December 25 - 31, 2006
Wow, my first Christmas apart from Kristine since 1993. Actually our first Christmas together was in San Diego in 1994. I’m not sure what to do with myself other than prepare for my fabulous meetings today. The four of us here will exchange a few gifts and munch on the stuff our company sent us. We’ll probably watch a movie or two in between the meetings and listen to Christmas music. It’s still snowing so it will kind of seem like Christmas.
What I forgot to mention in the Week 7 update was the parade of people here in Afghanistan on Saturday (December 23) night. We had a portion of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, some smokin’ hot girl out of Maxim magazine, and Al Franken. Included with them were a ton of support people and virtually every re-blooded American male here on Bagram crammed into the USO (obviously to see Al Franken). We saw whatever her name was Tweeden (the Maxim girl) after removing her makeup and donning a long leather coat; she was unremarkable. I could have passed her on the street and never given her a second glance. It’s amazing what tight clothes, a push-up bra, make up, and hair styling do for someone. Maybe it’s just the photographer making her look that good in the pictures. I didn’t even know who she was until someone showed me the picture, then I was disappointed. I’ll take natural beauty any time over the artificial kind. Ed and I popped into the USO to take advantage of the internet connection. Imagine our lack of enthusiasm to find it crowded.
I must say that I am a huge fan of anyone who comes to these dismal locations on the other side of the Earth for the benefit of soldiers. I may not have been a fan of the female Country singer we had here a couple of weeks ago, but I’m a fan now because she came here to put on a two hour show for soldiers. I cannot remember her name at this moment, but I will. I may not agree with Al Franken on everything, but coming here and lying on the USO floor because he was exhausted is OK with me. I’m sure folks like Alec Baldwin and Susan Sarandon would never make the USO tour. I just wish they had moved out of the USA like they said they would if Bush were elected.
The big inflatable and illuminated Grinch sitting on top of the engineers building was laying face down this morning. It’s apparent to me that he couldn’t stop Christmas from coming and did not want to partake of the Christmas spirit. I took a couple of pictures of him and will forward soon. I felt like I was one of the Whos in Whoville that overcame the scourge of Christmas and took in the grandeur regardless of location or condition. It was kind of neat and almost mystical. My kids will never believe I said that in a few years.
So much for the foot or so of snow we had on the ground. It got warm yesterday, like nearly 50 degrees and turned our snow into six inches of slush. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, our temperature dropped in the evening to a low 18 degrees. Our slush froze. I had planned to go on a run with Nelson this morning, but when I looked at my thermometer reading of 9 degrees and Nelson called to say it was too cold to run, I agreed.
Do you recall a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned ice crystals on the washing machines? I went to do my laundry this morning and attempted to start the washer. No water was coming out. I tried a different washer with the same result. I then started trying the hot and cold water knobs, but they were still wide open. The problem was the hoses; they were frozen solid. We have PVC pipes that the hoses are attached to that are strapped to the interior of the wall and the hot and cold water in those pipes were frozen. Obviously our Chigos (Chigo is the brand name of the heaters for the buildings) were not keeping up with the renewed lower temperatures.
We finally had a couple of days off this week. I didn’t know what to do with myself and still ended up at the shop to clean, organize, or whatever. I tried sleeping in, but that was futile. I managed to do some preparatory work for our trip to Iraq to work on the vehicles there. Yep, I also made some phone calls, listened to some Christmas music, and basically took it easy. Yippee!
Our first batch of armor showed up to wondrous acclaim. Finally, after a couple of days of near boredom, we can actually get back to work. The FedEx dude backed his little Hyundai truck right into our shop to off-load it. It was like opening Christmas gifts. It’s amazing how excited four grown men were about a 300-pound palletized package of armor panels. Although we knew exactly what was in the crate, we could not stop pulling the panels out until we grabbed the very last one and then looked at it with utter amazement. Wow. I guess you folks aren’t feeling the same vibe that we did. I suppose this is one of those “you had to be there moments”.
Did I happen to mention how slick it is outside? With all that snow, the melting, and then the sudden freeze, we have some very slippery areas. Ask me how I know. I was walking over to the PX yesterday with Craig Dobyns and happened on some very slick ice. We knew the ice was there. We could see the ice and because of this we attempted to walk as gingerly and flat-footed as possible. As it turned out, the molecular structure of the ice resisted the gripping abilities of my Vibram boot bottoms (and Craig’s as well) and I suddenly became a professional figure skater performing a double camel with a triple axel. It reminded me of a time a couple of years ago when Cole and I were crossing a log over a creek the size of the Mississippi River that was covered with KY Jelly infused with snail slime. Slick! Although I don’t think Dobyns’ rendition was as elegant as mine, I would have given him 9’s across the scoring board. Evidently our figure skating duet was a sight to behold as we garnered a standing ovation and accolades from the assorted passers-by. Damn, if a 40-year-old guy can perform that eloquently by accident, just think what I might be able to do if I was attempting that (as Cole would say) “for reals”.
You know when I first arrived here; there was decent toilet paper in the bathrooms. I’m not talking about feather pillow thick Charmin or anything like that, but decent multi-ply toilet paper. Well recently we have been subjected to single ply sand paper for our cleaning needs and I’ve got to tell you I do not like it. I came with a couple of rolls of velvety goodness and recently received a four-pack of three-ply heaven from a couple of phenomenal friends who understand these kinds of places. At first I was reluctant about hauling my roll of paper with me to the bathrooms. I don’t know, it just didn’t feel cool or something; maybe I was concerned at how I would look to others. In any event, I have overcome the concerns of others for the benefit of my own well-being. For those of you, who still wonder what it’s like to be in Afghanistan, start using cheap single-ply toilet paper for a while to get that ‘almost there feeling’.
I have received a couple of boxes and letters this week and thank those of you who sent them very much. I must also add that I no longer require any more granola / snack bars for the next month or three as I truly have been blessed with more than I need. Thankfully the expiration date on most of them is well into the summer of 2007. I really have no needs here, but my want list is now staggering. It goes something like this: Wife and kids, booze, reliable internet, booze, American TV, booze, Wife and kids, booze, decent food, and beer. Oh yeah, and throw in being able to go somewhere farther than five minutes away.
We also received quite a bit of stuff from the USO and from regular everyday Americans who send stuff to any soldier in support of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). I received a Christmas card from a VFW in West Virginia and Ed got one from a high school senior in Connecticut. We received some chocolates, nuts, and candies from other places around the states to include a lady from Washington that sent us some stuff from Chukar Cherries there in Prosser. Ed and I took the opportunity to send Thank You letters out to all of the folks that provided a return address on something they sent. It was the least we could do.
You may find this amazing, but Brian N’s brother came through with a request that we emailed him a couple of weeks ago. It went something like this: a bottle of Scotch, a bottle of vodka, two bottles of Jack Daniels, and two bottles of Jim Beam. Yesterday (New Year’s Eve of all days!), Brian received this beat up box from his brother that contained one liter of Glen Fiddich, one liter of vodka, two liters of Jack Daniels, and two liters of Jim Beam. Nelson’s brother put the liquid gold into colored plastic liter bottles used for hiking and such and listed them on the Customs form as water bottles. Genius! We set up the poker table and celebrated the coming of the New Year with a little Texas Hold ‘em and such. It was nice.
Have I told you it was slick? I’ve got another example for you and it happened last night. Once we finally called off the poker game around 0230, it was time to go back to our hooches and get a little sleep. I was talking and waving bye to the guys when J.B. (a guy, not the liquor) encountered some of that icy slickness. Fortunately for him, he had a little liquid courage pumping through his blood stream thereby preventing him from simply slipping and falling. J.B. begat gravity for nearly a full minute with death-defying antics without the assistance of cables, bars, and nets. His body hopped, slipped, twisted, bent, and contorted like Gumby escaping trouble in a circus act 100 feet above the tent floor. I swear to you his routine was a thing of beauty until his head came into contact with the ground. Then and only then, was the show over. J.B. popped right back up, slid a little ways to the left, and announced that he was OK. I’m sure glad he was wearing his fleece cap. There is no doubt in my mind that hat saved him from a potential painful lump.
Once again, it is time for me to close my sneak peek of the week and get back to putting another one together. I hope all-you-all enjoyed a sensible and fun-filled New Year’s Eve.
Cheers!
Craig
Dec 30, 2006
Dec 24, 2006
WEEK 7
December 18 - 24, 2006
I’ve already started on Week 7 and haven’t finished Week 6. Week 6 was tough to write. I’m not sure why, but Week 7 is already much easier. Words and ideas just seem to flow as opposed to finishing the stuff that already happened. In any case you folks are obviously benefiting from my reacquired writing prowess and easy flow of the written word.
Thanks to those of you I guilted into emailing me. I must say I appreciate the comments and information. Sure, I can get the weather and news information, but not the in-depth goings-on of daily life that you guys live. I am certainly not expecting four or five pages from each of you, but four or five sentences are great. Keep the exchange of information going, I’ll do my part.
A few weeks ago I got a book about Afghanistan. I figured since I was here I might as well learn a little about the country. To save you hundreds of pages of benign drabble, the Kabul area is known world-wide for its teas, especially Chai teas. I’ve been slowly asking around and trying to gain information on acquiring such world renowned teas. Should I get my hands on some, I will sacrifice my taste buds first before sending some of this stuff state-side. Obviously I’ll only forward the stuff worthy of such high-brow tea drinkers like those of you who read this weekly.
I have really gotten into teas since I have been here. Maybe I’m beginning to turn English or maybe it’s because I just cannot drink coffee all day long. I brought some tea with me and recently my mother and my wife sent me enough to normally last a year, however I have consumed it in two weeks. I think I have even graduated to amateur connoisseur of teas. I now know the difference between black, green, red, and white teas. I even know what Jasmine tastes like, Charles. I’ll apply for my tea certification and license next month just to make sure.
Buying Christmas gifts online while in Afghanistan sucks. First of all, my internet connection is slow, making those colorful home pages a pain to download and even more difficult to navigate. Many of the online stores want a phone number to confirm your order, but none of them will call Afghanistan. Obviously the best way to buy stuff here is to make my bride the buyer with her contact information and have it sent to her. The easiest online shopping has been with (here goes the plug…) Amazon.com. They will send stuff anywhere in the world and do not require a phone call before confirming and shipping your order. Amazon.com does take two weeks to get anything over here and still requires 7-10 days to get delivery on that side of the earth.
We went to the bazaar on Friday to do a little local shopping. Every Friday, LNs arrive at an outdoor area and set up a little shop each to present and sell their wares. Carpets, wood and brass carvings, Hajji DVDs, and local clothing dominate the bazaar. I must say I fell prey to a cheap carpet and a couple of DVDs. I also could not pass up the opportunity to buy a genuine Ferrari, dual dial, Pinanfarina designed, Italian leather banded watch. Really, I bought it for Cole (although it’s bigger than his hand) and it’s authentic. The LN salesman quoted me an initial price of $1200 and I finally closed the deal for $25. It’s amazing how three minutes of my time and charm saved me $1175.
I’ve learned a lot about carpets recently as well as teas. Doug and Tina bought a few great carpets while they were in Iraq and they inspired me to find a few while I was here. I knew coming in that Persian carpets are second to none. (Most of you will realize that Persia is smack-dab in the middle of Iran and getting quality carpets out of there increases the cost over locally produced Afghani carpets). I also knew that quality silk and wool carpets cost an arm and a leg there in the U.S. and was hoping to save a few grand by buying here. Anyway, I have been to a few carpet merchants and have discovered a world I really knew nothing about. I have learned the difference between Persian silk and Chinese silk and understand that Chinese silk is grossly inferior to the Persian (didn’t the Chinese discover/invent silk in the first place?). I have also received an education in blends primarily with silk and wool, fibers per centimeter, fiber length, backing, and stitching. Wow!
The carpet Hajji recommended that I buy a Persian silk carpet instead of the Chinese because of the thickness, quality, and durability. Obviously the Persian cost more than twice as much as the Chinese and after considering my success with the bazaar Hajji, I reasoned I could barter with the carpet Hajji. I used tremendous amounts of charm, bargaining skill, compromise, negotiation, and finally blatant displays of my 9mm to reduce the price $10 over a period of an hour. See, I told you I had ability. In the end, I bought a Chinese silk carpet for Kris to put under her feet in the morning for our bathroom. Of course I had to try it out a couple of mornings before sending it to here. I will tell you that throwing my tootsies on pure silk (even if it is the dreaded Chinese kind) feels pretty damn fine. I even went back to the carpet Hajji and inquired about silk carpet slippers. His stunned expression was enough for me to look for silk socks online.
Our weather has changed once again. It has now gone into the mid 40’s with ominous looking clouds hiding our mountain ranges. Our snow is melting and the ground is thawing. The good news is the temperature increase in the showers and bathrooms. The bad news is the thawing ground is now muddy and it is difficult to keep the back of your pants around your calves mud-free when walking or especially running. Thankfully the warming weather has not increased the temperature inside my room. Should that mercury rise above the current 80 degrees, I swear I’ll move into a tent by my work shop.
I want to take this opportunity to thank a few of you out there that have made my being separated from Kris and the kids easier. First, many thanks Dave and Brandy for helping out with the new table and chairs. I just found out about that the other day and cannot tell you how much I appreciate your assistance. Also, thanks again for the package of goodies you guys sent. I may have complained a bit (only because you teased me with those Kahlua infused chocolates instead of the real thing). Mary, thanks for the Starbuck’s care package. It could not have come at a better time. Dad and Sharon, thanks for picking up Morgan and helping out through the Nikki birthday weekend. Nikki has told me twice about your visit. Finally, thank you Mom and Grandma Millie for the emails, cards, and gifts. You two have this USPS mailing thing down.
Speaking of mail, many of you have mentioned through email that you have sent a card, letter, and or package through snail mail (USPS). The process is extremely slow this time of year. Kris sent me a package two weeks ago that has still not arrived. I sent Christmas cards out to a few of you on the 8th of December that you folks still have not received. I will certainly let you know the day I receive anything from you guys. Believe me, the mail guy not only knows me by sight, but also by name, date of birth, hometown, shirt size, etc. Not that I am anxious or anything, but I sure love getting the stuff you folks send. Thank you for everything!
Author’s Note: I misspelled Kyrgyzstan in Week 4. Also when referring to Kyrgies, I spelled them Kirgis. I cannot believe any one of you did not catch that egregious mistake and point it out to me, primarily you, Joe (BIL). I guess it’s time to have the spell-checker on my computer also scan for Russian.
I do make a concerted effort to make these updates chronological; however it just doesn’t work that way in all cases. As an example, the second paragraph in this Weekly was inserted in that position on the sixth day of this week because of how late I sent out Week 6 and how meaningful and prominent I felt the subject matter to be. I thereby subjugated the rest of the information as a secondary priority to that second paragraph. I hope that makes sense to you and negates any confusion caused by my lack of stringent synchronous day-to-day order.
Two of you recently have told me that I should write a book. I am. Actually I am writing two books. I started both a year or so ago and have been plodding along. I am putting real effort into one of those now and feel I am a solid third of the way into writing it. If any of you know a good publisher, please let me know. I have no idea how it will turn out, but I figure it is time I made it happen. I also have no idea when I will finish it, but one of my 44 goals is to complete it before leaving this locale (as you may recall, I have completed two of those goals already).
We have been working overtime to try and get these vehicles completed. I have been flogging the guys to get the vehicles templated and the Auto-CAD emailed in. I knew once we accomplished that, we would have about ten days before the armor started showing up. Well, we finished our last vehicle this week and got the stuff emailed to our company. We had planned to take today (Sunday), and Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off as well. My plan turned out to be a pipedream. As an example I will be briefing a two-star general who is coming to visit our little operation on Christmas day. I guess he thinks visiting me on Christmas afternoon demonstrates the priority of my little operation and makes me feel important. What it actually means is that I worked today to organize my shop, stage a vehicle and every step of the process, and prepare a briefing to include strengths and limitations. It no doubt means that I will have follow-on meetings on Tuesday to tell the leadership who was not present on Monday everything that was said. Did I tell you guys how much I love the military?
Oh, another weather change to tell you about. The temperature dropped and it started snowing today (Christmas Eve). I called my mother about an hour ago in front of the Pat Tillman USO here next to the airstrip to wish her Happy Birthday and the snow was coming down in a furious fashion. I have no idea how much accumulation is expected, but I do love white Christmases and I am about to have one here. It’s nice to know there is one thing about Afghanistan that I like: snow accumulation.
OK, it is 2315L on Christmas Eve and I really want to get this out. If there is any Christmas magic that I have the ability to dispel, it would go something like this: To Doug and Tina, I wish you guys would get pregnant and prove once and for all that the operation was worth the effort; To Joe Luna, I wish you would find that job back in Washington you want (preferably very close to Dean); To Aubrey, I wish you continued recovery and health (you’re getting older, man); To Charles, I wish you would retire as a Sergeant Major (you’ll make it soon); To Brandy, I wish you would find a guy worthy of you (so you’ll leave the beer in my fridge alone), and To Mary, I wish Larry would be back soon and you can go back to Jeeping, beering, and telling stories.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
Craig
I’ve already started on Week 7 and haven’t finished Week 6. Week 6 was tough to write. I’m not sure why, but Week 7 is already much easier. Words and ideas just seem to flow as opposed to finishing the stuff that already happened. In any case you folks are obviously benefiting from my reacquired writing prowess and easy flow of the written word.
Thanks to those of you I guilted into emailing me. I must say I appreciate the comments and information. Sure, I can get the weather and news information, but not the in-depth goings-on of daily life that you guys live. I am certainly not expecting four or five pages from each of you, but four or five sentences are great. Keep the exchange of information going, I’ll do my part.
A few weeks ago I got a book about Afghanistan. I figured since I was here I might as well learn a little about the country. To save you hundreds of pages of benign drabble, the Kabul area is known world-wide for its teas, especially Chai teas. I’ve been slowly asking around and trying to gain information on acquiring such world renowned teas. Should I get my hands on some, I will sacrifice my taste buds first before sending some of this stuff state-side. Obviously I’ll only forward the stuff worthy of such high-brow tea drinkers like those of you who read this weekly.
