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