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.
Dec 2, 2006
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
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