Goodbye Asia and Europe - Hello United States!

Sorry it's been a few days since I was able to write, I have been focused on getting done with my demobilization and internet here is sorta sparce. In fact I had better access to it in Afghanistan - strange.

We left Manas on time, with a very full plane. In fact the entire "first class" section of seats were filled with bags. They looked nice all buckeled in for the flight. I was on the baggage detail to load the plane and we filled the front and back of the 757 completely down below. The flight attendants had never seen anyone have to put bags up in seats. Yeah, we are special!

The flight was LONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGgg. I think it ended up being 23 hours total, including air and ground time. We did get to leave the plane in Ireland for a couple beers, and again in Maine on our last fuel stop, but they made us stay on in Turkey. I think that was because we landed in some farmer's field and there really wasn't a terminal. I am exaggerating of course, but it was a tiny little airport. I mentioned we stopped in Maine - we were supposed to stop in Canada but we were re-routed at some point. It was nice though as the local VFW had about 30 people out to greet the plane and they were all in rows clapping for us as we left the plane. Meant a lot to actually drag people out to the airport like that. Steve is from Maine so he called his brother who then came out to the airport! So, he got an unplanned mini family reunion out of the deal!

It was SO great to be back on US soil. I had forgotten how nice it is to go someplace where they speak your language without an accent, and the food is what you grew up with and they take your money without having to do some sorta mental conversion.

We took off from Maine and had a short flight down to Norfolk where the group family and friends that had come to see us were setup along the tarmac under a big tent. It was dark when we landed, but it was just as you have seen before....just a long row of tired people trudging towards the hanger to get back to life. Spirits were high, but its hard to be jumping for joy when you have been up 30 hours!

We went into a big warehouse and they inspected our weapons and took them from us. I somehow ended up in the slow line, typical for me, but eventually I got done with that, and headed over to the admin section where they gave us some paperwork and a key to our rooms. It was nice to just walk around without a gun.

Kara came out to see me and was waiting in the area where all the people had gathered. It was great to see her and the whole thing seemed to go like a blur. I guess with all that was going on it was just hard to concentrate on anything.

We started our demob the next day and have been doing that since Monday. They said it could take up to 14 days, but we all knew better than that. Basically we jammed the process as best we could and fit ourselves in whenever possible, which made it go a bit faster. I am actually DONE as of today and will be flying out today and will be in St. Louis today! It's almost impossible to believe.

Bob and Steve and I had dinner together last night, our last supper of sorts, it actually felt like any other dinner we have had over the last year. We talked about a lot of the same things we normally discuss as well as some things going forward. I think we will have lunch today before I leave and then that's the last I will see of them for a while. Sad really. I will definately miss those two.

Sometime later this week or early next whenever I can get my life back in order, I will sit down and hammer out some final posts and try to sum all of this up. I haven't quite figured out how to "end" this yet, it has become a big part of my stress relief. Much of what I typed, never actually made it here. I would type it, read and re-read and then delete, or paste it somewhere else. It was theraputic to just get some things out. I'd like to say I need to keep this going in my normal life, but honestly, I think my stress level will be low enough that this won't be necessary, and even more honestly, I don't think you want to read about my life!

Thanks for reading, thanks for enjoying and I appreciate you being along with me on my trip.

Gary

Goodbye Afghanistan

The ride to Kabul International (KAIA) was uneventful, just lots of people looking and waving and a whole bunch of school kids who evidently had a half day off, out and about waving and giving the thumbs up.

We hung out at KAIA for a couple hours before we boarded the C-17 and headed up to Bagram. Now, this is the interesting part. Bagram is only an hour by vehicle, and around 40 miles from KAIA. The entire flight from wheels up to touchdown was 8 minutes. 8. Odd to say the least. We landed in Bagram at around 3, and had oh, about 12 hours to kill before our next flight. If you think you have it bad with an hour delay here or there, try flying US Airforce Air. Again, I wasn't complaining, it was just an entire day of waiting. By the time we got to the point of boarding the aircraft in Bagram (about 1am) I think we had averaged about 2 miles per hour on our trip.


We loaded up the last C-17 OUT of Afghanistan, everyone dead tired and with little fanfare. It was good to just be on the plane. The flight to Manas Air Base was just under 2 hours, so I think it was about an hour past holy crap it's late, and 2 hours before 0 dark thirty when we arrived. More buses, and then a "short" brief and they cut us loose to the tents. By this point it was light out, and breakfast was being served, I went ahead and ate and then took a 3 hour nap.

That brings me to now. We awake our next leg to say adios to this little slice of heaven. In between then awaits 2 beers, a shower and a hopefully decent nights sleep.

Gary

ps. Have I mentioned I am OUT of Afghanistan. Not that I am happy about it or anything :)

Goodbye Phoenix

We had to be up and ready at 630 for our 1145 flight. Everyone was there on time and they had big 5 ton trucks ready for us, and after taking attendance, they loaded up the first group of 53 into four trucks and headed out to Kabul International(KAIA). I was in group two so I had a bit of time, I really didn't do much, just hung out and waited for them to get back because it's only an hour round trip including the drop off.

My turn came and I hopped up in the back of the big truck. Very interesting ride because I didn't have ammo, and for the first time was out on the roads without being enclosed. The sights and smells of Afghanistan tour. I should have had to pay extra for it!


So long Phoenix!

Gary

Goodbye Blackhorse

Sunday morning we packed up for the final time, loaded up the trucks and said good bye to Camp Blackhorse. I can't say we really "liked" it there, but it was our home for a year and was one of the better places to be stuck, if you had to come to this country. It was good to leave though, hard to say good bye to some of the friends we made, my guess is, being the small world that it is, we will cross paths again.

The new Navy team drove us over to Camp Phoenix where I am currently located, waiting to finish all my out-processing and to find out when we fly out of here. So far so good, it was a solid admin day that I think put us real close to being done. Tomorrow we have to turn all of our stuff in to customs - except our carry on items. Now...the issue with that is, all my bags have my clothes, toiletries, towel, shower shoes, etc. My carry on just has carry on stuff, books, electronics etc. That poses a large issue because we drop it off tomorrow (Tuesday) and fly sometime later this week, before we board our charter flight even later this week. Hmm. We are all going to smell. My current plan is to completely repack and stuff my carry on with some clothes and hopefully get enough in there to survive a few days. That still leaves me without a sleeping bag - this event was well thought out. I'd say I care, but I am on the way home.

It's good to see all the guys from last year at Shelby. It's interesting what a year will do though. We were all pretty tight last year having gone through 2 months of crap training, but after a year apart, everyone is sticking tight to their groups that they actually went downrange with. Just today some of the cliques are breaking up, I guess it will just take time. We will probably all come together in time to separate again.

Some bad news to temper all the good news. We were slapped in the face with the fact that this is a war zone last night. The prison we visited last week has Americans as it's mentors and last night two were killed and two were injured after being attacked by a guy in the Afghan army. Amazing - the guys we are here to help -completely turning on us. I don't know yet who it was, but it's a small crew over there and we met almost all of them, I will be shocked if I don't know them. Sad, and it will be the first people here that I knew that were killed. I think it's time to go. I am very disheartened by the fact that it was ANA that did it. I figure he was a Taliban guy who got himself into the ANA, but regardless, it doesn't make me feel better about the situation.

