DAY 109: 14 MAY 08

Zelienople soldier kills himself in Afghanistan

Well that’s what grabbed my attention today in the Stars and Stripes. So sad, so, so, sad! My Dad sent me an email about it as well. I mean you got these young guys carrying loaded weapons and all they need is for some disgruntled soldier who out ranks them heavily to say something to set them off. It’s so sad because every single person down here looks forward to getting home. However in the Army you are here for 15 months and then also hear about getting orders to come back here or go to Iraq in 2010! No wonder the poor souls have no hope. If you are wondering why I am backing Obama this is very much apart of it. Our military is strained and many of the affects will not be seen for years to come. I think the people of Afghanistan genuinely want our help but we cannot keep the fighting up on both ends anymore. The financial impact to our own country is already apparent.

Anyway I got this real neat story done on Vietnam. I tie two service members together who have a common tie: Vietnam. One is an Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, about 40, and is a Vietnam refugee who fled the country in 1975 with his family. The other is a 59 year old Amry Major who was called up out of active retired reserve! He was really cool and I show how they both have come full circle from the throws of Vietnam to helping out in Afghanistan. Its 2:10 long which is by far my longest piece but probably my best as well. Look for me to post that video tomorrow once it airs on our newscast. Also I am anchoring all next week as my supervisor (our news director) is going on R & R. Things should be interesting as 2 E 5s and 2 E 4s will be running the news department. This Marine who is slightly younger than me but out ranks me is really getting on my nerves. He is no doubt a solid, talented, and sharp broadcast journalist but boy can he be condescending, arrogant, and flat out sarcastic beyond any reasonable measure. I am sincerely doing my best to just do my job and go home. Next week will be a real test for all of us though.

And finally how about them Penguins?! I feel like its 1991 again only its Crosby and Malkin not Lemieux and Jagr. O yeah I am 25 now and my life could not be any more different than it was when I was 8 or 9. None the less its great to see them winning. Sad story about the Polish American cop killed by 3 Muslims in Philly with a fully automatic Chinese made machine gun the other day. They honored him at the beginning of the Flyers game as he was a huge fan. So sad…. Philly is just so not what our forefathers wanted it to be. Anyway we are 1 game away from the Stanley Cup finals and what looks to be a killer matchup against the Detroit Red Wings. Should be a great series but first we need to finish Philly off. Ok well I am going to go eat. I will try to make phone calls this weekend. I will leave you with a funny story.

As you may know I am doing the mid day radio show now (10:30 to 2:30). Well we get emails and information for announcements called readers. Some are monthly, some are daily, and some are one time deals. Well we got one in about a power outage on base this week. Its only 10 hours long but I decided to have some fun with it. I call this guy up and record it so I can edited it later before playing it on air. I say yeah is this the power company on base? He says yes it is. I say yeah I heard that the power is going out for 10 days starting on Friday! He goes real shocked: 10 days! I said yeah. He goes no, 10 hours! He then asks where I heard that and I told him AFN at which point he said we cannot read. It gets better though. So then I say well am I going to be able to use the latrines? Now I really have him back peddling. He goes o man well where do you live? So I tell him I live in one of the areas that I know will be out of power. So then he starts going you know that’s a great question, and that did not come up, and let me get my map. At this point I am laughing to myself so hard I break character and tell him it’s me from AFN calling just to have a little fun and get the word out about the power outage. He laughs and gives me the information. I ended up editing it and putting it on air. Boy was it funny to hear me ask this guy about toilet usage due to the power outage. I was rolling and so was everyone else in the office, but in the end I got the information out which is my job. OK well have a good one I am going to eat.