Happy 2010 All!

Happy 2010 Everyone!

I hope you were all able to welcome in the New Year with friends and loved ones! I was very fortunate to be asked to speak at a conference in Arizona last month and that allowed me to spend the holidays in the States. So the good news is I had an amazingly festive time in DC, catching up with friends, spending time with loved ones, putzing around the house, take the pups for walks and eating far too much food! The bad news is I was again a belated blogger. So allow me to jot a few notes on the past weeks' events.

The Intelligence Warfighters Summit in Tucson was a wonderful opportunity to address the US intel community (approximately 900 attendees) on the intel successes and failures in Afghanistan of which there are many of both. I was also very fortunate to join my boss, MG Flynn, and a group of national intelligence partners from the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and other NATO reps for a conference in London to start off 2010. The conference helped us establish the way ahead for 2010-2011 in Afghanistan and laid the foundation for next week's conference in London with the "big guns."

You might have seen our action and adventure on tv from Monday's attack in Kabul. Quite a day indeed. Hours seem like minutes in those situations. The press may not have covered it (we don't get regular US tv coverage here, it's mostly BBC and Al Jazeera English) but the Afghan police forces and Army units did an amazing job in shutting down the attacks relatively soon and more so, preventing civilian casualties. Multiple suicide bombers both dismounted and in vehicles, gunmen on rooftops and in buildings, etc and the security forces were able to limit the casualties to less than 10. I'm not certain we could have done the same in our major cities. Again, it's always interesting to see what the media spin in. Speaking of media, I briefed Diane Sawyer when she was here 2 weeks ago doing live coverage from Afghanistan. Can I take my Soldier hat off and put on my "woman over 40 hat" on and say girlfriend looks good for her age! She was very polite and not the diva that I would expect of most major newscasters. Hats off to Diane for making the rounds here in theater.

A quick summary of the pics attached this week. This combat tour really is about the people; the people you work with and the people you're here to protect. The top pic is of some of my Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen as we farewelled Petty Officer Currie (they had to strike a pose trying to look like bad mama jammas for the pic); some Christmas pics as I traveled through the airport in Dubai enroute to DC (over the top displays); me carrying in the most beautiful Christmas tree in DC; my welcome home present from Mother Nature (24" of snow my first day home...that will slow you down and force you to R&R)); our section's Christmas party in my office, with Gatorade instead of champagne; farewelling Capt Jason Orndorff, my Battle Captain and one of the best and brightest officers in the US Air Force; and my deployment BFF, COL Annette Torrisi, my counterpart at the 3-Star HQ (runs intel ops and plans) after we finished an Afghan based Race for the Cure. All proceeds from our Kabul race went to the Susan J Komen Fund and a chapter from Louisiana donated Race-for-the-Cure tshirts for all participants. Very cool!

My New Years's resolution is to do a better job at updating this blog...it's a balance for the time out of the ops center to either eat dinner, call home, go to the gym or blog. I try to do one of those each day and it seems the blog keeps slipping in priority. I'll get better, promise!

I hope you're all well, staying warm (especially my South Dakota peeps) and I look forward to seeing you all this year. 2010...let's make it our best year yet!

Love and miss you guys,

Andrea