Hello From Southwest Asia

Hello, this is Brian. It's my first entry on the Ross Family blog, and it's being posted all the way from the Middle East. If you didn't know, I am currently deployed for 3 months out in the "deid" flying in support of OEF. I've been out here almost a week already and it's not fun being away from Rachel, Brady, and even Rascal. I do miss them and everyone else back home tremendously, but I've been trying to make the best of it.

We fly every few days, usually 12-14 hours at a time, so that keeps me somewhat busy. When I'm not flying, I either work out at one of the 3 gyms, eat at one of the 3 free all you can eat dining facilities, study, or try to come up with other ways of entertaining myself. For being in the middle of a desert wasteland, it's actually not too bad. We do have a Pizza Hut, Subway, Burger King, Starbucks, Baskin Robbins, TCBY, and Dairy Queen all within walking distance. There's also a "Fox Sports Box" where you can pick up your 3 beers for the day and catch a replay of one of the games you missed while you were sleeping. It could be worse.

I took a few pictures of the area around where we stay to show what it looks like out here, although they don't quite capture the desert wasteland theme that seems to prevail:

Here's a view of some of the desert:

From outside our trailer. Notice the Pizza Hut and Subway:

The building on the left is called a Cadillac which means bathroom in Air Force. The big white tent is where different events are held such as concerts and get togethers. It's called the Bra... for obvious reasons:

Here's what our trailers look like from the outside. Mine's the one on the right:

Here's what the inside of the trailer looks like. Much like a dorm:

The door to our room. I do have a roommate and that drawing was on the board when we showed up:

The inside of our glorious room. Not too spacious:

My cabinet with everything I currently own: