm sure she's not pleased with my calling frequency.

Love you guys,