I think that's about it, I am well on my way, and will do my best to keep up the progress reports!

Gary

Single Digit Midget

We did out check out with admin, ran all around the camp getting our required signatures and finished up our last bit of paperwork. It's all just un-important paperwork that someone is going to have to shred after we leave, but it is keeping someone employed.

Turned in our ammo today, I am completely bullet-less. Basically my best weapon at this point is to heave my 9mm at someone. Come to think of it, that would be fun and I have a list of people that I'd like to try it on. We also spent a couple hours yesterday cleaning our weapons. Dirt, and sand find their way into every crevice of those, and its a royal pain to clean them. They obviously will be inspected before turn in, so we had to make sure we got every last bit of crap out of them. I wanna wrap them up in a zip lock bag now so they don't pick up any additional chunks before we go.

As stated in the title, I am in single digits for leaving Afghanistan. Whoo frickin who. Again, it's starting to sink in that it's real and that I really do get to leave. I bet leaving prison feels just like this. Maybe that's why we have such a high rate of return to prison. I feel so good I just gotta go out and kill someone! Maybe not.

Change 1001, we are now stuck at Blackhorse two more days. Phoenix sent out an email telling us that we were persona non grata and that we needed to wait as long as possible due to overcrowding. Its like a shanty town over there I guess. No sweat for me, I prefer being here anyway. The only bad thing is that I was mentally geared up to leave, but I'll deal. Hold on.....ok. I'm good.

Mailed the last box I am mailing today. Basically as I looked over all my crap, I started debating how much I liked it, and whether or not I liked it enough to carry it for 9 days. Needless to say, some of my stuff lost that battle and will now fly home before me. I think at this point, other than my computer which I have sold, I am down to the stuff that I will bring home on my back.

Before I couldn't get the days to go fast enough, now I can't slow them down!

Gary

Kaboom!

Bonus Blog Alert! Bonus Blog Alert! Bonus Blog Alert!

No, it wasn't that kind of kaboom. I bought speakers last year so when we watched movies on our TV, we could have a good sound with a sub woofer. I had arranged to sell them to one of the Marines here, but Steve decided tonight to ignore all the things we have learned, and plugged my 110 speakers into 220 power. Boom, all gone. Now Steve owns my broken speakers!

I did something really fun tonight. I took all of my ammo out of my clips and put it back in its case. We get to turn it in tomorrow, so I wanted to ensure it was all still there. No shots fired in anger or any other mood for that matter - yeah!

Found out we also check out with admin tomorrow, woo hoo! This is real. I get to leave!!

Gary

The Big House

Today was our final trip and the last item on the list. The Garrison S-3 officer has a friend who is the S-3 for the prison in Pol-e-Charki, he invited us and we had always wanted to go for a visit so we went! It's only about 5 miles from the camp, so the trip itself was quick. Once we arrived, it looks as you'd expect - big walls, guard towers, razor wire and guards with guns. No surprise, but as we went in we had to leave our guns, knives, phones and cameras outside. It was the first time I've been outside Blackhorse without a gun on....I felt very odd. The no camera rule was a bit of a bummer, I would like to have gotten some pictures inside. I guess in thinking about it, its a good thing they aren't allowed.

It's actually two prisons side by side - one is the Ministry of Defense Prison(political prisoners and war criminals), and the other is the Ministry of Justice (civil crimes). We toured the MoD version, which is newly renovated, and much nicer than the other. Looking over at the other building and talking with the American mentors who have visited....it looks JUST like you'd think a third world prison would look and from what they said its WORSE inside. It has a reputation with the Afghans, enough so that most of our terps declined to even go on the tour. Both prisons have capacities in the area of 700, the MoD one is almost empty, the other has over 1000 inmates. Bad juju going on in that place.

We walked around and saw all the facilities and they took us to an empty wing where we were able to crawl around in the cells and see basically how they live. We were purposefully taken away from the prisoners so it didn't seem like the big bad Americans were showing off their captures. This is an Afghan run prison through and through, and they want that idea to continue in both the guards and captives minds. We did see some inmates lining up for lunch, they didn't look happy. Not exactly sure what they were in for, we didn't ask, but they are transferring the guys from Guantanamo Bay to this prison. Being as it was just renovated, this is a NICE facility. Way nicer than any Afghan house I've been in, and a whole lot better than we had at Camp Shelby. The bars are a detractor though.

We had lunch in the guards lounge area, it was good, same food as usual. We departed shortly after and headed back. Our last field trip complete, we talked about how we only have a couple trips left on Afghan roads before we fly out!

Gary

Days go by

Due to an Afghan holiday and an unscheduled trip to Jalalabad for the new guys, we have now spent 5 days with them, and I have done exactly 1 day of turnover! It's not a big deal, we should be able to finish it up in a few days, it just seems like they have been here forever and we haven't gotten anything done.

We are adjusting to our transient lives....I think our accommodations will slowly go down hill until we finally leave theater, but that will be a good day! We have our last week mapped out, and it mainly involves ensuring all of our equipment is accounted for, cleaning weapons, washing our body armor and packing up our own stuff. At some point we are supposed to have an awards ceremony - that may lead to some fireworks, more later on that if something happens that I expect to happen.

Our event for the week was postponed, we expect to finish that this week, as well as have a going away party with the ANA. They are really very sentimental about us leaving.

I managed to skip over the 11 month mark of our time here at Blackhorse. It was a week or so back. As I said before life has accelerated and things are slipping at times. I am really looking forward to getting into May.

Change 1000 to our coming home plan, we now go to Norfolk first for a few days, and then we can stay in Norfolk or go Pt Hueneme to finish the De-mobilize process. The Norfolk people have to sit around for 5 days, so I am heading to CA to get done as soon as possible. No reason to wait, although getting paid to sit and do just about nothing is always nice. I hope this is the last change as typically when changes come down, they aren't for the better.

Gary

They're HEEEERE

Yesterday, with little fan fair, our relief's rolled into camp, bright eyed and eager. I think I made that last part up, but it doesn't matter, they have no choice as we are going to give them the whirlwind turnover and turn our attention to getting finished up and getting outta here.

They arrived about 830 and by 900 I was moved out of my room and into the Bhut. Hate community living, loved moving out. I have managed to carve out my own little space, and have everything setup now, so it's really not a big deal. Steve and Bob are living within feet of me so life is normal. I think I may have to ask them to come live with me. I think it may be an awkward conversation with Bob's wife but I am certain she and the kids will see it my way :)

I spent today taking my relief around the Garrison, introducing him to most of the staff, avoiding the requests to sit and have tea and then for a tour of the entire PeC Base. I remember my first days here as if they were yesterday (and if you refer to my post on lousy memory, that is quite a feat!). I know their heads are swimming in information and they are very likely overloaded, this place is a lot to take all at once. He will do fine though and I look forward to finishing our turnover this week and seeing what he has in store for the ANA for the next year.

