Closing Thoughts for 2008

As I prepare to leave and return to Iraq and 2008 comes to an end I wanted to reflect on my time here with family and friends. I didn't get to see as many friends as I would have liked and certainly didn't spend as much time with family as I wanted, but I am thankful to have been allowed to spend this Christmas with my family while many serving our Nation could not. In my nearly 28 years of marriage I have never missed a Christmas because of work. I've been called in and had to leave for a few hours, but never have I missed Christmas. Many of you probably have also never missed Christmas or other important family events. That is not the case for our military and the many support personnel that serve with them. While some do get the opportunity to come home the vast majority do not. Pray for them as this year comes to a close and the new year begins.
My time home was wonderful, but not as you might expect. To be honest with you the separation from Nancy and the kids has been so difficult the thought of returning to Iraq often consumed me. It was, at times, hard to focus on what was going because my mind was on having to return. Nevertheless, my family and I had a great Christmas and are trying to get excited about the New Year despite my leaving here on the 3rd of January.
I met a friend of mine for breakfast this morning and had a great time of fellowship and sharing. During our time together he explained to me that unhappiness and even depression are natural responses to very difficult times. He also reminded me that although God never promised that we would at all times enjoy great happiness if we trust in Him, He did promise to never leave us and to never forsake us and that nothing He does is by accident and without purpose. Thank you Sam.
Twice this week I had the opportunity to play golf with another friend of mine. One day was as pretty as a golf day could be and the other was played in near hurricane winds (not really, but it was really blowing). How we finished I'll never know, but finish we did and had a great time. While our score keeping is a little more relaxed than the PGA I'm pretty sure I won. Don't worry George you'll get another shot at me when I return home in June.
Friday I will meet my Pastor for breakfast. While I don't know yet what all we will discuss I am grateful that he has set time aside for me before I leave. Until you leave for a long time it is hard to understand how much you miss and how important people are too you. I often wonder how difficult it must have been for our soldiers during WWI & II and even through the Vietnam War. There was no Internet or cell phones, just the mail and even now that often takes weeks to arrive. Talk about lonely. These guys had little or no contact for months and sometimes longer, and their deployment periods were often much longer. Such sacrifice is amazing to me.
My hope and prayer is that all of you had a wonderful Christmas and will experience the full extent of God's blessings in the new year. I am posting a picture of the Christmas tree the guys back in Mahmudiyah erected prior to my leaving. While it is nothing spectacular it signifies a strength and resolve to celebrate our way of life no matter where we are or what our current circumstances may be. I hope that no matter your situation God finds you and me faithful and clinging to the hope He has promised us all. Sometimes life is not so good, but God is always great!
Happy New Year!

Letter to Emily's Class

Emily's 5th grade class wrote letters to the Soldier's in Dale's unit and I thought I would share Dale's response with you all:

Dear Mrs. Whitehurst & Mrs. Hancock,

Let me begin by telling you how much I appreciate the letters you and your students sent. I will be giving them to our US Army Chaplain who distributes them to just the right soldiers.Your students have done a marvelous job writing them and a great service to our country. That's right guys, I know you may not realize it, but when you write letters of encouragement you lift up the spirits of our troops and help them to carry on and complete the mission. That is a great American service that makes me very proud of each of you.
I also appreciate your prayers. Prayer, for me in my family, is a big part of our lives.

Iraq is a small country with lots of sand and rocks. Some places remind me of home without the ocean. However, I have visited a part of Iraq that is lush with beautiful orange groves, grape vineyards, apple, pear and palm trees. As far as the economy goes, the Iraqi people are typically very poor. A lot of homes I have seen are made of mud bricks and some even have thatched roofs. On the other hand I have seen beautiful palaces made for Kings.

Our conditions here are pretty good right now. A lot of the soldiers do sleep in tents, but they are equipped with heat and air conditioning. Not quite like the tents you may have camped out in. Our food is good, but not as good as it is back home. We don't have restaurants we can go to and that is a real bummer! I especially miss the pizza back home and can't wait to have one!

I want you guys to know that our soldiers, (and girls, you will be proud to know there are a lot of girls in the army), are doing a great job of keeping peace and helping the Iraqi people to have a better way of life than they did before the war. Our soldiers are full of love and compassion and work very hard to keep the Iraqi people safe from terrorism. Besides building and supplying schools they also help establish businesses, and water & power plants. They help build bridges, roads and even parks and zoos (They helped re-establish the Baghdad Zoo). They do so much more than fight and you have a right to be very proud of them and of being an American citizen. Our military is the only one I know of that just doesn't beat the enemy and leave. They always help the people rebuild their lives. They are tough guys and girls and they are doing as well as can be expected being away from the home they love so much.

