STILL at Bagram!

I'm still sitting here at Bagram waiting for a flight out. It's very difficult to fly helicopters through a mountain pass during a snow storm. We try pretty much every day to get out to our FOB but every day the flight gets cancelled due to weather.

Lauren should be on the plane heading home to Ohio as I type this. Hopefully all the loose ends were tied up! I can't help but think there was something that didn't get done, and it will come back to haunt us later.

Bagram Air Field

Hey all. I'm here at Bagram Air Field waiting around taking classes before leaving for my final destination. I'll probably leave on Tuesday. Bagram has pretty much everything anyone could want in a deployed base. The only problem is it's so big! And the transportation is not so great to get around. I only have another couple of minutes so i have to make this short. Thanks to everyone for praying for me and getting me through! I'll update when I can next.

Ben

Hearing from Ben :)

To expand on what Ben wrote...

Ben flew "over the top of the world" as he put it. He first flew into Glasgow, Scotland and Germany and then as you read, into Kirghistan, a total of 24 hours!

He watched 9 movies and is very tired. He said that Scotland was so beautiful, you couldn't see anything from the airport, but a cathedral on top of a hill. He didn't say anything about the other two countries, he didn't really have a lot of time. Praise Jesus that his ears didn't bother him at all! As some of you know, when Ben flies, his ears hurt him really bad and his left side of his face goes numb. This only happens until the plane reaches altitude, then he's fine the rest of the flight. The DR. said it's because he has smaller than normal ear canals. The pressure builds up and causes the pain and numbness. He is probably in Afghanistan by now. He'll have a few classes that he'll have to take, one of them being a "welcome to Afghanistan" class telling them what to expect and such. Thank you again for your prayers!

First post from Overseas

Hey all! I'm writing from Kyrgystan, a stopping point before entering Afghanistan. I got this far okay, and am in the hands of the air force after this. I'll spend about a week in Bagram and then on to my Forward Operating Base (FOB). That's all I have time for for now.

Ben

Saying Good-Bye

Well, today was the day. Ben had to report at 10am (AK time). The night before Ben didn't want to fall asleep, he said that he just wanted to stay up with me all night so he could enjoy my company and hold me. He was so cute. We have been watching the seasons of Smallville, so we continued our quest with season 5. We brought our mattresses into our living room for a more comfortable place to watch TV. I will have to say that I only made it till 2am and he fell asleep soon there after. We woke up around 7am so we could take care of a few things before saying good-bye. We had to buy a few things from the military clothing store for his uniform before he left, we get there and they were closed for Presidents day. Kinda irritating that they were closed because Ben needed those few things before he left. I guess he'll just have to find them at a the base he'll fly into in Afghanistan. I then took Ben the squadron headquarters so he could drop off his bags and put his name on the manifest. I think the waiting for him to leave, was the hardest. We knew this day was coming and it was getting to the point where we just wanted it to be over. We both know that this deployment is something that we have to go through. We know that God is in control and He is the reason that both Ben and I have this overwhelming sense of peace. Long story short, Ben and I prayed together and then we said good-bye.

Thank you all for your prayers, God has sure been there for the both of us through this hard time. Pictures are on Ben's camera, we will post them as soon as we can. Thanks again!

Ben's Address in Afghanistan

Last night we had a FRG (Family Readiness Group) meeting about Ben's deployment. I know... so "Army Wives"-ish. They went over a lot of things that we didn't necessarily want to hear. I think the only thing that we got from that meeting that we really wanted was Ben's address in Afghanistan. If you want to send him some letters or care packages, here is the address.

1LT Benjamin Ingle
HHT. 1-40 CAV
Gardez, APOAE 09354

LT COl. Campbell said that if you want to send a package, the best size would be a shoe box size. If they get a large sized box, they'll put that on the plane last (or not at all for a while) so they can get the needed supplies on first. If they had a small sized box, it's more likely to make it on the plane. So if you want Ben to get something sooner rather than later, a shoe sized box is the way to go!

Deployment

This picture was taken just before the 1-40th Cav. Ball this Jan. 09

We just wanted to let ya'll know that Ben is scheduled for Deployment the 15th of Feburary. As soon as Lauren see's him off to Afghanistan, she'll be heading back to Ohio with her family, helping out with her grandpa. Please keep us in your prayers these next few weeks. Thanks for everything!!!