My life feels like its on 78 speed, and I am a 45. If I were to narrate it at this point, I'd sound like Mickey Mouse (with respect of course to all relevant Walt Disney Corporation trademarks). Even though of course, the days are ticking by as normal, it just has that feeling of acceleration. No idea why, or how to slow it down, but I'll try to not fling myself out of the Earth's gravity.

I think my knuckle is broken. Can you even do that? The left ring finger knuckle is black and blue and hurts like hell. I don't remember doing anything to it and it didn't hurt all day but as I sat down to write this, I noticed how much it was bothering me. Weird.

We got a bit of bad news over the weekend. We were supposed to fly from here, and eventually make our way to Norfolk VA to de-mobilize. We were told that now, Norfolk isn't equipped to handle a group of our size and we are going to be going to Pt. Hueneme CA after Norfolk to complete the process. We don't have a good sense of the delay this adds, but it certainly isn't welcome. Screwed to the bitter end, at least I can't say they Navy isn't committed to making this a miserable experience. Also, if this is one big practical joke, someone went the extra mile for this one.

For now, that's all I have....I think I am into the teens.

Gary

Tangi Kalay - 3 down

We went over and did our final visit with Babrack and Debra from Tangi Kalay. They were our first visit a year ago, and we wanted to have another final visit before going, so we put them on our "list".

It was nice, we went over about 9am, spent about 3 hours just talking about movies, the country and where its going, and the new group of guys coming in. A couple of women I hadn't met before came around 1145, and one of them was a minister of tourism for Afghanistan. She was interesting to talk to, and seeing how she plans to get people to come back and visit, even while its still more or less of a combat zone was also interesting.

We had lunch, Afghan ravioli's(Mantu) and bread, and Bob and I discussed religion with the tourism lady. She has a much different perspective on Islam than you hear in mainstream media, and honestly its nice to know that people in the government here think like that. She also talked of how much the average Afghan appreciates what we are doing here, and that they really do have a sense of hope based on the work we are doing. Makes me feel good to know someone actually cares and that I didn't waste a year of my life here.

Our relief's should be in camp tomorrow, and whenever they arrive, we have to move out of our room and into the B-hut. Not optimal, but it's a step towards going home and I am certainly not going to make a big deal of it. Means to and end.

The last of the list comes this week.

Gary

Repent - the end is near

We got the good news that our reliefs are in country and working towards heading our way. I imagine by this weekend or early next week, I will actually see them. Not sure if I ever mentioned in an earlier blog that in the first iteration of relief assignments, I wasn't getting one. If I did, forget it, I am getting one now. I think it's good overall, I have a feeling they would start a slow slide backwards without some adult supervision at times.

To keep the good news in check - we were told that when they get here, we have to move out of our rooms on the same day and move out to the tents or b-huts. I am not particularly thrilled about that, but its been really pleasant outside, and honestly, if its a means to an end, I am not going to complain one bit.

I've been packing and mailing boxes home. I acquired a whole bunch of stuff while I was here, and I really didn't want to move it all back, on my back. The US Postal service gets the assist on that one. I am going to be carrying home about 50% less than I carried here, so that makes the trip back less strenuous. They have also given us the ability to turn in some of our gear at Camp Phoenix and then some at the airport on the last day, so the load lightens again in another week or two. It's becoming real enough though, that its almost surreal. I will cope, no need to worry.

We have another checklist item this week, and one next week and then I think it's just marching time until the day comes to leave.

20something days left.

Gary

King and Queens Palace / Intercontinental Hotel

Yesterday was a fun day, and marked yet another item we could check off our list of things to do before we leave.

We got up early and headed down to Darulaman, which is a city in the southern part of Kabul. We have another US Camp down there with our counterpart Navy team. Right outside of their base sits the Queen's palace, and up the road a little is the King's. Granted, these are no longer used, and once you see the pictures you will understand why. They were both built in the late 20's early 30's and were used appropriately to their names for quite a few years. Once the Russians came in, followed by the Taliban, they became headquarters for the oppressive leaders and thusly were bombed mercilessly.

When you are a kid and you see a construction site, or maybe even a building that is dilapidated to the point that it needs to be torn down, you always crave to crawl around inside it. Essentially that is what we got to do with these two palaces. The history was there, as were the remnants of some obviously at one time beautiful buildings, but all in all they are destroyed. The entire time we walked around, we were commenting that the entire place was a lawsuit waiting to happen with holes in the ceilings, no rails on the stairs and just some iffy situations in general. It was quite a contrast to the states where you would never be allowed in there for safety concerns. Gotta love the lack of safety laws!

After our tours, we headed to the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel, which runs either 1st or 2nd as the nicest hotel in the country. Let me say that the standards here are low, so don't be all too impressed. Imagine a hotel built in the late 60's(it was) with some semi recent renovations. It's almost like a nice holiday inn, but certainly not 5 stars. We wanted to go there though, so we could have a nice lunch with our other Navy counterparts, and we also invited our terps so we could buy them lunch and thank them for their efforts. We have eaten all our meals (aside from the odd time out at a village) here at Blackhorse, we wanted one that was actually in the city.

The other bonus to this trip was that we got to drive through DOWNTOWN. We didn't skirt it, or go around at all. I was able to drive right through the middle of the city, which is something that I had been wanting to do. I also personally drove...I hadn't yet driven here other than just around PeC, so it was good to expand my drive circle a little! Very typical third world big city actually.....lots of small markets, donkey's pulling carts, people pulling carts and then we saw a guy pushing a wheel barrow full of goat heads. I have no idea if they were for sale or he was going to feed them to other goats. Interesting.

Pictures from all three are here.

Anyway....take another one off the list, couple more to go!

Gary

Conquering Gharib Ghar

Today we woke up really early, so we could scratch off one of the aforementioned list items. There are mountains all around us, some of them are more accessible than others. A few neighboring camps have setup trips to go out to a range and climb a mountain and today, with the assistance of one of the Air Force officers, we setup our own trip. We arrived at about 6, and we were told that it looks much easier than it truly is. Honestly, it DIDN'T look easy, but it did look fairly short, so I was happy about that.

We started up the trail and it's a good 1/2 mile up a moderate hill, to get to the point where it started getting steep. We quickly learned that none of us are in the shape we thought we were in. We hit the rocky part of the climb and trudged up best we could, stopping occasionally to let the group recover, and for me (and others I'm sure) let our hearts stop pounding. About 1/2 hour into our initial ascent, we hit a peak, and I thought it was done....I was wrong, oh so wrong. The nice thing was it was a grassy peak, so we stopped, rested, took some pictures and then pressed on.

This is where the climb went more vertical, and less side to side. I actually preferred this part as it was a little better being able to use my arms as well as legs. There weren't any parts that were considered "dangerous", but there were some times that if you were afraid of heights, and looked off to the left or right, you wouldn't have been happy. Near the top it went to more of a knife edge than a trail and got a little more complicated, but as long as you went slow it was no big deal. The entire climb is like 1400 ft up total....I think the peak is somewhere near 7400 ft. For those interested, here is a link to the range in Google Maps.

We had a good time, and it's one of the items on the list crossed off! My pictures are here.

Gary

EaRtHqUaKe!!

