Elisha Carling

Large Family Tree	Carling, Bain, Lomo, Perry & Gatz Family Tree
Siblings: Jediah, Sierra, Moreia.




Jan 11 2005, Uncle Dale was showing me around his old dirtbiking territory up by his house in northern Michigan.
20 September 2005 Gunhuban Falls Leyte Philippines	21 September 2005 Palo Leyte Philippines, General MacArthur monument.
23 September 2005 Lake Danao Leyte Philippines.	25 September 2005 Quatro Isias near Leyte Philippines.
Mom your going to have to tell me when this was.	L to R. Moreia, in front of Jediah, Sierra, Dakota, Elisha. 22 December 2004 top of Stone Mountain.
January 3 2005. Went up to a park named War Woman Dell. with Mom, Dad, Sierra, Moreia, and of course my self.	Same day same trip.
Moreia, and Elisha	L to R. Back Row. Elisha, Dakota, Jediah. Front Row. Sierra, Raven, August (Ravens son) Moreia. This picture was taken not too long before I joined the Army. Mid 1997
January 5, 2004. L to R. Elisha, Sierra, Shirley, Moreia, Lydia, and the two dogs Little Bit, and Anastasia.	January, 5 2004. L to R. Lydia, Elisha, Linda.
December 26, 2004, the day after Christmas. Mom, Sierra, Moreia, and myself went down to the Fox Theater in Atlanta to watch the show they were putting on for the public.	Yes I am furry here.
Outside in one of the enclosed areas of the Fox Theater. this outside area is actually heated by gas lamps.	December 27, 2004. Grandma (Shirley), Aunt Lydia, Mom, Sierra, Moreia, and me all went up to Milledgeville to go to the Black Crow tea lounge and admire Alison's paintings.
Well being the family we are we cant go anywhere without disturbing the peace and the store owners.	And no of course we cant let it go with just the hats we all have to fine ourselves some fine silverware.
Yes its a tea party indeed that we are having, us in our finery, and dainty tea cups. L to R. Linda, Shirley, Lydia, Sierra, Elisha.	Just another routine morning as we all get ready to go.
December 31, 2004. L to R. Elisha, Moreia, Sierra, Jediah.	January 3, 2005.
A proud and shining example to others of the way brothers and sisters should get along.	L to R. Elisha, Jediah, Sierra, Linda AKA Mom, Moreia. December 2002.
L to R. Sitting Allen, Moreia, Jediah, Elisha, Sierra. Mid 1997 shortly before joining the Army.	October 7, 2004 on Diego Garcia, Picture taken by Jim Bacon out at the breakers by the air strip.
Mount Lemon Arizona 2001	Mount Lemon Arizona 2001
Mount Lemon Arizona 2001	March 2, 2003 me and my satellite system in Iraq Camp Virginia.
March 16, 2003. Making a floor for our tent, wood floors are so much nicer than sand, you can sweep the wood, doesn't do too much good to sweep the sand.	June 18, 2003. Storming the flower gardens in Baghdad.
March 17, 2003. Repairing my shelter after it blew itself up. The sand and heat weren't much good for the amplifiers either.	How to survive a scud missile attack. Step 1,Yyou don't. Step two. Dig a hole five foot deep cover it with five 4x4's and two sheets of 1 inch plywood and a whole bunch of dirt and rocks then dive in when the scud alarm goes off. Step 3 put on all your chemical gear. Step 4. Die anyway. Isn't life fun.
June18, 2003.Taking in some of the sights at one of the overtaken palace grounds. Which one, I haven't a clue I was at so many places I couldn't even tell you, that and they never told me the name of where I was either.	The entrance to one of many buildings on the Palace grounds. June 18, 2003
Atop one of the "houses" with the palace in the far background. June 18, 2003.	Victory is sweet I have conquered the flower garden.
No its not a Hitler mustache its just darker in the middle than on the sides. June 18, 2003	Martyr's Monument Baghdad. July 23, 2003.
One of the Baghdad Palaces in the background. Darn Special Forces guys wouldn't let us get any closer "because they were operating out of there". June 19, 2003.	Camp Victory Baghdad, behind me is the main palace surrounded by lakes. July 24, 2003.
