By Bill Miller
Excited? Yes.
Nervous? Yes.
Can’t wait? Yes.
In just days, I’ll be joining Jim Shockey, Brenda Valentine, and Col. Lew Deal to head for Southwest Asia to participate in the Armed Forces Entertainment / Paralyzed Veterans of American Outdoor Legends Tour version 1.1. If you’re a regular reader of “Around the Campfire with Bill” you know this was supposed to happen late last winter, and it did, sort of.
In total, the group for the Tour counted nine of us and the itinerary broke us into two groups so that we could cover as much ground and thank as many of our fighting men and women as possible. Well, it turned out that the itinerary for the group of which I’m blessed to be a part was headed right into Afghanistan and the timing was such that things were really heating up there … and I’m not talking about heating up like the weather outside.
The decision was made, wisely to postpone the Tour for our portion of the group. The others visited Kuwait, Oman and other locations and came away with amazing stories and overwhelmingly positive response.
That was more than four months ago, and now all the signs are we’ll get our turn. For security our final, revised itinerary for version 1.1 won’t be revealed even to us until hours before we leave but no matter where we end up going, I’m looking forward to shaking a lot of hands and listening to lots of stories. I plan to let the troops I meet do most of the talking, but will do my best to thank them for their sacrifices and let them know we’re anxious to have them back in the woods and on the waters with us when they return home.
I’m representing the North American Hunting Club and OutfittersRating.com on this trip and fans of both have sent along lots of messages to pass along to these great men and women. Thanks to the miracle of the internet, there’s still plenty of time for you to participate, too. So if you have any messages you want me to share in particular, please leave it in a comment on this blog, and I’ll be sure to share it with them.
