Does this month count?

So there's a policy here that we are supposed to have one year "boots on ground". I'm wondering if this past month counted for two reasons. First, we had absolutely no one to show up for training (apparently the National Police we were supposed to train have been tied up with the peacekeeping up in Baghdad, which, touch wood, seems to be improving lately). Second, I did something bad to my back 2 weeks ago, and have spent the majority of those 2 weeks laying in bed, doing a lot of "winge-ing". My Australian friends here rejoice in in their lighthearted way of teasing and insulting each other (it is great to be part of the banter....). My workout buddy exults that he "broke" me. I don't know what happened, maybe he did.

If this were my bed, I'd have to take the bottom- I roll in and out of bed now, it is quite the spectacle.

One advantage to my crippled state (beyond being razzed by Australians, always a plus to any injury or ill health), is that I can lay here doing nothing relatively guilt free. This was not the case for the first two weeks of last month, when I kept busy working as much as I could, but there is a finite list of productive things to do, when one has nothing that he really HAS to do- don't want to create more work and problems when they don't exist...

So as I let the various painkillers and anti-inflammatories do their work last night, I thoroughly enjoyed the first three episodes of BBC's Planet Earth on my laptop with headphones. Very cool. Highly recommended with thumbs up and a bunch of stars, etc. I received the full set of Planet Earth DVDs as part of a care package from my church congregation- here's a shout-out THANK YOU! to the Provo Peak 4th Ward, in Provo, Utah. MSG Timothy was very thankful for his companion package, too.

I'm looking forward to working through the other 4 discs as soon as possible, too. Beautiful camera work, great sound, it moved me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/planetearth/

I actually saw a couple of ward members from when I was there before- I don't know if they are still there- they were in a video I watched yesterday for my one-man church meeting, Saints at War- Korea.

http://webpub.byu.net/rcf/

The Willes story was one that featured prominently in the video. Yet another of the many powerful examples for good that have inspired me during my military experience.