Camp Victory Baghdad, once more the Palace is behind me. July 25, 2003	Camp Victory Baghdad, yes I am just posing all over the place, what else are tourist in Baghdad supposed to do. July 26, 2003.
Mt. Fuji, one of the stations on our way up. Late August ,1999 the official climbing season closes on the 27th and we, ( Franklin Barrett a friend of mine , and myself ) cut it only a few days short unbeknownst to us. If Memory serves correctly we were within three to four days of close of the season. Not that you cant climb the mountain out of season, but you don't get all the amenities, like food at the stations on the way up the mountain, and a place to sleep when you start out way to late in the evening.	Pausing for Pictures, and a break. If you notice that in this picture I have a decent hat, and in the picture on the left I have a hat that is absurdly too big for myself there is a reason. On the way up the mountain a younger Japanese fellow, neither of us speaking the others language wanted to trade me for my hat. Of course I couldn't refuse, no mater how ridiculously too big the hat was for me. The trade seemed like a novel idea to me I will get to trade with this fellow and he with me and more than likely we will both remember it for the rest of our lives. I dare say he got the better of the deal though. I looked ridiculous the rest of my way up the mountain. And he, I'm sure looked rather smart. I had bought the hat initially because I wanted a souvenir for the year 2000, and the hat had a neat 2000200020002000 design that ran around the band near the rim, I had in fact bought one for both myself and Barrett. All in all it works out well because I defiantly wont forget the trip, and I wont be able to forget how badly of a trade I made. I do still have the hat around stoneware, though I doubt I will be wearing it any time soon.
Shortly after arriving at Yokota Air Base Japan via C17. We then faced the task of finding our way to Camp Zama by train which proved easier than we thought, but getting off the train and then finding the base was another story. as it was after walking down a few roads that were supposed to take us to the base we finally found the base and the temporary housing quarters where we could stay for only a few dollars a night. The next morning after asking how to get back to the train station we found that we had taken the long way around to get to the base.	On a bus that took us from the base of Mt. Fuji to the 5th station, from there it was all up hill.
Not far from the 5th station as you can see here we are still below the tree line. If you take a look at my walking stick, a touristy and traditional thing to get you may notice that there are no markings on it. this is because you don't get to have markings branded or burned into it until you reach stations further up the mountain. as each station is considered to be a progressively higher goal and also harder to reach. The brandings hold some significance as not all people reach the top of the mountain, which is of course the station symbol you want the most burned onto your walking stick.

Top of Mt. Fuji the day after we started out. We being the strong and fit army guys that we were figured that if we left Camp Zama early around 5:00 or 6:00 AM, got to Mt. Fuji mid morning or so, we would be able to climb the mountain and return the same day. We may even have been able to do it if we hadn't taken us all day to find the mountain. Its a rather large and famous object, you would think that such a thing would be easy to find. And it is if you can read the signs in the train stations and understand what they are telling you to do. Well we didn't do that so well and spent much of our day hoping from train to train trying to get to Mt. Fuji. Finally we did, I think around six or seven in the afternoon, at any rate much later than we had intended to. As we are getting ready to catch the next bus up the mountain a salesman from one of the shops at the base of the mountain approaches me and tries to sell me tickets to the "hotels" on the mountain. First thinking that the man is trying to scan me, I keep repeatedly telling him no thank you, me and my friend intend to climb the mountain and return today. After arguing with me for a while, and insisting that I need tickets to stay at the "hotels" the man showed me that he has sold tickets to other people and had a record of how many people he had sold them too. I of course continued to refuse, we were going to just climb the mountain and return today. The gentleman thought that rather funny and told me that I would have the ticket, and a receipt. If my friend and I didn't use them we could bring them back to him and he would give us our money back. At $45 a piece I paying for both of them as I had more cash on me at the time, about $200 (not the best way to travel in a foreign country) I still wasn't very convinced, but finally consented and bought two tickets. And so after climbing the mountain for several hours it starting to turn bitterly cold and me in my shorts ( I had the sense to bring a jacket, but not enough to bring pants. Go figure) we found our hotel. I would hesitate to call them hotels they are more like huts or shacks on the mountain, but they offer warmth, food and drink. So about eleven o'clock at night we finally stopped our assent and took some refuge. The huts are rather quaint little structures that are little more than a common room and several bunk style beds where each bed is made to sleep 4 or five people under thickly laid blankets. the Beds are curtained off to provide some privacy and the common area is where they prepare and serve the food as well as there being a hearth or stove of some sort to provide heat. There we slept the next 4 hours before setting off again at about three in the morning in hopes of catching the sunrise. Much to my surprise we were far from the only people climbing that early in the morning as many other people had the same notion as we did. As you can tell from the picture above the morning was rather foggy, and the fog rather obscured our sunrise. And so it was with a sense of accomplishment from climbing the mountain, and a little disappointment from not getting our sunrise we set off back down the mountain. We were late as it was we had to check back in at the billeting office by ten o'clock in the morning or we may lose or rooms at Camp Zama. As we were on our way down the mountain the sky broke into the most blue sky you have ever seen and the sun shown clearly and quickly warmed the air making it a very pleasant day. To see Franklin Barrett's story click Here. You should its pretty good too.