As I was sitting here in my chair this morning, I heard a helo go overhead and sometimes when they fly directly overhead, the ground will shake a bit. Well, the ground started to shake, and I thought nothing of it until the sound of the helo went away and the shaking intensified. I asked Steve if he felt it during it's early stages and he said no, and then once it picked up he said something about angelic excrement. I think by this point we figured out it was some sort of natural event as the building was rocking pretty good. By the time we made it outside it was pretty much over, but you could still see the antenna's and poles rocking back and forth. The quake was a 6.2, and centered in the Hindu Kush Mountains northeast of us. Fun. We have had Floods and Earthquakes - just need fires, pestilence, a river of blood and its a biblical hoe-down.

Have I mentioned I can't leave soon enough!

45ish days left.

Gary

Final (x)

If you have ever been on vacation, you know towards the end you start mentally scrambling, deciding on the things that you really must do before you leave and what things can go by the wayside. We are in that mode now as we look back and start deciding what things we really want to accomplish before we leave both professionally and personally.

On a monthly basis, a report goes up through our chain of command for the status of the Garrison, and at what level we think they are on a scale of 1-5, with a 5 being completely useless to a 1 being they can sustain themselves for some set period of time without any interaction from us. We had our final meeting yesterday to determine what we will grade the ANA as we exit. When we arrived, they were 2/3's for the most part and during our get together we have pushed most area's to a one, or at the worst a strong two. Some things are not in our control such as personnel end strength or inventory levels of equipment they just don't have in stock. All in all, we are fairly satisfied with how they have turned out.

On the personal side, we have several little projects or visits we want to complete before leaving. Things that if we didn't get a chance to accomplish would probably have us looking back wondering why we didn't make the time. I won't get into specifics yet, but they should lead to a couple interesting stories.

Gary

THE pen

Sometime around a year ago, I was sitting in a Buffalo Wild Wings, for those who dont' know its a chain restaurant, and for the slower ones in the group, they specialize in Buffalo Wings. That isn't the point of my story. I was paying, and the pen I was given was a bright yellow Bic, and had a cutesy phrase on it, something to the effect of "I stole this pen from BWW because they were too cheap to give me one". Me being me, I stole it. Now, this wasn't a crime of passion, I had a need for a pen, this yellow monster called out to me, it wanted a new home. I gave it a loving place to live in my left breast pocket. There are a couple things you need to know about me before any of this makes sense or before you begin to care, empathize and then feel my pain. I can NEVER keep a pen. On Active duty, I always had a pen on me, but typically it was a different one daily, or sometimes a couple a day, I have a habit of leaving them behind and sometimes focusing on what I am doing next, rather than closing out what I am doing currently. So, for me a pen is something I am usually searching for....this yellow pen was different. Once I put it in my pocket a year ago, it's been there ever since. I have cared for it, changed its ink with a similar pen, and even hovered over it as someone borrowed it. I really did love this pen. Another fact you need to know about me is that when I am in uniform, I have a very set way I do things, and certain places that I always put certain items. Keys in my left front pocket, chapstick and my money clip in the right front picket, wallet in the back left, etc. Doesn't sound like a big deal but I am really anal about it and I check after I get dressed in the morning to make sure I have it all. Obviously this morning, something was missing and of course, it was my pen. Granted, it was just a pen, but it symbolized something for me, and I was really proud of the fact that through all this BS and all the places I've been, I have managed to not lose this pen. So much for that. I have a feeling I left it at the ANA yesterday as we were REALLY busy and I was distracted. That leads me into:

WE GOT THE INTERNET! I am shocked but the ANA building was wired for the internet finally, and we were re-imaging machines yesterday to get them online. I thought sure all the ground work I laid for this and all the paperwork and frustrating phone calls were going to be for nothing, and my relief would get to see this installed. It was great to get that major milestone knocked out....it will make me feel much better about leaving!

We visited another school today. An elementary school across the street, literally, across the street, our drive was possibly 15 seconds. It was fun, we spent most of our time giving out stuff to the Kindergarten class, and then we funneled the rest to the older kids. I found a few boxes of stuff buried deep in our closet that I thought I had already given out, so some of you were very generous today and didn't even know it! Again I appreciate being the final step in your generosity...thank you! Pictures are here.

53 more days.

I miss my pen.

Gary

I have irresistible legs

Some of my best writing comes from when I just sit and start typing. When I think about it, I tend to over think, and then it just comes out as crap. Well guess what....today is your lucky day. I JUST seconds ago finished typing up a new entry...it wasn't great, but it certainly had its moments. Guess what? GONE! Some stupid combination of keystrokes, unknown to me caused my web browser to suddenly jump to a new part of the blogging world and the work I just put in was gone in a blink. Very frustrating and on top of that, I now have to over think it, to try to get back what I just wrote. I apologize in advance if this is a waste of minutes of your precious time. In fact, I will give you double your money back on your subscription fees if after reading this you aren't 100% satisfied.

I went on my first walk around the entire ANA side of the base the other day. I have driven the entire base and at times have obviously walked over parts of it, but I had yet consciously gone out for a walk.

Steve decided for Lent to give up snack food - ambitious yes - but in his mind necessary. He wants to lose some weight before going home, in fact, we all do. In addition to his decreased snack food consumption, he goes on two or three walks everyday around the entire ANA base, somewhere in the area of 3-5 miles. Since it was a nice day, and I was on one of my scheduled off days from the gym, I decided to join him.

I put on my shorts and a sweatshirt, although in hindsight the sweatshirt may have been overkill. We started off, and within the first mile had a myriad of catcalls and whistles in our direction. See, Afghans don't do the shorts thing...they are a long pants people. Seeing our very white, but obviously very buff legs was too much for them to handle and they had to express themselves. It's always nice to know that middle aged, middle eastern men find your legs attractive.

While walking, we came across a huge warehouse with what sounded like the Afghan version of house music blaring. It was New Years day here, so we assumed it was some party for that. Large groups of guys were headed in that direction, and several groups invited us to join them (see the previous paragraph for the reasons why). We politely declined as I shudder to think of the prospects of a dark warehouse filled with 300 Afghan men, no women and the two of us.

Our Marine Colonel who was in charge of Camp Blackhorse had to go home a few months ago. He caught some Afghan crud virus and had to be sent to Germany for treatment, and then supposedly he was coming back. Evidently the risk of re-infection was high enough that they decided to send him back to the states instead. We got our new Colonel last week. Haven't met him yet, so far seems like a decent enough guy.

We were back at work today after the mini vacation for the New Year. Zak was supposed to go to Mazar-E-Sharif up north for some celebration but ended up staying home due to bad road conditions. He sat at home like I did and was just as bored, although I can't really complain as the time goes fast on off days!

56 more fun filled days.

Gary

Every dog has its day

Proving that even the sun shines on a dog's a** occasionally, here are pictures of a rainbow at Blackhorse.

Wanted also to send a thank you to Pat Heinrichs for the two HUGE boxes of girl scout cookies we received! We in the room each took a box or two and then I put the rest out in the MWR room for the camp to get a crack at. Last I checked, they were all but gone in less than 6 hours :) Never underestimate hungry soldiers and fresh girl scout cookies.

In the words of Frosty the Snowman - Happy New Year!

