Home Sweet Home!

Todd is back safe and should be stateside for at least a while now. After a quick arrival ceremony at Ft. Riley in Kansas, Todd had 48 hours of rest and relaxation in Omaha with family and friends. Now he's back at it doing a little reintegration before block leave starts later this month. At the beginning of July, we'll head to Costa Rica with a couple friends to clock some well-deserved beach time.

Thanks for all the wonderful support during the past 15 months!


The last thirty minutes waiting for their arrival was AGONIZING.


So good to be home.


Kya has this weird behavior of whining (and sometimes piddling) when she is overjoyed. She was exploding with some of the gnarliest whines I've ever heard when she saw Todd.


A Riggs house party: a genius mix of Korean food & women, American BBQ, home brewed beer, a well-stocked liquor cabinet and good company.

An excerpt from a recent email

Dad says Kya is getting more and more crazy about tennis balls. I guess she has to have accountability of all of them in the house. She doesn't care about any other toy when it comes to Tucker and Achilles but if they try to take her tennis balls it is on.

Toby Keith and a boy tied to a camel

Pictures

Tea Time for Todd.

Letter Twelve

Well we packed up most of our home station equipment and our connexes are starting to make their way back to Fort Riley, so we are pretty much living out of a couple bags. It is a good feeling, and a sign that the end is near. Our replacements should be here in a couple weeks and we will be heading home sometime in the beginning of June. It seems like we have been here forever, yet the last year is kind of a blur. Everyone is doing pretty good out here. They are seeing a lot of action this year compared to when we first came into country but they are handling it well and doing great things on the road. We are into overtime for the deployment and down to our last few days, so please pray that we all keep our focus and come home safely. I'm looking forward to a little off time and some vacations. Hell, I am looking forward to carpet, hot showers, good food anytime I am hungry, and clean non public toilets. Either way, I can't wait to get back to you family and friends again. See ya soon.

Todd

Letter Eleven

Mark it on your calendars guys. I finally made it back to Orgun-E at about 2 in the morning central time on the 12th. Being that I left at 6 in the morning on the 2nd I think it is safe to say that I made pretty piss poor time. I am going to be perfectly content to sit here and not move again until it is time to go home. So the weather here is pretty freezing cold. There is about 2 feet of snow and the mountain passes have become almost untravelable due to turned over vehicles in the choke points. The thing that trips me out the most is that you will still see locals walking around in sandals, or little kids standing there barefoot in the snow waving at you. My feet are cold in my boots, I don't know how these people do it. My theory is that the increase in suicide bombers in the last few months is because they don't want to put up with another winter living in mud huts and walking around barefoot in pajamas. I'm getting my room set up and settled in and I am starting to learn my new job, so things are going good here. I can't wait to make it back home though. Love you guys.

-Todd

Todd's New Address

1 Lt. Todd Severson
Headquarters, 70 EN BN
Bagram Airfield
APO AE 09354

Letter Ten

I jinxed myself with the last email. It is snowing like crazy here at Bagram and I might be stuck for a while. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

-Todd

Letter Nine

Hello Everyone,

I have made it to Bagram so far so I am doing good. I might make it to OE in less than a week. I miss you guys.

Love,
Todd

A Little R & R

Todd's 18 days back home were filled with family, friends, food and sleep. Before he left, he seemed refreshed and ready to finish out the rest of this "downward slope" of his deployment. Here are some pictures from the holidays.


Cousin Gift Exchange. Todd got a gift certificate to M's Pub, an awesome restaurant in Omaha.


Deep thoughts by Andy Severson.


Perhaps the only bar in Lincoln open the Sunday before Christmas but no worries, we found it!


Shooting practice.


If you ever wondered what skiing in Iowa looks like here's a glimpse.


Happy Todd Day! Surprise party with B-town friends.


Todd and Mochelle at the Upstream.


Pouring champagne with Derrick for the New Year's toast.

11:34 pm, Thursday Night

Todd is home safe for the holidays and loving the lazy life!

Letter Eight

Hey ya'll,

Here are some picture of me buying the bike from the locals here. Most of these pictures are of the old bike that I had to take back, but in the pictures of me at the store you can see the new ones lined up also. I got one of the new red and black bikes. I will have to send better pictures of the new bike sometime.

Love,
Todd

Newsletter

To all friends and families of First Platoon,

Another month done! Everyone is still safe and healthy. What else can you ask for, besides a ticket home of course?

This month has been fairly uneventful except for when SFC Dowell dislocated his finger catching a football. He was out of commission for a few weeks but is back with the platoon once again. SSG Rivera had to step in and fill the platoon sergeant shoes while SFC Dowell was injured, but that is a position all too familiar to Rivera. He played the part of platoon sergeant for many months before SFC Dowell made it to the unit in December.

We have a new addition to the platoon; former second platoon member SGT Bouxsein is now joining the best platoon in the company. We are lucky to have him. He fits in well with the other Soldiers and brings a wealth of knowledge to the table. We have already sent him to Bagram to get some training on a new system that the Army is trying to implement. Once he returns he will be the subject matter expert and it will be his job to teach us about it and help us put it into operation.

PFC Contryman’s mom sent over a handful of mini refrigerators for the guys. Her generosity, and that of the others that helped her with the project, is greatly appreciated. It is hard to believe how something as simple as a cold drink can raise the spirits of the men, but it does. It especially comes in handy on those long, hot, all day missions. So thank you to Mrs. Contryman and those that helped her.

Redeployment is still a ways away but information is starting to flow down on what is happening to the unit once we get back from Afghanistan. So just keep asking your Soldiers questions and hopefully we can get you the answers you need as you plan for possible future moves.

