It's a small world ...

My friend Nestor is one of the happiest, easy-going, likeable people I know. He’s always smiling, full of jokes and good humor and is just loving life. We met in Guam, during my first assignment in the Air Force and his first public affairs assignment; the shop we worked at had some difficult personalities and Nestor and I bonded. It was great to have a friend in the office. He was so enthusiastic about life in general and about being in the PA world. Definitely a glass-full type of guy.

I moved on to assignments in Italy and then California and he to Japan and then Arkansas, but we stayed in touch via Facebook and email. I was lucky to meet up with him again during this deployment, when we found ourselves working at two missions not far from each other. He’s at the International Security Assistance Force headquarters and I’m at NATO Training Mission –Afghanistan headquarters, which are very close together in Kabul. We managed to see each other a handful of times, usually unplanned, at various events or around our respective bases, and it was so nice to see that in the past six years, Nestor’s enthusiasm for the Air Force, public affairs and life haven’t dimmed. A few days ago he invited me to his going away dinner with his shop and I just had to be there. I knew we’d have a good time, and finally get to chat in depth, instead of quick bursts of conversation in between photo jobs. Plus, when he mentioned barbeque, I knew the food would be good!

We can walk to ISAF from Eggers, but you need a battle buddy, so I grabbed my co-worker Davis and with the promise of good food, got him to agree to walk over with me. Sure enough, I could smell the food cooking on the grill from around the corner. It was a nice night of good food, a beautiful sunset and seeing old friends (another friend whom I met at pre-deployment training was also there) and of course, with Nestor and me, goofy photos.

So while I’ve still got a few months here, Nestor is about to head back to Arkansas to his beautiful wife, Sherrill, their bakery business, and some fun Vegas vacation plans. I hope that whatever happens, Nestor never stops smiling and that I have the good fortune of working with him again someday.