About half of the way we climbed the first day.	Tokyo Japan. Same trip as the Mt. Fuji trip, but a few days later
Back to Okinawa. This is Hedo Point the northern most point of Okinawa.	One of my favorite spots to visit on Okinawa. I am sitting atop the uppermost wall of an ancient castle as the sun sets. There were rarely any people here so most evenings I would visit I would have the castle mostly to myself.
Onna point, getting ready to go for a swim.	I don't remember the date but James Armstrong and Myself decided that we should go to the cherry blossom festival. We never did find the festival, but we enjoyed the day trying.
A rather nice park that James and I came across the day of the cherry blossom festival.	One of many beaches on Okinawa, this is one that I found once and couldn't find my way back too again.
I don't know what kind of tree this is, but the entire thing is one tree joined by the roots and trunks.	Northern Okinawa somewhere. Tommy Thompson and myself were stomping around the northern Jungle with nothing better to do and came across this little waterfall. Normally we didn't bother to stick to trails its much easier to get lost without them.
Area surrounding Onna Point. I don't know why but I just had to wade out to this pillar and climb it to have my picture taken.	Ikei Island off of the main island of Okinawa.
Adana City .Turkey September 14, 2002. Behind me is what I was told was the worlds second larges mosque, and an ancient Roman bridge that is still in use today.	Same place a little closer. My Sergeant (SFC. Edwards) and Lieutenant (LT2 Herras) decided that after being in Uzbekistan for nearly a year that I deserved a 4 day pass, and so the put me on a C17 out of K-2 Uzbekistan to Turkey. I didn't complain at all.
Adana City in one of the gardens by the mosque. September 14, 2002	The Mediterranean Sea by Mersin. I took this picture just as proof that I have in fact been in the Mediterranean sea. I went swimming shortly after taking this picture. September 15, 2002
Mersin City Turkey. There are two castles at this location, the one you see behind me is called the Castle In The Sea, the one you can see on my Turkey Page as well as this one is called the Castle By The Sea. There names are well deserved. There are only two ways out to the Castle In The Sea, one is to swim, and the other is to pay one of the local people to take you out on there boat. The latter was my choice. I forget how much I paid the man in Turkish Lira but in total it was about 2 dollars for him to take me out, wait on me while I looked around and bring me back. September 15, 2002	Standing in one the doorways of The Castle In The Sea. Yes that man behind me is trying to work and yes I am in his way, yep he does need to go through this door I'm standing in, but do I look concerned. No I don't. They were actually doing a lot of repair work to the castle at the time that I was there and it was badly needed. There were also several parts of the castle that we couldn't get to because of the construction, mostly it was in the areas below the main courtyard. September 15, 2002.
This is just to help give you a little perspective on the size of this castle. If you will kindly scroll up to the picture above this one you will be able to see the little light spots on the castle walls. Those are the windows and, I am sitting in one. September 15, 2002	Karshi-Kanabad Uzbekistan, Camp Stronghold Freedom. Spent and entire year at this place before going back to Arizona In late November of 2002 just to turn around and go back out to Kuwait and Iraq in early January 2003. October 27, 2002