Gary

First and 10

We cross into double digit months today. I celebrated by taking a nap, and the camp celebrated by losing power for 3 hours! It also decided to pour today, it was almost a flood worthy rain.

We were informed they are adding a guy to our room. We were hoping to ride out our remaining time with just the three of us, but as I've mentioned in previous posts, the people just keep coming. I don't know the guy, but Bob seems to think he is okay. Shouldn't change all that much, just a little less room for everyone.

I think I have mentioned before the big plotter that we have in the S-6 office. It is slowly getting out that it exists and people keep coming over trying to use it to print huge pictures of themselves. Needless to say, I am not breaking out the cable (which I keep in my truck) for that nonsense. We did however have the education officer come over and want to print out legitimate stuff, so I was helping him the other day. Zak was out, so I had a different interpreter who isn't up on tech language and doesn't have a clue how to work a computer. As I was setting up his document to print, I asked him to go over the document and ensure it was correct, because I didn't want to have to re-print. He said it was fine, and I went to load the printer with paper. Seconds later, I am informed that something is missing, so we managed to figure out what, and fix it. I ask again about the correctness of the document - it's in Dari, I certainly can't spell check it. He tells me yes and I head back over to load the paper, which I am most of the way through when he tells me something else is missing. This little event happens TWO more times, for a total of 4. Originally I asked him to just look it over and find mistakes and he gave it a quick glance rather than read it and said it was okay. I did everything just short of begging to get him to just read the document. Irritating. We finally get to the point where I print - the first page comes out and he has this look on his face that I immediately recognize - it's that same face a kid makes when he is on the bus and realizes he forgot his homework. It comes out and he tells me the title is missing. I really wanted to shoot him. Of course, as I mentioned before, I have an interpreter who doesn't know much about computers, doesn't know how to type, so we had to go find another interpreter that can type to get the title on a page so I could print it. I gave this printer a loving nickname the first day it arrived, I call it the Piece of S**t. I think it still applies.

This week is the Afghan new year. Those very familiar with the signs of the Zodiac will know their calendar already as it follows it to the letter. I find that odd. The current month is Hamal (no idea on spelling) which translates to fish. Next month is called whatever the Dari word for Ram is. Happy 1386 everyone. Good news about all this is that the terps are off a good chunk of this week, which means I am off a good chunk of this week!

61 days to go.


Gary

Birthday with the ANA

Had an interesting day at the ANA today. Steve decided to have a cake made because we had my birthday, my terp Zak's was also today and Steve's is coming up. It started as the three of us, but kept growing as we figured out that seven of us including terps and the ANA had birthday's this month. It went from a small party to an all out party with singing, cake and of course tea. it was fun. Nothing horribly exciting, but more than I expected. Pictures here. Yes, that is a Kiwi cake.

We had an interesting talk the other day from a professor at the Naval Postgrad school who came to visit. He is an expert in Afghan history and has done piles of research on the future of Afghanistan and what it will truly take to defeat the Taliban. I will spare the boring details, but essentially, he is saying we have the wrong mindset here, and that the tribal nature of the culture just can't be won over with the way we in the west think. It's just not possible. The tribes have a term - Badal (revenge) which basically to them means that if we kill one person from a village, they feel like they have to kill ten to make up for it, and of course in real terms it means we have lost the support for the village forever. The Taliban knows this and does everything it can to put us in that situation. He mentioned a phrase the Taliban use - The Americans have the watches, we have the time. Interesting. This place is going through an Iraqization and I have a feeling this will be an incredibly telling year for the future of Afghanistan.

Gary

The past year - I hardly knew ya

Today is a nice day...a magical day even. I think I may go eat a huge bowl of lucky charms while scratching off lottery tickets and chasing rainbows singing Irish drinking songs. Today I have been gone for a year. Last year at this time I was flying to Norfolk in a cloud of uncertainty and fear, looking into the barrel of what I thought at the time was going to be 12 months away from home. Turns out 12 months was optimistic as it will be closer to 14 or 15.

We did get some good news the other day, we were given actual dates of when we are leaving, flying out and getting back to Norfolk. For obvious reasons I won't be putting all that down here, but suffice to say its a bit earlier than it could have been, and it's just nice to know.

CDR Nail finally made it back home for leave. He was the last of our group to go. By the time he gets back, we will have just over a month left. Hopefully he is having a good time.

The Afghans are on auto pilot at this point. I go in, I watch how they are doing, and step in if need be. They have a major end of year inspection this month (their new year is around the 20th of March, whoo hoo, 1386 here we come!) and I have just watched as they are able to pull out and show all of our inventories, describe their communications plans and just generally show they know what they are talking about. I am really happy with their growth. It will be interesting to see if the US side starts pulling back out of the Garrison after we leave to let them grow on their own. At some point, we are more of a hindrance than a help, just by the mere fact of being around.

Gary

Progress marches on

Camp Blackhorse is still in the middle of its massive expansion. The construction has waned as most of the B-huts are now up and functional, but I have it on good authority that they are going to fire up the virtual bulldozers soon. We are going from about 300 now, to somewhere in the area of 600 by June, and very likely bigger by the end of the summer. It almost has the feel of a booming mining town in the 1800's, if a booming mining town had internet and a gym. Can you imagine how history would have changed if Wild Bill Hickok would have owned a laptop computer and would have been playing solitaire or online poker? He would never have been shot in the back of the head. I digress.

Wooden structures, people you have never seen before, long lines for food and the post office. There are parallels to be drawn from this experience. The only difference is being here early isn't going to make me a millionaire as I don't own any of this property nor do I get to work my claim. The best I get is dirt in my ears, wet socks, and a half hearted thank you on my way out the door. I don't envy those coming after us. I suppose coming in fresh, this situation would not be nearly as bad as described, everything is relative. The ebb and flow of this place only really affects those that never flow out of here.

March. Yup, March. That's all I have to say about that. Actually it's not, so allow me to continue. My birthday is in a few days, 11 to be precise. I have had birthday's away from home before, no big deal. It's another day, and will be that much closer to April which is NEXT month, and that my friends is when our reliefs show up. NEXT MONTH! Doesn't mean I'll leave anytime close to when they get here, but at least they will be here.

It snowed three inches two days ago, and today its probably 65 out. Afghanistan is doing its best to make sure I feel at home by providing me with standard Midwest weather.

Baseball is back and 79 days (plus or minus a couple) until I see it live.

Gary

Origami for the mechanically declined

With some free time in an afternoon and way too much time spent finding odd web pages, I stumbled on one that let me learn a new skill. It was a tutorial to fold dollar bills into shapes! Some were way above my ability and more importantly patience level, but I did manage to master folding a bill into a collared shirt with little sleeves :) Don't ask, I was just happy I managed to get at least one of them down! Pictures added per request. here.

My roommate from when I first got to Blackhorse is a Marine. He left in November and I talked to him the other day and he is now back in theater but this time in Iraq. I'd feel bad for him more than I do, but he volunteered. I wish him the best.

