Israel

Lana and I had the amazing opportunity to fly to Israel for a week with my work. We had briefly talked about how we would enjoy going, and a few months later we jumped on a plane and flew to Tel Aviv Airport. I only had to work a couple days, so we spent the rest of the time visiting the Biblical sites around the country. We actually were able to meet up with a high school friend of mine who's studying in Jerusalem...who would have thought?!

Our first day of site seeing took us through Nazareth, around the Sea of Galilee and Jordan River. In Nazareth we visited the Basilica of the Annunciation where most believe is the house of Joseph and Mary. There are actual ruins under the church which they think is the real house. After that we moved on to the Jordan Valley where the Jordan River leaves the Sea of Galilee and actually stepped into the water. The location where Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist is to the south of where we were. We then drove to the north end of the sea to the town of Capernaum which is the city where Jesus spent most of his time and lived. In Luke 4:31-44 it talks about Jesus teaching in the synagogue there. The ruins of the city and synagogue are still there along with what they believe to be the apostle Peter's house. Nearby is the Mount of Beatitudes and the area where Jesus fed the 5000. It was a great day and made the Bible seem very real to walk in the places Jesus and the apostles actually did.

The second day we made our way over to the Dead Sea before heading back to Jerusalem to meet up with my buddy from high school. The drive to the Dead Sea is through part of the Negev Desert, and we couldn't believe nomads actually live out there. It a wonder they're able to find water anywhere. Swimming in the Dead Sea is very strange feeling...there's so much buoyancy due to the salt it's difficult to put your feet back on the bottom once you're floating. It's the lowest point on the earth at 1,378 ft below sea level, and makes for very hot temperatures! Lana had heard the salt and mud from the lake are good for the skin, so we coated ourselves in Dead Sea mud...not sure how well it worked, but it made for a few good pictures. Later that night we enjoyed dinner together with my friend and his wife before heading back to their apartment for the night.

The Old City of Jerusalem and its surroundings was our favorite part of the trip...there's so much history there and it's where we believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world, so through Him they might have forgiveness and spend eternity with Him in Heaven. Surprisingly, there's a huge mosque sitting in the very place the second Jewish temple used to stand before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. We toured the Garden of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives before making it into the city. The old streets are very narrow and create a maze of walkways. Within the city we saw the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Via Dolorosa where Jesus walked with the cross to Calvary...the hill where He was crucified.

Of all the traveling Lana and I have done, Israel will be the one place we remember not for the beautiful scenery and mountains, but for the chance we had to walk in the steps of Jesus. The beginning of the World started just to the east of there, Jesus was born and died there and will return to the Mount of Olives in the future. We're very thankful for the opportunity we've had!

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Israel

Nice, France / TLP

Yeah, you guessed it...we recently took another long weekend trip to Nice, France to visit Lana's relatives and enjoy the southeastern coast of the country. Lana's relatives, an Aunt and Uncle from the UK who have a home in France as well, actually live in a town just to the east of Nice called Eze Bord de Mer...it's between Nice and Monte Carlo. The drive from our place took about six hours, but about an hour was spent stuck in travel due to an accident north of Genova, Italy. The southeast coast of France is fairly mountainous, so from the house we had a great view of the Mediterranean below. Many rich Hollywood stars also have homes around this area...it's not difficult to see why.

After a good night's rest, we decided to drive into Monte Carlo since there were clouds and Lana's Aunt needed to get groceries. The next day Lana and I spent at the beach in the town of Villefranche sur Mer, and actually met up with some friends of ours from the squadron who were in the same area for the weekend. The town was interesting and reminded me of a city on the coast of Italy. Later that night we met in downtown Nice for dinner at a restaurant Lana worked at a few years back. One summer she decided to take a bus to Nice and find a job to pay for her holiday...she found one and stayed two months. It helps she speaks French as well. I tried escargot (snails) for the first time at dinner, and actually thought they tasted pretty good. After dinner about 11:00, a few of us went for a late night swim before calling it a night.

After sleeping in a bit the next day, Lana and I drove north a little bit to a river in the mountains where she enjoyed going during her time working in Nice. The water was very cold, but enjoyable after getting over the initial temperature shock. The next day we started making our way back to Sacile around mid morning. Our first trip to France together was great, and hopefully before we leave we can make it to Paris.