I have really gotten into teas since I have been here. Maybe I’m beginning to turn English or maybe it’s because I just cannot drink coffee all day long. I brought some tea with me and recently my mother and my wife sent me enough to normally last a year, however I have consumed it in two weeks. I think I have even graduated to amateur connoisseur of teas. I now know the difference between black, green, red, and white teas. I even know what Jasmine tastes like, Charles. I’ll apply for my tea certification and license next month just to make sure.
Buying Christmas gifts online while in Afghanistan sucks. First of all, my internet connection is slow, making those colorful home pages a pain to download and even more difficult to navigate. Many of the online stores want a phone number to confirm your order, but none of them will call Afghanistan. Obviously the best way to buy stuff here is to make my bride the buyer with her contact information and have it sent to her. The easiest online shopping has been with (here goes the plug…) Amazon.com. They will send stuff anywhere in the world and do not require a phone call before confirming and shipping your order. Amazon.com does take two weeks to get anything over here and still requires 7-10 days to get delivery on that side of the earth.
We went to the bazaar on Friday to do a little local shopping. Every Friday, LNs arrive at an outdoor area and set up a little shop each to present and sell their wares. Carpets, wood and brass carvings, Hajji DVDs, and local clothing dominate the bazaar. I must say I fell prey to a cheap carpet and a couple of DVDs. I also could not pass up the opportunity to buy a genuine Ferrari, dual dial, Pinanfarina designed, Italian leather banded watch. Really, I bought it for Cole (although it’s bigger than his hand) and it’s authentic. The LN salesman quoted me an initial price of $1200 and I finally closed the deal for $25. It’s amazing how three minutes of my time and charm saved me $1175.
I’ve learned a lot about carpets recently as well as teas. Doug and Tina bought a few great carpets while they were in Iraq and they inspired me to find a few while I was here. I knew coming in that Persian carpets are second to none. (Most of you will realize that Persia is smack-dab in the middle of Iran and getting quality carpets out of there increases the cost over locally produced Afghani carpets). I also knew that quality silk and wool carpets cost an arm and a leg there in the U.S. and was hoping to save a few grand by buying here. Anyway, I have been to a few carpet merchants and have discovered a world I really knew nothing about. I have learned the difference between Persian silk and Chinese silk and understand that Chinese silk is grossly inferior to the Persian (didn’t the Chinese discover/invent silk in the first place?). I have also received an education in blends primarily with silk and wool, fibers per centimeter, fiber length, backing, and stitching. Wow!
The carpet Hajji recommended that I buy a Persian silk carpet instead of the Chinese because of the thickness, quality, and durability. Obviously the Persian cost more than twice as much as the Chinese and after considering my success with the bazaar Hajji, I reasoned I could barter with the carpet Hajji. I used tremendous amounts of charm, bargaining skill, compromise, negotiation, and finally blatant displays of my 9mm to reduce the price $10 over a period of an hour. See, I told you I had ability. In the end, I bought a Chinese silk carpet for Kris to put under her feet in the morning for our bathroom. Of course I had to try it out a couple of mornings before sending it to here. I will tell you that throwing my tootsies on pure silk (even if it is the dreaded Chinese kind) feels pretty damn fine. I even went back to the carpet Hajji and inquired about silk carpet slippers. His stunned expression was enough for me to look for silk socks online.
Our weather has changed once again. It has now gone into the mid 40’s with ominous looking clouds hiding our mountain ranges. Our snow is melting and the ground is thawing. The good news is the temperature increase in the showers and bathrooms. The bad news is the thawing ground is now muddy and it is difficult to keep the back of your pants around your calves mud-free when walking or especially running. Thankfully the warming weather has not increased the temperature inside my room. Should that mercury rise above the current 80 degrees, I swear I’ll move into a tent by my work shop.
I want to take this opportunity to thank a few of you out there that have made my being separated from Kris and the kids easier. First, many thanks Dave and Brandy for helping out with the new table and chairs. I just found out about that the other day and cannot tell you how much I appreciate your assistance. Also, thanks again for the package of goodies you guys sent. I may have complained a bit (only because you teased me with those Kahlua infused chocolates instead of the real thing). Mary, thanks for the Starbuck’s care package. It could not have come at a better time. Dad and Sharon, thanks for picking up Morgan and helping out through the Nikki birthday weekend. Nikki has told me twice about your visit. Finally, thank you Mom and Grandma Millie for the emails, cards, and gifts. You two have this USPS mailing thing down.
Speaking of mail, many of you have mentioned through email that you have sent a card, letter, and or package through snail mail (USPS). The process is extremely slow this time of year. Kris sent me a package two weeks ago that has still not arrived. I sent Christmas cards out to a few of you on the 8th of December that you folks still have not received. I will certainly let you know the day I receive anything from you guys. Believe me, the mail guy not only knows me by sight, but also by name, date of birth, hometown, shirt size, etc. Not that I am anxious or anything, but I sure love getting the stuff you folks send. Thank you for everything!
Author’s Note: I misspelled Kyrgyzstan in Week 4. Also when referring to Kyrgies, I spelled them Kirgis. I cannot believe any one of you did not catch that egregious mistake and point it out to me, primarily you, Joe (BIL). I guess it’s time to have the spell-checker on my computer also scan for Russian.
I do make a concerted effort to make these updates chronological; however it just doesn’t work that way in all cases. As an example, the second paragraph in this Weekly was inserted in that position on the sixth day of this week because of how late I sent out Week 6 and how meaningful and prominent I felt the subject matter to be. I thereby subjugated the rest of the information as a secondary priority to that second paragraph. I hope that makes sense to you and negates any confusion caused by my lack of stringent synchronous day-to-day order.
Two of you recently have told me that I should write a book. I am. Actually I am writing two books. I started both a year or so ago and have been plodding along. I am putting real effort into one of those now and feel I am a solid third of the way into writing it. If any of you know a good publisher, please let me know. I have no idea how it will turn out, but I figure it is time I made it happen. I also have no idea when I will finish it, but one of my 44 goals is to complete it before leaving this locale (as you may recall, I have completed two of those goals already).
We have been working overtime to try and get these vehicles completed. I have been flogging the guys to get the vehicles templated and the Auto-CAD emailed in. I knew once we accomplished that, we would have about ten days before the armor started showing up. Well, we finished our last vehicle this week and got the stuff emailed to our company. We had planned to take today (Sunday), and Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off as well. My plan turned out to be a pipedream. As an example I will be briefing a two-star general who is coming to visit our little operation on Christmas day. I guess he thinks visiting me on Christmas afternoon demonstrates the priority of my little operation and makes me feel important. What it actually means is that I worked today to organize my shop, stage a vehicle and every step of the process, and prepare a briefing to include strengths and limitations. It no doubt means that I will have follow-on meetings on Tuesday to tell the leadership who was not present on Monday everything that was said. Did I tell you guys how much I love the military?
Oh, another weather change to tell you about. The temperature dropped and it started snowing today (Christmas Eve). I called my mother about an hour ago in front of the Pat Tillman USO here next to the airstrip to wish her Happy Birthday and the snow was coming down in a furious fashion. I have no idea how much accumulation is expected, but I do love white Christmases and I am about to have one here. It’s nice to know there is one thing about Afghanistan that I like: snow accumulation.
OK, it is 2315L on Christmas Eve and I really want to get this out. If there is any Christmas magic that I have the ability to dispel, it would go something like this: To Doug and Tina, I wish you guys would get pregnant and prove once and for all that the operation was worth the effort; To Joe Luna, I wish you would find that job back in Washington you want (preferably very close to Dean); To Aubrey, I wish you continued recovery and health (you’re getting older, man); To Charles, I wish you would retire as a Sergeant Major (you’ll make it soon); To Brandy, I wish you would find a guy worthy of you (so you’ll leave the beer in my fridge alone), and To Mary, I wish Larry would be back soon and you can go back to Jeeping, beering, and telling stories.
Merry Christmas to all of you!
Craig
Dec 17, 2006
WEEK 6
December 11 - 17, 2006
OK, these weekly updates are intended, at least by me, to be two-way communication. This is my way of communicating with you about the stuff that I am experiencing here on the other side of the Earth. I know you guys think I have nothing but time on my hands because I am obviously not commuting to work (not far anyway) or chasing down kids and have loads of hours waiting around to do something with (not entirely true). However, I know you folks have at least an hour a week to drop me the scoop on what’s going on with you. Charles, what is going on in Lia-land? Doug, what state are you visiting next? Tina, how many more crack whores have you arrested? Brandy, what’s the latest gossip? Mom Q, how’s Bunko? I got a fabulous email from my sister-in-law a couple of days ago and my mother emails me every day. With the exception of a scant few of you out there, I haven’t heard much. Really, I would love to hear from you more than once a month.
Remember last week when I told you I submitted a work order for my B Hut to increase the thermostat? Well it went through and they did. Ed is gloriously happy, however I am not. The interior temperature went from about 58F to 80F. I am miserable. I have my window open to cool off my room, but the window frame opens six inches above my bed and causes me discomfort when trying to sleep (because I entangle my leg with the window frame). Yes, I have my vent closed but the folks in the surrounding rooms must have formerly been residents of the Gobi Desert and like it hot so their vents are wide open negating my open window. I am now sleeping (very little) on top of my down comforter sweating like I had just run a half marathon at the Camp Doha, Kuwait Invitational in the middle of July.
We have two different types of email here, well I guess really three: SIPR, NIPR, and regular everyday run-of-the-mill email. We can get regular email at the USO only unless we want to buy internet access from a local company for $35 a month for dial-up. Otherwise the NIPR is what we use to send you email. It is the military’s non-secure internet which is slow and limited. NIPR is good for basic use but beyond that really sucks. SIPR is the secure military internet which is supposed to be limited for official classified information transfer. However everyone here uses it to notify each other if they have mail, or when they can get a hair cut, or when you can get a camel ride at the bazaar. It’s crazy. Anyway, I send most of my email wirelessly from the USO. It’s about half a mile from me and is best when only 30 people are there connected at one time. Sure it’s slow, but it works.
We have Big Voice here. Several of you with previous Iraqi experience know what I am talking about. There is no Giant Voice, just Big Voice, and fortunately for me, one of the loudspeakers is a mere 1.5 meters from the outside wall of my room. What is Big Voice some of you ask? Well, remember in episodes of M.A.S.H. when you would here someone talking over the loudspeakers within the camp about upcoming events or injured patients arriving shortly? It’s the same except it is called Big Voice although that seems to be a misnomer because Big Voice is camp specific while Giant Voice is supposed to be for the entire compound. I digress. Anyway all Bagram announcements are made over the loudspeaker system 24/7 for the benefit of all who inhabit this little slice of pie in Afghanistan.
We also have aerial gunnery almost nightly. How do I know? Well that loudspeaker just outside of my room wall tells me so. Nearly every night (because aerial gunnery is only done at night) a very very loud voice announces “The Aerial Gunnery range is now Hot! I say again, the Aerial Gunnery range is now Hot!” And because the U.S. military does not want the enemy within a 15 mile listening range to think we do aerial gunnery at the same time every night, they mix it up a bit, like last night when I received that announcement at 0030. I was sound asleep until some nut-job scared me awake with ramblings about a hot range. And to make matters worse, some brilliant folks have decided that detonating unexploded munitions and such is better late at night when there are less people awake to be unnerved by an explosion. So, the Big Voice announces at 0200, “There will be a controlled detonation in five minutes! I say again, there will be a controlled detonation in five minutes!” Five minutes is not an eternity, but it is enough time to gain control of your senses, especially after your hearing jolted you awake for that announcement, and cause you to return to sleep just in time for an earth-shattering explosion. Gawd, I love our military.
I’m pretty sure I told you back in Week 2 that Bagram is about 7.5 miles in diameter and egg-shaped. Imagine if you will, for a moment, that Bagram is an island. That’s what it feels like for me. I have not traveled outside of my island for over a month. Imagine how that would apply to the rest of you fine folks out there. I know I’m preaching to the choir with regard to my military friends who receive this, but to those of you who thankfully have not deployed by the courtesy of Uncle Sam, 7.5 miles is not very far. How far is it to your grocery store or work? How far did you travel to go to the mall yesterday? And since 7.5 miles is not very far, you don’t need a car. Walking is good for you, isn’t it?
Well, walking has certainly discouraged a purchase I nearly made the other day. I was at the PX (about a half mile from my room) the other evening and was going to buy a microwave when it occurred to me that lugging a 3’ x 2’ x 2’ box that weighed about 40 pounds was not going to be convenient. Sure, I’ve been working out and have surpassed that weight, but the idea of the sheer encumbrance while walking to my hut negated my zeal to try it out. Had Ed or Craig been with me or I had one of the vehicles we work on, I would have made the purchase. I still intend on buying a microwave (because I am hoping Kris will send me foodstuffs that I am Jonesing for) and will obviously negotiate its transport so I do not have to carry it myself.
You guys will love this. Bagram decided to shut down all of the generators here for a maintenance day. An email was sent out on Monday afternoon via the SIPR net that all power generators would be shut down from 0800 – 2000 L on Tuesday. Guess when I found out about this planned shutdown? Yeah, at 0810 Tuesday morning. Yes, I have SIPR access, but the only place I can get on and look at messages currently is at the SPG which I only check a couple of times a week. Had I known about the shutdown Monday afternoon, I would have unboxed my gleaming red and black Honda generator, put fuel and oil in it, and gave it a test run in advance. As it turned out, I had already acquired the fuel, but not the oil for the engine. To make a long story short, I was generating electricity a little after 1100 that morning. Alrighta! You would think, however, that the brain-trust in charge of Bagram would have shut down only half of the generators on Tuesday and maybe the other half on Wednesday. Anything that had power on Tuesday was because of local back-up power generation. I have never seen so many military 5KW’s in my life. By the way, the generator shutdown caught many people by surprise.
Afghanistan has this fine dust on everything in the morning. I know first by seeing it every morning and then by testing. I tested it by putting one of my black gloves on a small ledge outside of my hut. I checked it every morning and would ‘dust it off’ and put it back out there. I have also tested it on one of our vehicle windshields outside of my shop. I cleaned the windshield every day for a week. Every morning I would look at the windshield and after the frost melted, I had this almost muddy mess on the glass. I’m not exactly sure what is causing that much dust in the air; maybe it’s our Aerial Gunnery range stirring up dust or maybe it’s our controlled detonations. Whatever it is, I am sure I am breathing it every day. Maybe I should start wearing a mask….
Our company sent us a few supplies packed around American goodness! They sent us a couple of wrapped presents, 7.5 pounds of Starbuck’s coffee, 2 pounds of smoked salmon, assorted boxes of crackers, a Hickory Farms large pack of edibles, 2 humongous summer sausages, an assorted box of cheeses, chocolates, chips, and ten DVDs. One of the fine boxer-uppers back in Woodland wrote on the inside flap of the box: “Packed by LifePort Interiors Elves”. That box could not have come on a better day as we were frustrated with a series of events that was delaying completion of our work (and subsequently causing us to work even more). We have yet to dine on any of the items because we are waiting (very impatiently) for Christmas. Our two foot artificial Christmas tree is standing on top of our pile of hospitality.
My Christmas CDs arrived yesterday from Amazon. Woohoo! I’ve been suffering without Christmas music. This normally is my favorite time of the year with lights, decorations, and music. Obviously it hasn’t been the same being away from Kris, the kids, family, and friends and it was causing my spirits to be a little low. I love the classic Christmas tunes and play them over and over again starting the 1st of December every year. Well a couple of weeks ago, I ordered a few Christmas CDs from Amazon.com (I now have two sets; one here and one in Tacoma) and for the past two days have been playing them over and over again on a portable CD boombox I acquired. The other guys are now in the spirit too. It’s a sight to behold; grown men singing and humming to Christmas songs while working. If we had green pointed hats, I would swear we were elves.
All you all probably realize that once on the ground, the next step was figuring out how to get supplies and services that I need to conduct my mission here. Sure, go talk to that guy or fill out this request form. Go see the Engineers or the J4, email a list, explain why you need it, properly justify your priority, or my favorite: trade. To date, very little of the above has netted me any tangible supply or service. Nope, the processes that have yielded results so far are: charm, charisma, and the venerable acquisition method.
My acquisition process here has been quite good. A standing rule I learned many years ago in the military is: “If it’s not nailed down or under guard, it’s available”. The only two things acquired via that means has been the five gallon (oh, I mean 20 liters) gas can (they’re actually plastic now) and the plywood and 2 x 4s. It’s not like we just walked up and took them. We saw these items left unattended for days. Finally, we acquired them to put them to their intended uses. Other than that, all other acquisition has been through very respectable means. As an example, I purchased the portable CD boombox, a desk lamp, a folding chair, a plastic three-drawer bin, and an upright tall slender fan with remote control for $20 from a guy who was departing this location for the comfort of the U.S. of A. Someone is always leaving here; you just have to catch them at that right moment when they realize they need to leave a bunch of the stuff they acquired behind. Needless to say, my last remaining goods and services left unfulfilled are internet and phone.
Camp Vance is finally into the Christmas spirit. The maintenance guys strung lights angularly from the top of a telephone pole to the ground to make a well-lit triangular type tree shape. The Engineers put an inflatable and lit 15’ Grinch with Max sitting at his feet on top of their building. And the JDOC has an inflatable Frosty the Snowman and Santa Clause adorning their building with multiple strings of lights everywhere. There are artificial Christmas trees in almost every major building (although surprisingly no Menorahs) and tubs of small candy canes sitting on tables. Camp Vance seems to be the only camp on Bagram that is really into the spirit. The rest of the American camps do not have the exterior presence that we do. I certainly understand the other nations, but would have thought there would have been American camps trying to out-do the other. In any case, I am pleased with Camp Vance’s decorations.
