Operation New Dawn

As you could tell from my brief post last week about the media,the story that was posted about combat troops leaving Iraq caused some confusion. Family and coworkers called to ask if Drew was coming home early because they saw that the last combat troops were in Kuwait on their way home. There is some truth to the news story but nothing has changed for Drew. On September 1st, Operation Iraqi Freedom will officially end and Operation New Dawn will begin. The difference is that under Iraqi Freedom, we had Brigade Combat Teams but under New Dawn, we have Advise and Assist Brigades. So yes, the last "Combat" team left in August and every unit will transition to an Advise and Assist Unit. It's a technicality that made for confusion and some frustrated military families because their guys are still doing the same thing they were before which is far from office work. Drew has always operated as an advise and assist unit, meaning the Iraqi Police are in the lead and our guys accompany them and support them. As Drew's boss explained to us: Our guys will still leave the base with body armor on, with loaded weapons, and are definitely still at risk of being attacked, but instead of US Army-led operations, soldiers here will only be accompanying Iraqis on operations when they ask us to from here on out. So don't get too frustrated with the news since there is some truth to every story, but nothing has changed for Drew.
Drew did some neat things this week such as a Humanitarian Aid drop where the soldiers handed out 50 pound bags of food to locals. It was neat in that our guys were helping these women who had tears of joy in their eyes while they carried their bags of food away to their families. It's neat we can do these things too.
Drew is absolutely swamped with his schedule of missions, checkpoints, trainings, gear layouts, packing... etc. When it starts to wear on him we just remind each other that this is the final push until we are together again. He will move into tents in a couple of weeks which means no more internet for us. It is so nice being able to see each other, email, text message...etc via Skype and email but again, it is just one step closer to him coming home. He moves out of his room so the new guys move in and they begin training them to take over their roles. We probably will not be able to talk as often since he will have to go find a phone each time and his schedule right now doesn't leave him much down time, but we'll make it work. I don't neceassarily love that he is losing internet or will be in a bunk bed again with a room full of bunk beds, but I do LOVE that he will be home in 8 1/2 weeks.