CIB 4 ME

I'm now banned at RedState

2009-07-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

Well. I'm disappointed, frankly. I read RedState regularly, because the people there tend to aggregate news faster than other sites, and so being up-to-speed on that site tells you a lot of conservative news before you hear it from other sites or on the news. By following RedState for the last 6 months, I've been 1-to-3 days ahead of the TV media on most important stories.

But now, I'm banned. For posting something that I thought was relatively innocuous.

A debate had come up about whether or not it was appropriate for citizens to have a position on President Obama's birth certificate, with the website promoting a diary that said, in essence, that in order to help the Republican party win in 2010, we should leave the issue alone, completely.

Many people responded, saying that it boils down to the US Constitution, and do we follow it or do we not care? Several people responded that, in essence, if you care about the issue, then you are a fool, with a "lower IQ than a toaster."

To me, it's not something the republican party should focus on, but it is something that should be looked into. And no, the "Certificate of Live Birth" that's been posted on the web doesn't count as a "Birth Certificate." When I have to take my kids to get them signed up for TriCare or any military support, I have to have their LONG-FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE. A short form doesn't count. The COLB is a "Short-form" birth certificate, and not a legal document proving that you are a US Citizen.

Anyway, I won't belabor the point. I am just disappointed, because I enjoyed reading RedState. I made the mistake of thinking it was a conservative website, when actually it's a Republican website. Won't do that again!

Warhammer 40K

2009-06-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

So, I'm getting back into Warhammer 40,000. Great game, lots of fun. It involves modeling, painting, and tactical thinking. I've gotten my wife and three of the kids involved, too.

My oldest is playing Space Marines. Next oldest is playing Tyranids. Youngest kid who's playing, is playing the Orks. I'm playing Tau, and my wife is playing Imperial Guard. Of course, I'm still the only one who's read the rulebook or the army guides, but hey, gotta take baby steps, right?

Fun game though. Wish I could afford to spend hundreds of dollars on it, but there's lots more important stuff.

Health Care costs. Do the math, and engage your brain.

2009-03-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

I was on my way back to the house after dropping the kids off at school this morning, and I heard this story on NPR.

It's a sad, sad story about how health insurance is costing more and more. How paying health insurance premiums is eating up more and more of an employee's total compensation package. About how, if health care premiums would just drop, and the amount that the insurance company paid stayed the same, employees could make more in take-home pay.

An electrical contracting firm was interviewed in the article, very sad story. The cost of health insurance for the firms employees has gone up, and the amount covered has gone down. The owner said she would love to be able to pay the employees more, but so much of what the company makes goes into paying the insurance premiums.

Well. Let us take the business owner at her word, since she is on NPR and therefore presumably NOT a greedy capitalist, despite being a business owner.

Twenty minutes later, I heard this article on the same NPR station. Now, let us ask the question that was left out of the "snoring causes poor quality sleep" article.

"Were the treatments for snoring covered by health insurance?"
"How much did the diagnosis and treatment cost, in total?"
"How much did you, the consumer, pay out-of-pocket for those diagnoses and treatments?"
"How much did your insurance company pay for those diagnoses and treatments?"
"Are you satisfied with the care you received for these sleeping disorders?"
"What would you have done if your health insurance had not covered treating these disorders?"
"Would it have been worth it to you to pay for the entire treatment out of pocket?"

And finally:

"Do the producers of NPR realize the cognitive dissonance created by juxtaposing an article that complains of how expensive health insurance is, with an article detailing expensive (presumably) treatments for quality of life issues, rather than actual critical care issues? Do the listeners of NPR realize the disconnect here, or do they accept both as gospel and blithely drive on by?"

Israel and Iran

2009-01-13T06:01:00.000-08:00

Hamas, I have heard, is a front for Iran. I've even read that Hamas has been threatened with losing their "sponsorship" from Iran (read: weapons and money shipments) if they give up in this recent conflict with Israel.

Israel, according to NPR this morning, has suffered 13 fatalities in this latest round of fighting. The "Palestinians" have suffered over 900, about half of which were civilian. Which means that, at the cost of 10 soldiers, Israel has killed approximately 450 Hamas militants. 45 to 1 is a fantastic ratio, and in all fairness, probably at least 5 of those IDF deaths were caused by fratricide, rather than by the enemy.

It also appears to me that Israel is pressing the advantage hard, in an attempt to send a political message to Iran. "When we decide to whip you" they are saying, "we will whip you badly. It may take us a long time to decide to move, but when we do move, we will be nearly unstoppable."

In my opinion, this is a poorly thought-out plan. I don't think Iran will respond to the "message" the way Israel expects. In fact, if Iran is demanding that Hamas fight to the last man for their weapons and money, it seems likely that Iran is using Hamas as a distraction from something else they are about. Never waste a good diversion.

I wonder if Israel really has a plan to take out Iran's nuclear capability? And I wonder how they could do that short of some sort of space-based weaponry...

Sex and the single child...

2008-12-08T09:48:00.001-08:00

Psychologists have known since the '90's that we "model" behavior that we see, and that we're more likely to model behavior that we witness from those actors whom we respect or like more. Actor, in that sense, meaning anyone who executes a given action, so it can refer to computer game characters, television show characters, or real people.

I was a pyschology student in the early 1990's, at The Citadel, and the obvious logical conclusion of the research in question (which was mentioned repeatedly in our texts) was that people behave in a manner similar to that which they witness their idols/heroes behaving.

Now, the primary objective of the research then was, I think, to convince the education establishment that corporal punishment was evil and resulted in our raising violent children who would respond with force every time they became angry. This belief is reinforced by the fact that, as I am now a teacher, fellow teachers tell me that it was the mid-'90's when corporal punishment was phased out completely. Even here in South Carolina where it is still legal by state law, school boards everywhere have banned it, and professional education organizations speak of it as if it were akin to pedophilia.

I find it amusing in a dark way that, while we have removed that tool from our toolbox as educators, children have not become any less violent, and are instead modelling behavior based now not on their teachers, but on the games they play and the television they watch. But no one in education wants to address that, because it's not our place to tell parents that their precious little snowflakes should watch less TV, play fewer violent videogames, and play outside more. It IS our place to criticize parents if they use corporal punishment or any other physical punishment (I thump my kids in the head as a "warning," for example. Have been given the evil eye by several teachers for it, too).

Finally, I'd like to point out that the abolishment of corporal punishment has fundamentally changed the nature of the relationship between teachers and students. When someone can cause you pain at will, they are not likely to be your friend. You fear them. You might respect them, especially if they are fair, but you have a big wall of separation between you. The loss of corporal punishment in the schools has led to the loss of this "wall," and that leads directly (in my opinion) to the epidemic of young teachers having sex with their students.

The confluence of the loss of corporal punishment, driven by a misunderstanding of the studies you mention in your column, and the continued and even increased sexualization of popular culture, is sowing the seed of a tremendous change in teacher-student and even adult-child relationships. The worst part is that we won't recognize the impact of these two factors until 5 or 10 years AFTER we reach a point where we say "this behavior is beyond the pale."

So, in short, our culture is unavoidably going to continue to become more septic.

Stupid America

2008-11-25T10:49:00.001-08:00

Kids in Florida were arrested for vandalism in a school bathroom today. No more of that inappropriate corporal punishment, nor any of that stupid "make them clean it up" stuff.

Nope, now they go DOWNTOWN to lockup.

Imagine what would've happened if they'd have made this on the playground:

Where I've been in the US

2008-10-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

Found this on a Farker's bio page, thought it was neat, so I did one myself.

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Moving On...

2008-10-01T10:06:00.001-07:00

Well, here's how it is:

Sgt. Arflin has moved to a different job. He would prefer I not mention him in the weblog. He's no longer with the Fountain Inn unit.

SSG. Knight is working with a Special-Forces Liason unit, and will have to go through several years of military training. He's no longer attached to the Fountain Inn Unit (which, by the way, is now ALPHA company, 1/118th)

Anderson has married his girlfriend, and they have moved back to St. Louis, Missouri. So he's no longer attached to the Fountain Inn unit.

Horne is a construction engineer in a unit in Rock Hill, and he lives up thataway, so he's no longer with the Fountain Inn unit.

White is in the Wellford unit, so I don't ever see him, either.

Kind of a shame that I don't get to see any of the mortar guys anymore. My email has been acting up, too, plus I can't get to my us.army.mil email right now, so even if they tried to contact me that way it wouldn't work.

I do see several of the guys from FOB Lindsey at guard drills though. At least one platoon of Bravo company was stationed there, so I know about a third or so of the people that show up to guard drill now. Well, except for the fact that about half of the unit is made up of soldiers from the low-country who didn't deploy, so I guess really I know about 1/6th of the unit. heh.

Teaching, incidentally, is very challenging work. It's hard work trying to come up with ways to keep the students interested from day to day. I'm glad that this is a Christian environment, because that's really helpful to me personally. I don't know how teachers in secular Government schools manage to deal with it.

Hurricane Duty, Sept '08

2008-09-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

Well, Hurricane Gustav scared the tar out of people in Louisiana, and I guess Governor Mark Sanford didn't want to look like he'd been caught not doing his homework, because when Hanna looked like she might impact Florida, Georgia, and SC, they decided to activate the SCARNG.

I got the call Tuesday afternoon, and had to report on Wednesday morning. We were doing prep-work at the armory Wednesday and Thursday, and then by Thursday afternoon, things looked pretty good, so the govt. decided not to pre-deploy us to the coast, and instead sent us all home.

That was the drill floor as we were getting ready. Most of the black boxes are stuff that got shipped home from Afghanistan. We have about 50% of the unit as guys who were deployed, and about 50% who were "stay behinds" for whatever reason.

I got reassigned to SSG Anderson's squad, in SSG Simpson's platoon. This is the best place for me, honestly, because SSG Simpson was my squad leader when he first joined the unit, and SSG Anderson and I were junior enlisted soldiers together, many years ago (like 10+), so I know both of them and have a lot of respect for them.

No pictures of my gear all spread out to be packed, nor pictures of the hurricane, sadly. Maybe next time.

First Week of School

2008-08-24T05:57:00.001-07:00

Well, I haven't written anything in a while, because I've been getting ready for school. The first week of school has passed and it was an interesting experience.

I have learned that the 4 and 5-year olds really tire me out, even though I manage pretty well to keep them under control. The 6th, 7th, and 8th graders are usually pretty well behaved, although they do get a bit rowdy at times. I wonder if I've started off in too relaxed a manner, and things will get worse later, but there's no way to know right now.

I am mostly teaching typing to the older children, and basic computer skills to the younger children. Typing is an essential skill these days, and now that I think about it, is probably the only skill I learned in high school that I still use on a regular basis.

My wife and I have given up on EQ, and have tried trial accounts of World of Warcraft (several times, in fact) but can't afford to have WoW accounts this year. We've also looked at EVE Online, and we're watching with interest the development of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. We've both applied for the beta test, but haven't been accepted, sadly. We'll see if we can get into the open beta, and if our computers can run it with anything approaching stability.

Our children have started school, so that's fun for my wife. But other than that, not much is happening here. I hope your summer ended well (for those of you with children).

Lack of Contact

2008-07-09T08:33:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been home now for... almost two months, I guess.

In that time, I've seen Anderson once, talked to him about four times on the phone, seen White once (at Dave Liembach's funeral), and traded MySpace messages once with SSG Knight. Other than the folks I saw at Dave's funeral, I haven't seen, or talked to, anyone else from Bravo company.

Because Captain Pinson is a member at my church, I've seen him about three times. But other than that, no contact with anyone from the unit.

I've found that if I hear one of the songs SSG Knight used to play over the radio while we were on missions, I tend to space out for a bit. But other than that, I'm not really suffering any side effects from the deployment. Well, I do tend to get a bit more uptight if somebody doesn't do their job, or if they cover for someone else who isn't doing their job. But that's basically it.

Latest Creations

2008-07-07T16:53:00.000-07:00

Well, since I've been home, I've been working my butt off. I've been getting the children to do their chores, cleaning up around the house, trying to get a bit ahead of the housecleaning, mowing the grass, keeping the yard up, etc etc.

I've also been playing computer games, looking for useful stuff online to share with the children at GCS and that sort of thing. In addition, I've been reading Terry Pratchett and various other non-fiction stuff.

The only thing I've really put any effort into has been carving. I've done several more swords. I'm working on making one for each of the children, and considering possibly carving some to auction on E-bay. I mean, what's there to lose? I enjoy doing it, and if they sell for more than the lumber I use, then it's like getting paid to do something I like.

So, here is a picture of the latest four creations, with a large carpenters hammer to show scale:

I've been experimenting with using a saw to cut out the hilts. Sometimes this works well and shortens the carving time to a bare couple of hours. Sometimes it leaves the hilt very weak, though, so I'm not sure I want to do it very much. I've worked on making smaller two-handed swords, and on making "Link" style swords on a child's scale, and on making single-edged blades, kind of vaguely like machete's.

Anyway, the kids all like their swords, although they don't seem to do much of anything organized with them, they seem to use them to run around for a few minutes and carve up the air, then they kind of give up and go do other stuff. Maybe it's because of the humidity here making things hot, or maybe they just aren't terribly physically fit. Either way, I'm having fun carving them swords, and they're all excited about having them.

I am now a teacher

2008-06-13T06:06:00.000-07:00

I have accepted a postion with a local christian school, managing their IT infrastructure, and teaching computer classes for a year. It promises to be a challenging, and rewarding position.

I also saw that the Supreme Court yesterday somehow decided that POWs should have access to the US Federal Court System, which is only going to motivate us infantry soldiers to try harder to ensure that we don't take any prisoners. Very smart on the part of the government. Really good.

New meaning to Memorial Day

2008-06-03T03:59:00.000-07:00

When we left Afghanistan, two soldiers in our company had signed up to extend their tour by 12 months.

One of those soldiers died in late May in a firefight. Yesterday, we buried him at a Veteran's Cemetary in Anderson, SC. Dave Leimbach got a horse-drawn caisson, a 21-gun salute, and an Honor Guard.

Dave Leimbach was a reserved guy. He didn't stand out, he struck me as kind of quirky, but he loved being a soldier. He was also saved, so I'm glad he died doing something he enjoyed and believed in, although I'm sorry for his wife's loss.

I still don't have a job, sadly. It looks like we've just transitioned from the early-fiscal-year flush where companies do lots of hiring, to the fiscally-slow, tight-budgetted latter half of the year where I will have lots of trouble finding a job. I look forward to seeing God's Will for my future.

Now I'm home

2008-05-28T04:30:00.000-07:00

Well, now I'm home. Have been for almost 3 weeks now. No CIB, no purple heart, no great, exciting war stories...

