An extra special thank you!

Good morning Jan-Maree,

I hope you had a fantastically Merry Christmas and the New Year finds you and your family in great spirits and health. Although we worked every day and being a long way from home, we made it the best we could and had a Secret Santa, buying a gift anonymously for a fellow teammate (some of the gifts were hilarious).

Thanks so much for all of your support, please find attached a couple of pages with some info about myself and what I do over here, it's OK to send it on to your awesome team of Quilters if you think they may be interested in reading it.

As soon as I get another chance (we have been really busy lately) I will contact Irene to personally thank her for the Quilt she sent me, she must have put an amazing amount of time and effort into it, as it is simply a work of art.

I am appreciative beyond words for all of your support and would love to meet you in person one day. My time is nearing an end over here on deployment and am now counting down the days until I get to go back home to spend some quality time with my nearest and dearest.

Super thanks again. 

And his letter.

Dear Jan-Maree & the Aussie Heros Quilter Team

Thank you so much for your wonderful efforts by providing Quilts and Laundry Bags to both my Teammates and me, they are simply awesome and appreciated more than you could imagine. The guys here love them and the TimTams and lollies were scoffed down quicker than a cold beer on a hot summer day.

Everyone of my Teammates has received either a Quilt, Laundry Bag or both, even Mick’s turned up yesterday (he has already moved to a rear base ready for re-deployment

back to Australia, I will send it home for him). The personalised Quilt I received from Irene is an absolute work of art, it suits my personality down to a tee. Please

forward my absolute pleasure and thanks for all of her hard work, I really do love it and it will be a treasure to me for the rest of my life, I simply cannot overstate how much we all

appreciate everything you have done for us, the little things from home have given us a sense of home and help us remain focussed on the mission at hand.

I am currently in the United Arab Emirates with the ADF Air Task Group as part of the

international coalition against ISIL. It is a contribution that I feel is important and it is great to be a part of it to help ensure the safety of our current and the future world population not only overseas but within Australia. The image below shows roughly where I am located.

Rest assured that we are fairly safe where we are. We are working on quite a busy base with a

lot of personnel around from many different walks of life which is entertaining in the very

least. We are living in tents however that is not as bad as it sounds. We have segregated

rooms with curtains to give us a bit of privacy and they are air-conditioned, so let’s call it

“glamping”. We also have facilities available to us during our downtime which have common

areas to relax and catch up with mates, and a US Base Exchange where we can buy stuff (it’s

like a small K-Mart).

All in all, the only thing we really have to worry about is doing the job we have trained for

and the separation from family and loved ones back at home. The weather over here can be

very hot and humid at times though thankfully we are in the cooler months of the year. The

cooler times don’t last for very long and the days will start warming up again shortly. There’s

nothing like a 40 degree day and 100% humidity to zap your energy.

Our Team works on the KC-30A Air-to-Air Refuelling Tanker and we provide fuel for all of

the coalition Strike and Fighter aircraft like the Aussie and USA FA-18F’s, the UK Tornados

and Harriers and the French Rafale Fighters to name a few along with many larger aircraft.

We try and get some quality down-time however we normally work an average of 12hrs a day

most days of the week. In summary, days go slowly but weeks and months seem to go by

quickly because we are constantly busy, You could say that every morning is like a Monday

and every night is like a Sunday night where you are getting ready to go back to work again.

Thanks again so much for your support, it is genuinely appreciated. I would love to one day

meet you in person.

How lovely is that.  

Till next time..................keep spreading the word and happy stitching!

Jan-Maree xx