Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Last Day in Egypt

I'm sitting up in Cairo waiting out the last few hours in country. I finally ran out of excuses to not do this final entry. Wendi has been great doing all the work on this over the past year so I guess the least I could do was one entry. All the goodbyes are finally over and now it is just a matter of heading to the airport and that painful flight back across the pond. It is going to be a little strange being back in the US after a year but I certainly haven't missed that flight. Overall it has been a very good year but I am more than ready to rejoin the U.S. Army even if it means spending a few months at Ft. Rucker trying to avoid injuring myself by falling asleep in class. I have included a few last photos from my goodbyes at both at Beni Suef and Kom Oshiem. Enjoy.





I had to include at least one picture of our compound out at
Kom Oshiem. We have one gardener out there that does an amazing job - he works out there for hours every day and it shows. As with most of my pictures there isn't much perspective and I couldn't figure out how to get on the roof and get a good shot of the whole area to include the basketball court and gazebo.








This is LTC Aziz - the head of their maintenance operations and the man I worked with every day. He took over soon after I arrived and I am so glad he was there. When it came to maintenance more often than not we were in ag reement and he wasn't afraid to work the guys until the job was done. At times he wasn't all that popular with the troops but he commanded a lot of respect because he was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. It would have been a very different year without his support.





This is LTC Khalid who is in charge of all the flight engineers and crew chiefs. It was great to work with him because as with Aziz he was a hard worker and really cared about being a professional in his job. He was the one person I would spend hours discussing everything from politics to religion to family and be able to share ideas without offending anyone. The problem with both these guys is that I fear the system will burn them out within a couple of years - they are both too motivated.










I didn't actually get any photos of my going away party at work because of no camera. There was an incident a few months ago involving a camera on base and one of the contractors so I figured I was way too close to going home to risk any run ins with Egyptian security.


The guys hanging out in the bar before my going away at Beni Suef. What a great place to stay for a year.




Brian giving my farewell speech. He is the test pilot that is taking over from me and he is also an instructor pilot so he gets twice the fun. If that wasn't enough he was also kind enough to take over as team chief after our last one left in March so I didn't have to go through the hassle of doing it for two months before I left. It was great to actually work with another test pilot even for a couple of months.








I decided to leave off with two pictures of food since that is what often seemed to be our focus at Beni Suef. Here I am enjoying my last hamburger and hot dog with Tony and below is my farewell cake. It has been quite an experience. Thanks for following along with us and we look forward to seeing most of you in the next few months. Take care and God bless.