Ladies and gentleman, the long awaited arrival of Task Force Eagle is finally here. We arrived at Camp Bondsteel, Kosovo on Saturday, November 11th….thats right, Veteran’s Day. We flew from Hohenfels across Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia and Albania. I am sure that there were other counties in there somewhere. It was a two day trip and worth every minute! The scenery was nothing like I have ever seen before. We flew over the Alps for part of the trip and then along the Adriatic Sea right off the coast of Croatia. We spent Friday night in Splitz Croatia where we stayed at the Hotel Splitz. We were able to see a little bit of Splitz before heading out the next day. Almost all of Saturday was spent traveling down the Adriatic. There were mountains to our left and beautiful blue green water to our right. Make sure you check out the pictures because my descriptions do not do them justice.
So we have been here at Bondsteel for a little over a week now. The soldiers that we are replacing were very happy to see us and have really done an outstanding job getting us ready to take over the mission. Today was actually our first day in the mission profile. We have worked so hard over the last 4 months and we are all very happy and very ready to takeover and perform.
So far, Bondsteel has not been so bad. The camp itself is a pretty good size with some beautiful scenery. There is an amazing mountain just to our south west that everyone calls Big Duke. There is a small area near the top of Big Duke where you can land. It is called Immersion Lake. There is a small pond that sits inside a little basin with a flat spot right beside it. It really is an awesome site.
I have lots of pictures, especially from the trip so check out the gallery that Scott put together for me (thanks honey). I am not quite settled in my room yet because all of our group are sharing rooms with the soldiers that have been here. Its not all that bad though. The rooms are relatively big and hopefully we will end up with only 3 per room. Right now we have 6 per room.
As soon as I get a phone number and a room that I know I will be staying in, I will let you all know. I hope that you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving. I will definately be thinking of all of you and all of the amazing food! I will be on first up that day and trying to stay busy. Eat lots of turkey for me, and make sure you take a long nap afterwards.
I miss you all very much and I look forward to hearing from all of you. This is going to be a long hard year and I am hoping that you will all work very hard to keep Scott busy and out of the house. I know that he will hate that I said that. So take care and PLEASE keep in touch. It really is the little things that are going to get us through this. Take care.
Love,
~Jackie

We are now well into our training exercise here in Germany and things continue to progress. The Detatchment is doing great things as usual and we are all very happy with the progress we are seeing. We received a simulated mission last night to pick up 5 patients who were all urgent and required litters. We launched 1st and 2nd up and had a very successful mission. Our “off times” have been pretty impressive when you consider that our ready room is about 3/4 mile from the airfield. We have one vehicle that 1st up takes and 2nd up has to jog the trek to the aircraft. All in all, I am looking forward to getting into Kosovo and finally getting settled.

While on duty the other day, I was able to get some medical training on how to give someone an IV. It was great training and of course we had to take some pictures to capture the moment!

We had our first snow fall of the season the other day. It snowed for just about the whole day and dropped probably 5 inches of snow. Our aircraft were covered and so were all the sidewalks and roads….someone needs to let Germany know about rock salt!

I really hope that you are all doing well. I still don’t know for sure when we will be in country as of yet but I will keep you posted. Please keep in touch, every little thing helps. I miss you all and hope to hear from you soon. Love you all.
~Jackie