“No. Wizard thinks this whole thing may go away inside of two weeks. But I don't think so. The Russians never give up without a fight and they never just walk away from a fight. I'm thinking a month minimum if not longer. But, we'll see.

I know you were planning on getting married next month. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. Worst case, we could do the ceremony via skype. It's not the first time that's been done on a deployment. Don't worry, we'll work something out for you and Dan.”

“I know. It's hard being married to a civilian. My ex-wife was a civilian and she took our first Iraqi deployment pretty hard. We had her go live with her sister for the second one but by the time our number came up for Afghanistan she was history. Civilians just don't get that this is our life. Fighting wars thousands of miles from home. It doesn't make it any easier but that's just the way it is. Especially if you are going to be a lifer and stay in till retirement. It isn't an easy life for everyone involved but someone has to do it.”

Pig 1 1 to Pig Flight. Takeoff briefing:

OK, we're all together now in one big happy family. As usual, we're departing to the West. Once over the water, we'll make two circuits for us to join up in Right Echelon and then we'll turn north and FENCE IN over Poti. After that, we’ll push toward the bridge at Waypoint 4. After that, I'll take out the bridge and then we’ll push north toward Russian lines. About ten miles out I’ll contact JTAC1 Reaper and get him to start lazing and also find out the status of that SA-10 site. 

Once we’re done there, we’ll Egress south and once past Waypoint 6 I’ll check in with JTAC2 Reaper and see what he has for us. Like Wizard said, the weather is dicey with a low cloud base at 7000 so this isn't going to be much fun once we get into it. Make sure you input the weather into the LASTE. Welcome to the Majors.

Any questions?