Wednesday Hero

This Weeks Post Was Suggested By Kathi

2nd Lt. Christopher E. Loudon 22 years old from Brockport, Pennsylvania 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

October 17, 2006
2nd Lt. Christopher Loudon graduated from Slippery Rock University with a Baccalaureate Degree in Environmental Health in 2005. Upon graduation, he entered the United States Army on September 9, 2005. He received his commission as an Infantry officer and was assigned to 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry, 4th Infantry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas. He deployed to Iraq in July 2006 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. 2nd Lt. Loudon’s awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Army Service Ribbon, the Combat Infantryman Badge, and the Ranger Tab. He was KIA in Baghdad, Iraq when an IED detonated near his vehicle. Also killed with him were; Corporal David M. Unger, 21, of Leavenworth, Kansas ; Corporal Russell G. Culbertson III, 22, of Amity, Pennsylvania and Specialist Joseph C. Dumas Jr., 25, of New Orleans, Louisiana. He leaves behind his parents, Randy and Susan Loudon ; his wife, Jacey Loudon ; a daughter, Isabel Loudon ; two brothers, First Lieutenant Nicholas Loudon ,and Jonathan Loudon ; his paternal grandmother, Florence Loudon and his maternal grandfather, Everett William Campbell.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

A few pics from Ft. Drum

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and if you didn't have your love one's there with you, I at least hope you had the chance to talk to them.

We spent the morning on web cam visiting with Chris and celebrating Christmas. And I was able to snag these pictures from his myspace page.

Christmas was different here this year with several key people missing but we managed to make the most of it and when all was said and done it was a good day and we made it through it.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Tami

aam

I'm Already There

Well, this will be our first Christmas without Christopher and this mom is not dealing well with it. I just managed to get the tree up last week and I have to go tomorrow and finish my shopping. The Christmas Spirit is doing its best to escape me this year.

So tonight when Chris sent me a text message and told me to find this song with the voice messages I thought I would share it here because it helped me realize that although we will be missing Chris terribly this year, we are lucky that he is still stateside and there are other's out there that are not.

(remember to turn off my music at the bottom)

ENJOY

God Bless all of our Service Members and their Families even more at this time.


aam

Ft. Knox pictures

Battle Buddies

As promised here is one of my favorite pictures from Ft. Knox. This is Christopher and Matt, both of them are thinking "hurry up and snap the picture before they realize we took off our BCGs"

Devin and Kyle. When we finally convinced them to come down from here Kyle announced Hey I wanna be a tanker. Christi and I both answered Ummm NO!!!!

Kyle and my dad at graduation dinner.
Just the fact that we managed to get dad out of his leather and colors and into normal clothes was a biker family miracle.

Have a wonderful weekend.

aam

In Processing

I talked to Christopher for a few minutes last night and since he is still doing his In Processing, he will not have a full work day until next Monday. So I asked him what he did with his time in between paperwork and equipment issue.

Yesterday he spent a good bit of his time sitting on top of a humvee involved in a snow ball fight and then the rest of the afternoon he helped build snowmen. LOL

I am so glad that he is finally able to relax and have some fun. He was so tense after OSUT and I was worried that he would take awhile to adjust to being away from home. He has made several new friends and is even spending Saturday with some of the other Cav Scouts learning to snow board. Should I be worried?

I know that they have several training trip's coming up in the new year to prepare them for deployment towards the end of 2009 so I guess I will just keep my mouth shut and let him enjoy what down time he will have.

Have a great Thursday

aam

Wednesdays Hero

This Weeks Post Was Suggested By Melinda

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Christian P. Humphreys 28 years old from Fallon, Nevada 6th Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, Task Force 49 November 15, 2008
A funny, nice guy who loved to fly. That's how Christian P. Humphreys is remembered by his friends. "He was a great guy, always happy and had a joke," said Sean Whitney, a flight medic. "We used to play with our paintball guns in the cornfields behind his house."Humphreys flew with the Fallon Naval Air Station Search and Rescue Longhorns from June 6, 2004 to May 5, 2006. He left the Navy and joined the Army as part of the "Blue to Green" program to become a helicopter pilot.Humphreys, along with Chief Warrant Officer 3 Donald V. Clark, 37 years old from Tennessee, was killed when their OH-58 Kiowa helicopter crashed while on a mission over Mosul, Iraq. As a rescue crew chief, Humphreys was in charge of the operation behind the pilots. He made the decisions when to deploy rescue crews out of the helicopter to assist injured people, and he also took care of the equipment. "He was a funny guy, a nice guy, a lot of character," said Petty Officer 2nd Class Justin Schmidt. "The guy was always entertaining, always had something to say, but like everyone here, he displayed the professionalism in saving lives."Chief Warrant Officer 2 Christian P. Humphreys leaves behind a wife and parents. All Information Was Found On And Copied From MilitaryCity.com


These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.


We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

The next step

I love these two shots from graduation. The theater was so dark that the pictures did not turn out great but I did get a few that I could save. Graduation was incrediable. I am happy that it was inside because Baby it was COLD outside. LOL

Before graduation they played a slide show of pictures from training. It was hard to pick out which Soldier was which in several but I was able to spot Chris in a few.

