March 3, 2008

Ethiopia, I hardly knew ye

View of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as seen from the Sheraton Addis Hotel, Jan. 20.

CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti––Here we go again. Lots and lots of stuff happening, no time to write and too much to write at the same time.

Since my last entry, I spent a week in Ethiopia covering the dedication of a school built by U.S. Navy Seabees, and nearly two weeks in Kenya covering the VETCAP I missed out on in January, which was spearheaded by a U.S. Army civil affairs team, though three Army civil... Read more »

Posted on Monday, March 3, 2008 in Halpin at Large | Permalink | Comments

January 12, 2008

The luxury of bean dip

CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti—What a week. Originally, this week, I was supposed to head to Kenya to cover a veterinary civil action program, or VETCAP, sponsored by Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (http://www.hoa.centcom.mil/), the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, and USAID. Not only was I going to cover it as a journalist, but I was going to get to assist a civil affairs team in vaccinating some of the animals as well. I was super excited about getting such an opportunity, but with all the violence that erupted in Kenya recently, the mission was scrapped, for now anyway.

With the Kenya mission scrapped, a new really cool mission came up for me in its place. I was going to cover a school dedication that that would have... Read more »

Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2008 in Halpin at Large | Permalink | Comments

January 6, 2008

Happy new year

CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti—Finally, the holidays are over. Christmas Day and New Year's Day were days off here. Being that we have a seven-day work week, it was nice to relax a little bit. Well sort of.

My commander, positioned over at U.S. Central Command Headquarters in Florida (those are the people 'in charge' of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom), an Army major, paid my compadre and I a visit for the holidays. Let me back up a second.

My compadre is the crazy Army sergeant recalled back into the Army that I've mentioned previously. He and I were split off from the unit we're deployed with and were sent here to Africa. (Not unusual as our original group of 20 is now split into five groups, spread across three continents—that last part is a bit... Read more »

Posted on Sunday, January 6, 2008 in Halpin at Large | Permalink | Comments

December 20, 2007

Happy holidays!

CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti -- Not much time to write today as I'm in training all day and am on a quickie lunch break. However, I couldn't wait another minute to mention the mother of all care packages to be addressed to arrive here at Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa Public Affairs.

I've received a handful of truly awesome care packages since I've been here, but this truly left everyone in the neighboring offices as stunned as mine. I should first mention that some of the wonderful care packages that have arrived here addressed to me and others were sent by Solano Magazine and a group called Treats for Troops, a soroptomist group over in Manteca -- and were truly fantastic.

However, in a very roundabout way, my name was given to a group called... Read more »

Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 in Halpin at Large | Permalink | Comments

December 14, 2007

A funny thing about cell phones

CAMP LEMONIER, Djibouti -- The 50+ mosquito bites I received all around my ankles during my last blogging adventure have almost all healed. They would have healed earlier, but the amount of itch created by them was too tempting for my discipline-o-meter, so a couple times I scratched the bejeezus out of them for some immediate relief.

The shoot with Al-Jazeera English went off without a hitch the next day, and all was well with the world as we returned to lovely Camp Lemonier without incident a day later than planned and with only minor intestinal discomfort from eating at the lodge, our 'home' of two days.

I had learned a lot from the Al-Jazeera crew and hadn't expected such a cultural exchange to take place between us. All three were from Nairobi, Kenya, so... Read more »

Posted on Friday, December 14, 2007 in Halpin at Large | Permalink | Comments

December 3, 2007

Halpin at Large

TADJOURAH, Djibouti -- Finally, my first blog entry. And it only took eight months to finally sit still and jot something down. I've been meaning to start for some time, but there's always more to add to 'the story' and then the sheer amount of time needed to say all the things I want to say becomes too intimidating to bother. So you must wonder then what finally happened to cause me to start so late in the game.

Basically, I'm on a mission right now that has hit several bumps in the road. I don't mean in the overall deployment (that is another story altogether). For the next couple of days, my mission is to assist, along with several others, three journalists from Al-Jazeera English. Things had been going splendidly until this afternoon.

Our small convoy... Read more »

Posted on Monday, December 3, 2007 in Halpin at Large | Permalink | Comments