Craig
OK, these weekly updates are intended, at least by me, to be two-way communication. This is my way of communicating with you about the stuff that I am experiencing here on the other side of the Earth. I know you guys think I have nothing but time on my hands because I am obviously not commuting to work (not far anyway) or chasing down kids and have loads of hours waiting around to do something with (not entirely true). However, I know you folks have at least an hour a week to drop me the scoop on what’s going on with you. Charles, what is going on in Lia-land? Doug, what state are you visiting next? Tina, how many more crack whores have you arrested? Brandy, what’s the latest gossip? Mom Q, how’s Bunko? I got a fabulous email from my sister-in-law a couple of days ago and my mother emails me every day. With the exception of a scant few of you out there, I haven’t heard much. Really, I would love to hear from you more than once a month.
Remember last week when I told you I submitted a work order for my B Hut to increase the thermostat? Well it went through and they did. Ed is gloriously happy, however I am not. The interior temperature went from about 58F to 80F. I am miserable. I have my window open to cool off my room, but the window frame opens six inches above my bed and causes me discomfort when trying to sleep (because I entangle my leg with the window frame). Yes, I have my vent closed but the folks in the surrounding rooms must have formerly been residents of the Gobi Desert and like it hot so their vents are wide open negating my open window. I am now sleeping (very little) on top of my down comforter sweating like I had just run a half marathon at the Camp Doha, Kuwait Invitational in the middle of July.
We have two different types of email here, well I guess really three: SIPR, NIPR, and regular everyday run-of-the-mill email. We can get regular email at the USO only unless we want to buy internet access from a local company for $35 a month for dial-up. Otherwise the NIPR is what we use to send you email. It is the military’s non-secure internet which is slow and limited. NIPR is good for basic use but beyond that really sucks. SIPR is the secure military internet which is supposed to be limited for official classified information transfer. However everyone here uses it to notify each other if they have mail, or when they can get a hair cut, or when you can get a camel ride at the bazaar. It’s crazy. Anyway, I send most of my email wirelessly from the USO. It’s about half a mile from me and is best when only 30 people are there connected at one time. Sure it’s slow, but it works.
We have Big Voice here. Several of you with previous Iraqi experience know what I am talking about. There is no Giant Voice, just Big Voice, and fortunately for me, one of the loudspeakers is a mere 1.5 meters from the outside wall of my room. What is Big Voice some of you ask? Well, remember in episodes of M.A.S.H. when you would here someone talking over the loudspeakers within the camp about upcoming events or injured patients arriving shortly? It’s the same except it is called Big Voice although that seems to be a misnomer because Big Voice is camp specific while Giant Voice is supposed to be for the entire compound. I digress. Anyway all Bagram announcements are made over the loudspeaker system 24/7 for the benefit of all who inhabit this little slice of pie in Afghanistan.
We also have aerial gunnery almost nightly. How do I know? Well that loudspeaker just outside of my room wall tells me so. Nearly every night (because aerial gunnery is only done at night) a very very loud voice announces “The Aerial Gunnery range is now Hot! I say again, the Aerial Gunnery range is now Hot!” And because the U.S. military does not want the enemy within a 15 mile listening range to think we do aerial gunnery at the same time every night, they mix it up a bit, like last night when I received that announcement at 0030. I was sound asleep until some nut-job scared me awake with ramblings about a hot range. And to make matters worse, some brilliant folks have decided that detonating unexploded munitions and such is better late at night when there are less people awake to be unnerved by an explosion. So, the Big Voice announces at 0200, “There will be a controlled detonation in five minutes! I say again, there will be a controlled detonation in five minutes!” Five minutes is not an eternity, but it is enough time to gain control of your senses, especially after your hearing jolted you awake for that announcement, and cause you to return to sleep just in time for an earth-shattering explosion. Gawd, I love our military.
I’m pretty sure I told you back in Week 2 that Bagram is about 7.5 miles in diameter and egg-shaped. Imagine if you will, for a moment, that Bagram is an island. That’s what it feels like for me. I have not traveled outside of my island for over a month. Imagine how that would apply to the rest of you fine folks out there. I know I’m preaching to the choir with regard to my military friends who receive this, but to those of you who thankfully have not deployed by the courtesy of Uncle Sam, 7.5 miles is not very far. How far is it to your grocery store or work? How far did you travel to go to the mall yesterday? And since 7.5 miles is not very far, you don’t need a car. Walking is good for you, isn’t it?
Well, walking has certainly discouraged a purchase I nearly made the other day. I was at the PX (about a half mile from my room) the other evening and was going to buy a microwave when it occurred to me that lugging a 3’ x 2’ x 2’ box that weighed about 40 pounds was not going to be convenient. Sure, I’ve been working out and have surpassed that weight, but the idea of the sheer encumbrance while walking to my hut negated my zeal to try it out. Had Ed or Craig been with me or I had one of the vehicles we work on, I would have made the purchase. I still intend on buying a microwave (because I am hoping Kris will send me foodstuffs that I am Jonesing for) and will obviously negotiate its transport so I do not have to carry it myself.
You guys will love this. Bagram decided to shut down all of the generators here for a maintenance day. An email was sent out on Monday afternoon via the SIPR net that all power generators would be shut down from 0800 – 2000 L on Tuesday. Guess when I found out about this planned shutdown? Yeah, at 0810 Tuesday morning. Yes, I have SIPR access, but the only place I can get on and look at messages currently is at the SPG which I only check a couple of times a week. Had I known about the shutdown Monday afternoon, I would have unboxed my gleaming red and black Honda generator, put fuel and oil in it, and gave it a test run in advance. As it turned out, I had already acquired the fuel, but not the oil for the engine. To make a long story short, I was generating electricity a little after 1100 that morning. Alrighta! You would think, however, that the brain-trust in charge of Bagram would have shut down only half of the generators on Tuesday and maybe the other half on Wednesday. Anything that had power on Tuesday was because of local back-up power generation. I have never seen so many military 5KW’s in my life. By the way, the generator shutdown caught many people by surprise.
Afghanistan has this fine dust on everything in the morning. I know first by seeing it every morning and then by testing. I tested it by putting one of my black gloves on a small ledge outside of my hut. I checked it every morning and would ‘dust it off’ and put it back out there. I have also tested it on one of our vehicle windshields outside of my shop. I cleaned the windshield every day for a week. Every morning I would look at the windshield and after the frost melted, I had this almost muddy mess on the glass. I’m not exactly sure what is causing that much dust in the air; maybe it’s our Aerial Gunnery range stirring up dust or maybe it’s our controlled detonations. Whatever it is, I am sure I am breathing it every day. Maybe I should start wearing a mask….
Our company sent us a few supplies packed around American goodness! They sent us a couple of wrapped presents, 7.5 pounds of Starbuck’s coffee, 2 pounds of smoked salmon, assorted boxes of crackers, a Hickory Farms large pack of edibles, 2 humongous summer sausages, an assorted box of cheeses, chocolates, chips, and ten DVDs. One of the fine boxer-uppers back in Woodland wrote on the inside flap of the box: “Packed by LifePort Interiors Elves”. That box could not have come on a better day as we were frustrated with a series of events that was delaying completion of our work (and subsequently causing us to work even more). We have yet to dine on any of the items because we are waiting (very impatiently) for Christmas. Our two foot artificial Christmas tree is standing on top of our pile of hospitality.
My Christmas CDs arrived yesterday from Amazon. Woohoo! I’ve been suffering without Christmas music. This normally is my favorite time of the year with lights, decorations, and music. Obviously it hasn’t been the same being away from Kris, the kids, family, and friends and it was causing my spirits to be a little low. I love the classic Christmas tunes and play them over and over again starting the 1st of December every year. Well a couple of weeks ago, I ordered a few Christmas CDs from Amazon.com (I now have two sets; one here and one in Tacoma) and for the past two days have been playing them over and over again on a portable CD boombox I acquired. The other guys are now in the spirit too. It’s a sight to behold; grown men singing and humming to Christmas songs while working. If we had green pointed hats, I would swear we were elves.
All you all probably realize that once on the ground, the next step was figuring out how to get supplies and services that I need to conduct my mission here. Sure, go talk to that guy or fill out this request form. Go see the Engineers or the J4, email a list, explain why you need it, properly justify your priority, or my favorite: trade. To date, very little of the above has netted me any tangible supply or service. Nope, the processes that have yielded results so far are: charm, charisma, and the venerable acquisition method.
My acquisition process here has been quite good. A standing rule I learned many years ago in the military is: “If it’s not nailed down or under guard, it’s available”. The only two things acquired via that means has been the five gallon (oh, I mean 20 liters) gas can (they’re actually plastic now) and the plywood and 2 x 4s. It’s not like we just walked up and took them. We saw these items left unattended for days. Finally, we acquired them to put them to their intended uses. Other than that, all other acquisition has been through very respectable means. As an example, I purchased the portable CD boombox, a desk lamp, a folding chair, a plastic three-drawer bin, and an upright tall slender fan with remote control for $20 from a guy who was departing this location for the comfort of the U.S. of A. Someone is always leaving here; you just have to catch them at that right moment when they realize they need to leave a bunch of the stuff they acquired behind. Needless to say, my last remaining goods and services left unfulfilled are internet and phone.
Camp Vance is finally into the Christmas spirit. The maintenance guys strung lights angularly from the top of a telephone pole to the ground to make a well-lit triangular type tree shape. The Engineers put an inflatable and lit 15’ Grinch with Max sitting at his feet on top of their building. And the JDOC has an inflatable Frosty the Snowman and Santa Clause adorning their building with multiple strings of lights everywhere. There are artificial Christmas trees in almost every major building (although surprisingly no Menorahs) and tubs of small candy canes sitting on tables. Camp Vance seems to be the only camp on Bagram that is really into the spirit. The rest of the American camps do not have the exterior presence that we do. I certainly understand the other nations, but would have thought there would have been American camps trying to out-do the other. In any case, I am pleased with Camp Vance’s decorations.
Craig
Dec 9, 2006
WEEK 5
December 4 - 10, 2006
Wow, these weeks are flying by for me. I’m on Week 5 already and everything seems to be a blur. OK, let’s see, where did we leave off on Week 4? Oh yeah, Craig D was due in, the weather was arctic-like, and I was suffering without my super jacket.
Craig D arrived here in Afghanistan about 0700 this morning, the 4th of December. I had been back and forth to the air terminal all night so the phone call on my local cell phone woke me up at 0720. I threw my clothes on and went back to the PAX Terminal for the umpteenth time in the last couple of days and, lo and behold, there stood Craig Dobyns. Not only was it good to see him, but he had supplies, to include my jacket, that he had brought from Kristine.
I gave Craig the quick tour of the area, introduced him to the right people, and got him his NIPR, SIPR, and ID badge all before noon (it took me over a week to get mine). We ate, ran around the base, showed him the shop, and his new living quarters. We finally started unpacking his stuff when Craig told me he FedEx’d some of his and all of my stuff from Bahrain a few days ago. What?! Craig explained that he had too many bags when he transferred planes in Bahrain and he had to FedEx the remaining stuff courtesy of our company. Everything was due to arrive on the 5th of December.
Initially, Craig was not impressed with his plywood 6’ by 12’ room in the “B” Hut next to mine. I had managed to grab three rooms when I initially moved into B Hut #55 (the upper mucky-muck B Huts only have six rooms) and the other two rooms are currently occupied by Ed and Greg. However, once Craig had the opportunity to see some other rooms, his 72 square feet of living space seem to be just fine now. You may remember my discussion of CHUs in the Week 1 memo. There are CHUs (or as they call them here: C Huts) here, but they are few and require an extensive waiting list. Someone has to will them to someone else and in any event, they are not modifiable.
The B Huts are 20’ by 30’ plywood buildings shaped kind of like an old canvas Quonset hut with a door at each end. The outsides are painted that fabulous light Army brown color that has been popular in the last decade and are fitted with a Carrier heater / air conditioner the size of a compact car. The inside of the hut is constructed of unpainted plywood with a 3’ wide hallway separating the three rooms on each side. Each room has a 7’ ceiling and a cheap Afghan carpet on the floor with a plywood bed tall enough to slide your crap underneath. Finally every room has a window that opens (plexi-glas with a wood frame that I have covered with green tape) and a armoire made of particle board. From that point on, personal modifications are added to each individual room. I even have TV cable in my room, but have yet to splurge for a TV, probably because I am not a huge watcher of TV anyway.
One of the things that I have already taken for granted that Craig pointed out was the hand-washing sinks outside of the DFAC. Yes, two sinks with anti-bacterial soap sitting all over them are attached to the OUTSIDE back wall of the DFAC. You are expected to wash your hands before entering the facility. This means walking up to them in this blizzard (there is a slight overhang from the roof over the sinks), removing your gloves, washing and then drying your hands, and then entering the DFAC. Simple. However there is a new rule posted above the sinks and it is: ‘Do not turn off the faucets completely. Let them trickle to prevent freezing.’ Yeah I know, amazing. You certainly cannot ignore the spread of bacteria in freezing weather in the middle of a combat zone.
It stopped snowing today and finally just turned cold. Our high yesterday was about 20F. We are expecting the same cold weather over the next couple of days. Our snow went from pliable to downright hard. Everything has frozen. To embrace this new change, I coerced Brian Nelson to go running with me this morning even though it was 14F. He whined and cried the whole three miles although we finished in a pretty respectable time. To somewhat allay his complaining, I bought him a Mocha at our little coffee shop just outside of the PX at the conclusion of our run. Suddenly, all was well.
We went to the FedEx location today to see if the tracking information was correct. Sure enough, it was (my Pashtun is improving weekly). I was presented with my new super jacket and the most beautiful down comforter I had ever laid eyes on. Kris told me she was sending me a decent comforter to add to my fleece blanket, but this was truly more than I had imagined. It’s amazing how little things like a down comforter can truly change your outlook about things. Now I may not have to wear thermal underwear to bed anymore. Yeah I know I described my B Hut with a Carrier heater, but since the weather has been freakin’ cold, our interior temperature peaked at 58F. I like sleeping in cold weather, but that temperature is neither cold nor comfortable which creates some challenges. I looked at the thermostat; it was set at 65F and requires some magical key to access it. Today, I submitted a maintenance work order to get the thermostat increased. We’ll see how long that takes.
You know it’s cold when you flush the toilet in a building that is supposed to be heated and the water that flushes the toilet gives off steam. Really! Sure you get steam as you’re doing your business and it is weird wearing a jacket and gloves while inside an indoor bathroom, but one thing that really helps is the 17 layers of toilet paper I place on the seat before sitting down. Those seats radiate the cold right through a couple of layers of toilet paper. Right now having my own personal toilet with my mother-in-law’s Toto heated seat is something I dream about. Wow, how did my forefathers make it in outhouses?!
Speaking of outhouses, the Afghanis here do not have them. They also do not have plumbing or heating. We can view huge mud buildings (multiple houses in a kind of tri-plex or more configuration) and occasionally see locals coming and going in and out of their buildings. I do not know what they do for wood as the land is void of any trees. The mountains surrounding us are tree-less as well. I am sure they have some way of staying warm, but to date I have not viewed any smoke or other visual clue to a fire of some sort.
Something else I recently discovered while doing my laundry is using warm or hot water during the cycles. Normally I am a cold-water-only guy to prevent any unwanted effects to my clothing, however cold water freezes easier and faster than hot water. The ice crystals on the washer lid and around the top of the washer drum should have been dead give-aways. When I returned about an hour later, my clothes were cold and very stiff. I recognized the problem right away and contemplated running a hot water rinse over them, but decided I could pry them out and put them into the dryer. Since the dryer already takes forever, would it take longer if your clothes were partially frozen? Hhhmmmm. “Alex, I’ll take What is an Eternity for $1000.”
Hey, someone asked me about a day in the life of Craig in Afghanistan. Well, it goes something like this (I haven’t established a rigid routine yet):
0630-0700 Wake up (0630 on running days)
0700-0800 Shower, Dress, meet the other guys
0800-0830 Breakfast (Class I for you military folks)
0830-0900 Get our stuff together, head to the shop
0900-1130 Work, work, work, FedEx, etc.
1130-1230 Lunch, run by the PX or the Help Desk, etc.
1230-1730 Work, work, work, etc.
1730-1800 Dinner
1830-2100 Find a place to email, follow-up on computer-work
2100-2300 Personal time
2300-0630 Sleep
There, nothing glamorous, but it works (no pun intended). That after-dinner time includes finalizing some of the graphics templating, organizing panels, reviewing orders and upcoming shipments, and the like. Twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) we have a telephonic conference call with our Company (1945 L or 0715 PST). I cannot wait until we get our phone and internet lines hooked up. That will save so much time that we currently spend floating between the MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation center), the USO, and or the SPG in search of an open internet line or wireless connection. We schedule the telephone conferences with the J6 in advance so we have a DSN phone to use at their location. Like I said, I am so looking forward to autonomy!
The weather has changed a little. It has been in the low 30s the last two days and the only real noticeable difference is in the bathrooms. Those Chigo’s (heaters in all buildings save my B Hut) crank out enough heat to just keep the frost out of the bathrooms and showers. Although my jaunt to these facilities is a mere 25 meters, it’s worse than unzipping a camping tent in the Cascades in early Spring. I check the temperature outside on my wireless Oregon Scientific weather station and determine if I am going to wear a coat to the shower or bathroom. On a couple of occasions I have worn gloves and a hat. Once I wore my slippers to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Never again; you either put shoes and a coat on or pee in an empty bottle. And on a couple of occasions I have worn my shower shoes (flip-flops) to the shower in the snow. Convenient maybe, however, not very bright. Mostly though, I put on the clothes that I intend on wearing for the day, head to the shower, and put those same clothes back on at the shower building. It cuts down on the amount of stuff to take to the shower and in the case of this weather, makes the most sense.
Alright, this has been an incredibly busy week and as I creep into Week 6, it is very busy as well. I’m gonna have to shut this one down and get it out before I begin to overlap weeks.
Thanks for reading!
Craig
Wow, these weeks are flying by for me. I’m on Week 5 already and everything seems to be a blur. OK, let’s see, where did we leave off on Week 4? Oh yeah, Craig D was due in, the weather was arctic-like, and I was suffering without my super jacket.