I have, however, undertaken several projects around the house. I've started out by whipping the children into shape with regard to chores. They come home from school, they do their homework, then they do their chores, before they can do anything on the computer, the GameCube, or anything else fun. That has worked pretty well. In fact, yesterday they did their chores without me having to watch them every minute, and the two older children fought over whose turn it was to do the vacuuming.

With my wife's help, I've assembled an 8'x 10' metal storage building, on top of a floor we hand-built out of treated lumber. Those were both accomplishments she and I are quite pleased with.

In the process of building the outbuilding, I discovered my hair has thinned out on top quite a lot over the last year, and I'm well on my way to developing a SERIOUS bald spot. This was quite a shock.

The outbuilding holds lots of junk that was lying around the yard previously, so the yard and porch look MUCH nicer now. It's really good. Plus, of course, several things that were exposed to the weather before are now safely under shelter. Hopefully this will help keep them running (the lawnmower primarily, but the ladder and a golf bag as well).

Back at home

2008-05-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

I'm home now, after a 7-day demobilization process at Ft. Bragg. Actually, I've been home for a few days now. I'm getting paid by the National Guard through the end of the month, so I have a little time to find a good job.

Wish me luck, pray for me, whatever works for you. (Prayer works for me)

overnight at KIA

2008-04-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

So, finally today we were bussed out to Kabul International Airport, after a few days of waiting, and more days spent at Camp Phoenix than we really wanted.

Lets see, what all sort of interesting things have happened.

I've beaten SSG Billingsley at Cribbage repeatedly over the past few days. He hasn't won a match since before we left KAF. Several nights here I completely blanked him, sometimes even coming back from a 20 point deficit late in the game to beat him by 2 or 3 points. Cribbage really is a lot of fun once you get to know what's going on.

Anderson sang at Karaoke night at Camp Phoenix and that was moderately fun, I guess. I'm not one for public embarrassment, so I didn't. I did, however, buy a couple of really bright yellow towels that have Operation Enduring Freedom embroidered on them, as well as some small helicopters. I also bought a Green Beans coffee mug that says Afghanistan on it. Oh, and a locally made bowie-style knife at the bazaar, which was neat, because it had a lot more variety than the one in Kandahar.

Right now I'm at Kabul International Airport, because I got bumped from the flight that left earlier today. Allegedly the flight didn't have enough seats for the 20 of us who were left behind. SSG Billingsley snuck onto the flight anyway, and I contemplated doing the same, but decided to stay with Anderson, and other guys from Bravo Company.

Lunch and dinner at the Supreme chow hall on KIA was pretty good, and the accommodations here are MUCH nicer than at Camp Phoenix, so overall it's a win. Plus I'm one step closer to going home!

YAHTZEE!!!

2008-04-20T19:10:00.000-07:00

So, whiling away the hours on KAF, living in a big stupid tent with 300 other guys, the first priority gets to be killing time. Yesterday I played 3 games of cribbage with SSG Billingsley (I won all 3, which is very unusual), I played 3 games of Yahtzee with Anderson last night in the Green Beans coffee room in the MWR facility (I won 1 out of 3 games), I watched the second half of The Departed, having seen the 1st half at Camp Shelby (and I think the movie was much improved because I didn't have to tolerate the whole thing in one go), and I finished Monster, by Frank Peretti.

Plus I read some news articles in a Popular Science magazine (one in particular about a Plasma Gasification waste disposal unit was really impressive), used the internet for an hour (checking news stories mostly), and spent lots of time walking back and forth on the base.

Today, however, I'm scheduled to fly to Kabul. So here's hoping my flight isn't cancelled and by this time tomorrow I'm at Camp Phoenix, turning in sensitive items and sleeping through dull out-processing briefings. UGH. But at least I'm going home!

By the way, I don't recommend either the book Monster, or the movie The Departed. And I DEFINITELY don't recommend the movie that followed The Departed, which was called Ballistic, I believe. It was singularly stupid, pointless, poorly directed and in general abysmal.

Thanks for coming to Afghanistan

2008-04-19T09:13:00.001-07:00

I got my Thanks for Coming to Afghanistan awards the other day. Here's a photo of them:

In addition, I have been moved over to KAF to out-process from ARSIC-S, and will fly to Kabul sometime soon. At first we were told it would be the 18th, then the 20th or 21st. Now we just don't know. But, that's life in the military. You're at the mercy of a nameless faceless bureaucrat who has higher rank than you, so you might as well just wait and see what happens.

Here's a picture of the transient quarters we're staying in on KAF:

Other than that, not much news to report. I watched Aliens vs. Predator 2 (Requiem?) and was not terribly impressed with it. The directors did a good job of killing lots of people, which is essential to making a believable Aliens movie, but something about it just left me cold. I'd give it a 3 out of 10. Definitely not something I'm going to get my wife to watch.

Stuck at KAF waiting on a plane

2008-04-18T19:50:00.000-07:00

So, we've outprocessed (which involved me getting yet a THIRD anthrax shot), and there are no flights out until the 20th and the 21st. So I'll be here for at least one more bazaar day.

And, of course, my time on the computer is just now up. hahahaha...

Perhaps I will post more later.

My last day at UTS

2008-04-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

Today was my last day at Universal Telecom Service (also known as Hajji-net). I have a picture of myself with Hamid and Jamal, sitting in the office.

Tonight we are having an awards ceremony where Col. McGrath will give out the End of Tour awards to each soldier. I hope I'll get my picture with him presenting my awards. I'll let you know.

In other news... nothing much has happened. I slept basically all day, and I think tomorrow we move over to KAF for outprocessing and flying out.

Pope says abuse crisis handled badly

2008-04-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

Yes. The Pope says that the Church did a bad job of handling the issue of Catholic priests abusing altar boys. I would agree with that statement. He seems to have said some fairly critical things and been pretty much spot on.

Also in the news, allegedly the airline that flies us home from Kuwait has gone bankrupt as of April 3rd (due to losing a military contract (?)), and we might be "delayed in leaving theater." Which means... I might not be leaving Afghanistan for an extra week-ish. But if ATA lost a military contract (on April 3rd!), and subsequently went bankrupt why are we only now being impacted? If the military gave the contract to another airline, why isn't that airline handling our flights? Were our flights scheduled in advance and not subject to the contract with ATA?

Anyway, here's a picture of me with Captain Sevilla. She was one of the medics assigned to FOB Lindsey.

End of tour photos.

2008-04-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

We took several end-of-tour photos today, with the full mortar section. We took one with most of us on top of the Gazebee, and another with everyone in the Soviet Graveyard in front, and on top of, a BMP-1. We also took a picture on a T-72.

Here also is a picture of my last wood-carving effort, a sort of scimitar.

That's enough for right now. There will be more photos coming later.

I'm a veteran now...

2008-04-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

I've realized I'm now a Veteran. Qualified to join the VFW and the American Legion. How about that?

I also ran into this somewhere on Powerline Forums:

A Veteran - whether active duty, retired, national guard, or reserve is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to The “United States of America”, for an amount of “up to and including my life.”

That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.

- Author Unknown

Heh, thought that was pretty good.

According to BlackFive, at least one Aussie has good things to say about us. Read that here. I don't know if that's a valid email or just something someone created. But I've got a lot of respect for the Australian troops I've run into here. I had dinner with some high ranking enlisted at Tarin Kowt one time, and we talked about how they do things, and why they do things differently. The Aussies committed several thousand troops to Afghanistan, and I want to say the Sgt Major said their entire army was 30,000? Let me look it up on Google real quick though...

I had the same discussion with a Canadian Major one time. According to him, they only have about 60,000 (I think?) troops under arms in their entire military. So when they commit thousands of troops, and lots of equipment to Afghanistan, they are making quite a serious commitment. And when John Kerry mocks the Australians for what they've sent and suggests they send 30,000 troops... well, he's really showing his own ignorance more than their lack of seriousness.

Aha, according to what I can find on the Internet, Australian total troop strength in 2002 was just under 51,000 including all branches (Army, Navy, Air Force). Canadian troop strength levels are allegedly about 62,000 active troops, total.

So, either country sending more than 3,000 troops, is really doing quite a LOT. Kudos to our Canuck and Aussie pals for pitching in with so much of what little they have!

No more guard duty!

2008-04-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

Well, Sunday was my last day of guard duty. Now I'm cleaning out my area, throwing stuff away, and packing things up in order to get ready for my flight to Phoenix. It's weird, but I'm even MORE bored now that I don't have to do guard duty.

I should be at my home in less than 3 weeks, God willing. We're all really happy that it's finally over. The New York national guard unit replacing us, they're only doing 9 month tours in country, so they will be leaving here right around Christmas of this year.

Webb has come back to stay with us, from his having been sent down to Spin Boldak. As usual, he has lots of interesting stories to share. White was so bored yesterday that he cleaned his M4 and his M9 really thoroughly (which is a waste because they will just get dirty again in the 2 weeks we have left in country). SSG Knight has relaxed considerably since the end of combat operations, and Anderson has been taking sleeping medication that makes him behave really oddly (in a very amusing way).

I've also watched "30 Days of Night," which was terrible. Not as bad as The Mist, but really weak, all the same. Josh Hartnett reminds me of a young Tommy Lee Jones, so I enjoy watching him in movies, but this one was just too full of logical problems to really be enjoyable. I've been in the high latitudes (once) and I know that when the sun sets for 30 days it doesn't get pitch black dark. I also know that if you have a light on in a darkened room on a dark night, and open a small crack in the window, the light is visible literally for MILES. And 2x4 planks with corrugated tin roofing material provides essentially NO insulation whatever, and you'll freeze to death if that's all that's between you and the Alaskan winter.

Finally, I've finished another book by the guys who wrote "The Relic" and have decided that The Relic was about their best book. The rest are just odd in different ways.

Stephen King's "The Mist"

2008-04-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

I just got done watching this movie, and felt like I had to comment.

It was engaging, but not because it was well done. The insane preacher-lady wasn't even remotely convincing. The ending was hideously obvious to anyone who understands movies. What director, writer, or producer could possibly resist the opportunity to make a movie that ends that way? It's so daring, it's so bold, it's so... new and different!

Except that really, it's not. It left me completely cold. It wasn't an ending designed to create empathy or sympathy, it was an ending simply designed to manipulate your emotions. And you can tell.

Maybe it's that I'm a man of faith, and found the Mrs Carmody (or whatever her name was) to be patently ridiculous, a caricature of what folks think of when they imagine people of faith. Maybe it's because I'm a father of five kids and found myself thinking "my kids wouldn't react like that. They're tougher than that." Maybe it's because there's so many moments when you find yourself thinking "why isn't anyone doing the smart thing at this particular moment? Why are they all posing for the camera and spouting dialogue?"

Whatever the reason or reasons, it was a big letdown. For some foolish reason, I expected more. I should know better by now, with regard to Stephen Kings work.

We've got HOW MANY days left...?

2008-04-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

Heh, the funny thing is, we don't really know.

Maybe we'll move out of our barracks and into transient quarters on KAF on the 16th. Or maybe on the 18th. And maybe we'll start flying to Kabul on the 18th. Or maybe not until the 20th. And maybe we leave Kuwait on the 27th. But maybe it's the 29th.

But one thing is FOR SURE.

We're almost done here. We've turned our vehicle over to the New York unit. We don't do missions anymore. We've only got a few more days of guard duty. Pretty soon, we'll be headed home to de-mobilize and get sent home to our families!

For some people, this is a hugely good thing. For others, it's a mixed bag. I still don't have a civilian job lined up, although I had a phone interview the other day that went fairly well. I'm also still pursuing a commission, but who knows how that will pan out. Going home will be wonderful, yes, but there's going to be a whole different kind of stress involved in being home and not having a steady paycheck coming in.

On another subject, we were talking on Monday about how dangerous it is over here. None of us has ever really felt that we were in much danger. The most tense I've ever been was when we were in downtown Kandahar and an Afghan National Police officer came running out into the road carrying an AK-47 and wearing a bandolier of magazines. At a glance, it looked like a suicide vest. While my mouth was shouting "look out!" my mind was thinking "all that vest will do is create a big bloody smear on the side of the vehicle..."

So, no war stories from me. I'm just not creative enough, or good enough at lying, to be able to tell lies about all the really dangerous stuff that happened over here. Sorry to disappoint anyone who was hoping for really exciting stories about how dangerous and deadly it is, I didn't see any of that. And not for lack of trying either!

A brilliant opportunity!

2008-04-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

I realized today what a fantastic opportunity Afghanistan is for eco-warriors and people who hate authoritarianism!

I've talked about what Afghanistan needs before. In order to have any real options, the people of Afghanistan need reliable access to electrical power. Without that, they can't really develop any industry (whether they want to or not; meaning, without electrical power, even if they WANT industry, they can't develop it). Without industry, they cannot increase their per capita annual income, and without increased income, the country won't have an increased tax base from which to draw for public works. It all kind of grows together.

But! if you're interested, the system could be jump-started, so to speak. Granted the Coalition forces are still working hard to provide physical security, which is pretty important for developing the nation any further, but after all, the Coalition forces are still here, so there's that.

Jump start Afghanistan by spending lots of money (and here I'm speaking to eco-warriors and clean-energy advocates) putting wind-power-farms and solar power facilities into place! Ask the US to pony up the money to put the power transmission capability into place concurrently with the development of the wind & Solar facilities, and suddenly (assuming that the Taliban can be successfully dealt with, which is a reasonable assumption if we continue our current troop levels) Afghanistan could have moderately inexpensive electrical power!

All it would take (heh) is for some clean-energy company to front the equipment and installation, and the US to front the installation of power transmission infrastructure. Oh, and of course, some of the clean-energy engineers would probably need to commit to spending several years living in Afghanistan, training locals and managing the maintenance and development of this new infrastructure. But at the end of five or ten years, you could have a country with the OPTION of entering the 20th century, if they so chose.

I wonder why no clean-energy or green-friendly companies or organizations are proposing this now?

Hey, did you double check that vehicle?

2008-04-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

Well.

Our Humvee went on a mission to Panjwai district on Monday. I was driving. We went to PBW and Hazi-M'dad(sp?). At Hazi-M'dad we discovered that our vehicle had shed about 1/3rd of its "serpentine" belt. This, essentially, is a single belt that performs all the functions of multiple belts in a civilian vehicle. Drives the AC, the engine cooling fan, the compressor for the AC, the power steering, etc etc.

Well, this was not an IMMEDIATE emergency, but it did mean that the belt HAD to be replaced when we got back. Which resulted in a VERY long night for myself and Specialist White. Long, and tiresome.

Anyway, the vehicle ended up spending two days at the shop, and the belt tensioner, the fan clutch, and the AC compressor were all replaced. It was returned to us on Thursday, and Specialist Anderson and myself took it over to KAF today to go to the PX.

