got my first responce from my soldier!

[hurricanedude]

Im sharing this just to show you how much your soldier appreciates your mail:
Mike:
Thanks very much for the postcard and more importantly the prayers.
There's nothing more powerful you can arm us with than those prayers. I
really liked the postcard. I'm definitely a NASCAR guy. I immediately
noticed that my favorite driver, Bobby Labonte was in the pic. Big E
out front too, nice touch.
This has been the most rewarding time in my 14 year Army career. I
enlisted in 1991 as a Private and was an Air Traffic Controller for 7
years before I decided that flying Apaches had to be a lot more fun than
just talking to them. This deployment has been outstanding though.
It's not everyday that you get to help give another country the chance
at Freedom. Things are certainly not as bad over here as I see on the
news. They're ridiculous in my opinion. It's not perfect by any
stretch of the imagination and I wonder if it's occurred to them that by
"reporting" only the problems, they are only helping our enemies. They
seem to have forgotten that if we were not over here keeping the
terrorists busy, the terrorists might become bored and pay us another
visit, ala, 9/11. I seriously doubt they even consider that but that's
fine, we're still kicking ass no matter what CNN might say. The
everyday Iraqis are really responding also to the amount of Iraqi Army
patrols that are out on the streets. I see them everyday and they are
simply all over the place and getting more experience.
My point of view is this. They have been trained for over a decade to
basically retreat. Saddam never thought they had a chance against our
weapons. I certainly would not have put up much of a fight against
those odds. So how can the media expect these guys to overcome all that
negative training, in a year. It's simply impossible. Again, that's
just my point of view but I think I'm on target.

I am a Chief Warrant Officer and just in case you don't know what one of
those are, I'll explain. The Warrant Officer rank falls between the
Sergeants and the Captain, Major, and Generals. Our job as a pilot is
just that, fly, we are the instructors, test pilots, safety officers,
and tactical operations guys behind the scenes. We advise our
commanders and hopefully make them look good. It's a win win situation
as most of us don't really have a craving to write up the reports and
"command". Some say we're the war fighters when we're at war, I tend to
agree. The Cpt, Major, etc also fly but spend a lot more time in
non-flying staff positions and that's not very attractive to me.
Warrants do not salute one another and we go by first names within our
rank structure.
I am originally from South East Tennessee, about 50 miles South of
Knoxville. That's where all the Volunteer fans congregate on Saturdays
in the Fall. I, however was turned early on by my grandfather who was
from Fl to the Gators. I even have the Gator emblem tattooed on my
arm. Hope you're a Gator too, if not, we'll have a good time talking
smack this Fall.

Again, I really appreciate your card. I placed your email on the update
list that I send out about twice a month. You take care and enjoy the
summer. We've got things covered over here.

Wayne

[sunny]

I haven't heard from Bryan yet. One of my friends here HAS heard from her soldier, though! Sent her an email. She is baking cookies for him tonight

[SouthernWx]

That's awesome Dude....Wayne feels the same way about the news media's coverage as I.

I'll admit I was late getting my letters in the mail to the two young heroes (BriAnne and Michael); but I hope to hear from them soon...I gave them my email address as well as the link to my website.
It's kinda difficult knowing what to say to a young hero you don't know...just tried to be myself; told them both about my storm chasing/ storm enthusiast past; and that I was very proud of them (which I am), supported them, and was keeping them in my thoughts and prayers.

Dude...thanks my friend! God bless you!!

Perry