My Bagram adventure

Today was a first for the Navy guys here. We did our own convoy that didn't involve the Marines or Army guys. One of our guys was flying back home for his brothers wedding, so we had to convoy up to Bagram Air Field (BAF) to get him to his flight. Actually, we tried to do it yesterday, but as we left the final gate out of Pol-e-Charki(PeC), we called the command center and they informed us every road went black (meaning NO travel of any kind), so we had to turn around. That is here nor there. The roads went red again today (which means we have to be in up armored humvees, vice our Ford Rangers to leave the gate), so we packed up our stuff and headed out. A couple of the guys had been to BAF before, none of us had ever driven there. We figured we'd get there :)

Things went pretty well until we got past Camp Phoenix and needed to make a turn. Everything sorta looks the same so of course we missed it. At this point, my GPS came out and we figured out we didn't miss it by much and turned around and headed the correct direction, in this case, North. Love the GPS. I figured if only one time it got me in the correct direction, it was worth every dollar, I was right. I recommend if you ever drive in Afghanistan by yourself, have one :)

BAF is about 45 miles ish from PeC, depending on the route you take, so its really not THAT far, but it seems like a lifetime because you are typically on the road about two hours. Between horrible roads, donkey's, bikes in the middle of the road, 4 lanes of traffic on a 2 lane road and then just stoppages for no reason, its not a standard 45 mile journey. About 2 miles up on the road that we had missed, but were now on, it dawned on me: We are 5 Navy guys who don't speak the language driving to a place we THINK we know how to get to in armored vehicles carrying guns. It became surreal as I stepped back and considered what we were doing. Didn't matter at this point, we were mobile!

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, the road is straight, only one more turn until BAF so we managed to make it in. Got some pictures of the AMC passenger terminal there, some cargo sitting on the runway, and some other general parts of the base. Its SOOO much bigger than what we have here, and they have some of the cool amenities of home. Key one: I had a double whopper with cheese for lunch. Horrible for my weight loss goals, but wow was it good! I haven't had fast food in a couple months and it was a very satisfying lunch. Also made an exchange run and picked up a hair clipper, microwave and a BAF item for Kara. Gotta love the microwavable food on lousy dinner nights. We also had to pick up a couple guys coming back to PeC from leave. That is a story for another day, but we did manage to find them.

We loaded up again and headed back out the gates and made really good time on the way home. One of the guys knew a short cut and saved us 15 mins. I think all that means is that we will get lost next time trying to go the same route.

I make it a point to avoid being on the roads as much as possible. Being out there makes breaking my two keys rules much easier. Oh, my two rules.

1. Don't get shot
2. Don't get blown up.

I am very pro my rules, and like to follow them at all times. I will ideally make very few trips to BAF in the future, but at long as they go as well as this one, it will be fine!

Take care! Ill add pictures from the trip later tomorrow!


Gary