Craig D arrived here in Afghanistan about 0700 this morning, the 4th of December. I had been back and forth to the air terminal all night so the phone call on my local cell phone woke me up at 0720. I threw my clothes on and went back to the PAX Terminal for the umpteenth time in the last couple of days and, lo and behold, there stood Craig Dobyns. Not only was it good to see him, but he had supplies, to include my jacket, that he had brought from Kristine.
I gave Craig the quick tour of the area, introduced him to the right people, and got him his NIPR, SIPR, and ID badge all before noon (it took me over a week to get mine). We ate, ran around the base, showed him the shop, and his new living quarters. We finally started unpacking his stuff when Craig told me he FedEx’d some of his and all of my stuff from Bahrain a few days ago. What?! Craig explained that he had too many bags when he transferred planes in Bahrain and he had to FedEx the remaining stuff courtesy of our company. Everything was due to arrive on the 5th of December.
Initially, Craig was not impressed with his plywood 6’ by 12’ room in the “B” Hut next to mine. I had managed to grab three rooms when I initially moved into B Hut #55 (the upper mucky-muck B Huts only have six rooms) and the other two rooms are currently occupied by Ed and Greg. However, once Craig had the opportunity to see some other rooms, his 72 square feet of living space seem to be just fine now. You may remember my discussion of CHUs in the Week 1 memo. There are CHUs (or as they call them here: C Huts) here, but they are few and require an extensive waiting list. Someone has to will them to someone else and in any event, they are not modifiable.
The B Huts are 20’ by 30’ plywood buildings shaped kind of like an old canvas Quonset hut with a door at each end. The outsides are painted that fabulous light Army brown color that has been popular in the last decade and are fitted with a Carrier heater / air conditioner the size of a compact car. The inside of the hut is constructed of unpainted plywood with a 3’ wide hallway separating the three rooms on each side. Each room has a 7’ ceiling and a cheap Afghan carpet on the floor with a plywood bed tall enough to slide your crap underneath. Finally every room has a window that opens (plexi-glas with a wood frame that I have covered with green tape) and a armoire made of particle board. From that point on, personal modifications are added to each individual room. I even have TV cable in my room, but have yet to splurge for a TV, probably because I am not a huge watcher of TV anyway.
One of the things that I have already taken for granted that Craig pointed out was the hand-washing sinks outside of the DFAC. Yes, two sinks with anti-bacterial soap sitting all over them are attached to the OUTSIDE back wall of the DFAC. You are expected to wash your hands before entering the facility. This means walking up to them in this blizzard (there is a slight overhang from the roof over the sinks), removing your gloves, washing and then drying your hands, and then entering the DFAC. Simple. However there is a new rule posted above the sinks and it is: ‘Do not turn off the faucets completely. Let them trickle to prevent freezing.’ Yeah I know, amazing. You certainly cannot ignore the spread of bacteria in freezing weather in the middle of a combat zone.
It stopped snowing today and finally just turned cold. Our high yesterday was about 20F. We are expecting the same cold weather over the next couple of days. Our snow went from pliable to downright hard. Everything has frozen. To embrace this new change, I coerced Brian Nelson to go running with me this morning even though it was 14F. He whined and cried the whole three miles although we finished in a pretty respectable time. To somewhat allay his complaining, I bought him a Mocha at our little coffee shop just outside of the PX at the conclusion of our run. Suddenly, all was well.
We went to the FedEx location today to see if the tracking information was correct. Sure enough, it was (my Pashtun is improving weekly). I was presented with my new super jacket and the most beautiful down comforter I had ever laid eyes on. Kris told me she was sending me a decent comforter to add to my fleece blanket, but this was truly more than I had imagined. It’s amazing how little things like a down comforter can truly change your outlook about things. Now I may not have to wear thermal underwear to bed anymore. Yeah I know I described my B Hut with a Carrier heater, but since the weather has been freakin’ cold, our interior temperature peaked at 58F. I like sleeping in cold weather, but that temperature is neither cold nor comfortable which creates some challenges. I looked at the thermostat; it was set at 65F and requires some magical key to access it. Today, I submitted a maintenance work order to get the thermostat increased. We’ll see how long that takes.
You know it’s cold when you flush the toilet in a building that is supposed to be heated and the water that flushes the toilet gives off steam. Really! Sure you get steam as you’re doing your business and it is weird wearing a jacket and gloves while inside an indoor bathroom, but one thing that really helps is the 17 layers of toilet paper I place on the seat before sitting down. Those seats radiate the cold right through a couple of layers of toilet paper. Right now having my own personal toilet with my mother-in-law’s Toto heated seat is something I dream about. Wow, how did my forefathers make it in outhouses?!
Speaking of outhouses, the Afghanis here do not have them. They also do not have plumbing or heating. We can view huge mud buildings (multiple houses in a kind of tri-plex or more configuration) and occasionally see locals coming and going in and out of their buildings. I do not know what they do for wood as the land is void of any trees. The mountains surrounding us are tree-less as well. I am sure they have some way of staying warm, but to date I have not viewed any smoke or other visual clue to a fire of some sort.
Something else I recently discovered while doing my laundry is using warm or hot water during the cycles. Normally I am a cold-water-only guy to prevent any unwanted effects to my clothing, however cold water freezes easier and faster than hot water. The ice crystals on the washer lid and around the top of the washer drum should have been dead give-aways. When I returned about an hour later, my clothes were cold and very stiff. I recognized the problem right away and contemplated running a hot water rinse over them, but decided I could pry them out and put them into the dryer. Since the dryer already takes forever, would it take longer if your clothes were partially frozen? Hhhmmmm. “Alex, I’ll take What is an Eternity for $1000.”
Hey, someone asked me about a day in the life of Craig in Afghanistan. Well, it goes something like this (I haven’t established a rigid routine yet):
0630-0700 Wake up (0630 on running days)
0700-0800 Shower, Dress, meet the other guys
0800-0830 Breakfast (Class I for you military folks)
0830-0900 Get our stuff together, head to the shop
0900-1130 Work, work, work, FedEx, etc.
1130-1230 Lunch, run by the PX or the Help Desk, etc.
1230-1730 Work, work, work, etc.
1730-1800 Dinner
1830-2100 Find a place to email, follow-up on computer-work
2100-2300 Personal time
2300-0630 Sleep
There, nothing glamorous, but it works (no pun intended). That after-dinner time includes finalizing some of the graphics templating, organizing panels, reviewing orders and upcoming shipments, and the like. Twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) we have a telephonic conference call with our Company (1945 L or 0715 PST). I cannot wait until we get our phone and internet lines hooked up. That will save so much time that we currently spend floating between the MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation center), the USO, and or the SPG in search of an open internet line or wireless connection. We schedule the telephone conferences with the J6 in advance so we have a DSN phone to use at their location. Like I said, I am so looking forward to autonomy!
The weather has changed a little. It has been in the low 30s the last two days and the only real noticeable difference is in the bathrooms. Those Chigo’s (heaters in all buildings save my B Hut) crank out enough heat to just keep the frost out of the bathrooms and showers. Although my jaunt to these facilities is a mere 25 meters, it’s worse than unzipping a camping tent in the Cascades in early Spring. I check the temperature outside on my wireless Oregon Scientific weather station and determine if I am going to wear a coat to the shower or bathroom. On a couple of occasions I have worn gloves and a hat. Once I wore my slippers to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Never again; you either put shoes and a coat on or pee in an empty bottle. And on a couple of occasions I have worn my shower shoes (flip-flops) to the shower in the snow. Convenient maybe, however, not very bright. Mostly though, I put on the clothes that I intend on wearing for the day, head to the shower, and put those same clothes back on at the shower building. It cuts down on the amount of stuff to take to the shower and in the case of this weather, makes the most sense.
Alright, this has been an incredibly busy week and as I creep into Week 6, it is very busy as well. I’m gonna have to shut this one down and get it out before I begin to overlap weeks.
Thanks for reading!
Craig
Dec 2, 2006
WEEK 4
November 27-December 3, 2006
This is my fourth week gone from the fabulous United States of America and I already feel like an outsider. Sure we have Armed Forces Network (AFN) television which broadcasts LIVE football 12.5 hours into the future, and CNN which says it provides LIVE telecasts 24/7, but you still seem disconnected. The commercials are not the same. We do not get Budweiser or Coors or Miller commercials here. No scantily clad women rubbing ice-cold beverages over their bosoms while espousing Einstein and Jeffersonian ramblings with the phrase: Mmmhhhhmm. Nope, we get things like: Buckle-up in tactical vehicles to stay safe. What?!! Or how about: Protect your ID card; it is a matter of life and death. Really?!! Who dreams these things up? Why isn’t Anheiser-Busch doing commercials for the military community? Surely we must be one of their biggest consumers, well not here of course, but everywhere else.
The weather here has changed. The mild temperatures of the first couple of weeks here are now much lower. The highs haven’t breached 40 degrees this last week and it has been snowing continuously for two days. I love this weather! I asked the Motor Sergeant for a large inner tube and with any luck will make the 25 kilometer trip to the base of those Hindu Kush Mountains I see every day and try out a little tubing. The only difference with tubing here as opposed to White Pass with Aubrey and Charles will be the fully armed entourage that will accompany me. I’m not trying to imply that Aubrey and Charles were not armed; I’m just simply saying that we didn’t go tubing with armored vehicles and machine guns.
Speaking of snow, did you know our fabulous Uncle Sam’s Air Force cannot land a C-17 here at Bagram because of the weather and visibility? Really! Evidently those multi-million-dollar Boeing planes that the Air Force purchased have tremendous difficulty landing on a mile-plus long airstrip with a little snow even though they have ILS and many other significant and costly electronics on board. How do I know this you ask, well my fourth guy, Craig Dobyns is stuck in Doha, Qatar (80 degree weather) trying to get here. All the inbound and outbound flights have been cancelled. We have no idea when he will be able to come in. Because of this situation, our supply of non-alcoholic German beers and Starbuck’s Mocha Frappiccinos are at critically low levels. Additionally, I have been going over to or calling the PAX Terminal at odd hours of the day and night checking on Craig’s potential arrival. Maybe we should have SouthWest Airlines handle flights for the military. They seem to be able to land and take off from places like Chicago without any mishaps (save one) getting millions of customers to their intended destinations without fail on Boeing planes.
Our internet and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) phones here are fed through satellites. They work pretty well until the dishes fill up with snow and then the signal does not receive or transmit. We are having that very problem right now and may delay me sending this out. Although you folks back there probably have no idea, the Air Force controls the satellite dishes here. Ahhh, you may suddenly be picking up on a trend here. It is not my intent to bash our own Air Force, but we rely on them tremendously and they seem to be lackadaisical about everything. It’s like this is the first time it has ever snowed here and they are not sure what to do. “Hey, the snow will melt eventually, don’t worry about it. We’ll get your internet up and flights in maybe tomorrow or the next day.” I should loan them a couple of Army Privates First Class (PFCs). Those guys would find a way to get daily shipments from Amazon.com at the North Pole.
Some of you are probably not familiar with General Order #1. It’s commonly known as the “No Fun” rule which means service personnel are forbidden from possessing or imbibing alcoholic beverages, having sex, surfing porn, streaking, and anything else you may deem fun and exciting while in a combat environment in defense of the United States of America. Obviously our rule does not apply to our allies here, say like Australia. Could you imagine the Aussies going one day without a beer? Neither can I. In any case, GO#1 has loose applications with certain Government Contractors, like me, which is why I am constructing my own still and brewery. I certainly have no intent of blatantly displaying these soon-to-be fine pieces of hand-craftsmanship and will keep them hidden. I cannot wait to pump out that first IPA and whiskey. Ed can’t contain himself either.
In the meantime before my operation is in full swing, my supply of Bacardi and Jack Daniels is at dangerously low levels. If any of you happen to be able to squeeze a bottle into one of the envelopes you plan on mailing this way, I would be most appreciative. The cheap Russian Vodka that I can buy from the Kirgis (from Kirgizstan, you know the Kirgizstanis; formerly part of the Soviet Union), has a faint yellow color and tastes like it originally started out as Isopropyl Alcohol that was strained through bread (or maybe someone’s liver). All I can tell you, it was $3 USD for a 375ml bottle that I bought from a Kirgi. After cracking the seal and taking a sip, I immediately put the cap back on and passed it back to the Kirgi. Maybe I’ll get some more and send them out as Christmas presents.
Sometimes I am very impressed with our use of information and technology. Before coming here, I processed through Fort Benning, Georgia where we were administratively, logistically, and medically prepared. Yesterday, I received a phone call from the medical clinic here. I was asked if I was Craig Withers and if my blood type was indeed O Negative. I answered yes and was asked to come to the medical clinic immediately because a soldier was inbound who was seriously injured and required blood. In the few minutes it took me to get to the clinic, five other guys were lined up waiting to dispense with their O Neg blood. I marveled at how we were all contacted and how the medical clinic knew who to contact. I was further impressed at how quickly we had all showed up and how none of us ever gave a second thought about giving blood. Obviously this was not an Air Force operation.
I have finally adjusted to the altitude! I beat Nelson on a morning run. As a matter of fact, I not only out-ran him, but drug him along for the last mile or two. Hah! One goal down, 43 to go. Hopefully I can get to the others with the same alacrity that I accomplished this one. Where do we run, you ask? Well the perimeter road around Bagram is about 7.5 miles or 12 kilometers. Traffic is forbidden on the perimeter road from 0530 – 0700 daily for PT with the obvious exceptions of security and emergencies. It’s a little strange to be running along a dirt road that has triple-strand concertina and pickets on one side with the red triangular “Mines” signs hanging on the pickets. On the other side of the wire are mud (earthworks) buildings with locals living in them. Don’t they know there are mines on their side of the wire? I’ve taken a few pictures of this and will forward that CD soon, I promise.
I have been asked what I wear here. Well, my company outfitted us with boots, pants, long and short sleeve shirts, a jacket and coveralls. Of that stuff, I wear the boots, pants, and with less frequency, the jacket. The boots are tan Timberland waterproof, insulated Pro Series boots that I am in love with. The pants are tan 5.11 Tactical canvas pants that are fabulous, and the jacket is a black medium weight Carhartt that is good to temperatures no lower than 45 degrees. I supplement the boots and pants with my occasional wear of Levi’s pants and my new collection of Columbia, North Face, and REI long sleeve technical wear shirts, my Army issue fleece jacket, and of course my absolutely splendid Mountain Hardware black gloves that I have cherished for years. I’m never far from my Bianchi black shoulder holster that adequately cuddles my Beretta 9mm and 45 of the best-looking bullets this side of Iran. I wear sunglasses and a hat when the weather dictates, and sport a Colonel Sanders goatee daily. Maybe I should be doing advertising for the military.
Remember earlier when I said Craig D wasn’t here yet? Do you recall it was due to cold weather and snow? Well he has in his possession my brand new Mountain Hardware Extreme II Expeditionary Parka super marvelous jacket that Kristine bought for me a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, why does he have it? Why didn’t I bring it with me? Why didn’t Kris just mail it? Those are excellent questions that I have been asking myself every time I put that Army fleece jacket to work in this blizzard that I am living in. There is nothing wrong with that fleece jacket; Natick Laboratories did a great job of designing it as an interior layer garment! In an effort to keep my initial REI expenditures below the GNP of Ecuador, I prioritized those items I would need. That North Face jacket was due to go on sale after I departed for this side of the world and the plan was to pick it up then and mail it to me. So far, so good. Then Craig D was given his dates of departure from the U.S. and potential arrival in Afghanistan which seemed much quicker than mailing. This is still looking good. The stick in the mud is the U.S. Air Force and their departures from Qatar and their arrivals in Afghanistan. As you read earlier, we covered the reasons. In some inane way, my arctic condition parka will arrive when the weather turns good, courtesy of the fine ole USAF.
I think I told you fine folks in Week 3 that my operation was moved to Camp Ouellette where we were cleaning, remodeling, and constructing our work and living areas. That is progressing fairly well with the work areas in pretty good shape. To accomplish some of these tasks, I required memoranda from the CJSOTF-A Commander appointing me this and that to acquire this item or service. Well, it is now safe to say that I am the STIC (STud In Charge) of Camp Ouellette. Yeah I know, a civilian essentially running an Army camp, but I handle it well. I even look pretty good in the role. No, I will not be changing the name of the place to Camp Withers. Only heroic dead guys get immortalized with their names on camps, posts, streets, etc. I may, however, lend my name to my new administration center.
We played poker again last night, which is now becoming tradition on Saturday nights. No, I did not sustain any injuries as we played at my newly remodeled Withers Administration Center (WAC) (see, what did I tell you?!) with seven foot doorways. Anyway, I could not lose last night. We started with our customary $10 buy-in and within an hour I had less than $2 in front of me. Suddenly, my fortune changed and the tipping point was an Ace and a Nine on Texas Hold ‘em. I was dealt an Ace and Nine and an Ace and Nine were presented on the flop. I bet two-pair all the time, but rarely have the success I did on this hand. To make this short, I went all in and even threw in another $7 in cash (which I never do). Three other guys were in this hand as well and the net result was that I won with more than $40 in that pot. From that point forward I could not lose. When we finally cashed out, I was ahead $57 bucks. This is the best poker night to date for me here. I wanted to achieve $100 in poker profit within the first ten games here. In seven outings, I am ahead $141 big-time dollars. Even if I throw in the towel on the next three, I will still be ahead $111. That makes two goals accomplished with 42 remaining. Woohoo! Two completed goals in one week! Shibby!
