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So I'm still in Japan and keeping pretty busy. Thought I'd drop a quick update here since I've been completely out of pocket and I'm about to go back off the grid for a bit. The squadron is doing well and the deployment is flying by. We were in Malaysia fighting Mig-29's and SU-30's two months ago, and then Korea at a joint exercise with Air Force and RokAF F-15s, F-16s and F-4s. We leave for Guam next week and then it's a short run to Christmas and New Year's. We head home shortly there after so it'll fly by. My Marines (about 160 of them) are basically breaking records for aircraft availability (I'm the maintenance officer). Historically if a squadron averages about 9 out of 12 jets in an up status for 30 days they're seriously killing it. We've averaged 10.5 up jets for the entire 4 months we've been here, which is truly unheard of. The best any squadron has done since this data's been tracked is 9.6 and that was for 30 days. Needless to say it's got almost nothing to do with me and is a testament to the awesome talent my guys bring to the table, but I don't think it hurt to do all my own quest wrenching for the last 20 years, lol. By some strange extension, the stuff I learned on these boards probably actually helped my squadron get jets in the air if you can believe that. I'll be back in the states in January and moving again around July. Can't believe my 3 years in Texas is almost over already. Hoping to head to the northeast.