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
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
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
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
Saturday, April 21, 2007
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
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
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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
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
Friday, April 13, 2007
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
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
Friday, April 06, 2007
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
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
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
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
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
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
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