June 22, 2009

Set out for another journey of a lifetime

Hello everyone... here I am, off to see and do some amazing things again. I'm sitting at the airport waiting for my flight out of Columbus. Today, I feel really good that my mother is not as stressed about me going to Kuwait and Iraq this time. She thinks I'm crazy, but she understands my compassion to go and support our troops. This time they made sure I had plenty of time to make my connecting flight. I have a layover of six hours, and I will meet up with Oliver Miller and our traveling manager. I am thrilled to meet Oliver, because he played with my favorite player Charles Barkley. Maybe he will share with me some great stories about Barkley. Also, we will meet the rest of the party in Kuwait (Rushia Brown, Todd Day and Dale Ellis).

We arrived in Kuwait, and I cannot stop laughing because Oliver Miller is a complete jokester! Oh my gosh, as I was getting off the plane I could feel the heat. Sweat was just pouring off my body. We met up with some soldiers, and I asked them what the temperature was. 116 degrees. "Oh, it's a cool day," one replied. Wow, it's going to be a hot 12 days! Stay tuned. The good stuff is coming!

Day 2
Our day started out with a visit COL Jones (ASG of Kuwait). He was very passionate about his job. He explained how there is not much crime in Kuwait and how the people are really nice. He went on to give great details about the base and how there are a lot of Generals and 8,000 soldiers. Also, he talked about the relationship with Kuwait and them giving half a billion dollars to support our troops. They don't even have a written agreement with us either. They just keep giving us the money. COL Jones said they have to be extra careful to respect their religion, and if we do not, they would take their money away from us. For the most part, we have done a good job of being respectful to their culture. He was very informative about the makeup of the relationship with the Kuwait people.

After we departed COL Jones, our next stop was the NAVY portal boat. Oh what a rush! They let me drive the boat, and I was doing all kinds of donuts in the Persian Gulf. That was way cool! After we were done taking turns playing in the Persian Gulf, we headed back to the base. On our way back we ran into a sandstorm. Dust and dirt was blowing everywhere. It was crazy. We couldn't even see the cars in front of us, so we slowly crept back to the base. It only took us 40 minutes to get back, opposed to 10 minutes. Whew! Glad we made it back to the base.

We had to get to bed early because we were leaving at 6:00am for Camp Bucca for the day. Yeah, we get to ride the BLACKHAWK! I'm so excited for that... Gotta go!

Coach Randall