We were advised that Cavalry Scouts are a very "spirited" group and therefore screaming and cheering was not only appreciated but was expected during the ceremony. We all did our best to live up to those expectations.

The Guest Speaker was CSM Clarence J. Stanley. CSM Stanley's speech covered Cav Scout History and Tradition. It was very moving. He told the Soldiers how proud he was of each of them and made sure that the audience understood just what they had accomplished.

I loved seeing all the Stetsons and Spurs during graduation and can not wait till Chris is able to wear them.

We were able to spend about 2 hours at the airport with Chris before he had to fly out to Ft. Drum and it is incredible to see how the boy that we watched leave less than 4 months ago has become such a man.

A very happy Cav Scout.

I have talked to him a few times since he arrived at Ft. Drum and he sounds great even though it was -9 degrees this morning. I haven't talked to him today (Christopher if you are reading this; call your mom, she gave birth to you.)

He said the Scouts in his troop have been great since he got there and are helping him get settled. We did find out that he would not be home for Christmas, and I hate that he will not be here but I am glad that we can finally have phone contact again. He will be home on leave in Feb, so I will just have to wait until then.

My darling husband found me one of those plug in thingies (technical term) that allowed me to plug my laptop into the phone charger doodad (another tech term) in the truck so I was able to entertain myself on the trip home changing the layout and look of the blog. Hope you enjoy. I am off to catch up on laundry and unpacking.

Have a great weekend.

aam

Dinner with the Cav Scouts

D~man with Christopher
Kyle and Christopher

We spent 8 hours on the road today and finally arrived at Ft. Knox around 2 pm. We had to be at the Leaders Club on base at 5 pm and the new Cavalry Scouts started coming in around 5:45. As each troop walked in they were greeted with a standing ovation, screaming and whistling from the crowd. It was a sight to see.
It was so good to see Christopher walk through that door. I picked him out immediately even with his BCG's on. He hates those glasses and can not wait for tomorrow when he will never have to wear them again.
It was funny to watch all of the Soldiers sitting around with their families, relaxed and enjoying their food but the second a Drill Sergent came into view they would sit straight up in their chair and freeze.
Christopher is excited to be heading to Ft. Drum tomorrow. He told me as we were leaving tonight: Mom, I will see you tomorrow and then I will get on an airplane and leave again. I didn't think it was funny but he did.
It was great to finally meet Andrea and Gaby and to see Matt and Chris together. I got a great picture of the two of them but I don't want to post it here until I get Matt's permission. I took each of the boys a goody bag full of candy and junk food and I thought their eyes were going to pop out of their heads when they saw all the chocolate. They passed up the dessert part of dinner and dug into the bags. LOL and Andrea has one for each of them tomorrow.
We also spent some time in the Calvary Scout store and I had a ball in there buying Army mom stuff. I can't wait to add the decals to my Xterra, and I bought a Proud Army Mom license plate cover. I doubt anyone will have a hard time figuring out that I have a Soldier.
We are going to run back in the morning before graduation and buy Chris a back pack to use as a carry on for the plane.
I promise to post more pictures in the next few days. We are spending an extra day here visiting with old friends that we haven't seen in several years and I have to make a stop at Archival scrapbook store while we are this close.
Have a great end of the week.

God Bless

aam

It's all over but the cleaning.

They have done it.
2nd Platoon C Troop 5th Squadron 15th Cavalry has completed their training at Fort Knox. They will be out processing, turning in gear and cleaning from now until graduation next week and I honestly think I speak for all the parents and loved ones when I say we will be happy to watch our Soldiers exit Kentucky, it has been a hard 16 weeks for all those involved.
We will be leaving late Tuesday/early Wednesday morning heading to Ft. Knox where we plan on enjoying graduation dinner with Christopher, Matt and his family and the rest of their troop on Wednesday night and then we will proudly watch our Cav Scouts graduate on Thursday morning.
After graduation we will meet Chris at the airport before he flies out to Ft. Drum NY and then we will wait with baited breath to see if he will be able to come home for Christmas leave.
I am not sure how much posting I will be able to do this weekend, so if I do not update before we leave I promise to post everything and pictures as soon as we get back.

God Bless,

aam

Wednesday Hero

Spc. Matthew T. Morris 23 years old from Cedar Park, Texas 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment April 06, 2008

"He was a very creative kid, and when he wasn't in a challenging environment, he tried to make life interesting," Glenn Morris, father of Spc. Morris, said. "He excelled in a military school structure and in a team environment."Before enlisting in the Army in 2005, Morris attended the Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro, Virginia where he met a history teacher who inspired him to want to become an educator. "After his service, he wanted to go back to school and get a four-year degree to become a teacher," said his mother, Lisa. "He wanted to make a difference and give back to the community."Spc. Morris was killed when his vehicle encountered an IED in Balad, Iraq. Also killed in the attack was Cpt. Ulises Burgos-Cruz.
All Information Was Found On And Copied From MilitaryCity.com
These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.