When we got there, I commented that it smelled like Antifreeze. Anderson replied that of course it did, the vehicle had just been reworked, and they'd probably put new antifreeze in it, so it would smell like that, wouldn't it? I figured this was probably true, since I almost invariably spill anti-freeze and oil on the engine of MY vehicle back home when I'm working on it. No reason to assume that's not also the case for the maintenance section.

Well, when we returned to Lindsey, I got out and noticed that it REALLY smelled like antifreeze. Oh, and the right front tire was wet. Which was odd. Despite it having rained the last few days, there is no standing water between here and KAF, so the tire shouldn't be wet...

We decided that we needed to look under the hood. The engine was covered in antifreeze, and we couldn't figure out why. We thought a pinhole leak at first, or a crack in the reservoir. Eventually, though, I realized that the hose that leads from the top of the radiator to the reservoir had not been reconnected. When the radiator heated up, it was venting hot antifreeze all over the engine compartment!

We fixed this in short order with our handy-dandy Government issue Gerber Multi-tools, and then we went to find the maintenance crew and rag them for missing such an obvious detail.

Lesson learned. Always double check behind the maintenance team. They forget things too. Even simple, obvious, easy things.

The long road home

2008-04-02T01:49:00.000-07:00

Well. Today is 2 April, 2008. Probably within a week, we will be done with guard duty. Several NCO's from the New York National Guard unit that is replacing us have already arrived, and when their troops show up, they will take over guard duty from us.

We will, probably for another week or so, run missions with their troops, kind of left-seat/right-seat to give them the benefit of our experience. However, the New York guys have already spent a tour in Iraq, so it remains to be seen how adaptable they will be to learning from OUR experience.

I've carved another sword, this time a samurai sword out of a 2x4 for Sgt. Stafford. In exchange, she provided me with a woven bracelet for my wife. Heres a picture of my latest collection (two of which are missing now):

Jamal (whom I've added to my Yahoo Messenger) has me attempting to understand the ins and outs of a Cisco 2600 router. This is going swimmingly, since it's kind of cumbersome to work on, and not nearly as much fun as some of the other things I can do with my time.

I also have several resumes out there, looking for bites. I have a phone interview with one company next week, as soon as we can finalize a date. I'm also still proceeding apace on the Direct Commission process.

Finally, I've been reading the book of Romans again, and I'm starting to understand a side of Paul that I don't think anyone else talks about. It's quite fascinating to see how human he is, and to recognize why he's thinking the thoughts he is.

My wife is counting the days until my birthday, figuring I will be home by then. I think that's a safe bet. It's less than 880 hours now.

Oh, and finally, unless something happens in the next 7 days, there will probably be No CIB for me. :(

EDIT: wow, looking back over my last two posts I sound really ungrateful and snobbish about the books Aunt Diotima sent me. That's not at all the impression I was trying to convey. I guess I shouldn't blog when I'm tired.

In every (well almost every) one of the books Aunt Diotima sent me, there was some aspect of the book that I really enjoyed. And I read all of them, even the ones that annoyed me, and was grateful to have them for diversion. I tend to be very sarcastic in person, and also very picky (as my family can tell you) with regard to everything that I consume. Reading material is no different, and I complain vociferously about any aspect of what I read that I do not fully enjoy.

Anyway, I would just like to thank Aunt Diotima personally for the books she sent, and hope that she is not offended that I didn't praise them all uncritically.

March of 2008

2008-03-23T02:11:00.000-07:00

So, March is more than halfway over. Not much has happened. The weather is warming up. I've been watching the sun set from guard duty. I've seen the green shimmer of light as the sun sets, again. The first time I saw it was last summer.

I've read a ton of books lately. I've also worked with the guys at Hajji net. We've just about got the internet thing straight, and I've created a lot of documentation for them.

Now that the internet is working passably well, I hope I can update more later.

wow!

2008-03-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

So much has changed in the last month, it's hard to know where to start!

Okay, I went to Kabul for 2 weeks. That was like being in a foreign country. I didn't know anyone and had nothing to do but work, eat, sleep and play on the computer. On the one hand, it was kinda fun. On the other hand, it went on too long. On the day that I left, there was a VBIED (vehicle-borne-improvised-explosive-device) attack on the airport. Presumably after I flew out, because I don't remember hearing any explosions.

When I got back I found out that the police station in Panjwai, where we used to go with the Misfits while out at Sperwhen Gar, was hit by a VBIED also. If US troops were there, that would have caused some casualties. Also, the mortar vehicle has been the lead vehicle in a convoy since I was gone. Being lead vehicle is the only position that is any fun for a driver. Well, at least for me, anyway.

I've read easily 12 books in the last month. My Aunt sent me several, and I've read my way through most of them. All of them were slightly odd, and none were really satisfying to me personally, although I could tell the authors were trying to create real works of "literature." Mostly I could tell this because they tried hard to mix in bits of tragedy, you know, no REAL work of literature can ever be fully cheering or satisfying. If it doesn't make you cry as well as laugh, it's not REAL "literature." /sarcasm off

We're likely leaving FOB Lindsey for good late in April. They tell me that I will almost certainly be home in time for my birthday, which is nice. I had hoped sooner, of course, but that's okay. As it is, I am counting the (likely) days until we leave for Kabul to out-process. I have several boxes of books and other things to send home over the next couple of weeks, so that I don't have to pack everything in my duffel bags to get it home.

The weather has warmed up. Some days are almost hot, most days are cool, and very pleasant. I doubt this will last long. Evenings and mornings are still pretty chilly, but the days can be very, very nice. I've take to working out again, 5 days out of six this time, and taking one day off. I'm considering adding a PT Test to the schedule as the 6th day out of 7, just to see where I am in terms of score.

I continue to look for a job back home. I haven't had any luck yet, but I can really see the light at the end of the tunnel now, so I'm working feverishly at the jobhunt. I'm worried that my skills are rusty and it'll be hard to land a job. Then too, there's the fact that I have no certifications in the IT field, which is almost the kiss of death these days. I may end up needing to take the time and put in the effort to secure MCP and A+ certifications when I get home, in order to have a real shot at getting another good job in the computer field.

No more wood-carving of late. I haven't been able to find any good lumber for it, sadly. A lot of the local stuff is really really dense and hard, so it takes forever to carve. I like seeing results fairly quickly, so I don't enjoy spending weeks whittling at one piece of 2x4. Plus, I think my Gerber multi-tool is getting dull, perhaps, so it has become less easy to carve.

That's a quick update, hopefully I'll be able to come back with more later. Maybe I can talk politics at some point and tell you why I disagree so fervently with John McCain.

UTS server fixed and a trip to Phoenix

2008-02-25T22:24:00.000-08:00

Well, after working on the linux server for a couple of days, I have finally managed to get it working (I think). At least, if it's not working, they haven't come over to complain yet. I tested it last night and was sure it was working, anyway.

Technically, I'm not learning to work with Linux, so much as with MicroTik RouterOS, which is an overlay that goes on the server over the linux OS. I think...

Anyway, unless I hear different, it's fixed, and already it's showing a marked improvement. Someone in Zone 1 is really hogging all the bandwidth. REALLY.

Also, in the next day or two, I'm heading to Camp Phoenix via airplane to help the Supply Sergeant, SSGT Bobby Hall, with data entry that has to be done in timing with the computers back in the states. I don't know how long that will take. Hopefully the UTS guys can get by without me in the meantime. Also hopefully I'll have some good pictures of Kabul when I come back.

Sick for the first time in Afghanistan

2008-02-24T17:28:00.001-08:00

After almost 10 months of being in-country, I have finally come down with a head cold. It's probably just my annual bout of sinusitis, actually. It feels about the same as usual, scratchy throat, sinus pressure in my forehead, lots of nasal drainage. It makes me feel miserable for a week or so, then it goes away for a couple of weeks, comes back for another week, and then I'm done with it.

I had been wondering, in the past year or so, if it might not just be allergies, since it happens every year in the spring. However, Afghanistan is dry, there's not much pollen (although there is dust in the air, yes), and so I think I can rule out the simple allergies explanation.

Regardless, I'm pathetically under the weather for the moment. We do have the UTS server fixed, finally. Hopefully the internet will be running at a decent speed soon for everyone, and it won't take 2 weeks to upload a picture to blogspot in the future. There also is an upcoming trip to Camp Phoenix in Kabul. I hope to take pictures up there as well, so I'll have more interesting stuff to show everyone.

Whittling away the hours

2008-02-15T02:58:00.000-08:00

So, killing time gets to be the major goal of anything you do while on guard duty. Lord knows I stay busy enough when NOT on guard duty, between EverQuest and working on the network. As I mentioned before, I've been doing some whittling.

here's a picture of the first two swords I made, and the 2x6 that I acquired as a blank for my third attempt:

Here's another picture of the three finished articles:

There, finally I've managed to upload the picture you've been wondering about all this time.

My work as a UTS network engineer

2008-02-14T02:10:00.000-08:00

Well, finally, Chief Simonsen (of the US Navy) has had enough and arranged for me to work with him to set up UTS. UTS (Universal Telecom Service) is the actual name of what I used to call "Hajji-net."

They have a Windows 2003 server, and a MicroTik linux server (which is currently in the shop). We have knowledge and expertise and a fluke NetTool for use in diagnosing problems on the network. And believe me, there are major problems!

We have tried installing and using Bandwidth Controller, but either I configured it wrong or the software is just junk, because it blocked all the users from the internet. The Linux server allegedly has built-in bandwidth control capability, though, so we might be using that as our gateway when it returns from the shop.

Meanwhile, I've spent all day today sitting in the UTS office (which is inside a shipping container), dealing with soldiers, sailors and civilians who have network issues. Part of my day has been spent compiling a database of users, listing their IP addresses and their MAC addresses, as well as which part of the FOB they are on (what "zone" they're in). And this afternoon I've been running around playing "test the cable" with most of the whole network backbone. Yay!

All of which has left me with a really tired feeling, although I haven't done any physical labor. Thinking is tough on the body.

Jack Hinks!!

2008-02-06T18:02:00.000-08:00

Jack Hinks is the new rallying cry for me and the younger mortars. We shout it at each other when something positive happens, when we're trying to identify each other walking around the FOB at night, or when we're trying to surprise the local nationals. They look at you really strange when you shout "JACK HINKS!!" at them.

We've also decided that we're going to start an "escort service." The mess hall now requires badges for us to get service, which is good. But that will restrict some of the more attractive females who live and work on KAF from coming over and eating in the mess hall. So the "Jack Hinks escort service" will provide these lovely enlisted ladies with an escort who can get them into the mess hall.

The purpose, of course, is to provide a morale boost for the SECFOR troops living on FOB Lindsey, and to give these lovely ladies an opportunity to partake of our wonderful KBR meals, which are indeed preferable to Supreme meals.

Also, I've come up with a nifty logo for the Jack Hinks escort service. Here it is:

In addition, I've started carving swords out of pieces of wood that I find around the area. I've carved a short, gladius-type sword, and am working on a longer, Viking-style sword, but currently I've got a blister on my right ring finger, so I'll be restricted from doing any more carving while that heals.

We went on a mission to Qalat last week. Just above Qalat, there's a mountain range that was covered with snow. It looked like a wave breaking over the city. I took several pictures.

Living in the Loft

2008-01-26T01:14:00.000-08:00

So, now I live in my loft. It's very warm up there where I sleep, and I have lots of desk space down here where I work and play EQ. Here is a picture:

Sgt. Mitchell lives on the other side of the partition that divides this half of the B-Hut. The partition does not stretch to the ceiling, and Sgt. Mitchell snores, a lot. Loudly. And so Anderson has trouble sleeping. Not me, however. I'm long since acclimated to snoring. ;-)

I'm back on tower guard this week, and I've got my workout routine going again, which is good. I feel good about getting in shape, and have started running. I anticipate bringing up my PT test scores a few points when we take our next test for record, which would be good.

There was a pinning ceremony the other day, in which several soldiers received their CIBs. One CMB (Combat Medics Badge) was awarded as well. In addition, one of the E-5's was officially promoted to E-6.

In addition, there are still rumblings about the internet. It is not bandwidth throttled, so currently the first person to get a connection gets as much bandwidth as they can use, and then everyone else fights over what's left. Meaning that you can often have 10 or more users fighting over 64kbps of bandwidth while 2 or three users are getting 200kbps each. There's free or extremely inexpensive software that you can buy to fix this, and I've suggested that to the Navy Chief who's working with the internet guys, but they (the chief and the internet guys) haven't acted on it yet. Here's hoping they make a change before someone gets fed up and cancels their accounts.

I still haven't figured out the hit counter, by the way.

Not too much longer now!

2008-01-24T01:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm not counting down the days yet, but I'm pretty sure I've got less than 12 weeks to go. I'm counting to April 19th, and February has 29 days this year. That means 79 days plus whatever's left in January. So, 12 weeks, 2 days as of right now, to April 19th.

That's pretty exciting.

I've started a new workout routine that includes an extra day. This is taking some getting used to, especially since the extra day is just jogging, which I absolutely abhor. But, since the PT test includes a 2 mile run, and the only way to work those muscles is to use them, I need to add it in. I plan to take a PT test as soon as I can after it warms up here, or after we get home. I'm not sure which. But the goal is to improve on the 211 I earned at Camp Shelby. After all the workouts I've done here, I should be able to get a better score...

My hit counter isn't working. I'm going to have to tweak it more to see if I can figure out what's wrong with it. If you have any ideas, feel free to email me.

Missed a(n EQ) raid, added a hit counter

2008-01-20T12:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, so, off guard duty a little early, head to the CP with my laptop. I'm logged in early, all set to go! Then as the raid forms my ping climbs to about 4400, and suddenly I'm disconnected. By the time I'm able to log back in, my spot has been filled and the raid has moved on. Ah, well. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

So, I edited my weblog and added a hit counter. I'm not sure I have figured out how to do this properly yet, so it's still a work-in-progress. Still haven't gotten PureEdge working. Also, I am still annoyed with the locals running the ISP, as they don't seem to recognize that assigning IP addresses based on MAC addresses would be a smart thing to do.

WOW, a jet just flew over so low I think I could have hit it with a golf ball! That was REALLY loud!

Anyway, I've edited my hosts file to include the websites I visit most frequently, because the local ISP has a terrible arrangement that causes websites to be unresponsive very frequently. I'm trying to guide other soldiers on how to do this so as to provide the best, fastest service possible, without actually messing with the ISP's hardware or software, since I really DON'T want to get involved.

The weather has been REALLY cold this week, but it hasn't rained again yet, thank God. There's still mud all over the place, although it is mostly clearing up.

So what else is new?