Kristine gave me my Christmas present early. She bought me the cutest (I mean studly, Doug) black iPod Nano that holds 8 gigs of ones and zeroes. Actually, I bought it here (because it was the only iPod for sale on Bagram) and thanked her profusely. These Special Operations guys have an M drive on their J6 Server that has nothing but music loaded onto it. I mean a 500 gig server full of tunage! “Dude! What’s mine say?! Sweet!” They even loaned me an 80 gig external hard drive to copy music onto my computer. There is no doubt that I am receiving this royal treatment because of my STIC position on Camp Ouellette. That coupled with Nelson’s 80 gig hard drive means I have been sorting through digital music for the past couple of days. Now if I could only cram a little work and sleep into my day…
Oh yeah, that work thing. The whole reason I am in this 10th world country on the other side of the Earth. We have been working our butts off! We are cutting up and tearing apart a multitude of vehicles, engineering and templating panels, digitally producing them, printing them on the plotter for comparison, and forwarding that information to our company in Woodland. On top of all that, we have had to acquire materials and supplies here, build shop tables / equipment, repair walls, doors, ceilings, roofs, fences, gates, and manage a small camp of about 50 personnel on 6 acres. Normally, Potentates like me, have hundreds of Serfs for duties like those mentioned previously, don’t they? I better look into that.
Well, this one is getting a little long-in-the-tooth and I have to run back over to the PAX Terminal to check on Craig’s next potential incoming flight. It has been snowing non-stop for the past three days, however our accumulation is low because the temperature has hovered around 33 degrees. The wind blows the snow in a kind of horizontal circling motion, which means if those 79 snow flakes missed your face on the first pass, they will cycle around again and strike your open eye on the next successive passes. God, I love this weather!
Craig
WARNING: The author’s comments with regard to the United States Air Force are strictly those of the author and are not to be confused with or implicated as fact. By way of admission, the author truly loves the Air Force with principle focus on McChord Air Force Base C-17s that fly him back to McChord Air Force Base.
This is my fourth week gone from the fabulous United States of America and I already feel like an outsider. Sure we have Armed Forces Network (AFN) television which broadcasts LIVE football 12.5 hours into the future, and CNN which says it provides LIVE telecasts 24/7, but you still seem disconnected. The commercials are not the same. We do not get Budweiser or Coors or Miller commercials here. No scantily clad women rubbing ice-cold beverages over their bosoms while espousing Einstein and Jeffersonian ramblings with the phrase: Mmmhhhhmm. Nope, we get things like: Buckle-up in tactical vehicles to stay safe. What?!! Or how about: Protect your ID card; it is a matter of life and death. Really?!! Who dreams these things up? Why isn’t Anheiser-Busch doing commercials for the military community? Surely we must be one of their biggest consumers, well not here of course, but everywhere else.
The weather here has changed. The mild temperatures of the first couple of weeks here are now much lower. The highs haven’t breached 40 degrees this last week and it has been snowing continuously for two days. I love this weather! I asked the Motor Sergeant for a large inner tube and with any luck will make the 25 kilometer trip to the base of those Hindu Kush Mountains I see every day and try out a little tubing. The only difference with tubing here as opposed to White Pass with Aubrey and Charles will be the fully armed entourage that will accompany me. I’m not trying to imply that Aubrey and Charles were not armed; I’m just simply saying that we didn’t go tubing with armored vehicles and machine guns.
Speaking of snow, did you know our fabulous Uncle Sam’s Air Force cannot land a C-17 here at Bagram because of the weather and visibility? Really! Evidently those multi-million-dollar Boeing planes that the Air Force purchased have tremendous difficulty landing on a mile-plus long airstrip with a little snow even though they have ILS and many other significant and costly electronics on board. How do I know this you ask, well my fourth guy, Craig Dobyns is stuck in Doha, Qatar (80 degree weather) trying to get here. All the inbound and outbound flights have been cancelled. We have no idea when he will be able to come in. Because of this situation, our supply of non-alcoholic German beers and Starbuck’s Mocha Frappiccinos are at critically low levels. Additionally, I have been going over to or calling the PAX Terminal at odd hours of the day and night checking on Craig’s potential arrival. Maybe we should have SouthWest Airlines handle flights for the military. They seem to be able to land and take off from places like Chicago without any mishaps (save one) getting millions of customers to their intended destinations without fail on Boeing planes.
Our internet and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) phones here are fed through satellites. They work pretty well until the dishes fill up with snow and then the signal does not receive or transmit. We are having that very problem right now and may delay me sending this out. Although you folks back there probably have no idea, the Air Force controls the satellite dishes here. Ahhh, you may suddenly be picking up on a trend here. It is not my intent to bash our own Air Force, but we rely on them tremendously and they seem to be lackadaisical about everything. It’s like this is the first time it has ever snowed here and they are not sure what to do. “Hey, the snow will melt eventually, don’t worry about it. We’ll get your internet up and flights in maybe tomorrow or the next day.” I should loan them a couple of Army Privates First Class (PFCs). Those guys would find a way to get daily shipments from Amazon.com at the North Pole.
Some of you are probably not familiar with General Order #1. It’s commonly known as the “No Fun” rule which means service personnel are forbidden from possessing or imbibing alcoholic beverages, having sex, surfing porn, streaking, and anything else you may deem fun and exciting while in a combat environment in defense of the United States of America. Obviously our rule does not apply to our allies here, say like Australia. Could you imagine the Aussies going one day without a beer? Neither can I. In any case, GO#1 has loose applications with certain Government Contractors, like me, which is why I am constructing my own still and brewery. I certainly have no intent of blatantly displaying these soon-to-be fine pieces of hand-craftsmanship and will keep them hidden. I cannot wait to pump out that first IPA and whiskey. Ed can’t contain himself either.
In the meantime before my operation is in full swing, my supply of Bacardi and Jack Daniels is at dangerously low levels. If any of you happen to be able to squeeze a bottle into one of the envelopes you plan on mailing this way, I would be most appreciative. The cheap Russian Vodka that I can buy from the Kirgis (from Kirgizstan, you know the Kirgizstanis; formerly part of the Soviet Union), has a faint yellow color and tastes like it originally started out as Isopropyl Alcohol that was strained through bread (or maybe someone’s liver). All I can tell you, it was $3 USD for a 375ml bottle that I bought from a Kirgi. After cracking the seal and taking a sip, I immediately put the cap back on and passed it back to the Kirgi. Maybe I’ll get some more and send them out as Christmas presents.
Sometimes I am very impressed with our use of information and technology. Before coming here, I processed through Fort Benning, Georgia where we were administratively, logistically, and medically prepared. Yesterday, I received a phone call from the medical clinic here. I was asked if I was Craig Withers and if my blood type was indeed O Negative. I answered yes and was asked to come to the medical clinic immediately because a soldier was inbound who was seriously injured and required blood. In the few minutes it took me to get to the clinic, five other guys were lined up waiting to dispense with their O Neg blood. I marveled at how we were all contacted and how the medical clinic knew who to contact. I was further impressed at how quickly we had all showed up and how none of us ever gave a second thought about giving blood. Obviously this was not an Air Force operation.
I have finally adjusted to the altitude! I beat Nelson on a morning run. As a matter of fact, I not only out-ran him, but drug him along for the last mile or two. Hah! One goal down, 43 to go. Hopefully I can get to the others with the same alacrity that I accomplished this one. Where do we run, you ask? Well the perimeter road around Bagram is about 7.5 miles or 12 kilometers. Traffic is forbidden on the perimeter road from 0530 – 0700 daily for PT with the obvious exceptions of security and emergencies. It’s a little strange to be running along a dirt road that has triple-strand concertina and pickets on one side with the red triangular “Mines” signs hanging on the pickets. On the other side of the wire are mud (earthworks) buildings with locals living in them. Don’t they know there are mines on their side of the wire? I’ve taken a few pictures of this and will forward that CD soon, I promise.
I have been asked what I wear here. Well, my company outfitted us with boots, pants, long and short sleeve shirts, a jacket and coveralls. Of that stuff, I wear the boots, pants, and with less frequency, the jacket. The boots are tan Timberland waterproof, insulated Pro Series boots that I am in love with. The pants are tan 5.11 Tactical canvas pants that are fabulous, and the jacket is a black medium weight Carhartt that is good to temperatures no lower than 45 degrees. I supplement the boots and pants with my occasional wear of Levi’s pants and my new collection of Columbia, North Face, and REI long sleeve technical wear shirts, my Army issue fleece jacket, and of course my absolutely splendid Mountain Hardware black gloves that I have cherished for years. I’m never far from my Bianchi black shoulder holster that adequately cuddles my Beretta 9mm and 45 of the best-looking bullets this side of Iran. I wear sunglasses and a hat when the weather dictates, and sport a Colonel Sanders goatee daily. Maybe I should be doing advertising for the military.
Remember earlier when I said Craig D wasn’t here yet? Do you recall it was due to cold weather and snow? Well he has in his possession my brand new Mountain Hardware Extreme II Expeditionary Parka super marvelous jacket that Kristine bought for me a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, why does he have it? Why didn’t I bring it with me? Why didn’t Kris just mail it? Those are excellent questions that I have been asking myself every time I put that Army fleece jacket to work in this blizzard that I am living in. There is nothing wrong with that fleece jacket; Natick Laboratories did a great job of designing it as an interior layer garment! In an effort to keep my initial REI expenditures below the GNP of Ecuador, I prioritized those items I would need. That North Face jacket was due to go on sale after I departed for this side of the world and the plan was to pick it up then and mail it to me. So far, so good. Then Craig D was given his dates of departure from the U.S. and potential arrival in Afghanistan which seemed much quicker than mailing. This is still looking good. The stick in the mud is the U.S. Air Force and their departures from Qatar and their arrivals in Afghanistan. As you read earlier, we covered the reasons. In some inane way, my arctic condition parka will arrive when the weather turns good, courtesy of the fine ole USAF.
I think I told you fine folks in Week 3 that my operation was moved to Camp Ouellette where we were cleaning, remodeling, and constructing our work and living areas. That is progressing fairly well with the work areas in pretty good shape. To accomplish some of these tasks, I required memoranda from the CJSOTF-A Commander appointing me this and that to acquire this item or service. Well, it is now safe to say that I am the STIC (STud In Charge) of Camp Ouellette. Yeah I know, a civilian essentially running an Army camp, but I handle it well. I even look pretty good in the role. No, I will not be changing the name of the place to Camp Withers. Only heroic dead guys get immortalized with their names on camps, posts, streets, etc. I may, however, lend my name to my new administration center.
We played poker again last night, which is now becoming tradition on Saturday nights. No, I did not sustain any injuries as we played at my newly remodeled Withers Administration Center (WAC) (see, what did I tell you?!) with seven foot doorways. Anyway, I could not lose last night. We started with our customary $10 buy-in and within an hour I had less than $2 in front of me. Suddenly, my fortune changed and the tipping point was an Ace and a Nine on Texas Hold ‘em. I was dealt an Ace and Nine and an Ace and Nine were presented on the flop. I bet two-pair all the time, but rarely have the success I did on this hand. To make this short, I went all in and even threw in another $7 in cash (which I never do). Three other guys were in this hand as well and the net result was that I won with more than $40 in that pot. From that point forward I could not lose. When we finally cashed out, I was ahead $57 bucks. This is the best poker night to date for me here. I wanted to achieve $100 in poker profit within the first ten games here. In seven outings, I am ahead $141 big-time dollars. Even if I throw in the towel on the next three, I will still be ahead $111. That makes two goals accomplished with 42 remaining. Woohoo! Two completed goals in one week! Shibby!
Kristine gave me my Christmas present early. She bought me the cutest (I mean studly, Doug) black iPod Nano that holds 8 gigs of ones and zeroes. Actually, I bought it here (because it was the only iPod for sale on Bagram) and thanked her profusely. These Special Operations guys have an M drive on their J6 Server that has nothing but music loaded onto it. I mean a 500 gig server full of tunage! “Dude! What’s mine say?! Sweet!” They even loaned me an 80 gig external hard drive to copy music onto my computer. There is no doubt that I am receiving this royal treatment because of my STIC position on Camp Ouellette. That coupled with Nelson’s 80 gig hard drive means I have been sorting through digital music for the past couple of days. Now if I could only cram a little work and sleep into my day…
Oh yeah, that work thing. The whole reason I am in this 10th world country on the other side of the Earth. We have been working our butts off! We are cutting up and tearing apart a multitude of vehicles, engineering and templating panels, digitally producing them, printing them on the plotter for comparison, and forwarding that information to our company in Woodland. On top of all that, we have had to acquire materials and supplies here, build shop tables / equipment, repair walls, doors, ceilings, roofs, fences, gates, and manage a small camp of about 50 personnel on 6 acres. Normally, Potentates like me, have hundreds of Serfs for duties like those mentioned previously, don’t they? I better look into that.
Well, this one is getting a little long-in-the-tooth and I have to run back over to the PAX Terminal to check on Craig’s next potential incoming flight. It has been snowing non-stop for the past three days, however our accumulation is low because the temperature has hovered around 33 degrees. The wind blows the snow in a kind of horizontal circling motion, which means if those 79 snow flakes missed your face on the first pass, they will cycle around again and strike your open eye on the next successive passes. God, I love this weather!
Craig
WARNING: The author’s comments with regard to the United States Air Force are strictly those of the author and are not to be confused with or implicated as fact. By way of admission, the author truly loves the Air Force with principle focus on McChord Air Force Base C-17s that fly him back to McChord Air Force Base.
Nov 26, 2006
WEEK 3
November 20-26, 2006
Today was the day to show Ed and Greg around the CJSOTF-A area, introduce them to the people we are working with, and show them the operation here in Afghanistan. Since their arrival, Ed and Greg have been ooohing and aaahing about everything here, except the maintenance facilities I have been working in. According to them, everything except the maintenance area is much better than what they have in Iraq.
We have several other countries represented here on Bagram. The largest (other than us) must be the Polish. Then the Koreans, French, British, Romanians, Canadians, Australians, and Egyptians all are here. There is very little difference in uniforms between the British, Canadians, and Australians except for hats and the flag on their shoulder. The Egyptians stick out like a sore thumb, especially with their nearly pink and gold work-out uniforms. Oh yeah, there are some Afghani forces here as well (the good guys, not the Taliban). We keep the Taliban in a huge prison right here on Bagram.
One of the things I had to point out to Ed and Greg were the French uniforms. You would think that a country with one of the top fashion hot-spots in the world would have decent looking uniforms. They are hideous. They appear to be made out of spandex because they are virtually skin tight. They also seemed to mimic the U.S. DCU (Desert Camouflage Uniform) pattern and combine it with the British desert uniform. The final result resembles mismatched colors in blotches painted on some poor human being’s body.
It gets dark here at 1715. I mean pitch black. We have very few lights on at night; kind of an Army thing, I guess. I would think we could turn on the outside lights along the sidewalks and in front of buildings, especially since we own the airspace and have done so since 2001. But alas, we are forced to navigate around the area after dusk by Braille. Sure, some of the areas we already know by heart, primarily the stroll to the bathroom. However, it is those unfamiliar areas that must be cautiously approached with out-stretched arms in front of your body and the high-stepping, soft-walking process we have all done in the dark.
Whenever anyone leaves the confines of Camp Vance, we are required to carry our personal weapon. I’m not exactly sure why, but that is the requirement. Maybe it’s because we have Local National (LNs) and TCNs working about or maybe it is to demonstrate a show of force. Whatever the reason, I certainly like having that 9mm with me; especially when I go to the FedEx location and have to remind the LN that I want my shipment today. Just merely putting my hand on the holstered pistol seems to convey bunches.
One of the things I will never get used to is women with weapons. Sure, those of you that are women probably now think I’m some kind of male chauvinist. But the fact remains that I spent most of my career in the Armor community where we did not have women in uniform. It was rare to see a female soldier. It was even rarer, I mean winning the lottery rare, when a female was carrying a weapon. As it happened, I was standing outside of Camp Vance the other morning waiting to meet Brian Nelson when an attractive girl of maybe 25 walked by me in a jacket and jeans. It wasn’t till she walked past me that I noticed an M16 slung over her shoulder across her back. She was obviously part of the U.S. military and currently not on duty because she was wearing civilian clothing. I however, was still caught by surprise with the fact that I was witnessing something I would not see in the U.S., and on the whole, thought it strange.
Like Iraq, our currency on Bagram is USD. Also like Iraq, our change (the metallic kind (pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters)) is not used here. Instead we are given pogs. Pogs are plastic, credit card thin, coinage about the diameter of a U.S. half-dollar with specific denominations printed under the exterior laminate. There are no penny pogs, just nickels, dimes, and quarters. The even stranger part of this story is that several of the items in the PX for instance, have prices that end in numbers like .97 or .99 cents. So, if you buy three items that have prices ending in 9, your final amount would end in 7 (no tax here). Since there are no penny pogs, the cashiers dispense change upward to the 0. Why?! Why not make every item in the store end in 5 or 0? Why make it more difficult for the cashiers and confuse the customer? Why?! Do we have to get Congress involved in this? Anyway, I already have a box-full of pogs. Sure I could spend them here as change, but I think I would rather send them to the kids and let them have fun with them at Fort Lewis or McChord.
We have facilities here to do our laundry. Yeah, KBR will do your laundry for you on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I have yet to try them here. Sure, they are supposed to be the same as Iraq, but once again, I have not tried them. Why? I don’t know, just haven’t. There is something familiar with throwing your own laundry in a washing machine and dryer that was previously used by someone who doesn’t understand the molecular properties of bleach that appeals to me. I mean, I look forward to blotches and splotches on my clothing that only comes with reckless abandon on your own accord in the laundry room. I think I just like the pink and purple sheets that I have currently which were once royal blue. It’s kind of an Americana thing to me.
Oh, the best part is the dryers. It takes 40 minutes to wash 10 yards of clothing and nine hours to dry it. I am not kidding. Maybe it’s the altitude (doubt it). Maybe it’s the moisture in the air (nope). Maybe it’s the reflection of the snow off the Hindu Kush Mountains (nice try). No, it is really the Maytag dryer that has been used more times in one year than a regular dryer gets used at the Shirley’s in twenty years. These poor dryers are used up in three months.
Wow, today they assigned me new facilities in Camp Oeullette which is about a mile from Camp Vance. I have a building that resembles a two-car garage and another building that could house 100 people with a two-car workshop attached. Of course, it has been vacant for years and required extensive cleaning and removal of unwanted crap. The intent is that I move into the building and use the area for living and working. The working part is under-way now; however, the living part will take some time. Although I have cable TV there, I do not have a telephone or internet or palatial rooms that meet with my approval. I have requested stadium-fulls of lumber and assorted paraphernalia to begin the construction process, but, alas, it has not yet arrived.