Like me, they miss their families very much, but they know that what they do is important to everyone back home. They believe in our Country, our way of life and more importantly they believe in you. These warriors do get scared from time to time, but they never let fear stop them from doing what is right. That is what true courage is and you don't have to be in war to be a warrior possessing true courage. Being a true warrior is an achievement of character. It is standing up, at all costs, for what you believe. You too can be warriors at home and in your classroom. Have discipline, respect those in authority and always tell the truth even when it may cost you. You do those things and you too will be warriors.

In closing, Mrs. Whitehurst, it is very tough being away from those you love. You have a certain little red head in your class that I love and miss dearly. Please give her, and all your students in fact, a big hug from me. I look forward to seeing their smiling faces when I return.

God bless you all,

Dale Hamilton, Emily's proud Dad
1-63 2BCT 1AD
APO AE 09322

PS: Emily, I'll see you on the 18th. Love you
FOB Mahmudiyah, Iraq

The War

When you think of our soldiers in Iraq you obviously think about the trials they face in a war torn country and rightly so. These young soldiers risk their lives daily for us. They do it without hesitation because they believe in something bigger than themselves. They find themselves running into the face of danger with great courage and no regrets. They fight a war between good and evil and unfortunately it is not the only enemy they are confronted with.
The war between good and evil rages on inside of them as well. Many of these young soldiers came over here without question knowing that it was their duty. Yes, they did it because they had to, but what they didn't have to do is sign on the dotted line. Remember this is an all volunteer army.
However, their loved ones didn't always sign on with them. So many of our young soldiers face the enemy we know as terrorism, and the one we know as divorce. It is so sad to see and hear about young men going through agony because they can't be home fixing something that just isn't right. Chances are they wouldn't be able to fix it anyway with no more commitment than that, but they are here and they cannot leave their post.
The other night we had a young soldier threaten suicide by leaving a couple of notes for friends. Thank God they were real friends who knew to report it immediately. He was found signing out ammo from the supply office. Who knows what would have happened if they had just hesitated for but a while. That young man is now in observation. I am not sure what is going to happen to him. He'll probably be sent home and may even lose his military career, but at least he is alive.
There are many other stories, but I am not going to share them all here. I really hate to write about the negative and I know that is not what you have come to expect from me. Typically my writings are all positive, but this is a reality that will not go away by wishing it so.
So next time you pray for our soldiers pray for more than just their safety in war. Pray for their spiritual health, pray for their families and loved ones at home, pray for them all to have the courage, commitment and love for one another that binds them together. Pray that they all know or will know our Heavenly Father who loves us so much and who has promised to never forsake us.
I am so glad I am among a fellowship of believers who know how to love because we have been shown how to love by the one who loves us.
God bless you all and God bless our American Soldiers

Living the Dream

THANKFUL

Today is Thanksgiving Day. A day to be with family & friends. A day to give thanks for the many blessings we enjoy as free Americans. I really wish we would recognize everyday as Thanksgiving Day, but today is the day set aside by our Government to stop what you are doing and take the time to recognize and enjoy the abundance of blessings.So I too, even in Iraq, will stop to consider all I have to be grateful for.

I am thankful for family. I am not with my natural family today and those of you reading this know that. I miss them terribly and wish to God I could be with them, but I cannot and they know and understand that. Nancy, Evan & Emily I love you all very much. I am however, with my adopted family, the United States Army. As Christians we understand the meaning & importance of adoption. We were orphaned to this world, but loved by a great God who pursued us and adopted us in to His own. Here, I could easily be lost, alone and hungry for companionship, but not so. My adopted family has taken me in as one of their own and I have come to realize the significance of belonging to the "Band of Brothers". Here they take care of one another. They make sure you are included, and well fed I might add. They genuinely care for you and want you to feel as if you belong to their family. With this comes a significant sense of duty. This, perhaps, is the core reason they are willing to lay down their lives for one another. They know how to love, they know how to live.

I am thankful for traditions.Today was the ceremonial Combat Patch Award Day. A day when every soldier who wears the uniform is presented with their brigades combat patch. They earned it the day they set foot in the theater of war. These brave men & women receive a patch from their commanders that tell the world that they are combat veterans. Again, my family did not forget me. I too received my combat patch.
I am thankful for the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner that our military cooks made so well. If you are eating it at home today, the chances are we are eating it here as well. We even have something most of you back home don't. We have a real turkey (Iraqi Turkey) in a cage just outside the mess hall. Don't worry, he received a Commander's pardon.

