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