Ed, Greg, and I went to the DFAC at our appointed time for Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday. They really had a nice spread. We had REAL turkey with REAL dressing, REAL mashed potatoes (I avoided the sweet potatoes as you probably guessed), REAL gravy, REAL vegetables, and REAL biscuits. For the most part, it tasted as it looked (pretty good). I even had a slice of Pumpkin Pie with the spray-on whipped cream and vanilla ice cream al-a-mode. I washed it all down with Sparkling Cider and a Starbuck’s Mocha Frappuccino in the bottle.
Camp Bagram was taken over from the Taliban who took it over from the Russians who took it over from previous Afghani aggressors. Every building has a different design and structure that was built by different people. Depending on who built the buildings, the rooms, roof heights, door ways, etc. are all different. Why am I telling you all this? Because I have found it customary to duck every time I go through a door way, just like Charles does every day except I am much shorter than the tall man.
The real meat of this story is about a boy who played poker with buddies in a room that was no doubt built by the 5’3” Afghanis. Although the ceiling was a stout 6’4”, the height of the door was an impressive 5’7”. I ran out of the room to use the bathroom (no indoor plumbing here) in between poker hands and returned in the same quick manner, but forgot to duck on my approach to the door way. My forehead collided with the fanciful wood trim surrounding the mud and brick earth-works of the door way entrance and somehow propelled me in the opposite direction toward the rock and gravel approach to the door. I remember very little except picking myself out of the gravel and slowly walking into the room where my buddies stood agape. I had a terrific headache and my right elbow screamed for medical attention. To make a long story short, I had the best poker night of my time here, a red mark on my forehead, and a yellow and purple elbow that still reminds me of the whole experience.
You know, I actually do work here. We have been tearing apart vehicles and engineering and fabricating armor panels that protect the occupants. I really like this job. It is one of the few jobs that reward you with actually seeing your progress. I know that every inch of armor that is placed in these vehicles seriously helps someone. I truly love the fact that I am in a position to make situations better for others.
It’s also cool that I can tell someone that I engineer stuff. Sure dealing with measurements can be confusing, but combining that with three-dimensional Auto-CAD software and air-powered tools nearly takes my breath away. Every time I get to spline a curve or XYZ a point in space, I get kinda excited. Finally after twenty years since algebra, trigonometry, and calculus, I actually get to apply and understand a bunch of that stuff that I swore would be useless. Although it may make me sound like a geek, I enjoy this stuff.
OK, some of you have asked me about pictures, internet, and phone. Currently I have no dedicated phone and internet line. That is forthcoming. In the meantime I must try to share those limited resources with the other 17,000 military and civilian members stationed here. I would send all-you-all pictures, but my 15kbs pipeline takes me about 30 minutes a picture to upload at the smallest mega-pixel setting. So, I have been saving the butt-load of pictures I am taking on my hard drive and will produce a CD for distribution in the next couple of weeks. I will obviously send the first CD to my lovely wife who can email them out to you on our 640mbs line in mere seconds. Obviously she will screen only the most vivid, sharpest, and appealing pictures for your review.
Well, I gotta run and get back to the simple life here. I’ll send more later.
Craig
Today was the day to show Ed and Greg around the CJSOTF-A area, introduce them to the people we are working with, and show them the operation here in Afghanistan. Since their arrival, Ed and Greg have been ooohing and aaahing about everything here, except the maintenance facilities I have been working in. According to them, everything except the maintenance area is much better than what they have in Iraq.
We have several other countries represented here on Bagram. The largest (other than us) must be the Polish. Then the Koreans, French, British, Romanians, Canadians, Australians, and Egyptians all are here. There is very little difference in uniforms between the British, Canadians, and Australians except for hats and the flag on their shoulder. The Egyptians stick out like a sore thumb, especially with their nearly pink and gold work-out uniforms. Oh yeah, there are some Afghani forces here as well (the good guys, not the Taliban). We keep the Taliban in a huge prison right here on Bagram.
One of the things I had to point out to Ed and Greg were the French uniforms. You would think that a country with one of the top fashion hot-spots in the world would have decent looking uniforms. They are hideous. They appear to be made out of spandex because they are virtually skin tight. They also seemed to mimic the U.S. DCU (Desert Camouflage Uniform) pattern and combine it with the British desert uniform. The final result resembles mismatched colors in blotches painted on some poor human being’s body.
It gets dark here at 1715. I mean pitch black. We have very few lights on at night; kind of an Army thing, I guess. I would think we could turn on the outside lights along the sidewalks and in front of buildings, especially since we own the airspace and have done so since 2001. But alas, we are forced to navigate around the area after dusk by Braille. Sure, some of the areas we already know by heart, primarily the stroll to the bathroom. However, it is those unfamiliar areas that must be cautiously approached with out-stretched arms in front of your body and the high-stepping, soft-walking process we have all done in the dark.
Whenever anyone leaves the confines of Camp Vance, we are required to carry our personal weapon. I’m not exactly sure why, but that is the requirement. Maybe it’s because we have Local National (LNs) and TCNs working about or maybe it is to demonstrate a show of force. Whatever the reason, I certainly like having that 9mm with me; especially when I go to the FedEx location and have to remind the LN that I want my shipment today. Just merely putting my hand on the holstered pistol seems to convey bunches.
One of the things I will never get used to is women with weapons. Sure, those of you that are women probably now think I’m some kind of male chauvinist. But the fact remains that I spent most of my career in the Armor community where we did not have women in uniform. It was rare to see a female soldier. It was even rarer, I mean winning the lottery rare, when a female was carrying a weapon. As it happened, I was standing outside of Camp Vance the other morning waiting to meet Brian Nelson when an attractive girl of maybe 25 walked by me in a jacket and jeans. It wasn’t till she walked past me that I noticed an M16 slung over her shoulder across her back. She was obviously part of the U.S. military and currently not on duty because she was wearing civilian clothing. I however, was still caught by surprise with the fact that I was witnessing something I would not see in the U.S., and on the whole, thought it strange.
Like Iraq, our currency on Bagram is USD. Also like Iraq, our change (the metallic kind (pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters)) is not used here. Instead we are given pogs. Pogs are plastic, credit card thin, coinage about the diameter of a U.S. half-dollar with specific denominations printed under the exterior laminate. There are no penny pogs, just nickels, dimes, and quarters. The even stranger part of this story is that several of the items in the PX for instance, have prices that end in numbers like .97 or .99 cents. So, if you buy three items that have prices ending in 9, your final amount would end in 7 (no tax here). Since there are no penny pogs, the cashiers dispense change upward to the 0. Why?! Why not make every item in the store end in 5 or 0? Why make it more difficult for the cashiers and confuse the customer? Why?! Do we have to get Congress involved in this? Anyway, I already have a box-full of pogs. Sure I could spend them here as change, but I think I would rather send them to the kids and let them have fun with them at Fort Lewis or McChord.
We have facilities here to do our laundry. Yeah, KBR will do your laundry for you on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I have yet to try them here. Sure, they are supposed to be the same as Iraq, but once again, I have not tried them. Why? I don’t know, just haven’t. There is something familiar with throwing your own laundry in a washing machine and dryer that was previously used by someone who doesn’t understand the molecular properties of bleach that appeals to me. I mean, I look forward to blotches and splotches on my clothing that only comes with reckless abandon on your own accord in the laundry room. I think I just like the pink and purple sheets that I have currently which were once royal blue. It’s kind of an Americana thing to me.
Oh, the best part is the dryers. It takes 40 minutes to wash 10 yards of clothing and nine hours to dry it. I am not kidding. Maybe it’s the altitude (doubt it). Maybe it’s the moisture in the air (nope). Maybe it’s the reflection of the snow off the Hindu Kush Mountains (nice try). No, it is really the Maytag dryer that has been used more times in one year than a regular dryer gets used at the Shirley’s in twenty years. These poor dryers are used up in three months.
Wow, today they assigned me new facilities in Camp Oeullette which is about a mile from Camp Vance. I have a building that resembles a two-car garage and another building that could house 100 people with a two-car workshop attached. Of course, it has been vacant for years and required extensive cleaning and removal of unwanted crap. The intent is that I move into the building and use the area for living and working. The working part is under-way now; however, the living part will take some time. Although I have cable TV there, I do not have a telephone or internet or palatial rooms that meet with my approval. I have requested stadium-fulls of lumber and assorted paraphernalia to begin the construction process, but, alas, it has not yet arrived.
Ed, Greg, and I went to the DFAC at our appointed time for Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday. They really had a nice spread. We had REAL turkey with REAL dressing, REAL mashed potatoes (I avoided the sweet potatoes as you probably guessed), REAL gravy, REAL vegetables, and REAL biscuits. For the most part, it tasted as it looked (pretty good). I even had a slice of Pumpkin Pie with the spray-on whipped cream and vanilla ice cream al-a-mode. I washed it all down with Sparkling Cider and a Starbuck’s Mocha Frappuccino in the bottle.
Camp Bagram was taken over from the Taliban who took it over from the Russians who took it over from previous Afghani aggressors. Every building has a different design and structure that was built by different people. Depending on who built the buildings, the rooms, roof heights, door ways, etc. are all different. Why am I telling you all this? Because I have found it customary to duck every time I go through a door way, just like Charles does every day except I am much shorter than the tall man.
The real meat of this story is about a boy who played poker with buddies in a room that was no doubt built by the 5’3” Afghanis. Although the ceiling was a stout 6’4”, the height of the door was an impressive 5’7”. I ran out of the room to use the bathroom (no indoor plumbing here) in between poker hands and returned in the same quick manner, but forgot to duck on my approach to the door way. My forehead collided with the fanciful wood trim surrounding the mud and brick earth-works of the door way entrance and somehow propelled me in the opposite direction toward the rock and gravel approach to the door. I remember very little except picking myself out of the gravel and slowly walking into the room where my buddies stood agape. I had a terrific headache and my right elbow screamed for medical attention. To make a long story short, I had the best poker night of my time here, a red mark on my forehead, and a yellow and purple elbow that still reminds me of the whole experience.
You know, I actually do work here. We have been tearing apart vehicles and engineering and fabricating armor panels that protect the occupants. I really like this job. It is one of the few jobs that reward you with actually seeing your progress. I know that every inch of armor that is placed in these vehicles seriously helps someone. I truly love the fact that I am in a position to make situations better for others.
It’s also cool that I can tell someone that I engineer stuff. Sure dealing with measurements can be confusing, but combining that with three-dimensional Auto-CAD software and air-powered tools nearly takes my breath away. Every time I get to spline a curve or XYZ a point in space, I get kinda excited. Finally after twenty years since algebra, trigonometry, and calculus, I actually get to apply and understand a bunch of that stuff that I swore would be useless. Although it may make me sound like a geek, I enjoy this stuff.
OK, some of you have asked me about pictures, internet, and phone. Currently I have no dedicated phone and internet line. That is forthcoming. In the meantime I must try to share those limited resources with the other 17,000 military and civilian members stationed here. I would send all-you-all pictures, but my 15kbs pipeline takes me about 30 minutes a picture to upload at the smallest mega-pixel setting. So, I have been saving the butt-load of pictures I am taking on my hard drive and will produce a CD for distribution in the next couple of weeks. I will obviously send the first CD to my lovely wife who can email them out to you on our 640mbs line in mere seconds. Obviously she will screen only the most vivid, sharpest, and appealing pictures for your review.
Well, I gotta run and get back to the simple life here. I’ll send more later.
Craig
Nov 18, 2006
WEEK 2
November 13-19, 2006
Ah yes, arrival at the Al Udeid airport. This airport was nothing special, but compared to Ali Alsalem in Kuwait, Al Udeid looks like Chicago’s O’hare. I dropped my bags outside on a pallet for the Air Force dudes to palletize then went inside to get my boarding ticket (just like in a real airport). Next I was sent to immigration where a Qatari sporting a military uniform (Qatari uniform) looked over a computer screen, reviewed my passport, and nullified my visa. All I had to do was sit around for a couple of hours and watch NFL football on the big Sony that was being piped in live via Armed Forces Network (AFN) in the airport until it was time to board (remember, I’m 12.5 hours ahead).
Sometime around 0100, 40 of us were herded out of the waiting area and onto the tarmac. We walked eleven miles, or so it seemed because I was carrying my body armor, helmet, two backpacks and my boarding pass, to an Air Force C-17 that read McChord AFB on the tail. God, I love those planes, especially the ones from McChord. I had hoped that Bill Q, Kristine’s first cousin who is a C-17 pilot, was still flying C-17s out of McChord and would be one of the folks on this plane, but he had recently transferred to Travis AFB and no longer flew these routes.
I climbed up into the plane with the 40 others (mostly soldiers) and fell into one of the seats placed in the cargo area that was just like civilian airplanes. I threw my crap into the seat next to me and reclined the seat as far back as it would go. There was no flight steward to bark out orders about “tray tables and seats in their full and upright positions”, just a friendly Air Force Sergeant reminding us to put our seatbelts on when the seatbelt sign is illuminated. Our baggage was behind the seating area strapped down to the floor on pallets. In no time we were lifting off and flying to Afghanistan.
Although I am not aware of the air route we took from Qatar to Afghanistan, I’m pretty sure we flew right over Iran. I say this because it only took us three hours to get to Afghanistan and I cannot imagine it only taking that limited amount of time to fly around Iranian air space to someplace like Turkey then right to Afghanistan. I’m also sure Iran has never given us permission to fly over their country.
OK, so we landed at Bagram AFB at 0430 on the 14th of November. Bagram, which is about 30km North of Kabul, is home to 17,000 fully armed and equipped coalition forces. I’ll tell you more about Bagram later. I walked through the immigration area, this time handled by an Air Force Sergeant, and outside to where the baggage was being unloaded. Once again, I was fortunate enough to have a U.S. Army Special Forces Staff Sergeant there to pick me up and drive me into my new home. The drive took less than five minutes.
I was dropped off at the Distinguished Visitor’s (DV) quarters and told to pick any room I wanted. I threw my gear and luggage into a room and then followed the Sergeant to the Joint Operations Center (JOC) to check in and make contact. I arrived at the JOC around 0530, which was far too early in the morning for the day shift to be on duty and therefore could not link up with my POC until he came on shift. The Sergeant suggested I come back between 0800 and 0900 and in the meantime I could go over to the Dining Facility (DFAC) and grab some chow (Class I).
Well with that kind of time at my disposal, I opted to call my buddy Captain Brian N who was stationed here on Bagram and who also knew that I would be arriving. I called Brian and we agreed to meet at the main gate of Camp Vance. I’ll tell you more about Camp Vance later, too. Anyway, Brian met me and we walked over to his DFAC in the vicinity of Task Force (TF) Dagger.
While eating away, we watched Monday Night Football courtesy of AFN live on a huge LG projection TV. Man, have the soldiers gotten soft: decent food, all-you-can-eat, in a decent building with MNF on a big screen half a world away. How could you ask for anything else? In any case we finished breakfast and Brian walked me around the area pointing out specific items of interest. Eventually I had to leave Brian and head back to the JOC before 0900.
The weather and view are simply gorgeous to a humble Washingtonian like me. It was clear and cool with snow-dusted mountain ranges surrounding the high valley of some 4800 feet in elevation known as Bagram. This is nothing like Iraq, or Qatar, or Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia, or Korea for that matter. This is probably the best view with the best weather, next to Germany, that I have ever been sent to.
Although Bagram is like a city, there are all these separate compounds within it that is surrounded by fencing, walls, and concertina wire. I live and work in Camp Vance (the Special Operations camp) and have to go in and out of an armed gate to leave and say, visit Brian in his compound. Now that I have my Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A) badge, I can come and go as I please. Getting off-base (off Bagram) creates some concerns, but even with guys going back and forth to Kabul the risk is negligible. Brian has been in Kabul several times without incident. I would like to see Kabul, but the time has to be right and I won’t go without a posse.
To make a long story short, I finally met up with the right guys inside of the JOC. As I was informed, I am the Indigenous Operating Vehicle (IOV) guy working in the SPiG (don’t know what it stands for yet) for CJSOTF-A on loan from SOCOM. Got it? Super, now you know what I do for a living here.
I was concerned about my ton-and-a-quarter crate of mostly tools and some personal items that I had lovingly packed back in the good ole U.S. of A. It was due to arrive today at Bagram via FedEx. I found my way to the FedEx office here in an IOV and went in to try and get the status of my crate. If you recall from my previous memos of two years ago from Iraq, I used the acronym TCN for Third Country Nationals who produce a ton of the labor. Here in Afghanistan, the term TCN means the same, however, these people are Russians, Kurgistans, Chinese, and other Asians. In any case, the TCN in the FedEx office happened to be Afghani and only spoke Pashtun. I guess that makes him a local. He only knew one word of English, which happened to be “tomorrow”; I on the other hand happened to know only one word in Pashtun, which was appropriately “TODAY”! I then wrote down my tracking number on a piece of paper and said very loudly in Hebrew “I’ll be back later”. I knew that would get him.
Later happened to be the next morning. Fortunately for me, the manager of this FedEx location happened to be there and although he looked indigenous, spoke perfect South Carolinian. I inquired about my crate and he told me they had just delivered it to Camp Vance. I raced back to Camp Vance to find three soldiers looking in my crate. It hadn’t been on the ground ten minutes and they had already removed the 40 screws on top and opened the lid. I was able to take control of the situation by throwing rocks at anyone closer to me than five feet and threatening the pinky finger of any hand that came close. Immediately the motor sergeant, Master Sergeant Jones, showed up and provided a fork lift and operator to move my crate to its secure storage location. Whew, crisis averted and contents fully accounted for.