I am thankful for my Country. I am thankful to be able to wake up as a citizen of the greatest country on earth and enjoy my freedom, liberty and ability to worship freely without the threat of persecution. I am blessed! Who would have thought that a small group of pilgrims on three relatively small ships would have endured so much, with so little, in the pursuit of freedom and evolve in to the greatest Nation in the world?
Against all odds we survived and prospered with only one explanation. We were blessed as a Nation from our humble beginnings by a God that loved us and desired for us to be free to worship Him.

I am thankful for all the men & women of our Armed Forces. The country and the freedom we enjoy was certainly not free. It has come at a huge cost. Many American lives have been lost over the years to maintain Her and to leave Her for others to enjoy. Men & women willing to lay down their lives for you and for me. Wow, that kind of reminds you of Christ's love for us. He willingly took the punishment of the world and died on the cross that we may live. So what does God say about the kind of love demonstrated by our military? "This ia how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."
He also says there is no greater love. That is strong, Army strong ( I may be somewhat biased, but that does add a nice touch, doesn't it?)

So today as you celebrate with friends and family, as you eat way too much and over indulge in the NFL, take just a moment to thank God for everything you have been given, for family and friends, for the men & women who are full of love and willingness to sacrifice, and most of all for a God that loves us so much He sent His son to die for our sins.
Today is a day to be thankful!

Home Far Away

I am hoping soon we will be able to post new pictures for you to see. However, in the absence of pictures I am going to try to describe the place I live.
FOB Mahmudiyah is a small base 19 miles south of Baghdad. It is actually shaped kind of like a baseball field and not much bigger. There are some beautiful palm date trees and some weeping willows, cork screw willows I believe. I have even found a Formosa tree here. There is no grass. Mostly it is just rocks and sand. When the sand storms kick up it can be pretty miserable. When it rains, which isn't much, the sand becomes a very heavy mud and it is everywhere.
I am blessed to have a private room in the B-DOC, or Base Defense Operations Center. It is much bigger than I thought probably measuring somewhere around 15 x 12 feet. It used to have windows, but they are all boarded up. Windows is something we don't have the luxury of with the threats we face. The B-DOC is where they monitor the perimeter with video surveillance and other means. The soldiers here are responsible for base security. Here too is the FOB Mayor. You see the Army runs their bases very much like small towns. Someone has to field complaints and make sure all infrastructure issues are working as they should be, such as water, showers, toilets, food, electricity...This is not an easy job.
I work in the main building which is a short walk from the B-DOC. I work in the TOC, or Tactical Operations Center. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what I do. I like to tell people it is GS-13 Classified. My rank equivalent is GS-13 and the work I do is classified. I work both with Military Intelligence and Military Operations.
I can tell you that I enjoy my work. I am often bored with little to do, but that is actually a good thing when you are in a war zone. On the other hand, being bored often leaves me with too much time to think of how much I miss my family. I have to constantly be on guard and focus solely on Jesus for my comfort and strength.
Having read Rick's opening sermon for 40 Days of Purpose, I can tell you that out of necessity here it is easier to give yourself completely to the Lord. He is all I have. Don't wait until you are in the desert to give yourself completely to the Lord. Do it now. Enjoy all that He has to offer and don't miss out on a thing.
God bless you and may you walk with the Lord always!

Old Guys Rule!

Haji Abbas!

Recently I was having chai tea with a Colonel from the Iraqi Army. If you have never had Chai, it is the Iraqi equivalent to ice tea only with a lot more sugar and served hot. I have grown quite fond of hot tea. Anyway, when I was introduced with 30 years of experience in law enforcement, he smiled and gave me the name Haji Abbas. The interpreter tells me that Abbas simply means name. Haji, on the other hand, loosely translates to "here Old guys really do rule." The word actually refers to ones wisdom and they do believe that wisdom comes with age. It was a title of honor and I was grateful for his kindness and respect.
I met recently with the local Judges for our area. They certainly looked the part of western judges. They were very friendly and once again my old age came in to play and very much worked for me. They respect our military, but most of these Officers are still young men so when I am there it actually seems to help.
I am so grateful for this experience and the opportunity to serve along side our military, the Iraqi military, the Iraqi Police and the citizens of Iraq. It is a country much improved from times past. I often think of the blood shed in order to make this place the place it is now. It is not completely safe, nor is any American City, but when you see the crowded markets and commerce and government being carried on, it really makes you think about the sacrifice of those that shed their blood for this day. People are walking, playing, going to school and doing business on streets that not that long ago were battle grounds. Evil had taken over, but good overcame and in the end God will have His victory.
God bless you all and God bless our Country