As I am sure most all of you remember the brief from Lt. General Whitcomb; you know, the brief that lasted 2 hours and we all were in need of a comfort break. Well unfortunately I was really in need and apparently had hydrated myself more than adequately. I simply couldn’t hold-on any longer so I quietly snuck out of the room, of course advising my team lead MAJ Becky Leggieri. When I returned I decided to stand in the back of the room, I just couldn’t sit any longer. I noticed that the Maj. kept looking around and asked the person next to her something, finally about 10 minutes went by and she stood up and walked to the back of the room and told one of the soldiers that one of her team members went to the restroom quite some time ago and had not returned, all the while I had been waving my arms in the back corner. She breathed a sigh of relief when she finally realized that I was in fact still in the room and had not began heading toward the Iraqi border where I had previously mentioned to her that I wanted to stand. Most of the trip was unfortunately driving her crazy because I felt she was constantly counting twice to find me and/or the Mayor. Thanks for keeping a close eye on me Major; if not, I may have made it to the border for that photo op.

James Dicks

I have to say that the mayor and I hit it off and were instantly in trouble the entire time; but seriously, we were enjoying the trip and having a lot of fun. What else can the person next to you on the C-17 do but relate to you. In 40 something hours you are bound to find something you have in common. Anyways, Jim was always good for a few laughs, the first I want to share was when we were in Qatar, in case any of you want to know why our luggage was so late arriving to the hotel, you guessed it, Jim. I was told he stopped everything at the airport when they got to his luggage. Kyle our escort, who managed to always make sure we had our luggage, had a difficult time when they got to the mayors bag. Being a Mayor, he had brought the key to the city, literally a key to Greenway to offer as a gift to someone. Unfortunately as Kyle had shared with me, the customs officers had a hard time understanding what the key to the city was. They could not picture a city with a big gate and one that needed a key. It literally took quite some time to explain to the officials that our mayor had not smuggled some weapon into their country. In the end, you know the outcome, Kyle made sure we got our bags as always. Thanks Kyle, we appreciate it! And to the Mayor, watch where you leave your keys.

James Dicks

The (HEAT) training was great, I loved it. The problem, take a guess who was driving the hummer in our exercise? The Mayor! We won’t ever let that happen again; he was so busy talking he flipped the thing. Now I am the consummate team player, unfortunately, in this case I was laughing so hard I couldn’t do anything but exit the vehicle. We were both saying that the seat belts felt loose, as all of you noticed I’m sure. When they rolled us over the first time I looked over at Jim and he wasn’t joking; his seat belt was definitely loose. He was folded up on the roof of the hummer with about 2 feet of space between him and the seat of the hummer. His head was stuck in the roof, and when we flipped back he fell right into place. Then over again and back to the ceiling he went. He didn’t even fall down when he released the seat belt to get out he was already on the ceiling which was the floor at that point. What was so funny is that he was laughing so hard he couldn’t do anything about it. Nice driving Mr. Mayor.

James Dicks