Oh, they gave me a mailing address today so those of you that feel the need to drop me a piece of mail most certainly can. I warn you in advance that the mail moves slowly and since we are in the “holiday season”, it moves even slower. The Post Office Specialist informed me to expect mail to take 2-3 weeks for arrival. OK, here is my address:
CW
CJSOTF-A
Unit 3-D
APO AE 09354
If you are wondering, I really do not have a want list other than the one I provided to Kristine. There is enough food and snacks here to, well, feed an Army. Yeah, I know, Ha, Ha! I did ask Kris to make some of the foodstuffs that I crave, run them through that food sealer/vacuum thingy, and send them this way. We’ll see how that goes. There is one thing that I do not have that I would truly love, but it must be disguised better than Gary in ‘Team America’ and that is beer. I’m talking about good beer that can be drank at 60F and still be great. Hiding it in the refrigerator is too obvious, and besides someone else would drink it and I would be contributing to someone’s violation of General Order #1.
I’ve got to tell you about the shower building here by my quarters. It’s a fully (recently) renovated Afghani building with eight complete separate showers. Each shower stall has a complete door that you can close, is not glass or plastic, and provides privacy. There are wooden benches outside of each shower door for your clothing and a towel hook to hang your towel on. Pretty nifty. There is one small drawback however. Whoever designed the ventilation system in the shower building didn’t understand condensation. Imagine eight showers going simultaneously with one little fan on the side wall to vent out all the hot moist air. Now imagine the collection of water vapor into water on the cold concrete ceiling. The net result: it rains in the shower building. And obviously the water falling from the ceiling is about 50F. I have learned to cover my clothes with something to prevent them from becoming really wet while I am showering.
Everything here runs off Zulu time. What’s Zulu (Z) time you ask? Well, it is zero hour; that time synonymous with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) (GMT and Z are the same time). By way of example, the fabulous West Coast is on Pacific Standard Time (PST) which is minus eight hours from GMT or Z. Here in Afghanistan, I am plus four-and-a-half hours from Z making me 12.5 hours ahead of PST. Therefore, when the Commander told me he wanted me at his meeting at 6Z, he meant I was to be there at 1030 hours local Afghani time or 2200 hours PST the evening before. Although I’m pretty good at math, I’m going to put three clocks on my wall: Kristine time, Zulu time, and Local time to prevent any confusion in the future. See what happens when you don’t know what is meant by 6Z and miss the meeting? I thought it was a building location, not a time.
I got kicked out of the DV today. Some General and his entourage are visiting and took priority over me. They put me into a room that is very similar to the DV, but without the telephone and internet connection right outside my room door. Now I have to scrounge internet and phone time with the rest of the horde here. So much for fancy living. Having your own phone and internet access is the thing of Kings over here.
I have been running and lifting with Brian N almost every day. Fortunately for me, I’m a pretty decent runner and although I am not adjusted to the elevation, can hold my own with Brian. Now the lifting thing is a whole different story. I haven’t touched a weight or performed one push-up since I broke my left arm two years ago. Brian has been lifting daily for six months. Needless to say, he has punished me in the last few days. My triceps and deltoids hurt so much I can barely get dressed. I have learned to prop my right arm on a table with my razor in my hand and move my face around the razor. I know you’re giggling Charles, but I will come out of this experience huge. I think I have already gained a half inch on the biceps and pectorals. When I return home, you may refer to me as Craig the Gigantic.
Friday dinner at the DFAC is Surf and Turf night. Everyone here talks about how great the food is on Friday nights. So much so, that one of the Warrant Officers personally escorted me to the DFAC for dinner. TCNs were cooking T-bones outside on a 10’ x 10’ pit with wire mesh covering it; without a doubt the smell was convincing. I asked for the rarest steak they had and accepted only one lobster tail and one ladle-full of breaded shrimp. Maybe it’s just me or maybe I’m a product of my environment, but rare T-bone steaks should be tender and pink on the inside. I prefer lobster tails steamed and from an ocean, not plucked out of some oil-rich gulf then boiled for four hours in barely potable water. And lastly, I prefer my shrimp not to be cooked in the fry cooker at the end of the day at Burger King. Next time, I’ll just have the salad.
Holy cow! We had a health and welfare inspection this morning. These inspections are only done for two reasons: 1) Because you have to annually, or 2) because the command suspects someone has contraband and cannot single anyone out, so they must look through everyone’s stuff. When the First Sergeant knocked on my door and stuck his head in, he said, “Sir, do you have any contraband?” I replied with, “No”. He then said “Very well, have a nice day, sir.” and went to the next room. It’s a damn good thing he didn’t ask me if I had gallons of Jack Daniels in my room because I would have been unable to lie to the First Sergeant! That was close!
Ed and Greg are flying to Afghanistan today to assist me with the multitude of vehicles that I have here to work on. They left Iraq this afternoon (the 18th) and should arrive on the 21st. Yep, three-and-a-half days to fly from Iraq to Afghanistan. Isn’t it obvious to you that they must first fly to Kuwait, wait two days, and then fly here? Makes sense to me; it’s no doubt an Air Force thing. No wonder J. William Q. was always spending extra days in theater to get his month tax-free.
I played poker last night with Brian and his accumulated buddies/work mates. I was doing OK, until I began to wane interest sometime after 2330. I finally went all in on three 7s in Texas Hold ‘em and lost to a full house. My total buy-in for four hours of poker and hangin’ with the guys: priceless (no, make that $10 USD).
Dad-gum! Ed and Greg came in a day early. Ed called me from the Bagram passenger (PAX) terminal and said he was here. I did not completely have their billeting available, but were able to get them into appropriate quarters. I gave them a quick lay of the land last night in the dark and put them to bed about 2200. It was good to see Ed and the big smile on his face, because he is slowly checking off every Arab country that he gets to carry a weapon in.
See you next week…
Craig
Ah yes, arrival at the Al Udeid airport. This airport was nothing special, but compared to Ali Alsalem in Kuwait, Al Udeid looks like Chicago’s O’hare. I dropped my bags outside on a pallet for the Air Force dudes to palletize then went inside to get my boarding ticket (just like in a real airport). Next I was sent to immigration where a Qatari sporting a military uniform (Qatari uniform) looked over a computer screen, reviewed my passport, and nullified my visa. All I had to do was sit around for a couple of hours and watch NFL football on the big Sony that was being piped in live via Armed Forces Network (AFN) in the airport until it was time to board (remember, I’m 12.5 hours ahead).
Sometime around 0100, 40 of us were herded out of the waiting area and onto the tarmac. We walked eleven miles, or so it seemed because I was carrying my body armor, helmet, two backpacks and my boarding pass, to an Air Force C-17 that read McChord AFB on the tail. God, I love those planes, especially the ones from McChord. I had hoped that Bill Q, Kristine’s first cousin who is a C-17 pilot, was still flying C-17s out of McChord and would be one of the folks on this plane, but he had recently transferred to Travis AFB and no longer flew these routes.
I climbed up into the plane with the 40 others (mostly soldiers) and fell into one of the seats placed in the cargo area that was just like civilian airplanes. I threw my crap into the seat next to me and reclined the seat as far back as it would go. There was no flight steward to bark out orders about “tray tables and seats in their full and upright positions”, just a friendly Air Force Sergeant reminding us to put our seatbelts on when the seatbelt sign is illuminated. Our baggage was behind the seating area strapped down to the floor on pallets. In no time we were lifting off and flying to Afghanistan.
Although I am not aware of the air route we took from Qatar to Afghanistan, I’m pretty sure we flew right over Iran. I say this because it only took us three hours to get to Afghanistan and I cannot imagine it only taking that limited amount of time to fly around Iranian air space to someplace like Turkey then right to Afghanistan. I’m also sure Iran has never given us permission to fly over their country.
OK, so we landed at Bagram AFB at 0430 on the 14th of November. Bagram, which is about 30km North of Kabul, is home to 17,000 fully armed and equipped coalition forces. I’ll tell you more about Bagram later. I walked through the immigration area, this time handled by an Air Force Sergeant, and outside to where the baggage was being unloaded. Once again, I was fortunate enough to have a U.S. Army Special Forces Staff Sergeant there to pick me up and drive me into my new home. The drive took less than five minutes.
I was dropped off at the Distinguished Visitor’s (DV) quarters and told to pick any room I wanted. I threw my gear and luggage into a room and then followed the Sergeant to the Joint Operations Center (JOC) to check in and make contact. I arrived at the JOC around 0530, which was far too early in the morning for the day shift to be on duty and therefore could not link up with my POC until he came on shift. The Sergeant suggested I come back between 0800 and 0900 and in the meantime I could go over to the Dining Facility (DFAC) and grab some chow (Class I).
Well with that kind of time at my disposal, I opted to call my buddy Captain Brian N who was stationed here on Bagram and who also knew that I would be arriving. I called Brian and we agreed to meet at the main gate of Camp Vance. I’ll tell you more about Camp Vance later, too. Anyway, Brian met me and we walked over to his DFAC in the vicinity of Task Force (TF) Dagger.
While eating away, we watched Monday Night Football courtesy of AFN live on a huge LG projection TV. Man, have the soldiers gotten soft: decent food, all-you-can-eat, in a decent building with MNF on a big screen half a world away. How could you ask for anything else? In any case we finished breakfast and Brian walked me around the area pointing out specific items of interest. Eventually I had to leave Brian and head back to the JOC before 0900.
The weather and view are simply gorgeous to a humble Washingtonian like me. It was clear and cool with snow-dusted mountain ranges surrounding the high valley of some 4800 feet in elevation known as Bagram. This is nothing like Iraq, or Qatar, or Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia, or Korea for that matter. This is probably the best view with the best weather, next to Germany, that I have ever been sent to.
Although Bagram is like a city, there are all these separate compounds within it that is surrounded by fencing, walls, and concertina wire. I live and work in Camp Vance (the Special Operations camp) and have to go in and out of an armed gate to leave and say, visit Brian in his compound. Now that I have my Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A) badge, I can come and go as I please. Getting off-base (off Bagram) creates some concerns, but even with guys going back and forth to Kabul the risk is negligible. Brian has been in Kabul several times without incident. I would like to see Kabul, but the time has to be right and I won’t go without a posse.
To make a long story short, I finally met up with the right guys inside of the JOC. As I was informed, I am the Indigenous Operating Vehicle (IOV) guy working in the SPiG (don’t know what it stands for yet) for CJSOTF-A on loan from SOCOM. Got it? Super, now you know what I do for a living here.
I was concerned about my ton-and-a-quarter crate of mostly tools and some personal items that I had lovingly packed back in the good ole U.S. of A. It was due to arrive today at Bagram via FedEx. I found my way to the FedEx office here in an IOV and went in to try and get the status of my crate. If you recall from my previous memos of two years ago from Iraq, I used the acronym TCN for Third Country Nationals who produce a ton of the labor. Here in Afghanistan, the term TCN means the same, however, these people are Russians, Kurgistans, Chinese, and other Asians. In any case, the TCN in the FedEx office happened to be Afghani and only spoke Pashtun. I guess that makes him a local. He only knew one word of English, which happened to be “tomorrow”; I on the other hand happened to know only one word in Pashtun, which was appropriately “TODAY”! I then wrote down my tracking number on a piece of paper and said very loudly in Hebrew “I’ll be back later”. I knew that would get him.
Later happened to be the next morning. Fortunately for me, the manager of this FedEx location happened to be there and although he looked indigenous, spoke perfect South Carolinian. I inquired about my crate and he told me they had just delivered it to Camp Vance. I raced back to Camp Vance to find three soldiers looking in my crate. It hadn’t been on the ground ten minutes and they had already removed the 40 screws on top and opened the lid. I was able to take control of the situation by throwing rocks at anyone closer to me than five feet and threatening the pinky finger of any hand that came close. Immediately the motor sergeant, Master Sergeant Jones, showed up and provided a fork lift and operator to move my crate to its secure storage location. Whew, crisis averted and contents fully accounted for.
Oh, they gave me a mailing address today so those of you that feel the need to drop me a piece of mail most certainly can. I warn you in advance that the mail moves slowly and since we are in the “holiday season”, it moves even slower. The Post Office Specialist informed me to expect mail to take 2-3 weeks for arrival. OK, here is my address:
CW
CJSOTF-A
Unit 3-D
APO AE 09354
If you are wondering, I really do not have a want list other than the one I provided to Kristine. There is enough food and snacks here to, well, feed an Army. Yeah, I know, Ha, Ha! I did ask Kris to make some of the foodstuffs that I crave, run them through that food sealer/vacuum thingy, and send them this way. We’ll see how that goes. There is one thing that I do not have that I would truly love, but it must be disguised better than Gary in ‘Team America’ and that is beer. I’m talking about good beer that can be drank at 60F and still be great. Hiding it in the refrigerator is too obvious, and besides someone else would drink it and I would be contributing to someone’s violation of General Order #1.
I’ve got to tell you about the shower building here by my quarters. It’s a fully (recently) renovated Afghani building with eight complete separate showers. Each shower stall has a complete door that you can close, is not glass or plastic, and provides privacy. There are wooden benches outside of each shower door for your clothing and a towel hook to hang your towel on. Pretty nifty. There is one small drawback however. Whoever designed the ventilation system in the shower building didn’t understand condensation. Imagine eight showers going simultaneously with one little fan on the side wall to vent out all the hot moist air. Now imagine the collection of water vapor into water on the cold concrete ceiling. The net result: it rains in the shower building. And obviously the water falling from the ceiling is about 50F. I have learned to cover my clothes with something to prevent them from becoming really wet while I am showering.
Everything here runs off Zulu time. What’s Zulu (Z) time you ask? Well, it is zero hour; that time synonymous with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) (GMT and Z are the same time). By way of example, the fabulous West Coast is on Pacific Standard Time (PST) which is minus eight hours from GMT or Z. Here in Afghanistan, I am plus four-and-a-half hours from Z making me 12.5 hours ahead of PST. Therefore, when the Commander told me he wanted me at his meeting at 6Z, he meant I was to be there at 1030 hours local Afghani time or 2200 hours PST the evening before. Although I’m pretty good at math, I’m going to put three clocks on my wall: Kristine time, Zulu time, and Local time to prevent any confusion in the future. See what happens when you don’t know what is meant by 6Z and miss the meeting? I thought it was a building location, not a time.
I got kicked out of the DV today. Some General and his entourage are visiting and took priority over me. They put me into a room that is very similar to the DV, but without the telephone and internet connection right outside my room door. Now I have to scrounge internet and phone time with the rest of the horde here. So much for fancy living. Having your own phone and internet access is the thing of Kings over here.
I have been running and lifting with Brian N almost every day. Fortunately for me, I’m a pretty decent runner and although I am not adjusted to the elevation, can hold my own with Brian. Now the lifting thing is a whole different story. I haven’t touched a weight or performed one push-up since I broke my left arm two years ago. Brian has been lifting daily for six months. Needless to say, he has punished me in the last few days. My triceps and deltoids hurt so much I can barely get dressed. I have learned to prop my right arm on a table with my razor in my hand and move my face around the razor. I know you’re giggling Charles, but I will come out of this experience huge. I think I have already gained a half inch on the biceps and pectorals. When I return home, you may refer to me as Craig the Gigantic.
Friday dinner at the DFAC is Surf and Turf night. Everyone here talks about how great the food is on Friday nights. So much so, that one of the Warrant Officers personally escorted me to the DFAC for dinner. TCNs were cooking T-bones outside on a 10’ x 10’ pit with wire mesh covering it; without a doubt the smell was convincing. I asked for the rarest steak they had and accepted only one lobster tail and one ladle-full of breaded shrimp. Maybe it’s just me or maybe I’m a product of my environment, but rare T-bone steaks should be tender and pink on the inside. I prefer lobster tails steamed and from an ocean, not plucked out of some oil-rich gulf then boiled for four hours in barely potable water. And lastly, I prefer my shrimp not to be cooked in the fry cooker at the end of the day at Burger King. Next time, I’ll just have the salad.
Holy cow! We had a health and welfare inspection this morning. These inspections are only done for two reasons: 1) Because you have to annually, or 2) because the command suspects someone has contraband and cannot single anyone out, so they must look through everyone’s stuff. When the First Sergeant knocked on my door and stuck his head in, he said, “Sir, do you have any contraband?” I replied with, “No”. He then said “Very well, have a nice day, sir.” and went to the next room. It’s a damn good thing he didn’t ask me if I had gallons of Jack Daniels in my room because I would have been unable to lie to the First Sergeant! That was close!
Ed and Greg are flying to Afghanistan today to assist me with the multitude of vehicles that I have here to work on. They left Iraq this afternoon (the 18th) and should arrive on the 21st. Yep, three-and-a-half days to fly from Iraq to Afghanistan. Isn’t it obvious to you that they must first fly to Kuwait, wait two days, and then fly here? Makes sense to me; it’s no doubt an Air Force thing. No wonder J. William Q. was always spending extra days in theater to get his month tax-free.
I played poker last night with Brian and his accumulated buddies/work mates. I was doing OK, until I began to wane interest sometime after 2330. I finally went all in on three 7s in Texas Hold ‘em and lost to a full house. My total buy-in for four hours of poker and hangin’ with the guys: priceless (no, make that $10 USD).
Dad-gum! Ed and Greg came in a day early. Ed called me from the Bagram passenger (PAX) terminal and said he was here. I did not completely have their billeting available, but were able to get them into appropriate quarters. I gave them a quick lay of the land last night in the dark and put them to bed about 2200. It was good to see Ed and the big smile on his face, because he is slowly checking off every Arab country that he gets to carry a weapon in.
See you next week…
Craig
Nov 12, 2006
WEEK 1
November 6-13, 2006
Yes, I have been asked many times recently why I would want to leave my family and friends and travel half-way around the world to work in a third-world country. It is not an easy question to answer especially since I really did not want to leave my family. Sure, there is that level of excitement, mediocre living conditions, and the concern of working in an area considered to be a combat environment. But, I believe the reason I agreed to this is because I needed to start a job with potential career opportunities that built upon my capabilities and provided a service to those who need it most.
I have spent the last couple of months training and preparing for this little adventure to Afghanistan to supervise the engineering, fabrication, and installation of polyethylene armor into civilian vehicles. These vehicles are owned by our own Special Operations Command and are used to conduct confidential missions within Afghanistan and Iraq. The armor that my company produces will protect American Airmen, Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers.