2008-01-18T19:11:00.000-08:00

Well, truth be told, there really isn't much else going on. I'm playing EQ with my wife in my spare time, as well as posting resume's and checking job search websites. I've spent some time chatting with friends back home using yahoo messenger. Done some reading, and back in the exercise groove. I've also managed to download and install PureEdge, which should allow me to fill out my Direct Commission application forms, if I can make it work. It appears not to like Windows Vista, but where there's a will, there's a way, right?

On Sunday White and I resume tower duty, which isn't a bad thing. We haven't had very many missions this week, although it's been cold and nasty all week long, so it's a good thing we haven't done much. We went out to Panjwai district, to Patrol Base Wilson and parts west. I took some pictures of the snow that was falling while I was in the turret. Here's one:

More to come! If there's anything going on...

Movie reviews!

2008-01-17T04:37:00.000-08:00

Okay, so for some reason, I suddenly watched a whole bunch of movies this week. Let me give brief reviews for them.

Amazing Grace - The story of the abolitionist William Wilberforce in England. Main character played by the guy who plays Mr. Fantastic in the two Fantastic Four movies. The story is uplifting (although massive liberties were taken), but the movie does not excite me. I found it dull and distant. The scenery is great and the costume work is fantastic, but I'm not one of those people who gets all excited about the frills. This was a movie that should have stirred me, but instead left me cold. A 3 out of 10. I will probably watch it again with my wife, but I'm pretty sure I'll either sleep through it, or get on my computer and start playing EverQuest after about 15 minutes.

Evan Almighty - Newly elected Congressman Evan Baxter prays for help to "change the world" and he gets it. God commands him to build an Ark. You might think the storyline is trite, but I am a "true believer." Sometimes God tells us to do things, and He doesn't care about our financial well-being, or our health, or our job, or our friendships. He cares about our spiritual well-being. Granted God doesn't ever appear to me as Morgan Freeman or dance with me under a tree in a field, but His glory is around me every single day if I open my eyes to see. I loved this movie. It was funny, it was moving, and even though I think the directors actually TRIED to make it trite and silly, they failed. Evan Almighty is a keeper. 9 out of 10. I'm going to buy it and watch it over and over again.

Shoot Em Up - A random guy gets involved in a plot to indirectly kill a Congressman. The details are too stupid and gruesome to share. The movie is bloody and stupid. It came across to me as being like "Planet Terror" with higher production qualities, only the plot was even dumber. I could go on, but why bother. 1 out of 10, never see it again, demand to see the EEG printout of anyone who says it was "great" or even "good."

3:10 to Yuma - a "modern" western, starring Russel Crowe and Christian Bale, the characters are overly nuanced and in the case of Crowe's character, unbelievable. The sets were gorgeous, the costumes were great. It has a gay train-robber in it, even (which struck me as just dumb, but whatever). Also, should be nominated for absolutely positively the WORST EDITING JOB EVER in a movie. Whoever edited it, took out a 2 minute long scene that would have left the viewer at the end thinking "ahhhh, I understand." Instead, at the end of the movie you think to yourself "hmm, I didn't quite expect THAT, but something close to it." Watch the deleted scenes and suddenly you'll think "OHHH! THAT'S what was going on." 6 out of 10. I'll probably watch it again with my wife and we'll probably talk about the hidden meanings of some of the scenes afterwards.

So, there you have it. Those are the movies I've watched recently. I'm also looking forward to seeing Cloverfield, The Mist, and a new movie with Nicole Kidman in is that is very similar to "The Forgotten."

I've also read a terrifying zombie book called "The Missing" which literally gave me nightmares for two days. I'm currently wading through a Clive Cussler book called "Golden Buddha" which is weak and tedious.

Missions cycle again!

2008-01-14T22:02:00.000-08:00

Well, yesterday we provided security for the COMGEN of US Materials Command, who came to KAF to learn about the area. We escorted him from KAF to FOB Lindsey, to Scorpion, and back to KAF, over the course of about 4 or 5 hours.

At lunch, I was tagged by Cpt. Bullwinkle to sit with the Generals (a two-star, named Griffin, was showing the ComGen around). I got to ask some probing questions about the future of our efforts in Afghanistan, and was pleasantly surprised. We are working on helping the Afghans develop their transportation infrastructure, which we see as the first step towards making it possible to improve their industry. With improved industry, they will have a larger tax base (increased per capita income), and they will be better able to MAINTAIN the advances we've built for them.

It sounds good. I mean, I'm glad that we're thinking ahead, but I genuinely think it will take decades to build what this country needs to become self-sufficient at the 2nd world level.

Take Civilization, the computer game. Or absolutely any derivative thereof. Turn-based strategy games that involve building an empire. Late in the game, you can found a new city, and buy all the buildings that can be constructed there, giving it all the potential to be a productive and profitable city in your empire, but you have to wait for the population to catch up, and in the meanwhile you run a huge deficit, which you make up for by taxing other cities. And in turn-based strategy games, a turn usually represents a YEAR.

Now, of course, the computer game Civilization (or Master of Magic, Master of Orion, Master of Orion II, Alpha Centauri, etc) does not represent exactly what happens in the real world. However, I think it serves as an excellent example. Afghanistan is essentially going to be a client state of the USA for a couple of decades, unless Democrats decide to cut it loose, in which case we will probably see it return to what it has been for the last 30 years or more.

Anyway, either I've already talked about this, or I'll go into more detail later. In the final analysis I was able to make intelligent conversation about our long term strategy with a 2-star general, and got a coin from the COMGEN of US Materials Command. That was yesterday. Today it's cold and rainy and we're not doing anything.

Guard duty at FOB Lindsey!

2008-01-13T06:51:00.000-08:00

Well, the last four days or so have been spent on guard duty, which, while boring and tedious and not a whole lot of fun, at least means that I can expect to STAY on FOB Lindsey. And this is great news! Because now I have access to a GOOD gym (I've already started a new, 7-day workout cycle), internet access (I've already updated my resume's on four different job search websites, if you want to see my resume' search monster or careerbuilder for hbooraem), and better food! Yay!

Tonight at 1900, I changeover from guard duty to mission cycle. This will be interesting to see how many missions we go on. Right now, my biggest concern is that Specialist Anderson actually does his job and cleans up, PMCS's, and fuels the vehicle in time for the turn-over. He hasn't been doing anything at all while I've been on guard duty (well, except for assembling my wall-locker), and I'm going to be QUITE annoyed if I end up having to do his work as well as my own guard duty and mission cycle. (A note here, I composed this earlier in the day, and Anderson has, in fact, PMCS'd the vehicle since then.)

Other than that, things are going quite well, I think. I plan on putting up a sign and posting hours at which I'll look at people's laptops. Getting asked questions when I'm running to the latrine or when I'm trying to get back to a guard tower from dinner is really kind of distracting.

Also, the new Hajji-net is going to really piss people off. It's been dropping my Yahoo messenger connection pretty regularly, which means that Skype calls will get disconnected a lot. People will be really, really annoyed about that, because the main reason we all want internet access is so that we can contact our families, be it via Skype, Yahoo, or email. Email and EverQuest are both pretty old applications, so they're quite tolerant of transient network outages, but Yahoo and Skype, not so much.

Regardless. Life on FOB Lindsey continues apace and pretty soon I'm going to start the countdown. Sgt Knight is already counting down to April 1st. I plan on counting down to April 15th at the earliest, maybe the 19th. 93 days to the 15th, 97 days to the 19th. The 19th is a Saturday, and seems like a good day to count towards.

Snow in Kandahar

2008-01-07T22:51:00.000-08:00

Yes, it really did snow last night. Yesterday morning, I was gunning for LTC Ritz on the way out to Panjwai district, and we ran through some mixed precipitation right near Panjwai. It stung a lot, and I thought it was sand until I saw the sleet bouncing off my sleeve. Moving 55mph through a sleet storm with your face exposed is not a lot of fun, let me tell you.

Anyway, last night, around 10pm, it started to snow here. By 1am it was coming down really heavy and I have some really cool pictures of it. Today there is snow on the roofs of all the buildings, but the water on the ground is still liquid so it didn't get as cold as it was the other week. THAT could have been very, very bad.

Yesterday's trip through KC was... interesting, I guess. After LTC Ritz told SSgt Knight that everything we've been doing for the last 8 months was wrong, SSgt Knight decided to let him take the lead, so I was the lead gunner on the way back. I had to fire numerous warning shots (in the air?) and holler at a lot of people. I'm glad I didn't have to actually SHOOT anybody, but I'm not happy about firing warning shots into the air. That's messed up, in my opinion. Then I don't have any control over what happens to the round when it comes back down.

Anyway, lets see, Webb has been sent down to Spin Boldak, and there was a motorcycle VBIED there that killed 1 local and injured 5 locals yesterday. Several of the Misfits are going back home sometime this week. And Col. McGrath is on leave so things might slow down a bit for that period of time.

I'm rooming with Anderson in the B-Hut, although we are working on partitioning our room into two parts, so we don't have to deal with each other if we don't want to. We each get a wall locker (cheap wooden thing, not the classic metal military wall locker), and each get a bunk. I'm putting my bunk up in a loft over my desk, so I'll have as much room as possible.

Lets see if the pictures work...

So much has happened!

2008-01-03T22:50:00.000-08:00

A whole bunch has happened since I last posted, even though it's only been about 10 days.

We were out at Sperwhen Gar for about 5 days, and I learned a LOT about incidents that occurred out there before we arrived. There was some heavy fighting in the late summer this year, and it seems the very restrictive Canadian ROE prevented coalition forces from making serious headway against the Taliban in some minor clashes. However, the Canadians made up for that by going after the Taliban with heavy armor and fighting a pretty serious battle with them over three days, which mostly broke the Taliban presence in the area.

Now that it is winter, the Taliban are not so active, because they don't have barracks, and they don't have a lot of gear to issue to their fighters, so they leave them at home, where they can be warm. Foreign Taliban fighters, of course, are still active in some areas, although we haven't made any contact with them.

Our last convoy back from SG was rather tense, because the traffic in Kandahar City was much thicker than usual. I had to bump a small truck out of the way with my Humvee, but didn't have to run anyone over, which is a blessing. We also didn't hit any IED's, which is always a good thing.

I've made close friends with Mahany, who, it turns out, has my taste in fiction (sci-fi and fantasy) and likes to read military history as well. We talked a lot about WWII and Robert Jordan and other similar topics. I learned to play Cribbage with Sgt. Billingsly, although I'm still not very good at the pegging aspect of the game, so I tend to lose a lot more than I win (about 3 to 1, I think). I also had a picture taken of me playing Cribbage and suddenly discovered just how MUCH grey hair I have, which was rather a shock.

I'll post more later, but there's a lot still to talk about.

Christmas in Afghanistan

2007-12-25T04:00:00.000-08:00

Well, we had a Christmas party Monday night out at Sperwhen Gar with all of the misfits. Mahaney made an excellent (if profane) Santa Claus, and we all sang "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus." We decorated the Mess Tent with candy canes, miniature Christmas presents, and glitter-coated pine cones. There was Hickory Farms cheese and sausage, and hot chocolate and crackers and all kinds of good stuff. It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday we drove back in to KAF from Sperwhen Gar, without incident. Not that drives through downtown Kandahar are ever actually calm or peaceful, but it wasn't bad. Now is probably the best time to relate that on the drive OUT to Sperwhen Gar I almost ran over a bicycle that had a 3 year old, a 7 year old, and their dad on it. I had to really STOMP on the brakes to avoid plowing them under, which would NOT have been pleasant for any of us, I feel sure.

AVS DVD player is not working on the House disks any better than Windows Media Player did, so I suspect that my DVD drive is faulty or failing. Which isn't really a huge surprise, the conditions here are dusty and hot, practically the worst possible for maintaining electronics. I watched Batman Begins again and enjoyed that, but I haven't watched Airplane II yet.

Today, I got up relatively early (before 10am, which is early considering that several of the younger soldiers were out partying last night until 7am) and got on the computer at the MWR facility where I chatted with my wife and wished her a Merry Christmas. Eventually we decided to make our way over to FOB Lindsey and eat Christmas lunch here (I'm writing this from my old living quarters). Lunch was FANTASTIC. KBR has it ALL over Supreme in terms of mess hall food, decorations, and general festiveness.

For lunch I had glazed ham (yum!), Prime Rib (yum!), yams, greens, stuffing, and Sparkling Red Grape Juice! It was great. Then we went up on the Gazebee and used most of the golf balls I got in packages. Many thanks are due to Tom Winn, and Fred and Rosemarie Zediak, for their contributions to the cause.

Anyway, now I'm getting ready to go eat Christmas Dinner in the mess hall, and I expect it to be just as good. I hope I can figure out how to put up a picture of the Mess hall decorations, it is amazing.

Hope to update more soon. We should be in the area for a while.

USO show, meeting Adm. Mullens

2007-12-21T06:57:00.000-08:00

Today, we were up at 0500, left KAF at 0700, and drove straight to Patrol Base Wilson (PBW), where we were supposed to meet and talk to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullens.

My first impression of the morning was that the locals were suddenly obeying all of our gunners hand-and-arm signals and getting off the road 100 or even 200 meters ahead of our vehicles, which is a HUGE change from the normal. Frequently they won't even slow down until they are 50 meters or so in front of the lead vehicle, at which point they will try to pass the vehicle in front of them (between their vehicle and our lead vehicle) before pulling over on the side of the road.

Now, you may be thinking "I sure wouldn't appreciate it if people were driving around in my country waving guns at me and forcing me off the road." And you would be right. But then, in YOUR country people don't exhibit any known tendency to pack their cars full of high explosives and ram said vehicle into military vehicles and then detonate the explosives. So, we tend to try to get oncoming traffic to come to a complete stop before we reach them, so that they can't use their momentum to throw the vehicle into our formation, or across the road so that we hit their vehicle, and then blow up a truck bomb killing all the crew in that humvee. It's a self-defense thing, and we try not to be too obnoxious about it.

ANYway, the point is that the locals were suddenly doing exactly what we want them to, instead of pushing the envelope. Typically, anything out of the ordinary is a Bad Sign, so we were very very nervous driving through Kandahar City today. Nothing happened however, and we got to (and later back from) PBW without incident.

Meeting Adm Mullens was kind of anticlimactic, although we did have to do a stupid formation thing (in a combat zone! in our body armor and kit!) and stand around for him to take pictures with us. Well, okay, we were getting pictures taken with him. But still, it was a dog and pony show, and a stupid one at that. Not saying that the Admiral is stupid, just that what we did today was in no way an effective use of our military capability. But hey, that's what the military is like, so I'm not bitter (really).

