Three's Company

Well, it's official. The Tikrit station is permanently a team of three. Previously, the three Red Cross stations in Iraq; Baghdad, Balad and Tikrit deployed in teams of 4 people and Afghanistan and Kuwait in teams of 3. However, given the recent influx of troops into Afghanistan combined with a new Red Cross office under construction, it was decided that the Afghan team needed a 4th person. Because our station has the lightest load of emergency message traffic among the Iraqi stations, it was determined that Tikrit would lose a team member to join the team in Afghanistan. Our 4th teammate Gene began his travels to Afghanistan on May 2 and today we got the word that after 6 days of travel he made is safely to Bagram, Afghanistan. Thus begins the remainder of my deployment in the company of three.