Letter Seven

Here are some pics of me I thought you all might like to see. I have a couple with the kids and one with my interpreter Nisar. Either Nisar or his brother Bashir go out on mission with me everytime and help bridge the language barrier. Nisar is 23 and his brother Bashir is 25 but they both look old like all afghani's.

Love, Todd

Letter Six

Hello Everyone,

I know that it has been a long long time since I last wrote one of these emails. My Bad. It is mainly because I can't think of what to write. The interesting or exciting stuff in my life right now I cannot write about due to operational security and the rest is just pretty much monotonous and not interesting. Anyways, over the last few months we have been doing the same stuff over and over again. We drive to a few main high threat areas and drive around all day looking for bombs or bad guys so that it is safe for the rest of the coalition forces and Afghan people to move about. When we get bored we play with the local kids or go shoot off a bunch of rounds and find something that needs to be "blown up" and we take care of it. The action has picked up lately as the temperature has been rising. I suppose it will stay that way until winter hits and the mountain passes are all closed. Where I am at it gets between 100 and 130 degrees every day. That sucks but we are used to it by now. It should cool off here in the next few months and the rainy season should hit. While everyone else is getting snow we will just get a break from the heat and maybe a little rain. They have not had snow where we are at for the last 5 years which is kind of good because it won't be freezing but it is bad because that means we won't get a break from our usual mission set. We will be doing the same thing all year long while the rest of our guys down south will transition to snow and ice removal in the winter months.

Latest rumor around here is that they will be trying to move me to an executive officer position in the next couple of months. That takes me off of the road and puts me behind a desk handling the maintenance and supply issues of the company. It will be kind of nice to have the change and I will be a lot safer, but I hate to leave the guys. I wish I could take them all the way home. There is also a lot of talk about moves happening once we get back. So to make a long story short I will probably not be in Kansas very long once the deployment is over. I will either be in White Sands, NM, or Fort Leonardwood, MO. We will see, I have some decisions to make and anything can change in the next 10 months we are here. That's just how the Army is.
I love all of you. Thanks for the support. I can't wait to get home on leave to see most of you.

-Todd

Pictures

Newsletter

To all friends and families of First Platoon,

We are back under a year again, finally. This month has been a pretty busy month for the platoon. We are still clearing lots of kilometers but we are starting to fall into a good routine. We try to give the soldiers as much down time as possible and no one seems to be getting burned out yet. We had our first group of guys go home on leave. That is a grand milestone to reach because it starts to give the guys something to look forward to. We had two new babies born in the platoon; congratulations to the Ford and Aven families. SSG Rivera took second place in a 10k run on the Army’s birthday. We got the internet hooked up in the soldiers rooms as some of you may have heard. Hopefully, this helps them stay in touch with you at home a little better. I know a lot of them have already purchased the web cams and other accessories so their loved ones can see them and vice versa back home.

With all of the countless number of miles spent on the road I think the statistic that we are most proud of as a platoon is that we have won over a confirmed number of 973 hearts and minds of the Afghan people.* The preferred method of winning hearts and minds is to utilize our friendly smiles and graceful waves. Children seem to be the easiest ones to win over with adults a little more skeptical.

On a negative note, the temperatures have reached 100+ degrees around here and we are burning up. Along with the warm temperatures all the sweet creepy crawly animals are coming out to play. Cooper and Horne said they saw a spider walking down the road the other day that had its own shadow.

The Colonel came and visited the platoon and seemed to be pleased with the way your Soldiers have been operating, so make sure to congratulate them on a job well done so far. We appreciate all of the support from home and look forward to the day when we get to take our own leave for those of us who haven’t yet.

If you have any questions or need any assistance please feel free to contact me at todd.j.severson@us.army.mil.

1LT Todd Severson
1st Platoon Leader

* Disclaimer: This is just an arbitrary number and there is nothing confirmed about it.

Pictures

Newsletter

The Family Readiness Group (FRG) has a monthly newsletter that Todd has been asked to contribute to. Here is the first entry he wrote and a couple of photos of the 1st Platoon:


1st PLATOON

To all friends and families of First Platoon:

Well, we have knocked out the first month. The only problem is that after we got one month down they told us we are extended for three more months. Talk about one step forward and two steps back.

The first month was pretty eventful. It took us a while to get into Afghanistan, I think we flew through 5 different countries, but once we landed we hit the ground running. We had a bunch of in-briefs to go through so that we could learn the rules of the FOB (Forward Operating Base), the culture in our region, and some of the diseases and threats in the area. After we finished those we started getting classes from the unit we were replacing on our equipment and tactics. They were very helpful and defiantly set us up for success. We started riding along with them on missions and then slowly integrated in until we were running missions alone.

We live like gypsies a lot of the time driving from place to place living out of a sleeping bag. So far we have cleared about 2000 km of road. It gets monotonous at times, but we still have fun with it. We spend a lot of our free time watching movies and playing cards, video games, and volleyball. We are going to be road trip experts by the time we get home at the end of the year.

Your letters, packages, and prayers have helped us immensely since we have been here. I know the soldiers don’t get to the phones or internet as much as we would like, but they are working on the limited access issue here and hopefully it will get better. The good news is that it has only been taking about 8 days for packages to arrive from the states. Thank you for your support.

If you have any questions or need any assistance please feel free to contact me at: todd.j.severson@us.army.mil.

Grizzly 16
1LT Severson


Clearing routes and beautiful scenery


Mechanics conducting inventory on the equipment. Is that Todd sitting in the chair in the background?

Letter Five

Thought I would send a picture of myself since we haven't seen each other in a while.

-Love Todd