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Nice, France

A few days before we took this trip, I was told I had been chosen as one of two pilots from the squadron to attend a NATO tactical leadership program (TLP) at Florennes Air Base, Belgium. The flying course would be for the entire month of October and we would train with fighter jets from many other nations. I was also told I would be the project manager, meaning I was responsible to coordinate with maintenance and the TLP staff to ensure we had all the equipment needed and a place to stay for the everyone. I'm really looking forward to the training and getting to fly in and see another part of Europe...more to come on that.

Croatia

If there's ever a place you want to go on holiday and have clear blue water, it's Croatia. I think I said, "I can't believe how clear this water is!" about 51 times (510FS squadron...got it?) during our trip. Croatia is a great country and unfamiliar to many of us in the US. We think of the western part of Europe as the main place to go and visit, but there are many unexplored countries in eastern Europe which are really worth the time to see.

From our location in Italy, Croatia is only about a 2 hour drive away. We spent our first night in the town of Rijeka in the northwestern part of the country. It was a nice town, but mainly just a place to sleep before going to the beach on Saturday. The weather during our entire trip was perfect, and the water refreshing in order to cool off from the hot sun. After spending a good part of the day at the beach in Rijeka, we packed up and made our way to the town of Rabac by early evening stopping along the way to site see. Reaching the town we went to the tourist office to arrange a place to stay the next two nights. We found a nice room to rent in an individual's house within walking distance to the center of town and to the beach.

Now, when I say beach I actually mean a lot of big rocks...most of the "beaches" in Croatia are this way, but many have concrete portions for people lay on and enjoy the sun. We bought a snorkel set and took turns viewing the fish and rock formations below the surface...the water was so clear (that makes 51+2)! We spent Sunday and part of Monday in Rabac before heading back to Sacile. I had to fly on Tuesday early, so we were home by about 8:00.

I think Lana and I have traveled to about 5-6 countries since we've been married, and plan to do more in the months ahead. We're enjoying married life and the blessings we have!

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Croatia

Next Assignment: Kunsan Air Base, Korea

Over the past couple of months, Lana and I had been working on putting together our "dream" list of places we wanted to be assigned next after we found out we'd be moving sometime between Oct and Dec 08. This time frame was expected, although Lana and I would be more than happy to stay at Aviano longer! The assignment process involves filling out an online airman development plan (ADP) in which you detail your assignment preferences among other things. Depending on your current qualification in the F-16 (wingman, flight lead, instructor) you're eligible for different assignments in addition to those in the F-16. For instance, instructor pilots are eligible to apply for F-16 Fighter Weapons school, and highly competitive course only the top guys go to, as well as flying exchanges with a foreign country of some kind be it the UK, Belgium, Portugal and others. Being a flight lead like myself, my hope was just to continue flying the F-16 and not get an assignment to fly a remote controlled unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)!

When it came to F-16 assignments, our list went like this:

Spangdahlem AB, Germany
Hill AFB, Utah
Shaw AFB, South Carolina
Misawa AB, Japan
Osan AB, Korea
Luke AFB, Arizona
Kunsan AB, Korea
Nellis AFB, Nevada (aggressors for Red Flag)

In my assignment cycle at Aviano, there were three pilots and I was the only one not yet an instructor pilot in the jet. So, naturally when it came to rank ordering us I was at the bottom...this was expected and merely a timing thing; not a reflection that I'm a bad pilot. After the ADP is filled out, the squadron commander adds his comments before it's sent on to the operations group commander for further comments and rank ordering. After this process is complete, it then goes on to the air force personnel center (AFPC) to the F-16 assignments guys at Randolph AFB, Texas. Once the operations group commanders from all F-16 bases have sent in their info, AFPC then goes through another process of ranking the pilots up for assignment. It's a fairly long and arduous process as you can see. From the final ranking list at AFPC, the pilots are then matched up with an assignment as high on their dream sheet as possible.

For me, I'm going the Kunsan Air Base, Korea next to be part of the 8th Fighter Wing Wolfpack. Kunsan is part of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF). There are two squadrons at this base, the 35th FS and the 80th FS...I'll be going to the 35th FS Pantons with a report date in early January. In all honesty, I was about 95% sure I'd either be going to Osan or Kunsan this next assignment. Both are considered a remote assignment (no families allowed...although at Osan there's a possibility) and about 90% of all F-16 pilots will go to either at one point in their F-16 careers. I'm VERY glad to have stayed away from the UAVs which are sadly becoming more popular and guys are being taken from the cockpits to go fly them. From those I've talked to, Kunsan is a great place to fly.

