Drum Roll Please......

Captain Jason E. Cannon is now the new Commander of Nemesis Troop, 4th Squadron, 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment!

The change of command took place in Iraq, somewhere :), on the 27th of March 2008.

I don't have any pictures of it yet but will post them when I get some. He is doing really well. Very very busy but happy to finally be in command. This is kinda the "big" thing that a captain does in his army career.

Jason said he will work with the local population to help build up the area and continue to make it as secure as possible. He also said a lot of what he is doing is right in the direction of his college major: International Studies with an emphasis in Development. I am very excited about this! (I never thought he would use his major but, don't tell Jason). ;)

In Iraq the local leaders always have Chai (Tea) at meetings. It is so apart of the culture that it is hard for the Iraqis to understand why Jason, and the other mormon guys there, don't drink Tea. This week I got to meet Captain Lopez while he was home on R and R. He is the guy that used to be in command of Nemesis. Jason spent a month with Lopez changing everything over and seeing how things worked. Lopez said that he told Jason he had to drink the tea. The locals wouldn't trust him etc if he didn't. Lopez watched Jason and noticed that he wouldn't drink it but got really good at pretending. The waiter that came to take away the cups would get to Jason's and look in surprise as it was still full. Then he would roll his eyes and just take it away:)

A man from our church here, Mike Stinchfield, is also in command down there. Lopez met with the locals one time and asked if Captain Mike had been by. The local leaders didn't know who he was talking about and finally said, "Oh, the Mormon. He does not drink the Tea. He is weird." :) Ha ha. I imagine they will think Jason is weird too. That is fine by me. The Iraqi's won't be alone in thinking Mormon are weird! :)

Lopez thought he was very funny in offering Jason coffee every morning. Jason said that his troop is not really into drinking coffee though. That is very strange in the Regiment. When other soldiers stop by, they can't believe there isn't a pot of coffee lying around somewhere.

I am now officially the Family Readiness Group (FRG) Leader. (Evil laugh) "Ha Ha Ha, Oh the POWER!!!"

Just kidding, really it's more like a forced laugh that turns into a pitiful cry! "Oh the amount of WORK!!" We are suppose to log our volunteer hours, and no I don't get paid for this. I logged 8 hours in one day this last week. Can't see that I had time to do much of anything else that day! Ridiculous. Jason and I are both still trying to reorganize our time to be efficient without letting it completely take over our lives.

For those of you that are LDS, FRG Leader is just like being Relief Society President. Only, not everyone is as nice, rumors run rampant, and many of the members know how to use firearms! Really I have a great troop with some awesome people. I am lucky enough to have a co-leader that really helps to take some of the pressure off. The FRG has been through a rough year with some major misunderstandings. I am hoping to mend some bridges and bury the past. That and I'm really looking forward to coming home for the summer and letting someone else worry about it all! Ha ha ha (genuine evil laugh this time)!!!

The FRG is basically a support group for all the family members of the soldiers in Jason's troop. Most are here in Germany but some are stateside. I mostly make sure they get all the information that is passed to me. We also have fun meetings and fundraisers etc.

Our squadron is made up of 4 or 5 troops. In the squadron family room each troop had a bulletin board with family pictures on it. Nemesis didn't have one up so I put one together and now just need to get some pictures put on. Here are some pictures of all the boards. Ours is the one with all the different colorful squares. It has Nemesis Family on one center square. Then it has the squadron red and white 2/4 flag and our nemesis logo. A 'pirates of the caribean' type skull with crossed swords and a banner underneath that says nemesis. Yes the skull is dripping blood. Ah boys, so not my choice of logos. We are going to put up black and white photos staggered along the outside squares to tie it all together and so it won't fight with all the color already present. Red and white is the regiments colors and the bright yellow is the cavalry's color.

Usually at a change of command the incoming commander puts on a big luncheon for the troop. Since they are downrange I didn't have to do that! Yeah! However, I felt really bad the guys were getting jipped on that score. So I made them Judy's fabulous chex mix. Only instead of regular M&M's I ordered some red and white M&M's that had "Nemesis Troop" and "2SCR" printed on them. They all thought that was pretty cool and I think they liked it as Jason said the 6 big zip lock bags full were gone within a few hours.

Jason is on a small COP (yeah, I don't know what that stands for, it is just smaller than a lot of the american "bases" over there) and has internet for the most part. They lose electricity now and again. The internet isn't really good enough for using our webcams. So it is a little more primitive then what Jason's had in the past. The building they are in used to be a meat packing plant or something like that. So it has all the scary hooks here and there. Sounds like it would be a good location for a horror film. There were no doors on the rooms when Nemesis first got there (before Jason). They didn't have running water to take showers or electricity or anything. So Jason is really lucky all those things had been upgraded before he got there. Nemesis has been moved around several times since they deployed and have been attached to other squadrons.

That's all I can think of for now. I will send more pics as soon as Jason sends some. Hmm. Maybe I should get him a camera:)