by
Website Editor
| Feb 25, 2010
I apologize for not writing anything in a while, but I have found that when you are in an administrative role and not really out in the field too much, there's not that much that is interesting enough to write about.
There has been some funny stories along the way these past couple of weeks, but I am beginning to realize that when posting things on the Internet one should be very careful in what they write, because you never know who is watching. This being said, if you would like to hear about some of these amusing experiences feel free to ask.
Today after being attached to my desk for the past couple weeks I finally got the chance to get out and do some diplomatic work out in the field. It is all a very interesting process, I am certainly learning a lot.
Today, I actually had a pretty cool experience. Our head of the mission, Donnie, and I went out to some more distant cities about two hours out of Port-au-Prince to do some assessments of the medical work being done in these areas. We ended up at a field hospital in Petit Goave with a group of volunteer doctors and nurses from the United States who were doing some work there. We had just met these volunteers and they were showing us their operations at the clinic. I noticed some U.S. Army personnel around and this is not such an unusual sight down here with all the work they are doing. However, this group was slightly different, instead of doing grunt work they seemed to be touring around looking at the operations. Randomly a Colonel approached us and started talking to us. I thought, "Hmmm, this is kinda strange for a major officer to be wandering around here..." A few seconds later a group of a few other officers approached us, clearly led by one particular individual. I looked at this individual's jacket and noticed an insignia I had never seen before on a BDU... two stars. As he extended his hand for a hand shake I thought, "Wait a second, this guy is a Major General from the U.S. Army!" This officer I just met was Major General Daniel B. Allyn, deputy commander of Joint Task Force Unified Response in Haiti. After a few minutes of small talk about the work we were doing in Haiti, he moved on... Pretty cool, not everyday do you get to meet a guy of his standing.