Six months or so ago, we got a HUGE plotter from the ANA Corps guys....I never wanted it and subsequently refused to help the ANA guys set it up due to lack of space and really lack of usefulness. We moved into an office that has enough space for a volleyball game, so the space issue being gone, I decided to hook it up. We have been playing over the last few days and I ended up having to print a huge picture of the Garrison Commander with the General and Karzai. He is going to hang it up in the chow hall. The Afghans just adore pictures of themselves - especially a 2ft by 3ft picture of themselves. I printed a panoramic of downtown St. Louis I took from the arch and hung it up in my room. It's almost like looking out a window and seeing downtown.

We have a new mission that we have been given. I say we....it's a 201st Corps mission, not a Navy mission, but regardless changes are happening that are affecting us as well. The ANA mission is going really well, the ANP (Afghan National Police) mission isn't going so well so they are moving some manpower in that direction. To that end they needed extra vehicles, so yesterday I was informed I had to give up my truck. Thrilling. Not a huge deal, more annoying than a real problem as I am resourceful :) I parlayed my massive picture for the Garrison Commander into a new vehicle as I requested to borrow a Garrison truck and he said ok. I have a different truck, but at least I am not walking.

The ANA came up with cap devices for the E-7 and above to wear on their beret. I was fortunate enough to present the E-7 I have - Ali Dost aka Ponch - with his insignia. Pictures are here.

87 wonderful days left in the land down under. I think I am getting delusional.

Gary

Lent

Happy Ash Wednesday....or something like that. If anyone cares, I went with chocolate. It still lets me snack, but not all the good stuff I usually eat. It should be fine though, still not as hard as the years I gave up soda when I was fully addicted.

It's so damn cold here. Holy cow, I can't remember it being colder. I just wish it would decide because all the wide temp swings are making people sick and in turn, they are hacking and coughing on the rest of us who aren't sick.

Our reliefs are definitely in training and we have even heard from them! Still don't know dates, but at least we know they are making forward progress! Good news travels fast as I have been getting emails from my friends all over the country asking if we knew any details. Seems as though we are all in the dark together.

I spent a good chunk of my morning helping Zak translate a couple paragraphs from English into English. He had written it and typed it up, but honestly for the most part I had no idea what he was saying. He has a pretty good grasp on speaking it, but not so much in the writing department. Again, not that I was ever an English major, I have 16 years of grades backing up the fact that I couldn't write my way out of a paper bag. Hell, just read the last 8 months of drivel up here! Regardless, we hammered out what he had to say, and honestly its very difficult writing for someone like that when you have to tone down your vocabulary so much. He knows all the basics, but we have so many words in the English language, words I use daily, he has no clue about. I end up writing a sentence, and then spend 5 minutes translating it and using terms he knows. It's good though, I am helping him and his class that he is teaching, so it's an effort that is well worth the time spent.

87 bottles of beer on the wall....87 bottles of beer...


Gary

cranky

I have been cranky lately. Part of it is the fact that I am mentally getting tired, and part of it is my boss' boss screwing with us.

You are always going to have ups and downs in a deployment, and sometimes its easier than other times to be happy and productive. At this point in the game, its a grind. I will work my way out of it, but for now, it is what it is.

Adding to the problem is the aforementioned boss. We as a group had a goal when we got here, that involved teaching the ANA vice doing for them. We tell them NO a lot. They have to learn to do things and use the system in place if they ever hope to advance beyond where they are. Be that as it may, we have succeeded in many areas and they have shown the growth we anticipated. Because of that, we try to let them work on their own, make mistakes and learn from them. We are slowly removing ourselves from the mentoring picture and seeing how they react. As a whole, we are happy with how its going. Our boss on the other hand is wanting us to mentor more and do more things with and for them. In our opinion, that will hinder their progress which in retrospect is real and significant. It's just causing friction.

It can't decide if it's winter or spring here. Some days its just gorgeous, others it gets down in the low teens. At some point I imagine spring will win out and I can start mailing home winter clothes!

Oh, for all the Catholics in the crowd, next week starts Lent. We have all sorta discussed what we are giving up and I am in need of assistance. One of my typical choices - soda - I have pretty much given that up already, so that would be too easy. Alcohol...nope, thats forced upon us. I can't workout anymore than I already do, and I think I am down to snack food which is really my only outlet. Hmm. I could give up swearing, but let's be honest...it's supposed to be something you can actually do. Anyway, ideas are welcome.

Gary

Double Digit Midget

Today I have 99 days left in Afghanistan. Maybe I will start singing the world's slowest rendition of 99 bottles of beer on the wall, with plans to finish the day I leave.

I'll keep you posted, you can sing it with me.

Gary

Katah Kheyl Village visit

Today I packed up most of the remaining items that you all sent, along with many boxes from the other guys, and we headed out to do a humanitarian assist visit at a new village. They are considerably poorer than Tangi Kalay, so we made sure we brought enough for everyone and then some!

We arrived just after 9am, and they Malik(village leader) wanted us to give out our stuff at their school. The only bad part about that was that it's a good half mile from the village and all the kids had to walk that distance while we drove the trucks around through horrible terrain and 4 inches of mud. Minor issues of trucks getting stuck for a short period of time were overcome and we were ready to unload. The mud was just as bad at the school and we were covered in mud by the time we started. The great thing about the school was its front door allowed us to control the flow of traffic and made for a much more sane procedure.

They started with the youngest kids, and worked their way up to the big kids. That is a great way to get through the line because it allows us to make sure the little kids all get stuff before the big kids come in and attempt to hoard. All in all the give out was uneventful. Very well organized, and everyone got something, most of them got shoes and clothes along with toys! Lots of smiles and happy kids, although you couldn't tell from the pictures we got!! They seem to smile until you put a camera in front of them, then they clam up! Pictures are here.

It was a great day, and again, its always so great to be the final step in the chain started by all the very generous people at home. Many kids are happy tonight because of you, and I thank you for that!

Gary

Superbowl and Poker

We had a Superbowl party for the entire camp, which for our time zone started at 330am. It actually was a really good turnout, I think mainly for the food they were serving. Most people didn't have a particular allegiance to either team, although there were some hard cores. It was sorta odd watching it without the commercials, considering thats what everyone talks about anyway. I was torn in who to root for as I really like Peyton Manning, but I also like Lovie Smith and was a Bears fan as a kid. In the end, I picked the Colts as my team to root for, although I sorta felt bad for the Bears at the end. Regardless, it was fun, and much different than my experience with the World Series where I was essentially alone until Game 7, and even then it was only about 5 of us watching.

Prior to the game we held a poker tournament. Now, according to general order #1, which I have spoken about before, we aren't allowed to play for money. What they do to keep it interesting is everyone throws in a one time $20 fee, and then they went out and bought titanium bracelets that say OEF APT (Operation Enduring Freedom Afghanistan Poker Tour). Just something to play for, so its not just a free for all. Anyway, it was my first time playing during a bracelet week (they hold that event every other week, the between weeks have no prizes). Even though it started at 2am, it was their best turn out to date, with 20 people playing. I ended up playing pretty well and 3 or 4 hours later I ended up winning. It was the most fun I've had at from 2am to 5am that didn't involve alcohol :) I finished 2nd last week in a non bracelet week, so it was fun to rebound with a good performance this week, it also made staying awake for the game much easier!

