Late Sunday/early Monday May 24-25

We're concluding an amazing two days at Camp Speicher, home of 15,000+ soldiers. Originally, we weren't scheduled to visit here, but through Divine Intervention (namely Gen. Brown), we ended up here afterall, just in time to participate in the celebration of Asian Pacific Month. Our first day at Speicher was spent recuperating from all the Blackhawk activity, the packing and unpacking and the 100+ degree heat, which caused us to be road weary. Bone tired.

I've been reading old blogs, just to make sure I don't repeat myself, and noticed how I've "highlighted" each person's "oh no!" moment. Well, I have to be honest. I've recently had one myself and if I don't at least tell you a little about it, Nohe, Lori, Jasmine, Radasha and Krista have threatened to blog about it themselves... So here's the  truth.

The evening of our first night here (Sat. May 23), a few of us decided to look at the venue where the event was going to be held on Sunday night. We finally met the gals in Halau O Iraq, at their rehearsal, talked story, admired their Princess Kai'ulani Fashions mu'u mu'u, etc. It was getting late - almost midnight and I was beyond tired. Here at Speicher, we are staying four to a room in beautiful, air-conditioned dorms. I went out back and walked the 15 feet from our back door to the Female Shower. Only problem is, after my shower, I got lost in the dark and ended up at the wrong dorm, and passed out on the couch in the community tv room in my red flannel doggie pajamas, until Jay Ray, who was going potty in the middle of the night, found me on the couch. He said all he could get out of me was, "I got lost..."  and was nice enough to walk me back to my room. By the next morning at breakfast, everyone, and I mean everyone, knew about my excellent adventure. So shame...

Tonight there was an impressive opening at the Pacific Asian Month festivities. Randy and Jay's Hawaiian food was delicious too!  The first act was a dance troupe called Pearls of the Pacific, made up of male and female soldiers, led by a really funny emcee who was also their lead dancer. Halau O Iraq was second on stage with four beautifully-danced songs, and our "Hula From Hawaii" revue was on last. The crowd had thinned out a bit, but the show was "chicken skin" for a really appreciative audience. It was our final performance in Iraq.  The Great Aloha Run Team had accomplished it's mission of aloha through six luau shows, four Meet and Greets, hugs deep from the heart, and smiles that were real and never faded. Everyone knew what the Team had done for  the moral and spirit of these solders and we truly loved being here for them.  One soldier said, "knowing you've come all the way here to entertain us, helps lift the weight off my shoulders."  The 25th Infantry has been so supportive of Carole and the GAR for the past 25 years,  and now we were helping her support them back...in the way we knew best.

See you tomorrow...

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.