In any case, this job pays pretty well, I’ll get the traveling out of the way early, and I had Kristine’s blessing.
Kris and I talked frequently about dropping me off at the airport on the 6th. We promised each other that we wouldn’t cry or get overly emotional. We worked at preparation and seemed satisfied we were ready for my departure. We arrived at SeaTac and all was going according to plan until I hopped back in to the Suburban to give Cole and Nikki a hug and a kiss. They were both crying and muttering about missing me. I hugged and kissed them, said a few words, and jumped back out of the Sub to look at Kris. She had seen and heard the kids and was now crying as well. That hug, that kiss was the most difficult goodbye I have experienced. The walk into the airport was the longest walk of my life.
Most of you know Ed E. LifePort is armoring vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq. When in the initial stages of interviewing with LifePort, they were looking for another Armor Supervisor in addition to me. When asked if I knew of anyone, I could think of no one better than Ed. Ed came on board shortly after I did. At some stage, LifePort thought it prudent to have two folks at each location and through that process wound up hiring two guys with Auto CAD experience, Greg B from somewhere in Minnesota and Craig D from fabulous Puyallup.
We didn’t pick our teams or locations; LifePort did that for us. You know how business calculus works, so Ed and Greg were assigned to Iraq and Craig and I were assigned to Afghanistan. The reason Craig D is currently not with us is because he came late in the training cycle and is in training now.
Ed, Greg, and I found our way to security. The new laws governing liquids in your carry-on was a concern for me because I had purchased a ten-pack of 50ml Jim Beam bottles for that special occasion. The guy at the x-ray asked me if I had any liquids in my carry-on. I produced the yellow cardboard package and showed him. He took a quick look, put them into a round tub and ran it through the machine. The x-ray operator scanned my Jim Beam. She then asked me if I knew the total limit of liquids that I could carry on board an airplane. I said I was unaware. She told me that I would have to leave four of the bottles unless I wanted to share them with her now. Who was I to argue with authority? She gave a quick laugh and said maybe next time. I made it through with all ten.
Nine hours on a plane with free alcohol doesn’t sound like a bad deal until your back-side starts to complain. You can only sit there or lay back so much before you have to get up and do something. I know why they give you free alcohol. You are expected to have a couple drinks, watch one of the movies available, and fall asleep. Unfortunately I wanted to get up and move around. Where is the running track or the gym? There is only so much room to walk around and no matter how many times you walk from one end of the airplane to the other you still do not want to sit down again.
Finally, Heathrow International Airport! Since we landed at the international terminal, which is #4, you have to take the train to Terminals 1, 2, or 3 to leave the airport. Maybe it’s just me, or Ed, or Greg, but getting to the correct train to leave the airport was no simple matter. The signage and arrows in the airport really seem to make little sense. We asked several airport employees and although I know they speak English, we had a communication barrier. Needless to say, we found our way to Terminal 1 and to then to our hotel about one mile away.
We took a taxi to the hotel from the airport. Had we known it was virtually around the corner, we would have just pushed one of those baggage trolleys to the hotel and saved the 10 pounds it cost the three of us in one taxi. That’s almost $20 U.S. Dollars for a five minute ride. That’s ten more pounds I could have spent on beer! I would have gladly walked the mile for that incentive.
I know it had been five years since I was in London last, but I thought I knew my way around better that I obviously did. Like in any town, businesses come and go, but guiding off landmarks should be easy and London has many. We got a map of London and began perusing. Right away, we noticed there are hardly any street signs. Did London take down the signs during World War II so the Germans couldn’t find their way around and forget to put them back up? It’s been 60 years and the Germans are no longer a threat. Hey, London! It’s time to put the signs back up.
We did manage to find a few pubs and decided to try different brands at each location. I decided early on not to blow more than $100 large on beer. Fortunately, my consuming prowess is no longer at college level and I had no trouble staying below my threshold.
The next morning we took a shuttle to the airport (saved that 10 pounds) and proceeded to Terminal 4 and to security. The English-speaking guy by the x-ray machine asked me if I had any liquids in my carry-on. Once again, I produced my lovely yellow ten-pack. He looked at it inquisitively and walked it over to another security agent. The two of them looked it over, brought it back to the x-ray machine, put it in a tub and ran it through. At this point, I was walking through the scanner to the opposite end of the x-ray. One of the agents handed me a plastic Ziploc bag and told me to put the bottles of Jim Beam in the bag. He watched me as I did this and then snatched the bag out of my hands, walked it back to the entrance of the x-ray, placed it in another tub, and ran it back through the x-ray. At that point, it was OK for me to take my liquor with me.
Obviously the yellow cardboard carton that the Jim Beam neatly resided in could be used in some negative or people-harming way on an airplane, according to the Brits. I’m sure glad they are aware of this danger and hope they pass that information on to the states and places like SeaTac who let me carry that harmful device on an airplane.
Well, the flight from London to Bahrain and then to Doha was uneventful. I took a lot more advantage of the free alcohol during these legs and actually managed to snooze a little. Once on the ground in Qatar, we were paraded through the immigration and customs areas and forced to buy a three-week visa. The visa cost 55 Qatari Riyals or about $18 USD.
A U.S. Navy SEAL met us at the airport and was our driver to Camp As Sayliyah (CAS). What an experience. He put us in a Ford Expedition and careened his way through some of the worst drivers I have ever seen. I thought the Koreans held the title of the worst drivers in the world, but they take a back seat to the Qataris. After about a 20 minute drive we had to go through security which included looking through, under, and around our vehicle with mirrors, dogs, and electronic equipment. All told, an hour was spent being cleared by the three stages of security to get into a base that has had no attacks in the past two years.
We were housed in a giant warehouse that was approximately 200 meters long and 75 meters wide. Inside were 20’ connexes (containers, mil vans) stacked two high and aligned back-to-back in rows. Inside each connex was two wall lockers, two beds, a table, a 20” TV and a DVD player, complete with air conditioning. These were not too bad and had showers and toilets attached to the warehouse. We found out later these are referred to as CHUs or Container Housing Units. If this was the housing we were going to be provided in theater then things were looking OK.
We arrived in Qatar late on the 8th and by the time we got into our CHUs it was the 9th. We were given a general direction of where we should report around 0900 the next morning. Of course it was a mile or two hike in 90+ degree weather to get to the Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) location. I planned my clothing around Afghanistan’s weather which is very Tacoma-like. I was sweating more than a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. Anyway, once we met up with our points of contact (POCs), all became well.
The SOCCENT guys gave us a fully armored Toyota Land Cruiser to drive around CAS. They also wanted us to check it out and let them know if it warranted putting extra dollars into. We drove that thing around for four days and only put 42 miles on it. It was top heavy, the suspension was not designed for the extreme amount of armor weight, the engine (4.7L V8) was sluggish, the armored windows would not roll down, the doors were difficult to close because they weighed so much, however, the air conditioning worked like a champ. It was a 2002 Land Cruiser with leather and the navigation system. Yes, I think dropping another $5K into the suspension seemed reasonable.
I got to spend Veteran’s Day on a military installation halfway around the world with one of the single greatest Veterans I have ever known. I waited until 0530 in the morning on the 11th to wake Ed up and announce “Happy Veteran’s Day, Ed”! He wasn’t quite as excited about it as I was at that time of day, but warmed up to my greeting a few hours later. We spent the rest of the day walking around CAS and congratulating and thanking the U.S. joint forces.
Finally we received our flight assignments out of Qatar. I was beginning to go mad because of the monotony. Four days on CAS in Doha, Qatar with nothing to do was about three-and-a-half days too long. Obviously, our flight times were not close. Ed and Greg had a show-time at the Al Udeid airport (U.S. Air Force controlled) at 0400 on the 13th of November and my show-time was 2215 on the 13th. I took Ed and Greg to the armory at 0230 to draw their weapons then helped them put their equipment into another vehicle with a driver for the trip to Al Udeid.
I gave Ed a big hug before he left as I didn’t know when I was going to see him again and because we’ve spent the last couple of months working closely together, and I kind of like the guy. Although it was not as difficult as saying goodbye to Kris and the kids, it was still kind of hard.
I went back to my CHU and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. I wound up typing parts of this, playing a computer game, and repacking my stuff. I spent the remainder of the day screwing around, sending email, making some phone calls, and otherwise being bored. Finally at 1930, I went to the armory to draw my pistol and ammunition, loaded my stuff into my driver’s vehicle, and checked out with SOCCENT. By 2000 hours I was on my way to Al Udeid.
I’ll pick up with my Week 2 narrative from this point.
Because the fastest internet connection I have access to is a screaming 100 Mbs (some of the time), I have been compiling pictures and will put them on a CD. I should get that CD in the mail to most of you before Christmas.
Let me know if there are any questions.
Craig
Yes, I have been asked many times recently why I would want to leave my family and friends and travel half-way around the world to work in a third-world country. It is not an easy question to answer especially since I really did not want to leave my family. Sure, there is that level of excitement, mediocre living conditions, and the concern of working in an area considered to be a combat environment. But, I believe the reason I agreed to this is because I needed to start a job with potential career opportunities that built upon my capabilities and provided a service to those who need it most.
I have spent the last couple of months training and preparing for this little adventure to Afghanistan to supervise the engineering, fabrication, and installation of polyethylene armor into civilian vehicles. These vehicles are owned by our own Special Operations Command and are used to conduct confidential missions within Afghanistan and Iraq. The armor that my company produces will protect American Airmen, Marines, Sailors, and Soldiers.
In any case, this job pays pretty well, I’ll get the traveling out of the way early, and I had Kristine’s blessing.
Kris and I talked frequently about dropping me off at the airport on the 6th. We promised each other that we wouldn’t cry or get overly emotional. We worked at preparation and seemed satisfied we were ready for my departure. We arrived at SeaTac and all was going according to plan until I hopped back in to the Suburban to give Cole and Nikki a hug and a kiss. They were both crying and muttering about missing me. I hugged and kissed them, said a few words, and jumped back out of the Sub to look at Kris. She had seen and heard the kids and was now crying as well. That hug, that kiss was the most difficult goodbye I have experienced. The walk into the airport was the longest walk of my life.
Most of you know Ed E. LifePort is armoring vehicles in Afghanistan and Iraq. When in the initial stages of interviewing with LifePort, they were looking for another Armor Supervisor in addition to me. When asked if I knew of anyone, I could think of no one better than Ed. Ed came on board shortly after I did. At some stage, LifePort thought it prudent to have two folks at each location and through that process wound up hiring two guys with Auto CAD experience, Greg B from somewhere in Minnesota and Craig D from fabulous Puyallup.
We didn’t pick our teams or locations; LifePort did that for us. You know how business calculus works, so Ed and Greg were assigned to Iraq and Craig and I were assigned to Afghanistan. The reason Craig D is currently not with us is because he came late in the training cycle and is in training now.
Ed, Greg, and I found our way to security. The new laws governing liquids in your carry-on was a concern for me because I had purchased a ten-pack of 50ml Jim Beam bottles for that special occasion. The guy at the x-ray asked me if I had any liquids in my carry-on. I produced the yellow cardboard package and showed him. He took a quick look, put them into a round tub and ran it through the machine. The x-ray operator scanned my Jim Beam. She then asked me if I knew the total limit of liquids that I could carry on board an airplane. I said I was unaware. She told me that I would have to leave four of the bottles unless I wanted to share them with her now. Who was I to argue with authority? She gave a quick laugh and said maybe next time. I made it through with all ten.
Nine hours on a plane with free alcohol doesn’t sound like a bad deal until your back-side starts to complain. You can only sit there or lay back so much before you have to get up and do something. I know why they give you free alcohol. You are expected to have a couple drinks, watch one of the movies available, and fall asleep. Unfortunately I wanted to get up and move around. Where is the running track or the gym? There is only so much room to walk around and no matter how many times you walk from one end of the airplane to the other you still do not want to sit down again.
Finally, Heathrow International Airport! Since we landed at the international terminal, which is #4, you have to take the train to Terminals 1, 2, or 3 to leave the airport. Maybe it’s just me, or Ed, or Greg, but getting to the correct train to leave the airport was no simple matter. The signage and arrows in the airport really seem to make little sense. We asked several airport employees and although I know they speak English, we had a communication barrier. Needless to say, we found our way to Terminal 1 and to then to our hotel about one mile away.
We took a taxi to the hotel from the airport. Had we known it was virtually around the corner, we would have just pushed one of those baggage trolleys to the hotel and saved the 10 pounds it cost the three of us in one taxi. That’s almost $20 U.S. Dollars for a five minute ride. That’s ten more pounds I could have spent on beer! I would have gladly walked the mile for that incentive.
I know it had been five years since I was in London last, but I thought I knew my way around better that I obviously did. Like in any town, businesses come and go, but guiding off landmarks should be easy and London has many. We got a map of London and began perusing. Right away, we noticed there are hardly any street signs. Did London take down the signs during World War II so the Germans couldn’t find their way around and forget to put them back up? It’s been 60 years and the Germans are no longer a threat. Hey, London! It’s time to put the signs back up.
We did manage to find a few pubs and decided to try different brands at each location. I decided early on not to blow more than $100 large on beer. Fortunately, my consuming prowess is no longer at college level and I had no trouble staying below my threshold.
The next morning we took a shuttle to the airport (saved that 10 pounds) and proceeded to Terminal 4 and to security. The English-speaking guy by the x-ray machine asked me if I had any liquids in my carry-on. Once again, I produced my lovely yellow ten-pack. He looked at it inquisitively and walked it over to another security agent. The two of them looked it over, brought it back to the x-ray machine, put it in a tub and ran it through. At this point, I was walking through the scanner to the opposite end of the x-ray. One of the agents handed me a plastic Ziploc bag and told me to put the bottles of Jim Beam in the bag. He watched me as I did this and then snatched the bag out of my hands, walked it back to the entrance of the x-ray, placed it in another tub, and ran it back through the x-ray. At that point, it was OK for me to take my liquor with me.
Obviously the yellow cardboard carton that the Jim Beam neatly resided in could be used in some negative or people-harming way on an airplane, according to the Brits. I’m sure glad they are aware of this danger and hope they pass that information on to the states and places like SeaTac who let me carry that harmful device on an airplane.
Well, the flight from London to Bahrain and then to Doha was uneventful. I took a lot more advantage of the free alcohol during these legs and actually managed to snooze a little. Once on the ground in Qatar, we were paraded through the immigration and customs areas and forced to buy a three-week visa. The visa cost 55 Qatari Riyals or about $18 USD.
A U.S. Navy SEAL met us at the airport and was our driver to Camp As Sayliyah (CAS). What an experience. He put us in a Ford Expedition and careened his way through some of the worst drivers I have ever seen. I thought the Koreans held the title of the worst drivers in the world, but they take a back seat to the Qataris. After about a 20 minute drive we had to go through security which included looking through, under, and around our vehicle with mirrors, dogs, and electronic equipment. All told, an hour was spent being cleared by the three stages of security to get into a base that has had no attacks in the past two years.
We were housed in a giant warehouse that was approximately 200 meters long and 75 meters wide. Inside were 20’ connexes (containers, mil vans) stacked two high and aligned back-to-back in rows. Inside each connex was two wall lockers, two beds, a table, a 20” TV and a DVD player, complete with air conditioning. These were not too bad and had showers and toilets attached to the warehouse. We found out later these are referred to as CHUs or Container Housing Units. If this was the housing we were going to be provided in theater then things were looking OK.
We arrived in Qatar late on the 8th and by the time we got into our CHUs it was the 9th. We were given a general direction of where we should report around 0900 the next morning. Of course it was a mile or two hike in 90+ degree weather to get to the Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT) location. I planned my clothing around Afghanistan’s weather which is very Tacoma-like. I was sweating more than a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. Anyway, once we met up with our points of contact (POCs), all became well.
The SOCCENT guys gave us a fully armored Toyota Land Cruiser to drive around CAS. They also wanted us to check it out and let them know if it warranted putting extra dollars into. We drove that thing around for four days and only put 42 miles on it. It was top heavy, the suspension was not designed for the extreme amount of armor weight, the engine (4.7L V8) was sluggish, the armored windows would not roll down, the doors were difficult to close because they weighed so much, however, the air conditioning worked like a champ. It was a 2002 Land Cruiser with leather and the navigation system. Yes, I think dropping another $5K into the suspension seemed reasonable.
I got to spend Veteran’s Day on a military installation halfway around the world with one of the single greatest Veterans I have ever known. I waited until 0530 in the morning on the 11th to wake Ed up and announce “Happy Veteran’s Day, Ed”! He wasn’t quite as excited about it as I was at that time of day, but warmed up to my greeting a few hours later. We spent the rest of the day walking around CAS and congratulating and thanking the U.S. joint forces.
Finally we received our flight assignments out of Qatar. I was beginning to go mad because of the monotony. Four days on CAS in Doha, Qatar with nothing to do was about three-and-a-half days too long. Obviously, our flight times were not close. Ed and Greg had a show-time at the Al Udeid airport (U.S. Air Force controlled) at 0400 on the 13th of November and my show-time was 2215 on the 13th. I took Ed and Greg to the armory at 0230 to draw their weapons then helped them put their equipment into another vehicle with a driver for the trip to Al Udeid.
I gave Ed a big hug before he left as I didn’t know when I was going to see him again and because we’ve spent the last couple of months working closely together, and I kind of like the guy. Although it was not as difficult as saying goodbye to Kris and the kids, it was still kind of hard.
I went back to my CHU and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. I wound up typing parts of this, playing a computer game, and repacking my stuff. I spent the remainder of the day screwing around, sending email, making some phone calls, and otherwise being bored. Finally at 1930, I went to the armory to draw my pistol and ammunition, loaded my stuff into my driver’s vehicle, and checked out with SOCCENT. By 2000 hours I was on my way to Al Udeid.
I’ll pick up with my Week 2 narrative from this point.
Because the fastest internet connection I have access to is a screaming 100 Mbs (some of the time), I have been compiling pictures and will put them on a CD. I should get that CD in the mail to most of you before Christmas.
Let me know if there are any questions.
Craig
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