However, the upshot of this whole misadventure (the admiral was 90 minutes late showing up at PBW) was that we were late for the USO show and missed all but the last 10 minutes, which were Kid Rock singing and somebody else. I, of course, have zero interest in Kid Rock, so no big loss for me. But Robin Williams was there, and I would just like to say that the man is a class act, even though his humor is filled with profanity and vulgar language. Here we have a stand-up comic and comedic actor who is liberal and very much against the war, but he loves to come to USO shows and act up for the soldiers. I literally saw him going all over the place to shake hands and have his picture taken with various soldiers and contractors. He really, really supports the troops, even if he doesn't support the war.

Lance Armstrong was also there, and he was similarly impressive, going up to soldiers and signing autographs even though his USO "handlers" were trying to get him to line up for a photo shoot and stuff. There was also Miss America (no idea what her name is), and another comedian, I want to say Louis Black. I took some pictures of a couple of the soldiers with Kid Rock and another soldier in a group photo with Robin Williams. In addition, the USO was giving away DVDs and stuff that Hollywood in general provided, so I nabbed a copy of Airplane II, and a copy of Batman Begins.

All in all, the USO still rocks, and does a great job, it's just Admirals that are pains in the butt. In fairness to Admiral Mullens, I imagine he got some useful information about Afghanistan from being here in person, and probably got some good intel from the local ARSIC commander. I'm sure he wasn't just here for the USO show... right?

Argh! layout issues

2007-12-19T10:21:00.000-08:00

As you may have noticed, Blogspot has changed some of the code for the blog sites, so now things look a bit messed up. I'm still trying to get the text in the header back centered properly. It took quite a bit of experimentation to get the entire CIB badge to show again.

Yes, I'm back at KAF for the moment. Many things have transpired, and by getting closer to the action, I've learned even more about what our chances are for successfully engineering long-lasting changes in Afghanistan. I'll talk more about that later, probably.

Friday there's a USO show at KAF. Hopefully I'll be able to go to that. I have a new battery for my digital camera, so I can also take pictures. I'll be sure to take pictures of the mess hall here at Lindsey as well. Oh, and of the dog, Lindsey, too.

Back at Lindsey

2007-12-17T04:54:00.000-08:00

I'm back at FOB Lindsey for a few days. We're hanging out here for a few days while the PMT team is on KAF. Things in the Panjawai district kinda went really bad, and we're not sure where we are going to end up. Maybe at Moshem Gar, maybe in downtown Kandahar City, maybe we'll be coming back to Lindsey (although at least 2 of the younger soldiers emphatically DO NOT want to be back at Lindsey, despite the lack of facilities at Sperwhen Gar).

Anyway, today is my first day with internet access since we left for Sperwhen Gar back whenever it was. Sperwhen Gar is a Canadian FOB, manned primarily by French-Canadians, so we don't understand them, and they don't understand us, basically. The TV in the mess hall is tuned to Quebec news television, and all I can ever understand is the Football scores (how about those Baltimore Ravens? They must feel pretty miserable).

Food over at Sperwhen Gar is not terrible, but one day a week hot meals are not served at all, and the rest of the time, you only get 2 hot meals a day. There are plenty of MRE's, both American and Canadian, and there's also usually bread and cold cuts for lunch, so it's not terrible. There's croissants for breakfast almost every day, and they have plenty of hot water so I can make hot tea, which is great.

I've been watching a lot of movies and TV-on-DVD, as well. White has bought 3 seasons of House, MD on DVD, and I've watched some of that, although I've had a lot of trouble the last few days with the images freezing or running in slow-motion. I've downloaded a new DVD player to see if that helps out/works better, but we'll see. I've also checked my email (over 70 emails, only about 5 were personal), and updated the OS on my laptop. Speaking of which, I think I'm going to email the company that made my laptop case and tell them they did a really good job, because my case has been all over the place in the back of my humvee and still is in really good shape.

Hopefully I'll be back around Lindsey for a day or two, so maybe you'll see another update tomorrow.

Vaccinations

2007-12-06T04:14:00.000-08:00

Sgt. Simpson came into the barracks hollering that Capt. Sevilla needed to see us (myself, and Sgt. Knight). Hoping that this was for something important, we hopped up and headed over to the TMC (Troop Medical Clinic).

Turns out, she just wanted to give us vaccinations. Oh, joy! I got FOUR. Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Anthrax, and a flu vaccine. I am quite sure that I will be sick as a dog in the next few days. Just as well, under the circumstances, that we might not leave for Sperwhen Gar until the weekend, or even early next week.

At any rate, I plan on eating as much as I can over the next few days, and staying in bed, since I'm sure I'll feel lousy. I still have some packing up to do, and I finally got the wireless router working, but I'm basically ready to go.

The weather in Afghanistan

2007-12-06T01:21:00.000-08:00

Here lately it has gotten cold. During the three weeks I was gone for leave, it cooled off considerably. Before, it would be chilly in the early mornings, right before and right after sunrise. Now it can be chilly all day long, and with the wind, it can even be cold. Nights are sometimes quite cold, below freezing even, I think.

We still have fairly clear skies, and on the warmer days, it's beautiful. Almost like a beautiful autumn day at home. It almost makes me look forward to being at Sperwhen Gar, where you're much closer to the "wilderness" of Afghanistan. As I said in my last post, I should have some really breathtaking pictures after this stage of the deployment.

On a subject closer to home, lots of pogues (People Other than Grunts) have taken over our mess hall. I don't know where the heck they come from, or why they all feel the need to be in OUR mess hall, but it's disgusting. I went in OUR mess hall today, and it was FULL. Every table was being used. There were probably 60 people in there. And out of all those people, I recognized TWO of them. I didn't even see any of the Pogues that had been here when we got here, everyone in there was a newbie from KAF.

The worst part about Pogues is that they act like they're better than infantry. They have all their uniforms all neat and pressed and spiffy-looking, and they look at you like you're scum because your uniform is a little dirty. They'll ask you "where is your soft cap?" or "where is your weapon?" or something dumb like that. Because it makes them feel like studs to be on a FOB that's out away from the main post, toting their weapons, and knowing that "outside the wire" is literally just 30 yards away. And most Pogues are E-7's or higher. There's so much brass in that mess tent now, that I expect it to get struck by lightning every time a storm comes up.

In conclusion, pogues make me sick. I wish they would all go back to KAF and stay there.

On the bright side, things are looking up for the internet and networking here on Lindsey. A new chief has shown up with the Navy, and is doing an excellent job of designing a new network for the B-huts. Too bad I won't be here to enjoy it...

Moving to Sperwhen Gar

2007-12-03T11:06:00.001-08:00

The move to Sperwhen Gar is either tomorrow, or shortly thereafter. Allegedly I will be able to come back to Lindsey or at least to KAF every now and then and hopefully use the internet, so I should be able to post once in a while.

Meanwhile I've been playing EverQuest and browsing the internet. Oh, and eating ice cream. From what we understand, at Sperwhen Gar and Moshem Gar, breakfast and dinner are hot meals, and lunch is MRE's. I expect I'll lose a lot of weight, and hopefully get in good shape.

Moshem Gar is actually a really cool-looking place, being as it has two mountains inside the compound. So I should end up with some pretty spiffy pictures.

So, how was YOUR Thanksgiving...?

2007-11-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

Mine wasn't too bad. The day before, I reported to the airport nearest my home of record and flew to Atlanta. I boarded a flight to Kuwait, via Leipzig Germany, at 1800. We flew about 8.5 hours to Germany, where we had a 1 hour layover, then continued to Kuwait City. That leg of the flight was about 5 or 6 hours in length.

In Kuwait, I stayed up until sunrise, then slept all day and all night Friday (except for required formations and whatnot). We left Kuwait finally at 7pm or so (local time, so 8 hours ahead of East Coast time now) on Saturday evening, and now I'm in Bagram, where I will be delayed for probably at least another day.

Bagram is cold. Kuwait was chilly, overcast, windy, and, believe it or not, rainy. Although not rainy like I know rainy. It kind of sprinkled now and then. The food was good, though. I had ice cream as often as I could stand it. Since I'm recovering from a mild flu, I wasn't able to eat as much as I did the first time I went through Kuwait to Afghanistan.

Anyway, now I'm trying to log into EQ. Wish me luck. Oh, and God Bless the USO!!!

On leave

2007-11-11T13:06:00.000-08:00

I am currently on leave, at home with my family.

I have also heard from Anderson that when I return to Afghanistan, I will be moved to Sperwhen Ghar as an embedded training team member, or ETT. At Sperwhen Ghar there is no internet access, no telephone access, and it's a Canadian facility, so mail will probably be erratic at best. Expect no further updates, and if you want to get in touch with me, try sending snail mail to:

Hendrik Booraem
SECFOR/FOB Lindsey
APO AE 09355

But don't expect miracles. Or a fast response.

Back from Tarin Kowt

2007-10-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

We are back from Tarin Kowt. It was supposedly a suicide mission, with over 3000 taliban forces in the mountains between here and there. We were escorting over 100 ANA light-skinned vehicles, and it took 14 hours for us to travel ~170km. We made ZERO contact although we lost one soldier.

We stayed a couple of days because it was "too dangerous" for us to drive back through the pass. We actually ended up flying back on a Canadian C-130.

Books and redecorating

2007-10-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

Well, I have read several more books, and watched several more movies. I've watched "1408" which is an adaptation of a Stephen King short story. It was an okay movie. I've read several other books from the CP, none were really outstanding in any way.

I have also redecorated some. Instead of using a plastic footlocker for a seat, I'm now using an ammo crate. I have two other ammo crates that are being used as shelves on and under my desk. It has freed up a little bit of room. There's still some question as to whether we will move into B-huts, and if so, when. Many of us would, by now, prefer to remain where we are, since the B-Huts would probably not be wired for the MWR network, and would only be wired for Hajji-net after we moved in.

Myself, I'm still only focussed on my leave, which is coming up soon. I haven't started counting hours yet, but it won't be long.

Truck fixed

2007-10-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

The truck has been fixed. New brakes, and we put a new rear bumper on it, so we can strap fuel cans to the bumper, and put more mortar ammo in the trunk. There might come a day soon when we need it...

However, in the meantime, we are all staying trained up. We had a Combat Life Saver refresher course today (CLS). We had to give an IV to another soldier (I gave an IV to White, and did a decent job this time), and we had to be given an IV as well (White gave me an IV and we discovered that I have veins of steel. The catheter actually BENT as he was trying to insert it into my vein. But the second time went much better). In addition, we discussed NPAs and OPAs, pressure dressings, tourniquets, and suchlike. It was very informative.

I also discovered that Captain Sevilla will be flying home at the same time as me. Probably on the same flight, even, since there are not many flights leaving around the same time as mine. She was the Physicians Assistant who palpated my potential hernia earlier in this deployment. She has a good sense of humor and doesn't take her rank too seriously (can I say that? We'll find out, I guess).

Also I tried to complete another of my goals for weight training a few days ago and I am JUST short of the mark. I am sure I can do it next time, though.

Truck is in the shop

2007-10-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

Our truck is in the shop and has been for 3 days. We evidently drove it until the brake pads were ground down to metal. And then drove it some more. In the meanwhile, we've used a borrowed truck to go on missions. That's always a super huge pain in the tuckus, as it involves taking the other crews equipment out, storing it in our area, putting our gear in and setting it up the way we want it, then when we're done with the missions, doing the opposite (ours back out, theirs back in). It just adds a lot of work to the prep stage of a mission.

Our last mission was another trip to Sperwhen Gar. We gave 1 to 5 odds against us making contact and actually made $6. I hope I can make some more money this way before I go on leave. hehe.

I have 3 more exercise days to test my last achievable goal before going on leave, so I have to really push myself on that. I feel pretty confident on it though. And my body weight has not been an issue. The heaviest I've found myself weighing so far is right at 180lbs.

Sadly, I'm out of books again. I have one Terry Pratchett book left that I'm saving for the trip home, I've read all the others. Now I'm going through the library in the company CP, but sadly, most of those are violent detective/murder mystery type novels, which just don't help me maintain my witness very well.

Anyway, now I have guard duty for a couple of hours.

Leave is not CANCELLED, just delayed

2007-10-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

In case any of you are worried, my leave has not been cancelled, just pushed back a little bit.

The men we sent to Camp Phoenix have come back, and brought with them Capt. Pinson, who will be staying on our FOB for a week or so. In addition to being a former member of the unit (both enlisted and officer), he is also 1) my insurance agent, and 2) the son of a deacon at my church, and 3) graduated from the same college as me.

Lately I've been playing a lot of EverQuest. The new internet provides fairly decent ping, so I have two options for connectivity, which is good.

Not much else new is happening. Well, I did see a cat the other day and fed it some tuna. And Lindsey, the dog, is gaining a lot of weight. She looks healthy for the first time in a while. Actually, for the first time since I've ever seen her.

My leave is delayed

2007-10-08T06:59:00.000-07:00

The 1st Sgt told me today that he has the flight schedule for November, and I am not flying out on the first. This makes me sad. I'm sure when Sgt. Knight gets back, he will be unhappy about this as well.

However, this does mean that I have more time to make sure that the new HajjiNet is working up to speed before I go home on leave. That's important to everyone here, since most of the guys use Skype to talk to their families. Or Yahoo Instant Messenger.

Now that I know I'll be leaving later, I need to reassess my PT goals (3 out of 5 so far!) and think more carefully about what to pack for the trip.

My role as network administrator for Hajji Net

2007-10-07T06:38:00.000-07:00

So. We have commercial internet access. Some/Most of the time, anyway. I refer to it as "Hajji Net," because we call the local nationals "Hajji's." I'm given to understand that this is a title given to a muslim who has made the pilgrimage to Mecca, but I haven't looked that up, it's just hearsay.

Anyway, the commercial internet is being provided by locals, hence HajjiNet. Due to my background in computers and networking, I've been "asked" to make sure that the locals know what they're doing when they set up the network. So I've been getting lots of questions about "Why doesn't my internet work?" and "What's wrong with my computer?" and that sort of thing.

I've had to re-crimp cables, troubleshoot bad cables, bad ports, and in general bad networking practices. I've helped to run the cable and offered advice on how to configure the network. I also spend a good bit of time testing the networks response, to make sure it's running at the speed we were promised.

In order to do all this, I've been pulled off of mission duty, and not been assigned any guard duty. I spend all my time working on fixing computers, testing the network, or troubleshooting new problems. It's been a lot of fun, frankly, and I'm really glad that I have some skills that can prove useful to everyone in the company, and to their families.

I do still want a wireles router, though. /grin

The time for handwarmers is now...

2007-10-04T02:16:00.000-07:00

The weather has finally changed. It's getting cold here. If I were to wear my shorts and t-shirt outside even in the early afternoon, it would be chilly. My feet get cold just sitting in my area typing away on my computer, even though I'm wearing socks and boots!

