Start of the deployment to Iraq blog. My intent is to chronicle the pre-deployment process and the upcoming deployment of the Air National Guard Band of the Northeast from my point of view. Postings may be few until things get really ramped up.

You know me. A police officer, national guardsman, saxophone playing, bagpipe squeezing, kilt wearing guy. If you don't, then I guess you will get to over the next few months.

I'll give a brief description of the band and our goals. We are a ten piece rock band that includes horns, guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and vocals. Our musical play list is diverse, spanning from Prince (or the artist once known as prince) to the godfather of soul James Brown. We are also able to perform acoustic sets of bluegrass, and play ceremonial music in a cut down style band with wind instruments, and sing fine harmonies to God of Our Fathers. I jam out on the saxophone, bagpipes, harmonica, belt out some Irish drinking tunes and play some guitar. All members are quite multi-talented and able to perform on multiple instruments and also sing. Our goal is to support the troops over in Iraq, and other countries in the area, by providing music for moral. Being a military unit we'll be able to go places that other civilian acts cannot go. I can tell you that the whole band is totally committed to the mission and considers it a privilege to provide any kind of relief to the troops who are stationed overseas. For now anyway- as this blog continues we'll see how that pans out.

We just recently had our first pre-deployment meeting at Barnes Air Force Base in Westfield Ma, which consisted of us being told that we should be proactive about getting our pre-deployment checklists done. I got the impression we were possibly taking a charter trip to the Bahamas- I mean this is the military right? Aren't they supposed to make sure we get it all done and walk us through the process. Being prior Army, I am a little bit opposed to the loosey goosey approach offered by the Air Force. Being fair, at least the Air Force didn't plunk me down in New Orleans with a bunch of neanderthals, (another deployment story you may know), and we do usually travel by coach bus.

Anyhow, our next visit to Barnes will be for medical. That should be a great day. I hope all goes well with that but I am not to optimistic about it. I envision lots of needles wielded by over anxious med-techs that are licensed to stick only military.

Well this is the start. I'm actually not sure how kosher this is. Everything listed here is not of a sensitive nature, and in the future I will only post what is public for gigs. Overseas I will only be able to detail where we have been, and my impression is that there will be some delay on that. Access to the Internet may be sparse. Well enough for today.