For Lana and I, it's a good time to go since we don't have any kids currently and she's currently working for Lufthansa. At this point, the plan will be to buy an apartment in Munich for her to live in while I'm in Korea. Thankfully the Air Force pays us a housing allowance for this since she's not allowed to live in Korea with me. She's currently working part time and this will give her the opportunity to fly standby Munich direct Seoul and see me as much as possible...it will cost about 120 euro round trip for her to do so. Praise God! A year is a long time without the wife, but we're blessed she has the job she does.

Lana and I are planning to make the most of our time left here in Italy before we leave with as much traveling as possible, and our next trip is planed to Croatia in a week or so. Fly safe and check six!

Athens, Greece Jet Pickup

I mentioned previously our jets have been undergoing the CCIP upgrade at Tanagra Air Base, Greece. Well, I've since been to Greece twice to flight test a jet and then fly it back here to Aviano. The first trip to Greece ended up being almost one week long due to maintenance issues with the jet on a Friday before a long weekend...the following Monday was a Greece holiday. Even before leaving Italy we were told there was a good chance the jet wouldn't be ready to fly home on Friday. So, I had Lana fly to Athens with me hoping we'd have a long weekend together in Greece; our plan worked! Early Thursday morning, Lana and I took the train to the airport with me and bought a ticket on the same flight I was taking. With her Lufthansa flight attendant job, it only cost about 40 euro. Another pilot from the squadron met us there and we were on our way about 9:30. After arriving in Athens, we picked up our rental car and made our way to the hotel. After checking in we went to a nearby restaurant for some Greek food and then called it a night early so we were ready for the next day.

Tanagra Air Base is about one hour north of Athens. After arriving, we met the USAF personnel working there and finalized paperwork prior to the test flight. A few weeks prior to this trip, I had completed what we call the functional check flight (FCF) upgrade. Essentially, there are times when certain types maintenance is done on a jet that requires a flight to test all systems are functioning property. It's a jam packed flight ranging from flying supersonic a 1.4 mach to putting the jet basically out of control to see if the digital flight controls function as they should. I was ready to fly when in the early afternoon they noticed a slow air leak in one of the main landing gear tires...this was not going to be fixed until the next week, which started on Tuesday due to the holiday. So, we left the base and headed to our 5 star hotel a little further north on the beach in the town of Eretria. The price was under our cap for hotel costs and was a nice start to our time in Greece. The next day we took a ferry across the bay, and the caught a bus to Athens to see the Parthenon on Mars Hill and some of the nearby Greek ruins.

Mars Hill is one of the exact places Paul traveled to on his missionary journeys almost 200o years ago! As we made our way up the hill, one of the signs had a portion that read, "In the niche formed by southeast corner of the precinct wall were found the remains of a small roadside shrine of porous stone. It was dedicated to an unknown deity..." Now, if you read Acts 17:23 written by Paul it says, "For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, 'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD'!" Lana and I both felt reading this on the sign and from the Bible made everything more real...the truth of God is real!

On top of Mars Hill is the well known Parthenon dating back to well before Christ, sometime during the 5th century BC. It's amazing the structure is still standing today after so many years. Thankfully, archaeologists are taking the time to preserve what is left today. We spent a good hour or so there and spent some more time reading from Acts before finding a nice cafe for a drink. We caught an afternoon bus back to our hotel just in time to get another great tasting Greek salad before the hotel restaurant closed for the evening! We spent Sunday and Monday at the hotel pool and beach relaxing and getting some sun before heading back to the base on Tuesday. Thankfully the jet was ready to flight test, and all systems checked good. After I landed the maintainers put the external wing tanks back on, fueled the jet and I flew home before sunset that evening. The other pilot on the trip sat in the tower during my test flight with the emergency checklist to help in case I had any problems. He took a commercial flight back home later in the evening, and Lana flew to Munich to work a Lufthansa trip to Los Angeles.

My second trip to Greece was only two days and there wasn't much time for additional site seeing. I had some time to check out the 2004 Summer Olympic Park, but that's about it. Yet another country and culture to add to an ever growing list! It's good blessed with a job in the US Air Force!

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Athens, Greece

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