Now is the time, if you are of a mind, to send handwarmers! And knee-high socks. I have determined that I get cold easily because my entire shin has a mere 1/4th inch of skin over it. No fat, no muscle, just skin and underlying tissue. So, when the weather is cold, my BONES get cold. It's hard to stay warm that way.

Only 4 more weeks until my leave starts. 27 days, really, and that's 648 hours, or less!

The new internet

2007-10-03T02:38:00.000-07:00

So. The commercial internet has come to FOB Lindsey. But it has it's problems. So much so, in fact, that I was removed from a 4-day mission and left behind so I could work on fixing the new internet.

After 5 hours of troubleshooting and work, I was able to make it work. However, it still needs considerable tweaking, so I'm off mission rotation until it's up and working at the speed we expect.

Feels good to be able to really contribute something to the company.

Monday, October 1st

2007-10-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

My leave is supposed to be in 30 days.

Horne's leave was supposed to start today. His flight was cancelled, so they brought him back here and told him "we'll call you when there's a flight available." So, leave doesn't necessarily start when they tell you it will. Which is understandable, and I expect there to be some flexibility in the dates.

Also, yesterday, I fixed the internet. It had been down for a day and a half, and the brigade staff personnel had looked at it "for two days" according to the 1st Sgt., and it would require the attention of someone who was at Camp Phoenix. Well, I looked at it for 30 minutes and thought about it, and I got it fixed. Not hard. There was a shorted out port on the core switch, and plugging a cable into that port meant that the switch would overflow with bad packets, and the switch above it would block the port due to flow control/bad packets.

So, I felt pretty good that the old network administrator skills are still sharp.

Finally, we had a mission today, out past FOB Wilson. Another one of those "you're almost guaranteed to make contact! They've been ambushing convoys here constantly! They'll be waiting for us!" type of missions.

Naturally, nothing happened. I'm going to start a betting pool, maybe.

And then there were three...

2007-09-28T06:33:00.000-07:00

Horne goes on leave Monday. At which point there will be 3 mortar section members in-country, which is just enough to man a truck. We'll be pretty busy from that point on, since by the time Anderson returns, White should be leaving, and we'll stay at 3 personnel.

My leave is only 33 days away now.

Don't we all love visits by General officers?

2007-09-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we had a Brigadier General, and a Major General, come to our little outpost. They were here to participate in the CIB pinning ceremony for the soldiers involved in the contact back in late May. As with every military, no matter where you are, there is a lot of busy work involved in having a general officer around. Everything has to be cleaned, all the cigarette butts have to be picked up, barracks have to be swept even if the next dust storm will put them right back the way they were. Even if it's the MIDDLE of a dust storm (which it wasn't).

Anyway, we sent a huge detachment of trucks over to pick up the generals, who, of course, were late. Not just 15 minutes, but an entire hour and 20 minutes late. Then, we drove them back, had our little ceremony, had lunch with them, and drove them to FOB Scorpion, where they looked around for another hour or so. Then we took them back to KAF, and were rid of them.

The food wasn't bad, so I guess it was worth having them around. And allegedly we will get a day off tomorrow to make up for all the busywork over the last two weeks getting ready, so at least SOME benefit may come of having them around. Oh, plus the state newspaper was here and took some pictures, so some of the guys will be famous, at least locally.

34 more days until my leave. Not going to count out the hours, not yet. But soon...

Another Busy Week

2007-09-25T03:38:00.000-07:00

Since Sgt. Arflin left, we have been short-handed. In order to man a gun truck, we need 3 personnel - a driver, a gunner, and a truck commander. Without Sgt. Arflin, we only have 5 people.

This has led to Sgt. Knight pulling extra duty, or double-duty, as SOG and then going on missions, within hours of each other. Horne has been promoted to Section Leader and is taking over the task of being Truck Commander (TC), but we're still short a gunner.

And now, Anderson leaves tomorrow to go home on leave for 15 days. To be honest, he'll probably be gone for 4 weeks. Goloyugo just got back, and he left late in August. So, with Anderson leaving, we're down to 4 people, one of whom has to pull SOG duty. Horne leaves in another week, and then I'm not sure WHAT we'll do. Possibly guard duty AND mission rotation? Maybe just missions? We'll see...

I can't even remember now if I was on missions last week. I remember we had a mission Monday to Qalat, and I think on Saturday we went to FOB Wilson and then to an ANA checkpoint near Sperwhen Ghar, but I just don't remember anymore. The days all run together now. Today we had a run to FOB Scorpion, then to An Kopf, and back, which took a few hours.

Oh, yes! Yesterday I achieved three out of five weightlifting goals! My body weight, abs exercises, and bicep goals were all achieved last night. My bench press is the one remaining achievable goal that I haven't yet accomplished!

Busy week

2007-09-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week. Two missions, one a two-day run, and a bunch of work on the vehicle has made for not much time on the internet.

That, plus the fact that the internet has been slow as a 1 legged dog lately, has meant that I'm behind on emails, behind in EverQuest, and behind on my Blog. But I do have a MySpace page now, if you care. www.myspace.com/mrdadx6

Might have another mission still this week. And my bunkmate, Anderson, is supposed to go on leave early next week, so I'll probably be spending more time on missions and less time on guard duty. Which has its ups and downs, of course.

Anyway, the weather is DEFINITELY cooling off, and the sun goes down MUCH earlier now. I keep looking at my yahoo client and seeing that the temperature back home is in the low 70's/high 60's, and cloudy. And here it is sunny and cool in the 80's. It's going to be such an adjustment being back home.

Mission to Sperwhen Ghar

2007-09-17T02:53:00.000-07:00

We went on a mission to an ANA checkpoint near Sperwhen Ghar yesterday. We left in the afternoon, escorting numerous ANA vehicles. They are not very good drivers, and it was stop and go, and constant slinky formation all the way there. We would speed up to 45mph, and then abruptly slow down to 15mph.

We were at the location for about 2 hours. This was the place surrounded by marijuana fields. The odor was quite distinctive, and it lingered in the vehicle for several hours even after we got back.

The Op-order had indicated that contact was EXPECTED, not merely likely, but, as usual, nothing happened. The way back was uneventful, although I had to pay a LOT more attention to my driving in order to maintain proper intervals in the dark.

Today, I learned from the 1st Sgt that we will be getting commercial internet as soon as 50 people sign up for the service. From what I can tell it will be a good service, worth having. It might even give me better ping inside EverQuest.

Back in late June, I set 5 goals for myself for my weightlifting by November. I'm getting close now to achieving 3 out of 5 of those goals. One of them was simply to remain below a certain weight, so it's been quite easy, and the last one was completely unreasonable (although I didn't realize it at the time), so I definitely will NOT be able to achieve it. 4 out of 5 is pretty good, especially when the 5th is practically impossible to achieve.

Leave is coming soon...

2007-09-14T02:20:00.000-07:00

My 2 week leave is coming up in less than 50 days.

In addition, Anderson busted up his pinky finger, and has been on guard duty with me all this week (so far). Ramadan has started and as a result, ECP duty is not as hectic as it used to be.

Everquest has been working rather well, ping times often under 1000, so it's imminently playable. As a result, I've spent almost all my time asleep, on duty or missions, or playing Everquest. Yay Everquest!

I missed an opportunity to be in on a meeting with the contractor who is going to provide us with internet access. I have a feeling it's not going to be that good, and still going to be expensive.

I recently read Hell's Faire, by John Ringo, which was part of a series he wrote back in the late 90's. It was enjoyable, definitely written for military personnel. I've also read the story of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in WWII, and a book about changing missionary work in the world, called Revolution in World Missions.

My black gloves have worn a hole in the fingertips of two fingers, so I am in need of more gloves. I hope I can get some tan cotton work gloves, kind of like gardening gloves, and also get a pair of leather work gloves like I used to have. One for the summer, when it's hot (like now) and one for in the winter.

We haven't been rocketed in a while, and from what I can tell there hasn't been much other activity. Looks like things are settling down.

Another Rocket attack on KAF

2007-09-05T05:19:00.000-07:00

KAF got rocketed last night.

Which is only noteworthy because I was in the shower. I ended up spending 10 minutes standing in a bunker, waiting for the all clear, wearing only a towel and some shower shoes.

We also had a day at the range yesterday. I was able to hit man-sized targets at 50, 75, 100, and 150m with my 9mm pistol. Not as well as with the M4, but still, I'm just as dangerous now with a pistol as I ever was, which is good for me to know.

The 1st Sgt. says that the commercial internet thing is now up in the air, so we might go back to the satellite solution. I just hope we get something that is faster and more consistent. That's ALL I ask.

Another Trip to Qalat

2007-09-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

We had a mission to FOB Apache today. We passed 10 burned out trucks that had been part of an ANA convoy from up north. They had been attacked yesterday evening by the Taliban and had been blown up. They evidently had been hit by multiple RPGs, because there were still some fires burning.

Also, we just had our internet reconnected. Funny story about that, but I won't relate it here. /grin Hopefully shortly we'll have commercial internet access at higher speeds than what we have available.

Then all of a sudden, two weeks pass...

2007-08-29T03:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really. We've been sort of busy. Two weeks means a week of mission rotation and a week of guard duty.

The week of guard duty during which I didn't post, I was on ECP duty from 1500 (3pm) to 2300 (11pm). White and I spent the first 4 hours opening and closing the gate and searching people, and then the last four hours we would spend just chewing the fat about home and family and plans. It turns out he has a wonderful girlfriend who seems to be a very godly young woman, and who has been a tremendous blessing in his life. I encouraged him to marry her.

The week of missions, we prepared, repeatedly, for a lengthy mission which kept getting postponed due to the danger of imminent attack by the Taliban. We did go on a mission up to Qalat, and escorted a LTC around for a while. On the way back, a vehicle had the transmission go out, and I ended up driving the lead vehicle and intimidating oncoming vehicles off the road. That was kind of fun. I also smashed the passengers side mirror by accident.

Now I'm back on guard duty, in Tower 3. I spend a lot of my time off playing EverQuest now. It turns out that our internet connection is stable enough for decent EQ playing at least 6 or so hours a day, so I'm getting in as much time as I can.

Also, yet another laptop owned by a soldier in the company has gone to pot. And again, it was a Hewlett Packard. I'm starting to think that there's something wrong with those laptops.

Fred Jr. comes to sleep with Anderson

2007-08-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Sgt. Arflin, if you read this, you left just in time. Fred apparently had a son, and he came to visit his fathers revenge on Anderson. This morning, we found a slightly smaller version of Fred running up a towel Anderson had hanging on his bed.

We gave chase, obviously wanting to eliminate the situation. But he was agile and got away, and we had to go out to the zero range. Eventually, Anderson caught up to Mr. Fred Jr. Mr. Fred Jr. had taken up residence in the bedclothes on Anderson's bed.

Mr. Fred Jr. got his comeuppance, and started rueing the day almost immediately. Still, I don't think you've have been happy about the situation.

We have a new pet. The ECP apparently adopted a dog, whom Spec. Parrot has named Lindsey. She is a very good guard dog, and apparently a christian, because she barks like heck when the ANA soldiers have their prayers broadcast over the PA system.

The Vomit Sickness comes to FOB Lindsey

2007-08-11T04:12:00.000-07:00

The vomit sickness has made its way to FOB Lindsey. At least two or three people have come down with it, possibly more. Including my bunkmate, who offered me $30 to take his guard shift today. I declined, and made him stand the first half of his guard shift, before going out to relieve him before the real heat of the day made its presence known. Hopefully, the vomit sickness will not affect me. I have been feeling a little off lately, but nothing major.

I have also been looking at ICANHASCHEEZBURGER lately for amusement. Some of the images are stupid, and some are in poor taste, but mostly they're very amusing. Over 100 pages of "lolcats" provided just for your entertainment make for a pretty jolly time.

In addition, today I saw Farhad the interpreter! This is a relief, because I had not seen him since about the first week I was here, and I worried that something bad might have happened to him. It does happen that the Taliban catch our interpreters. When they do, the Taliban behave in their normal, uncivilized, barbaric manner, which always ends up badly for the interpreter. Not having seen Farhad, I was quite concerned about his safety.

Also, I've discovered the best times for the internet are from about 11pm until about 8am, and from about 1pm to about 5pm daily. During this time frame I am often even able to play EverQuest, which is a real diversion from the normal discomfort of life in Kandahar.

Has the weather turned?

2007-08-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

I was on guard at the Entry Control Point the other day, and spoke to a local national who was a KBR interpreter. He said (at least, I think it's what he meant) that the hottest part of the year was over and it was about to start cooling off.

I asked him how cool it gets in Kandahar and he didn't have the command of english numbers to really say. I've heard from other people that it rarely gets below freezing here, though. I hope that's true, because I hate to be cold, as most of you know.

We've been on several missions. One Village Medical Outreach we went on the other day had us coming back on back roads instead of the highway. We got to ford the river and drive over all sorts of rough terrain. I have some pretty neat pictures of the area, including of local children swimming in the canal that ran past all the farmland.

The other day, we were in Kandahar City and passed the fairgrounds / Stadium. There is a permanently emplaced Ferris Wheel there, as well as one of those pirate ship rides that rock up one side and then back down and up the other side. There was also a small concrete race track for racing go-karts. And just about half a mile away was a small village that we visited where half of the children didn't even have shoes.

It was at this village that I gave away my $1 Wal-Mart pocketknife. I gave it to a grumpy-looking 10 year old boy, who wasn't begging us for anything, but was taking care of his younger brother. He seemed a lot more cheerful after I gave him the knife. The upshot of the situation, though, is that I need a replacement pocketknife! So if you can run by Wal-Mart and pick up a $1 knife from their camping supplies section, and mail it to me, I'd appreciate it! Oh, and while you're at Wal-Mart, could you grab 2 bandanas in male-appropriate colors, and send them as well? Mine keep... disappearing, somehow. I probably wash them and lose them in the dryer or something, but there you go.

Shir Zai chow hall

2007-07-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

The new mess hall right here on Shir Zai is due to open today. I'm very much looking forward to that. Having it right there will make guard duty less onerous, make it easier to do my workouts after eating, and give us a place to sit and relax in the evenings.

I've read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was pretty good if you just take it as another Harry Potter book. It was kind of disappointing if you consider it was the culmination of something like 5000 pages of storylines. Still, it wasn't as terrible as I expected it to be, so kudos to JK Rowling for that one.

I read another Terry Pratchett book (thank you, Lynn, for sending me Thief of Time. I never would have read TP otherwise), and found that, yes, ALL of his books are funny and most of them are easy to read. This one was called "Wee Free Men" and I really enjoyed it.