This is COMPLETELY unrelated to my time here, but I ran across this headline and had to share it. The article is safe for work, it just struck me really funny and I laughed for several minutes. It's here.

Gary

Karzai Visit

Yesterday, the President, Prime Minister, King of Afghanistan, whatever he is, Hamid Karzai visited the ANA side of our base. We have been told for weeks that he was going to visit, but never has, so honestly I wasn't anticipating this being the day. I sorta had my suspicions though when as I was driving to work each road was being guarded by large men in pickup trucks with big guns in the back.

It just so happens that the Garrison Building that we work in is adjacent to the helo pad, and by adjacent I mean, 50 yds or less. We basically had a front row seat for his helo landing. It was very surreal though, almost like a thing out of movie. Lots of guys ALL over with automatic weapons, not in uniform though and having that look on their faces where you know they will actually shoot if need be. It was like watching a movie with a drug lord and all of his security surrounding him. I see the ANA with guns everyday, but they just never have that look like they would or even know how to use them.

The guy by the Garrison building didn't really like us standing so close to the helo pad, so he kept trying to move us down towards the end of the building, and they really didn't like people having camera's. What I don't get....I had a GUN. They didn't care about my sidearm, but damn it don't even think about using that camera. I try to look at it in reverse and imagine President Bush landing some where, and there being a foreign military within shooting range and having weapons, without having been searched, or cleared or anything. I mean, they were serious about security, but evidently didn't have all the bases covered. Not to mention the building itself - I would have thought they would have guys in each room with a window just in case, but they didn't. I did later find out that once he was on the ground anyone that went where he went, wasn't allowed a weapon, but what good does that do if he gets shot on the helo pad?

Anyway, we saw him get off the helo and was immediately shuffled into a car and that was it. He had a schedule and I certainly wasn't going to try to follow him around all over the base. One of the guys in my group did follow for a little bit and managed to get pretty close and get some good pictures. They are here. At least it was something to break up the monotony.

Speaking of monotony - today is Groundhog Day! Tonight they are showing the movie, wait for the funny, Groundhog Day. I will probably watch it, it is a great movie and probably in my top 25 all time favorites, but I just don't need to be reminded today of all days that it's the same crap day in and day out here.

Steve is back, we spent all last night hitting him up for stories from Australia. It was nice to be able to catch up with him and now we are back to our little group in the room.

Gary

Return of the dogs - and warm weather.

We have dogs again! Some of the strays that Bob usually feeds found their way inside the walls. They have more or less set up camp out back and haven't left in over a week now! No idea how they got into the camp, but it's two good sized dogs and three puppies. Bob has been doing his part by bringing them food several times a day and encouraging them to stay in the back of camp. Out of sight, out of mind! They have never had it so good, and I doubt they will leave without a fight!

It's been several days since I have woken up to below freezing temperatures and I can't say I am disappointed. My truck is happier, I am happier it's just nice to not go outside and freeze.

A while back the ANA moved a whole bunch of guys onto the ANA side of the base from the training command. We knew at some point, we were going to have to give up the building that the S-6 is in, and that day is approaching rapidly. The last few days I have been working on a plan with them to move our phones and comm systems in a manner that will cause the least disruption. It's a foreign concept to them to plan out a move of this magnitude. They intended on taking it all down, and just putting it up whenever they could. We now have a nice written plan that can actually be followed and will hopefully allow this transition to go a little smoother. The nice thing is that we end up getting an office in the main building now, so we are a little closer to the rest of the action. As it stands, we are off in our own corner of the base, its quiet, but we are out of the loop.

We expect Steve back in the next few days, it will be fun to hear about his adventures down under - of course he will be angry, and that will be fun for Bob and me :)

Happy Birthday Kara!

Gary

Unfounded rumors I can smile about

I have heard through a couple different sources that our reliefs have left Norfolk and are on their way to start their training! Yeah! We have long talked about how good it will feel to know that there are others identified and moving towards getting here so we can go home. I will have to confirm this rumor and hopefully track down some of the guys destined for Blackhorse before I get too excited, but its a great thought.

Mundane fact for this week: I ran out of Q-tips. This is only significant if you understand where I am coming from, OR you have a burning desire to know way too much about my personal hygiene. See, when I got here, I opened one of those big boxes of Q-tips, and since I only use one everyday after I shower, they deplete rather slowly. For the entire box to be gone is a great thing for the mere fact that it's that much closer to being outta here! I had to open up another huge box, but I have no issues leaving the extras behind! Does anyone else sense a trend with this post?

Gary

Pavlov was a genius

As you know, my truck hasn't started the past few days, 3 in fact. Bob was staying at Blackhorse today, so I borrowed his. Now he warned me before and I've seen it in action about the dogs around the base. Whenever they see him coming, they just barrel towards his truck. See he brings dog bones, beef jerky and whatever else we have laying around that no one wants and feeds the wild dogs. Some of them are puppies that are just incredibly cute so it's fairly easy to want to help. Anyway, because of this, when they see his truck they come a runnin'. I rode with him two days ago and saw it first hand. I thought sure it was because they could see him in the truck and just knew it was him. There are literally hundreds of the EXACT same truck (brown ford pickup's) all over so its not the sight of his vehicle that is causing this. Well in the course of borrowing his truck, I figured I would be dog free because well, I am not him. Shows what I know. As soon as I got near the site where they hang out, they came out of the woodwork. Amazing actually. In driving around a little, I think I figured it out. His brakes squeak, and the place we go, you have to brake to get over a speed bump, and I am sure that they hear that sound and know its him. The have been conditioned to know that when they hear that squeak, they get fed a min or two after. I guess I should have taken some milk bones out with me...I was woefully unprepared.

Speaking of my truck, I FINALLY got it to start today. Managed to jump it once it got above freezing, and it's running as I type this. I want a nice full battery for the morning.

Being as I had a truck again today, I was able to do some errands that I was meaning to do. One of the things I needed to check on was the office that had the power strip plugged in with matches. Was it fixed? Of course not. So, as promised, I took a picture. And then stole the power strip and found them one with a real plug. You can see it here.

I forgot to mention this at the time, but we crossed over the 8 month mark a few days ago. Again, these monthly markers are really helpful and let us know we are making progress.

Gary

January in Kabul

It was exceptionally cold this morning, more so than it has been any day since I have been back. All of our trucks are diesel engines and obviously sit outside all day and night. Starting in the morning is an adventure at best, but to date, my truck had always worked it out. Today my truck politely declined and I was forced to get a ride to work. I spent an an hour and a half in the afternoon once it had warmed up to a balmy 15 degrees, and tried to jump it. No go. It gave me false hope a few times by actually turning over, but in the end, I was in no better shape than this morning. This doesn't bode well for tomorrow morning.

I have resumed my workout schedule and since I hadn't been in the gym for the three weeks while traveling and on leave, my body wasn't quite used to the strain. My thighs and I have not been on speaking terms for the last 3 days. I walk around like someone shot me in the legs...its sad and irritating all at the same time.

Steve, my roommate, is on leave and finally made it to Australia a couple days ago. It's summer down there so I am quite certain he is enjoying himself. Bastard.

