God Bless America!

Hello.  And welcome to Scott-Montgomery.com, my personal Web site.  I'm a retired soldier and current Army civilian employee, continuing to soldier on in the Washington, DC area.  I retired from the Army as a Chief Warrant Officer Five in January 2006 - with a little over 30 years of active duty service - and I'm continuing to contribute as an Army civilian.  I had a very good military career and I'm looking forward to an equally rewarding civilian career.  I guess you could say that I'm trying to give something back by continuing to serve our great nation as a civilian.  The menu on the right contains links to everything at this site.  My weekly missives are the raison d'être of the site; see the start of some recent missives below.  I'm glad you stopped by and I hope you enjoy my site.

Recent News (8/30/09).  This past week has been a brutal one.  My 27-year-old daughter Courtney died on 8/25.  This was supposed to be a happy time for Court.  Her 27th birthday was on 8/23, and she was planning to go on a short vacation with her mom (Shelly) to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, this past week.  Instead, she was lying in a hospital bed and being declared brain dead on her birthday.  Courtney had such great potential and promise, and she was such a sweet, caring, loving person.  All the clichés apply here.  From our selfish perspective, we will miss her immensely, but in the grander scheme of things, she's much happier now and not struggling at all.  We'll never stop loving our Courtster, aka "Ug."

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Back from the Vaterland  Howdy and Hallo.  I wrote a good bit of this missive whilst enroute from Germany back to Washington, DC, last weekend.  Alls I have to do is update things I've done this past week, and I'll be set.  That's a good thing, because it's 2030 on Sunday evening, and I need to be thinking sleep and prepping for the coming week.  I had a great trip to Germany.  The official part of it was okay, and the visit to see the Kösters was super.  Read all about it below.  [more]

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Happy Martin Luther King Day.  Tomorrow's a day off for us guvment employees.  Val and the kids get the day off from school too.  Can't beat that, I say.  While it is a day off, I'll be soldiering on as ever (details below).  A quick word from one of our sponsors:  BMW Motorcycle For Sale!!!  [more]

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Happy New Year!  Here we go into another decade.  Any resolutions for me?  Well probably not.  I guess I'm going to be looking at how I spend my time and asking if there's any redeeming value to it all.  FarmTown?  FarmVille?  No real redeeming value there, but R&R alone can be of value, so I'll probably keep at it for a little while longer.  Oh, and I plan to read through the New Testament in 2010.  I've read through the Bible in a year a couple of times in the past.  This time, I'm just going to do the New Testament.  Losing Courtney in 2009 made me re-evaluate things and take a look at what (and who) is really important to me.  I guess that's about it for New Year's resolutions in the Scott Montgomery camp.  [more]

Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas!  I'm starting this week's report at 2355 on Christmas Eve.  We had a pretty good day today, with two church services earlier this evening, where I helped with the technical/sound ministry.  The pastor had an excellent message about an old-fashioned Christmas.  I enjoyed it, twice.  Val has been wrapping gifts all day long and cooking for tomorrow in her free time.  I also "wrapped" a few things.  Mainly that means I stuck a few gifts in Christmas bags that Val picked up at the Dollar Store.  Can't beat that method, I say.  Anywho ... I'd say we're ready for Christmas.  The kiddies are tucked away in bed, I'm starting my missive, and Val continues to soldier on, wrapping gifts into the night.  [more]

Sunday, December 13, 2009

I'm back.  The hiatus was due primarily to my participation in our church Christmas pageant, "On Air Christmas."  Okay, I didn't actually participate, but I did help out behind the scenes (with sound), and it sucked up a good chunk of the small amount of free time I have.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Now it's onward and upward into the Christmas season.  Haven't done one single lick of Christmas shopping yet, but I figure I'll do most or all of it online, so I should be good to go.  I'll probably knock it out this weekend.  We finished up our Christmas cards this weekend.  I've been buying cards from MOAA (here's a sampling) the past coupla years.  They have some mighty fine Christmas cards; the cards are a bit dear, but nice.  [more]