Finally Friday...

It's hard to imagine another weekend is upon us, you've got to love short work weeks.  I still have to chuckle when trying to explain to friends in corporate America why it's necessary State and Federal offices close to honor Columbus Day.  To be completely honest, I can't say it was all that much different of a day for me here at Camp Atterbury.  Most of the full-time staff on Camp Atterbury fall under command of the 1st Army.Division East, this command is actually headquartered out of Fort Meade, MD and comprised of a conglomeration of Active Duty, Reserve, and National Guardsman.  Most of these men and women are not native Hoosiers, they are actually on orders here from their hometowns as well.  With a bit of a break in training requirements this past weekend, many of them used this as a chance to get out of town for a bit for a much deserved trip home to see their families.  The combination of many First Army folks on leave mixed with the break in training provided a very eerie feeling around the base.  To call it a ghost town this past Monday would have been an understatement...

If all goes as planned, I'll finally be hopping on that giant C-5 and heading to meet my teammates by the end of this week.  I'm very thankful for this extra time I've been gifted and feel that it's truly been a blessing.  I'll use this last weekend (hopefully ;-) to say goodbye to a few of my many great friends and family that have all touched my life in numerous ways.

Here's a link to a few of the photos I took while on my tour of Southern Indiana these past few weeks.  The majority are of architectural pieces around Columbus, but a few from Brown County and Nashville managed to sneak in as well- http://picasaweb.google.com/BartLomont/ColumbusArchitecturalTour#

Finally, a few of you have emailed or commented asking where the name "Patman" came from.  This past summer our team had the opportunity to receive language and cultural training on campus at IU-Bloomington. While it's impossible to master a language in a mere 15 days (even at 10 hours a day), the greatest benefit we took home was the cultural advice we received from our instructor. Each student/soldier/airman was given an authentic Pashto name during this course.  I happened to be given the name "Patman", which means "man of honor", I only hope I can live up to this name in our upcoming adventure.

Have a great weekend!