I walked around with Zak today and found an office that had a power strip plugged in. Similar to the situation months ago, it was just 2 bare wires jammed into a wall, but this time, they kept it interesting by keeping the wires in place with wooden matches. The explanation? It's Afghanistan. I guess the combination of fuel, oxygen and heat doesn't produce fires in central Asian countries. They have promised to fix it, if not, I'll try to get pictures before I take it out myself.

Ahoy

The water in our bathroom smells like diesel fuel.

On the plus? side, it reminds me of shipboard life.

The Mongol Horde

For some unknown reason, the Mongolians have landed at Blackhorse. A couple days ago, about 30 or so showed up and other than going EVERYWHERE together, we haven't figured what they are doing here. They don't speak English, and don't go to work everyday, so we haven't quite worked out why exactly they are here. All I do know is that in the mornings the bathroom is filled with them, then in the afternoons they fill the computer/phone room and for some reason always shower in packs as well. Pretty much at this point as soon as I see one, I just go the other way because damn if there aren't 15 more just like him around the corner. They are nice enough but such is life.

An update on the phone situation, and a GOOD update. I talked to the Marine who is charge of the mentoring for the Corps level ANA, and he made some phone calls to the contractor. Not only did they come out, but they came out the next day! Just to make sure it wasn't perfect, I was told 8am, and they didn't arrive until almost 11, but they did come, hooked all my phones up and we are now on the grid! I am absolutely shocked.

The weather has been better during the day here, almost pleasant. I figure in another month or so, winter will be wrapping up here, although I really don't look forward to the mud. There is so much dirt here that when all this snow thaws, its just going to be a muddy mess. I am also fairly thankful that it's staying light past 5pm now...for a while there by 430 it was dark. Depressing to be cold, and in Afghanistan on top of being dark well before dinner.

Gary

Back to work

I got back to work a couple days ago, and thought I would share some of the fun.

My first day back was pretty boring. I was highly un-motivated and really just needed to go in to get into the swing of things. I spent most of the day just socializing with the ANA and talking about my trip and how everything went. I guess it wasn't a complete wasted day because sitting around drinking tea and socializing is a big part of their culture. Regardless, I powered through it and I think now I am back into the groove with them. They lapsed a little bit on some things I had them doing on their own, but all in all, I was pretty impressed with what they had done without my prodding everyday.

One of the big issues I left when I went home was the phone and internet installations. I have been told for months by the contractor that it was to be finalized on the 13th of December. So much for that. I left on the 17th with no sign of it being completed. Well, I have been asked a few times about it so today we went on an expedition to discover what exactly is going on. What I ended up discovering is that they phone install was "completed" while I was gone. We have two main buildings here that were to be wired, and each office was supposed to get a phone. What ended up happening was the contractor decided to wire every phone he had for the Garrison in one building - in this case the medical clinic. When I counted today, I found 44 phones in a building with about 40 total rooms. Some of those rooms are storage closets, bathrooms etc. Some of these rooms had 2 phones within 3 feet of each other, and each hospital bed (with no patients) had its own phone. This was not a wide spread install - it was supposed to be for the main offices only and the front desk, and the rest were supposed to go to the head Garrison building. I told the medical officer a short, angry little man with a cigarette constantly in his mouth that I was taking most of his phones and he threw a mini tantrum. Fortunately for me, I am 8 inches taller, and have a gun. Once I "calmly" explained the situation he was on board and was willing to drop down to his original allotment of phones. Side note: It's pretty funny to see the medical officer smoking in the clinic and in exam rooms while with a patient. Surreal almost. There is no resolution to this issue yet. The contractor is gone, and the main building isn't wired. I have a feeling I am going to be learning how to wire this phone system myself. Fun.

Gary's mundane fact of the week ** - I have changed boots! I brought two pair with me and my first pair I had worn for the first 8 months. I thought it was time to break out the new ones, which as a double bonus are Gortex lined so they should keep my feet warm now that winter is in full force. Hooray Boots!


** - Gary's mundane fact of the week may or may not appear every week, and may or may not be mundane. Gary holds all rights to cancel the mundane fact of the week without prior notice.



Gary

Happy New Year!

I am back! First of all, Happy New Year, I hope all of you had a great time over the holiday season.

In case you hadn't noticed, I haven't written in damn near a month. It wasn't exactly planned, but I figured it would be a sparse month as I was heading HOME on leave! I try not to discuss my intended movements, I like to talk about things that occurred in the past. Bad things can be avoided by talking about the past rather than future when it comes to movements.

Either way, I left Blackhorse on the 17th of Dec, two days before my flight because I wanted to ensure I could get to Bagram if the roads went black. I had a couple of days to kill in Bagram, which gets back to living like a transient out of a bag and I hate that. All in all, its amazing what you can put up with to go home though! My flight went off as scheduled on the 19th, and I arrived in Kuwait for the next step of my trip at about midnight. They put us through a couple briefs, and had us go to the travel agent to get our tickets arranged, and around 2am they cut us loose to go to bed. We had to be back at 7am to get more briefs, and pick up our tickets, and fix any paperwork issues that would crop up. Fortunately I had no issues and was released again until mid afternoon when we went into LOCKDOWN! It sounds scary, and it is prison-esque as they lock us in a compound. You have to go through customs and get rid of all contra-band, and then just hang out for about 6 hours until it was time to leave. Later that night we boarded a bus, and took a 2 hour ride to Kuwait International to fly out heading to Atlanta. I think the flight left around 10pm and at some awful time of the morning and 5 hours of flying later we landed in Hahn/Frankfurt airport in Germany. This was merely a fuel stop, as we were only there about 2 hours. Back on the plane we took the rest of the trip (10 hours) to Atlanta and arrived around 730am. With all the flying and all the time changes, I really had no idea what time my body thought it was, but it was sunny, 8am and I was in the States! Another little note: In Atlanta as we all left the plane and headed to the baggage area, there were large groups of people who stood up and clapped for us. It was really nice, and humbling and almost embarrassing. I also had several people stop me and thank me for what we are doing here. It's nice to know that the general populace appreciates what we are doing, as the news I read isn't always that positive.

I finally made it back to St. Louis around noon, and started my 2 weeks home. It was great to see family and friends again, and to be able to eat real food, and drive in my car without a helmet and body armor. It's amazing how fast you can snap back into real life, in fact I think in my case it took all of 25 minutes. I got to spend Christmas, and New Years at home, which was really nice as I have been deployed for those before and it's lousy. I flew back out of St. Louis on the 6th of Jan, and did that same nightmarish trip in reverse.

Not as patient this time as I was heading to Afghanistan vice home, the trip wasn't nearly as fun! 3 days after I left, almost to the hour, I arrived back here at Blackhorse. Not too many physical changes, except the 8 inches of snow on the ground, but all sorts of little stuff changed either with the ANA Garrison, and our Navy command in general so I have all that to sort out. It's nice to be back though, I really despise living out of bag, and in dirty tents.

So, here I sit, back in Afghanistan, but only looking at 4 months to go until I am back for good. Much better feeling than when I first arrived, not knowing where I was going, what I was going to do, and knowing it would consume the next 12 months of my life.

Gary