If I had to, I would try to pull some strings."If nothing else, they would be able to tell all their friends that they vacationed in the Middle East t...is year. At least they would still be able to do some sight seeing," I replied.Before our nightly meeting started I pulled up the Middle East map and planned out the tentative route. Leave on Wednesday afternoon from Morton field. First stop on Thursday, at the US base in Riyadh to drop off the Jackson's stay over for a meet and greet then off to. That's what I'm running away from. Please, please let me stay with you."Her tearful pleas were breaking my heart. "OK, sweetheart. We'll work something out." She was holding on to my arm so tightly it was hard to drive.Frank and Marie let me use the small apartment over his detached garage on the ranch. This coming fall, I'll begin my junior year at the university but I live and work on the ranch during the summer and anytime I'm home on break. Meeting them was just about the luckiest thing. ’ ‘Such as?’ ‘There’s a small bio pod that lets you grow food when it’s deployed, a water purifier, some basic tools, things like that.’ ‘But nothing that can help us until we get onto the ground somewhere?’ I asked hopefully, maybe I’d forgotten something. ‘I haven’t found anything, sorry.’ ‘Not your fault. I should have remembered the manual as well.’ I sighed. ‘My first command, and I have no control. Great.’ ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. Thanks to you everyone else got clear in time.’. As we tucked in, John asked my plansfor the day which were basically to sit in my room watching whateverwas on my crap 20in TV. John offered instead to take me for ahelicopter flight and having never flown before, I eagerly agreed. Bythis time my headache was gone and I was feeling really good. We leftthe house and he drove us to the airport in his big BMW. The flight wasabsolutely amazing and I had a huge grin on my face throughout. Wespent 90 minutes flying around looking at local landmarks.