Sunday, July 13, 2008

Nightfighter Family,

I hope this note finds everyone doing well back home. It is Saturday night here which is very similar to Sunday, Monday, Tuesday…..night. While many of the days seem the same the companies are doing a good job of keeping things from getting too mundane for the soldiers. We continue to go out on missions every night, we get out to firing ranges as often as possible, we conduct safety stand down days and morale support days which helps to mix the days up a little bit. Many of the soldiers are doing a great job of getting themselves in shape. I go to the gym almost every night between midnight and two in the morning and we pretty much own the gym at that time. At any given time we will have up to 100 soldiers in there working out; many of you will get back a much different looking soldier in either weight or muscle mass. Many units here sponsor runs on Sunday morning, which we can rarely attend due to our schedule. We have decided to sponsor a “Nightfighter” Run which will take place at midnight; the date is still being set. The installation is going to pay for 800 shirts for the event, I am curious to see if we can get that many people outside our battalion up at the time of the night. The normal Sunday runners are usually sound asleep by midnight, which is really just the middle of our work day. I will keep you posted on the event as it gets closer. Speaking of shirts our unit PT shirts are in production now and hopefully will be ready to be shipped over here within the next three weeks. I believe we are having over 2,500 shirts printed for our unit.
Well I will write more in a few days, rest easy knowing we are all fine here.

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LTC Jerry Hadley
Nightfighter 6

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Here you go Hank..... =)

Nightfighter Family,

Greetings from Iraq, I wanted to take a few minutes and give you an update on the happenings here. First an update on the access to the website from over here…it appears we are going to lose the battle to have it unblocked on our DOD computers. I will continue to send reports back through CPT Breitenbucher until I get another method over here, I will probably use a computer from one of the staff officer’s rooms to get on the website, I do not have internet in my room. I still want to hear from you if you have concerns or issues, just send them directly to my email at: gerald.hadley@us.arm­y.mil , I check this email several times a day and will get back to you very quickly.

Things are going very well here, we continue to have our share of excitement on the road and have been performing very well especially in terms of locating explosive devices before they locate us. The Task Force is getting quite a good reputation as a disciplined, professional organization that knows what it is doing on the road. I have heard from numerous outside leaders that have went on one of our convoys, they always come back impressed and said they feel very secure travelling with our soldiers. I know the favorite part of my week is the 2 or 3 times I go out on the road with our soldiers, they never cease to impress me with their attitudes and attention to detail. We continue to present combat infantry badges and combat action badges to numerous soldiers that have been involved in enemy engagements on the road. At the rate we are going I would predict that over 50% of soldiers will earn these badges while they are here, that number would be a lot higher except many already have them from earlier deployments. This past week the new Commanding General for the logistical mission over here came and spent two days with us. His name is BG Lally he commands the 3rd Expeditionary Support Command, I think he was extremely impressed with what he saw. He received our command brief, attended one of our Battle Update Briefs and then went to Team D where SSG Thoman conducted a mission brief. I think the time he spent at battalion was good for an overview and to give him confidence that we were tracking on our mission, but the icing on the cake was the outstanding brief conducted by SSG Thoman and the participation by the Team Delta soldiers. I know that this mission is only successful because of the soldiers that strap on their equipment every night and go outside the wire. BG Lally saw the quality of soldiers that this task force is blessed with and I think he left feeling confident in our ability to conduct whatever mission he tasks us with.
I have given up on getting this website back on my computer in my office, but I am committed to sending you updates. I will make every effort to update you at least twice a week, I am going to aim for Mondays and Fridays. As I said feel free to email me with questions or concerns.

Proud to Serve

LTC Jerry Hadley
Nightfighter 6
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Zac is doing great, (as good as expected) He is very tired, but still manages to make me laugh, and visa versa! =)