In addition, having been on several missions this week, I have some new pictures of Canadian bases in the Kandahar area. They're called Moshwen Ghar and Sperwen Ghar, and they're both pretty much on top of rough mountains. Which, of course, makes for some excellent scenery. From Moshwen Ghar, I could see a LOT of greenery, which is pretty surprising. The route to Sperwen Ghar actually travelled over a deep, fast-flowing creek, which was even more astounding. Oh, and there was a LOT of marjiuana. There were fields on both sides, and the plants were six to eight feet tall. (I wouldn't have known it was marjiuana but for the people in the vehicle with me. I know nothing about pot.)

Today is pretty much a day off, which we really needed, since we were on missions every day for the first four days of our mission rotation. We didn't expect that and were starting to get concerned that we would have been better off staying on guard duty for rest. You know how the Army is, they like to keep you guessing!

I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but back when we went to Alizah Kalay, Sgt. Hall (our supply Sgt) bought two chickens from the locals. They live on top of the boxes of bottled water next to the laundry room. He's hoping that they will lay eggs for him, but they haven't yet.

Anderson and his CIB

2007-07-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Specialist Anderson was in a firefight at some point during his 9-day-long mission, and will be getting his CIB for it. Congratulations to him.

Also, our temporary dining facility is almost complete, and it's RIGHT OUTSIDE MY DOOR! This is big, very big. I will literally have to only put on my uniform, and take about 50 steps to be INSIDE the dining tent, once it is up and running. It's supposed to be cooking by the end of the month! I'm so excited.

I've started keeping a journal of missions, books I've read, Correspondence courses I've completed, magazines I've read, movies I've watched, and of my workouts. It helps pass the time. The internet (or the Timmy) gets old after a while.

Dust storms

2007-07-22T02:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 21 July, there was a dust storm. Actually, from what I understand, it started Friday night around 11pm. It has lasted through today, although it's not as severe today. Yesterday, the visibility from the towers was MAYBE 600m. Really, you couldn't see much past 300 meters.

Today, it's much better. I could probably see out to about 1500 meters. Large targets, anyway. For point targets, I probably couldn't have spotted anything beyond 800m. It was a lot like a foggy day, only the fog was dry and yellowish, instead of damp and gray. Still, the meagre shadows and the smell of burning wood somehow reminded me of being at The Citadel in the late winter.

Today should have been my last day on guard duty, although if circumstances require it, I will be pulling guard duty again next week. We'll see how that goes.

I saw Specialist Nelson today. He and I have talked several times about the predestination issue (he's a studious man of God), and he advised me today to read carefully Romans 6 and 8. I think I will finish Romans and then go back to the start and read it over again, and see what I think then.

Construction begins!

2007-07-20T01:43:00.000-07:00

KBR has begun construction of our temporary dining facility, and of our permanent facility. Hopefully, the temp one will be up and running by the middle of next month. Then no more 1.5 hour-round-trips to KAF to get lunch or dinner!

I've been on guard duty this week, 0600 to 1300. Nothing much has happened. I've spent some time studying Romans, and I can see where the doctrine of predestination originates, but I think that it stems from a misunderstanding of what Paul is saying. I've spent a lot of time talking to a soldier named Nodine about spiritual things, and psychology.

From what I understand the troops are due back tonight. Godspeed to them.

What a difference 15 days makes...

2007-07-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

Well, in the 15 days since I last posted, I've been rather busy.

I was on guard duty for another 5 days after my last post. Then another day or so of 1 6-hour shift per day, and then I was rotated to missions. I spent the last week going on missions every other day, and have been on 3 missions this week.

We went to FOB Apache, outside of Qalat, and back, twice. Once we were given info that there was a potential IED site along the way, but we made no contact. We've been on the lookout for specific threats that have been mentioned in convoy briefings, but have not seen any of these specific targets.

On Friday we went south a bit to a village named Aliza Kalay, where a Village Medical Outreach was taking place. There were over 20 vehicles, and over 100 personnel participating. We provided security for the mission personnel, and even deployed our mortar in case of dedicated attack by the Taliban. We have heard, from people who allegedly are in the know, that the Taliban are making a big push in the area this summer, and that they would like nothing more than to be able to claim that they have control of Kandahar City.

I've been doing a lot of work on the vehicle, becoming more familiar with the various systems that we have now. I've also pressure-washed the radiator, which has reduced the engine heat a little bit, and made the vehicle run a little smoother, I think.

I've only been gunner on one mission, and that got me into a bit of hot water with the company CO. He disapproved of the TC's method of conveying to bus and jingle truck drivers that we want them to come to a complete halt when our convoy is passing them. Hopefully I'll get to gun again, because your rear end doesn't go to sleep as easily when you are gunning.

We had a big barbeque for the 4th of July. Anderson and I were able to attend and get lots of food. I even managed to acquire half a case of orange soda for my personal use. And, even better, the Supreme meals are actually pretty good (well, except for breakfast). Although, the KBR mess halls are still operational. At least, two of them are. Frequently we go to those chow halls, since take-out is much more readily available from them.

Finally, I have just today finished watching all of Season 3 of Stargate: Atlantis. I was pleased that they focussed so much on Rodney McKay, because that character is by far the most consistent and entertaining in the program. I do hope that the Dr. Weir character is replaced in Season 4, and I miss the Dr. Beckett character already. That character was frequently a really good foil for various other characters in the show, and I think the lack of that variety will be a bad thing for the future.

Not much else to say. Will try to update again more frequently in the future.

Dining Facility - Under New Management

2007-06-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

The dining facilities on KAF are now under new management, being run by Supreme, instead of KBR. My first impression is that this is a change that I will NOT appreciate. This mornings breakfast (brought to us on guard duty by the 1st Sgt, God love him) looked like 2 used tampons, a dog turd, and a pile of play-doh-yellow cat vomit, over a serving of baked beans. The bread wasn't terrible, but I only got one slice. The yogurt was also runny, although not terrible.

It was hot and humid overnight, and the skies are still thoroughly overcast. It might well rain again today. It certainly will be another sweat-factory day at the ECP for myself and Anderson. Today will be the second day of 6 on/6 off for us. Or the third, I'm not sure. It's hard to get enough rest in the six hours you get off. However, it's going to work out that we get a week of being on missions, and get to rest when we're not on missions. So that should work out well.

It rained today

2007-06-28T08:42:00.000-07:00

It rained A LOT. Anderson and I were on guard duty, and we're both completely soaked. Our uniforms went straight into the dryer when we got off of duty. The river next to the compound is swollen to the size of a flash flood like you see on TLC or Discovery. There was a huge mud puddle 6 inches deep just outside the gate. I know, because I had to stand in it to be able to read ID badges of incoming personnel, because of the water on my glasses.

However, about 1910, there was a rainbow in the southern sky, and the mountains to the east were glowing a brilliant red. I have several pictures of this moment of beauty.

I ask again that, if you read this, you would pray for me. Thank you, and God bless.

Sandstorms and a rough week

2007-06-26T01:28:00.000-07:00

So far, we've had sandstorms both today and yesterday. They're really not as bad as in, say "The Scorpion King," but they are very annoying and you don't want to be out in them. Visibility is reduced, and remember that Afghanistan is pretty much a garbage dump everywhere, so every blowing piece of dust probably has some fecal matter particles on it somewhere...

The dust gets in your mouth and everything tastes crunchier. All you can smell is dust, and horse manure. Even the rain (which followed yesterday's dust storm) smelled like horse manure. There was also a thunderstorm last night, which was pretty cool, although we couldn't hear the thunder. We could see lightning in the distance, and that was pretty neat.

This week is kind of rough for me, because my family is on vacation, and I can't communicate with them as much as I have been lately. I know they're having a great time, and I'm glad of that, but I really miss talking to them, and sharing things with them.

I've been getting the Crosswalk daily "clean humor" email, as well as a weekly "things that you might find handy" email. Today's "things you might find handy" included something on Singles and the Christian lifestyle, which I've forwarded on to Anderson. I think it's a good idea for people to start thinking early on in life about whether they are the type of person who can be a strong Christian and be single. If you can't (and I definitely wasn't the type for it), considering marriage is a really smart move. Better to be married than to burn with desire, after all.

Horne's wife sent more care packages full of donated stuff, which was great. I got more baby wipes and some "cracker bites" which are actually pretty good. I also picked up some "espresso candy" from Sgt. Knight, which is helping me stay awake on guard duty, so it's a good thing.

Keep praying for my witness, please. It's the most important thing. Some very challenging circumstances are coming up in the near future, and I really need to be able to respond as a Christian first, and as a soldier second.

Blacked out again!

2007-06-24T00:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, we've spent a little more than the last 24 hours blacked out, but the internet is back. Evidently there was an American KIA in the 209th corps area yesterday. I spoke with a soldier with whom I serve a lot of guard duty and he asked me to call his grandparents if anything happened to him, rather than them having to hear it from someone impersonal in the National Guard.

It's funny. Some people accept that a blackout is going to happen, as long as it only lasts for 24 hours. But with apologies to Alan Keyes, it's not how much of your internet they control, it's that you have to justify your access to them at all. The worst part is that, some day soon, we'll move into actual barracks, and have to pay for internet access there, but will still be subject to blackouts. If we had our own satellite internet, it wouldn't be as fast as DSL, but we would have more control over it, ostensibly.

Ah, well. Such are the trials of being a soldier. It could be a LOT worse, obviously, so while I'm griping a little, don't take this as being a life-and-death or even gravely serious situation. It's more of an inconvenience now.

Also, we went to the bazaar yesterday. I'm pretty confident that I'll buy my wife a nice jewelry box next time I go. I didn't want to buy anything yesterday because I wanted to be sure what I was looking for and get a feel for how much I should pay. I'm also looking at possibly buying a large piece of Lapis, especially if I can figure out how (and to whom) to sell it when I get it back in the states. I saw a fairly good quality piece yesterday that weighed about 10lbs (3.7 Kg), and the vendor wanted $220 for it. I think maybe if I got it for about $50, I could make some money off of it, but I'm not entirely sure.

Anderson and I have been talking more about our faith. He is constantly telling me about his girlfriend and how great she is, and I spend hours telling him how fantastic, wonderful, and gorgeous my wife is. It helps pass the time.

Happy Birthday to us!

2007-06-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

This evening I ate dinner with the interpreters in their dining facility. The food was eggplant casserole (I think), and some kind of stew beef au jus. We also had their homemade bread and watermelon for dessert. It was all very good food. You would have to have known me through college to know just how astonishing it is that I ate foreign cuisine. Trust me. This is major.

So, then, once I got back to the barracks, I found that someone had sent us 6 ice cream cakes and some ice cream, for everyone who had a birthday in the first 6 months of 2007. So I had a slice of ice cream cake and took a video of 3rd platoons Plt Sgt leading the company in a round of "Happy Birthday."

All good morale building stuff. So far the 6 hour shifts are working out okay, although we've gone to 1 six-hour shift per day, instead of two. Which I think I can handle quite easily, although 0700 to 1300 is a very hot shift...

4 hours on, 8 hours off? Or 6 on, 6 off?

2007-06-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

So. Guard duty is changing. Up until now, we had been through several different arrangements. For a while, we served 4 hour shifts 1x a day. That was pretty nice. But some soldiers complained that they didn't get "days off." And besides that, we weren't running many missions during that time frame.

Then, we went to 4 hours on, 8 hours off. So essentially you worked 8 hours a day, broken up into 2 4-hour shifts. That wasn't TERRIBLE, although it does make it hard to get a good night's sleep sometimes. And some soldiers complained that they weren't getting "days off." And when the number of missions increased, there was a set group of soldiers who were always going on missions, meaning that the soldiers who got left behind and pulled guard duty were always the same ones. They didn't like that. And, add to that the fact that someone pointed out, when we start sending soldiers home for their leave, we're going to be even more short-handed, and we'll have some soldiers pulling 3 4-hour shifts per day to make up for the missing soldiers.

So it was suggested that we go to 6-hour shifts. After all, that reduces our headcount requirement by 50%. And if the missions are organized based on which soldiers are NOT on guard duty, then the soldiers going on missions will be more varied. And if we schedule a rest plan, so that the soldiers who just finished 2 days of guard duty (24 hours on, 24 hours off) only have to work 4 hours per day or less, we should be able to meet everyones needs!

Today we make the shift to 6-hour shifts. I hope it works as well as it's proponents claim it will, although I have grave doubts. The biggest worry I have is that the soldiers who SHOULD be on "rest plan," will be asked to go on multi-day missions, leaving the soldiers who are on guard duty to STAY on guard duty indefinitely. While the 6-hour shift may require 50% less personnel, it will also cause at least 50% more strain on the soldiers who work it.

Stay tuned for the results!

Daily update

2007-06-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

To be honest, not much is going on lately. I haven't gone out on a mission since mid-may, so there's been a lot of guard duty. We hear that a chow hall is going to be built on-site, and were all excited about that for a while, until we found out that the earliest it would be completed would be 1 October. We were also excited about the idea of moving out of the barracks we are currently in, into the buildings DESIGNED to be barracks (instead of office buildings), because the real barracks are supposedly going to have faster speed internet access. That'll only cost us $140 per line. (I think we'll try to split that 4 or more ways and install a switch in the building)

I was thinking of things that we (the company) or I (as an individual) could use.

I could use some tuna fish. I'm down to two cans. I eat it with Saltines when I work out during lunch break (which I do to avoid other people in the gym), and miss getting a ride to the chow hall at KAF.
I could use some Aleve, or other long-lasting painkiller. My body armor weighs about 50lbs, and 4 hours of guard duty causes it to chafe. My shoulders, back, and feet end up hurting quite a bit.

All the soldiers could always use AA and AAA batteries. We all have electronics that use these batteries.
We really need some shower curtains that have magnets in the sides. Shower curtains for stalls, not for a bathtub/shower combo. We have six shower stalls with tiny scraps of shower curtain for each one. Some of the scraps are ragged, or curling on the edges.
Would you believe we could use laundry soap? We have one building that houses 4 washers and 4 dryers, and a communal laundry soap would save a lot of the soldiers time.

As I recall from a briefing, I'm not allowed to make a blanket request for anything, so please don't consider this a request. I'm just saying these are some things that I could use, and some things I know the company area / the other soldiers could use, nothing more.

Kaboom!

2007-06-18T22:46:00.000-07:00

So far there have been three large explosions today. I don't know what they are or how close they were, just that the first one was much closer than the second two, and the third one was at least 20 minutes later than the first two. Don't yet know what they were, although I suspect mortar gunnery at the range, or possibly aircraft bombing practice. They could certainly be IEDs on the road just outside post though.

After all, the Taliban, from all reports on the internet, are making a big surge in Afghanistan this year.

Latest goings-on

2007-06-17T21:51:00.000-07:00

Well, lets see...

