WEBVTT

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captain . Can you hear me ? Yes , ma'am .

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You can I can . This is great . Okay .

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Hello . I'm concerned . Pearson . I'm

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sorry to have kept you waiting . We

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just returned from a story . It's okay .

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So how are you doing today ? I'm good .

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How are you today ? Great . I'm sorry

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that Dave couldn't be here . He had a

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death in the family . So I'm going to

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fill in for him today . I'm sorry to

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hear that . So , could you just start

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off by telling you a little bit about

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what you've been up to for the past few

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months here ? Well , yeah , my battery ,

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artillery battery has been acting as

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kind of a rifle company gonna infantry

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mission up in baquba since the

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beginning of november . Just securing a

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increasingly large portion of it . How

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is it going pretty well . Haven't had

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too many issues that we've had a minor

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hiccup here and there with the local

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citizens who help us secure the area ,

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but otherwise going pretty good . So

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how would you say that your particular

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job there contributed to the overall

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mission ? Well , we are

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securing , like I said , a fairly good

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portion of the southeastern section of

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baklava . Uh it's been a

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fairly stable with one or only one or

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two exceptions , uh , location and it's

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been going very well with the

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clc as we call them , the local militia

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are not militia , but local citizens ,

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uh just helping them along and helping

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them secure the town and improving also

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on the side with local projects similar

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and infrastructure improvements and

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that sort of thing . Are there ? Do you

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have any particular stories or anything

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that you'd like to share ? Anything

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that you can remember from that

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experience that will give our viewers a

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little bit better idea of what it was

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like for you there on a day to day

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basis ? Uh

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Nothing immediately pops to mind . Just

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kind of general uh patrols . We do a

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lot of joint patrols with the local

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Iraqi Army company . It's a station in

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the same world compound that we're in

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uh just day to day interactions with

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the local population . Uh My guys are

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very comfortable talking to the

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citizens of the town and uh like I

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said , it's been going pretty well

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since the beginning of november when we

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got up here . Um I understand you have

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a bit of a family military history .

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Could you tell us about that ? Well ,

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my grandmother actually did most of the

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homework on that , but she's traced the

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family tree all the way back to uh

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Mayflower , I guess , but we've had

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somebody in just about every major war

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with the exception of Vietnam uh All

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the way back , wow , that's pretty uh

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that's pretty , pretty far back there .

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What do you do with your day to day ,

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you know , time that you have on your

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hands ? What do you do when you're not

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in service ? Uh Well , I don't get a

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lot of that time really , when I'm not

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meeting with the locals about the

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security situation . I'm meeting with

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some other locals about some of the

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projects that we're trying to do . I'm

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working with the city council , in the

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village that I'm in to get them to do

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everything from whatever is mundane as

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budgets to just kind of their standard

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improvements for their own building

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that they work in and that sort of

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thing . When I'm not doing all that

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stuff , I'm out on patrols . I see just

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so I have one thing clear here and

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again , I apologize for not being

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straight on all these facts . You are

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calling your in Washington right now ?

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No , I'm are you in Washington ? Right .

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No , we're in Erie . Okay . You know ,

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I'm looking at a sheet that says your

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current duty is important . Yeah , my

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duty station . I'm out of Fort Lewis

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Washington . Okay . Right now sitting

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at bob warhorse , wow , wow .

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Um people , you know , a lot of people ,

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we hear so much about military duties ,

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what's going on there when it comes to

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military , but so many people just want

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to know , what's it like ? What's it

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like there as a person just to see you

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see the Iraqi , what's going on there ?

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You know , how are they feeling towards

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you guys ? How is it going ? Well , I

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think really every day that we go out ,

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which is every day . So every day I'm

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struck by just kind of the standard of

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living and how I don't want to call it

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low , but these people have been doing

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without for a very long time now and

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they're just really almost poverty

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stricken in a lot of cases , but they

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managed to smile all the time . They're

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very hospitable , very polite and

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they really kind of , some people are

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ambivalent to our presence , but a lot

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of people are very positive when we're

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talking to I see her from Oil city .

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Are you missing home right now ? Yes ,

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ma'am , is your spouse ? I am military .

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She is . She's up at Fort Lewis

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actually , when will you be coming home

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soon ? I hope that day keeps moving

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around , but they're just telling us

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soon right now , anything else that

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you want people to know , obviously

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Syria is a very political town .

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There's a lot of signs here that say ,

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you know , support the troops and the

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war . There's also signs that they

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support the troops , let them win the

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war . How does that make you feel ?

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Well , it's certainly a sign of the

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times . But the thing that is

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refreshing , I think to all of us over

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here is that they at least all say

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support the troops on them , you know ,

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just depending upon how you feel about

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what we're doing over here . I know

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that some people say that the spin this

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war gets in the media sometimes it's

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not always great , but I do get to see

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it first hand and I do know that we're

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making a lot of good progress over here .

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We're doing a lot of good things for

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the people and pretty soon I think that

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that's going to be much more evident to

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just kind of casual observer . Okay .

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Um , and now you said that that date

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for you to come home , um , keeps

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moving around , but would be safe to

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say in the next few months or in the

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next year . I hope it's not that long .

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Um , yeah , it would be safe to say

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sometime in the next two months , I

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think . Okay . 2 to 3 months . Okay ,

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captain , I thank you so much for your

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time and I wish you the best of luck .

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Is there anything else that you would

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like our viewers to know ? Just keep us

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in your thoughts over there . I know

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there's a lot of other stuff going on

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and we're not getting as much news as

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what we once did , but we are still

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over here , but thanks for everybody's

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support and I hope everything is going

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on going okay over there . Thank you so

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much . I really appreciate it . And all

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right , best of luck to you and

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hopefully we'll see you soon back here .

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Thank you very much . Thank you