The four horsemen are saddling up. McCreary, Leonhard, Noble and I are being transferred again. This time two gunners from the Chinooks are coming with us. Davensizer and Breisch will be joining our traveling band of aerial marksmen.

Just to recap, we started with B Company 2-104th General Support Aviation Battalion which is a Chinook unit. Upon our arrival to FT. Sill we were transferred to A Company of the same battalion, which is a Blackhawk unit. We have now been transferred to B Company, 1st Battalion, 150th Assault Helicopter Battalion. The Assault Battalion has Apaches and Blackhawks, however since there are no doorguns on Apaches, our assignment to Blackhawks will not change. While we will still be under Pennsylvania's 28th Combat Aviation Brigade the unit we will be working with is from New Jersey (insert PA/NJ rivalry joke here). While we are sad to be leaving the Montana guys, I realized that we will be serving with the only other Delaware Countian I have found on this deployment. Lieutenant Mark Martella of the Briarcliffe Section of Darby Township is a Blackhawk pilot and B company's first platoon leader. We may be flying missions together, and God help the bad guys if there are two Delco boys swooping in on them.

Lieutenant Martella approached me on the bus a few weeks back. The conversation went something like this:

LT Martella: "Hey man, you from Delco?"

SSG Miccarelli: "Yes, sir."

LT Martella: "I saw you in the Daily Times."

SSG Miccarelli: "Thank God I found another person from Delco. Oklahoma is nice and all, but I miss the county."

LT Martella: "You aren't kidding."

I proudly told him that I was from Chester Pike and went to Ridley. He informed me that he was a Chichester grad. We then proceeded to play some "Delco Do You Know" and found out that he used to pal around with the brother of a Chichester girl I dated in high school.

Small world, but thank God there is another Delaware Countian here.

This beautiful girl in the photo is my Goddaughter. Last month Mackenna Reilly turned 5 years old. She helped her dad make a shirt that says "Vote for Uncle Nicky" and wore it to the annual 4th of July Party my parents throw. In this shot, her and I are watching the fireworks over the lake at East Lake Park.

I was given the honor of being named her Godfather by my oldest friend Ed Reilly, a Chester Firefighter. Mackenna was born on February 23, 2004 three days before I returned home from Kosovo. She was baptized shortly after by Father Canavan at Saint Rose of Lima in Eddystone.

Many of the guys miss their families after over a month away from home, and certainly I am no different. Being away from family and friends is one of the toughest things about military life. As any service member will tell you having the home front squared away does a lot for ones piece of mind. For my mother and father, this is the third time they have sent me off to a foreign country for an extended period of time. My father himself is a Korean War Veteran and my mother had most of her brothers serve the Republic in the armed forces. They have been exceptionally understanding through all of this and couldn't be more supportive.

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