Since I last posted, we've had quite a few missions go out. They're not always convoy escort, sometimes they're "drive to here, get out and greet the locals" type missions. One soldier who went on a mission of that type the other day says that we need to get inexpensive sandals to give out to the kids (get them in various sizes, he suggests) when we go on missions like that. "Afghan Care Packages," as they are called by my section Sgt.

However, Sgt. Knight does not approve of us giving stuff like this out on all missions. Only certain missions are appropriate for humanitarian aid items. Since I haven't been on ANY missions since mid-May, I haven't had an opportunity to give stuff away to the local children yet. There are a good many small children staying nearby, and we frequently see them from one day to the next, but I have long since decided that the children who live near KAF are probably the most well-off of all the children I'll see here, and so I save my care packages for the children in the remote villages.

The last couple of days, I discovered something new. The military has a policy of cutting off all internet and telephone access for up to 24 hours if a soldier gets killed. While I think I understand the rationale behind this policy, my personal feeling is that it has a more detrimental than helpful effect. Besides which, if the military doesn't trust us to keep secret a soldiers death, why trust us to keep secret any other important details of our operations here? Maybe I shouldn't ask that question too loudly, though, huh?

We've had another company barbeque here on post. Those are fun, although the meat tends to be overdone. I guess the dry heat of Afghanistan means you have to leave the food on the grill for a bit less time than back home. But, still, the pork loin was fantastic, it's just that the steak was dry and we don't have a real barbeque sauce for the ribs.

After a month in-country, eating 2 and sometimes 3 ice cream bars a day, I discovered that I was adding fat to my belly. "This," I thought "is not acceptable." So, I have started an exercise routine, and cut out the ice cream. I figure cutting out the sugar and fat from the ice cream, and increasing even by a little bit the amount of exercise I do, should allow me to slim back down to my old size in a few months. Maybe I'll even put on some muscle and look intimidating, if that's even possible for a string bean like me. But, regardless, I've started exercising every other day and I'm trimming the old waistline quite nicely.

More updates

2007-06-08T08:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I mentioned the other day that there was only one chapel on the post. As far as I know, that's the truth, but I was on tower duty the other day and spotted a building with a steeple on it, in a different area of the post than the chapel I know of. So, maybe there is another chapel? Or maybe it's a decommissioned chapel? I don't know yet.

The brigade commander came and visited us today. Three of our section were assigned to escort him around in our vehicle, which has just been fixed up nicely. Hopefully they are okay. If they did run into any enemy, I trust that they were able to leave the enemy sufficiently impressed with the ability and discipline of the American Soldier.

The upshot of these guys being on a mission, however, is that the rest of us have to do more of the various duties on post. Guard duties, I mean. This is not terrible, nor am I complaining. Merely pointing out that while they are gone, we work harder than while we have a full complement of troops here on post.

Anderson and I have been talking a lot about what marriage is all about. He is interested in several young ladies and doesn't really understand how to know which one is God's chosen mate for him. He also has (or had, perhaps I've enlightened him) several mixed-up notions about marriage.

Primarily, I shared with him that the best marriages are not about happiness, or love, or children. The best marriages are about commitment. Each partner is committed to the other, and that makes for much more success than simply focusing on any of the other three things I mentioned. Or anything else (except God) for that matter.

I've been playing Ultima Online a lot lately. Mostly because its free, but also because it looks the same as it did back in 1998 when I used to play it. The fact that it's free makes the PKing much easier to deal with. I just shrug and laugh it off now, whereas back then I would have been pretty tense, and even upset. I can't play EverQuest very well because of the high ping time. About all I can do is solo or go on Monster Missions, and that doesn't really lend itself to improving (or even maintaining) my skills with my class.

I've also spent some time playing Half-Life 2, which is quite challenging, and I have no idea where it's going. Far Cry is kind of on hold for the moment, just because I guess I overdid it in Camp Shelby. Halo is really tough for me to get used to, so I'm kind of backing off that for the moment. I haven't played Dawn of War any lately, either, but that's okay. I also have a book to finish and a couple of National Review magazines to read. I try to save them for when we are on missions, though, since I can't take my laptop along.

Care Packages galore!

2007-06-05T05:07:00.000-07:00

The wife of one of the soldiers in our mortar section has been a busy lass. Despite having several children and a job, she also has arranged to have a considerable amount of stuff donated for sending to us here in Afghanistan. Two more packages arrived today, and her husband was giving stuff away to everyone on the compound yesterday evening.

Sgt. Knight even received a care package today, although it appears to have only been a desk lamp. And, of course, I'm really looking forward to the care package that I'm expecting to get from my family. Oh, and now is a good time to mention that I've received two pairs of excellent binoculars, that have already been used for Tower Guard duties and will probably be used at the Live fire exercise that is upcoming. As well, I sent a care package home on Sunday to my family. So there's been mail and packages going everywhere.

Sunday. That reminds me... There are about eight different services on sunday, because the post has only one chapel for all the different countries to have religious services. To date, I have not been able to attend any normal, scheduled services due to the exigencies of military service (ie, guard duty, missions, recovery from guard duty or missions, or details have prevented me), although the chaplain has come out to our facility and given a brief service in our "gym."

Sadly, there's not much else that I can discuss at the moment based on operational security. I try to only tell you about things some time after they've happened, and to never tell you anything specific about operations or plans that are coming up. So, be patient, and check back often!

Contact!

2007-06-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

Well, a while back, our unit made contact with the enemy. Several vehicles, while on a mission in a sector that will remain unnamed, were attacked by what we suspect was an element of the Taliban.

More than one vehicle was disabled, although multiple RPG strikes did not penetrate the vehicles armor. Windows were fractured, and the hull and turret armor of the vehicles repelled multiple small arms rounds. My understanding (I was not there) is that seven or more enemy were killed by accurate return fire from our turret gunners.

I was not present, so I will not get a CIB from this action. However, the troops who were present will be getting theirs. My congratulations and commendations go out to them. Praise God that no one was hurt, and pray that all our encounters with the enemy are as one-sided in our favor!

My "other plans"

2007-05-23T02:34:00.000-07:00

Hehe, I was just reading back and realized I didn't tell you what my "other plans" were.

Well, the night before we left Camp Shelby, we had a 2130 formation to make sure everyone was there. The forecast was for heavy rainstorms during the night. After formation, I took a can of white spraypaint, and a can of blue spraypaint, and walked 3 or so miles from our barracks, to the MOUT site near the East Gate of Camp Shelby's cantonment area.

At the MOUT site, I spray-painted a 218th patch on one of the Con-ex containers that had been converted into a "building." I also spraypainted the Bravo company Rhino (the head, at least), and

BRAVO
1-118

underneath the rhino head. I wasn't back in the barracks until just after midnight, but it was great fun, and I took some great pictures. Since it's been almost three weeks and no one seems to have even commented, I figure it's safe to let you know. Wish I could post the pictures, though!

Convoy duties

2007-05-23T01:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been on two major (multi-day) convoys so far. One went back up to Kabul, to Camp Phoenix, and we stayed overnight, then came back. That was a good learning experience. I was a back-seater on the trip up and got to watch the lead vehicle operations from some folks who seemed to really know their business. Then, on the way back, I was gunner for a 5-ton truck, which was also fun.

One of the drivers of the 5-ton was female, and I gave her a lot of good-natured ribbing. She was really cranky at first, because she was supposed to have been cleared from convoy duty and was leaving in a few days to go home. I gave her the standard "hit" lines, like "so, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" and "Do you come here often?" or "We've GOT to stop meeting like this!" I don't think she once cracked a smile, but by the time we got back, she had relaxed enough to actually TALK about stuff, and ask questions and stuff.

Anyway, she was a very clear-headed, take-no-nonsense soldier. I would consider her very reliable, and I hope she makes E-5, because she'll be an EXCELLENT NCO. I would be glad to have her as a driver on any convoy anywhere.

Then, of course, the other mission was to a place called Dai-ray-woo. At least, that's how everyone pronounced it that knew how to say the name. Mostly we called it DRW. It was a Special Forces compound in the middle of nowhere, and behind it was a beautiful lush green area. I didn't manage to get any pictures of the greenery, and didn't want to take any pictures of the compound, because of security. The food at DRW was okay, I'm not sure where it was cooked, because it wasn't local food, but the place wasn't large enough to have an American dining hall.

The trip to DRW took two days. The first day we drove to a place that shows on a map I have as being called Tarin Kowt. There, we stayed at a primarily Dutch, multinational compound. The mess hall there reminded me of a mess hall scene in the game Halo. It was made of pre-fab steel sections, and had doors everywhere. Most of these doors didn't go anywhere, but they gave the impression that there were emergency escape pods or something all over the place.

The food at TK was... different. A German company provided the service and the food showed it. The bread was different, taller than American sliced bread, and the crust was much chewier, almost stale. There were biscuits that were like really light cookies, and they had chocolate spread, like Nutella. They had Roggebrood or something, that was supposedly rye bread, but tasted like mashed-together, mushy Raisin Bran. The Kool-Aid was amazing too, they had three colors: Red, white, and orange.

The red Kool-Aid tasted like fruit punch but with an aftertaste like womens perfume - very fruity, and almost harsh. The white Kool-Aid tasted like maybe lemonade, but with the aftertaste of, get this, urinal cake odor. The Orange Kool-Aid tasted like the smell of Daffodils. Yes, Daffodils. It reminded me of Easters hiding eggs at Wildwood, and springtime in the country.

By the way, from TK to DRW, there was no road. We were on trails the whole way, and it was very dusty. At TK I slept on the floor, because there were no beds. There was artillery fire from TK the second day, and we think we saw a firefight happening when we returned from DRW. We also saw an Apache helicopter shooting at something.

There's been so much else happening, I could go on and on for a long time. Some days it's hard to stay positive, especially when it seems like you're being treated unfairly, but I had a moments prayer this morning with another soldier (we were on duty together), and that seemed to change everything. Knowing that I'm doing God's work here, whatever it is, and seeking Him in prayer when things are tough, makes it easier for me to be cheerful in everything. Well, most everything.

Oh, also, I read "THUD!" by Terry Pratchett, and it was very good. Another of the Discworld series that I never would have found had it not been for my friend in our Sunday School Class. However, I'm out of books again, and need more. If you have any science fiction or fantasy novels that you're willing to give up, feel free to send them on.

Have I mentioned that we're looking into satellite internet access for the soldiers here at Shir Zai? I've spent a lot of energy trying to figure out what our specific needs are and how to meet them with a good secure network. I've had a lot of help from friends at various companies, some of which are even going to donate equipment to help us get set up!

Anyway, I hope that all of you reading this are doing well, and may God's blessings be upon each and all of you.

Duty, duty, always, the duty

2007-05-16T03:21:00.000-07:00

So, by now, having been in-country for 10 days or so, and at my duty station (Kandahar AirField - KAF) for 5 days, I have pulled all manner of SECFOR duty.

I have spent time on Entry Control Point (ECP) duty, and on Tower guard, and have been on convoy escort duty. I have seen Shir Zai, KAF, Camp Phoenix, Qalat and Camp Apache, and more.

Afghanistan is amazing. Right now is the end of the rainy season, and there are areas that are very green. Most of the country is still desert, or dusty rock, and they tell me that in the months to come, even the green areas will die and turn brown. There are mountains everywhere, and sometimes the dust storms block out the sun.

I've seen native afghans who look like hispanics, ones who look like American indians, and others who look like well-tanned white guys from back home. I've even seen native afghans with red hair, evidently courtesy of the British outpost that was here in the 1800's. I've seen street parties, and small towns that remind me of the old, worn-out parts of town in small towns in South Carolina (except dustier and less green). I've seen open fields used as trash dumps, and flames reaching 30 feet high from incinerators burning generic trash. (although to be fair, with there not being much moisture in the soil, I'm not sure a landfill would work as well here as it does in the states)

The children here, the ones between 4 and 8 years old, wave at us everytime we go by. The older children seem surly (much like American children!). The young adults either ignore us or work for us, from what I've seen so far, and those who work for us are cheerful and friendly (which could, of course, be a front).

A lot of the troops whom we are replacing have very negative things to say about Afghanistan. I wonder if I will end up with the same attitude at the end of this deployment...

I'm in Kandahar!

2007-05-14T02:52:00.000-07:00

So, here I am in Kandahar, at a small place called Shir Zai. Right this minute I'm watching "Anger management" on my laptop, and it sucks. Not only does it suck, it's one of those movies that just makes me feel like crap. So, I'm going to watch the rest of it, then tell my wife, and all of you, just how lousy of a movie it is. (maybe it's just that I dislike Jack Nicholson so much, though).

Anyway, Shir Zai is small. The barracks are just as cramped as they were at Phoenix, but with more amenities and less rank to watch us. Lets see, what else, there's a lot of work to go around, and a nice gym for us to exercise in when we're off duty. The mess halls here are pretty nice, and I like the food. I don't understand why so many people complain about the chow so much.

We flew here from Kabul in a C-130. That was a cramped and uncomfortable flight. I got my picture taken with an Aussie Steyr AUG, though. I still need to get my pic taken with a UK FAMAS, but that's gonna take a while, I think.

Kandahar is a much more spread out base than Camp Phoenix. Phoenix was about the size of a large city block. Kandahar is about the size of DFW. We have several Humvees and LTVs assigned to the company now.

Hmm, I can't think of what else to say. I like Afghanistan so far, though, although I do miss my family. I think I've had some opportunities to witness, but the Lord is making them harder to identify. I think I'm supposed to work harder to identify them and push myself to take advantage of them. I hope everyone out there is still praying for my witness.

At Camp Phoenix

2007-05-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

After a few days of travel, through more nations than I had been through in my entire life up to now, I have arrived at Camp Phoenix, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Kabul is a harsh environment, but I can see a lot of beauty here. The mountains around the city are amazing. There was a thunderstorm the first night we arrived, and it was beautiful. I hear we're about to enter the 120 days of wind, and things will get ugly, dry, and dusty, though.

We've had a full day of briefings, and are preparing for our next movement. I'm photographing just about everything, so I can give everyone a sense of the environment, however limited that sense might be.

Kuwait City

2007-05-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

Now, we're in Kuwait City, at Ali Al Saleem, a transit camp, apparently. A lot of soldiers go through here on their way to and from theatre, either Afghanistan or Iraq. We arrived after dark, and were told no pictures, so I don't have any cool pictures of Kuwait yet, and might not be able to get any.

The facility is pretty nice for the circumstances, and the people seem nice also. Unfortunately, the wireless internet access is neither wireless nor free. :(

I'll write more soon, I hope. I also hope I'll be able to figure out how to post pictures, cause I've got some good ones from our last days at Camp Shelby!