TOA (pronounced "toe-uh")

The big day has finally arrived...TOA, or "transfer of authority." At 10:00 this morning, my unit officially took on its mission here in Iraq.

The last couple of weeks have been arduous at best as we tried to gain as much knowledge as possible from the unit we relieved. We've been training for this for months, but there is no subsititute for being here and gaining informal, institutional knowledge. For me, 16-18 hour days have been the norm. I would arrive at around 6:30 after a quick breakfast, meet with my "counterpart" (the officer I replaced) for about an hour of briefings and knowledge sharing, work and attend meetings from 7:30 AM until about 9:30 PM and conclude the day with more briefings with my counterpart until about 11:30 PM or midnight. After that, it was off to bed for a few hours sleep before getting up the next morning to start again.

Our counterparts are now on their way back to the U.S., and I wish them a safe journey home. They have worked just as hard as we have during these past few weeks and made sure we were ready to take on this mission. My counterpart was an exceptionally smart and level-headed officer and I was sorry to see him go. He would have been great to work with over here.

Thanks for all for the e-mails and real mail that have been flowing in. Wow! It has been difficult to keep up...e-mails have gone unanswered and even "real mail" has gone unopened as I've poured most of my energy into this transition period. This will be a very busy year, but I have started to establish a more normal routine and will be getting caught up. Tonight's post and a several e-mail replies are the first baby steps in that direction.

Oh... the transfer cable for my digital camera arrived so I will be posting a few photos (after I reduce them to a manageable file size).