Whew, this week has been windy, but every day is getting progressively worse! I don’t mean breezy like a comfortable cooling draft that gently wicks the moisture away from your body, I’m talking about gale force winds unfortunately mixed with hot air and miscellaneous loose debris that feels like your whole body is standing in front of a huge hair dryer while you’re being pelted with sand, trash, and occasional bird droppings. It’s the kind of weather which forces you to make mad dashes from building to building and keep your eyes and mouth closed for fear of accidentally acquiring an Iguana in your eye socket. This is nothing like the cool and wet delight of a Florida hurricane. I would take one of those anytime over this horror.
Ed made a comment to me about cleaning out my coffee cup. Yeah, I’m generally a clean freak but when it comes to my coffee cup that I use daily, I’m not that worried about washing it after every use. I’m just gonna put coffee in it again and I really don’t want the added flavor of dish soap to my freshly ground, carefully prepared, cup of hot Starbuck’s coffee. Yep my cup has coffee residue on the inside. It’s a black cup and you can clearly see the residue. I do not put any additives such as sugar or cream in my coffee, so the residue is pure. As opposed to my method of coffee cup savoir faire, Ed, the guy who I would not put anywhere in the upper rung of clean freaks, washes his cup every day. He even smells it before adding coffee to it. It’s absolutely hysterical (to me anyway) watching him go through his coffee cup process. I get around to rinsing my cup out about once a month. The floor of our shop? That’s a different story and it gets swept or mopped virtually every other day. Don’t want too much dust and stuff on our rough concrete floor, you know!
We drive a pick up truck nearly every day that has a rear bench seat design flaw. It rattles and makes unbelievable noise. The idea behind flipping the bottom portion of the seat up to store things below is nifty, but it does not stay in the up position on its own. Additionally to perform this flip up movement, the seat back must slide upward a couple of inches to allow the seat bottom necessary room for movement. This slide mechanism does not hold the seat back tight and fast which means that it clatters around in the slide. As you can probably imagine, the roads here on Bagram are glass smooth with nary a crack, gouge, or crevice to disturb the finely tuned dampening of the shocks of our vehicle. Regrettably, riding in our machine with the windows up causes a deafening racket which produces vibration so vehement through sound waves that we are worried about cracking the front windshield. Instead, we are the guys driving around with headphones on, windows down, and the AC turned on full-tilt. We are a sight to behold!
Here we are now a month and more from the GWOT Trot and we are still sans our t-shirts. The Lieutenant in charge of this little operation should be relieved or at least taken out back and flogged with a chili spoon. She won’t even acknowledge us any more and I hope the reason is sheer embarrassment. We do get the straight poop from an up-front NCO who recognizes us thoroughly and seems to ‘feel our pain’. In the time it has taken to get these promised shirts, we could have sent the graphics to a Chinese shirt producer, offered a $1.27 per shirt, and had the remaining 500 shirts sent on a barge from East China, through the China Sea south around southern Asia and up through the Bay of Bengal where it could have been placed on the back of a donkey and carted through India and Pakistan to arrive two weeks ago here in Afghanistan. Where are they getting these shirts?! Please don’t tell me they are paying a local here in the Bagram area $5 a shirt! In that case, we’ll never see them.
I’m not sure of the exact date of the new U.S. postal rate increases, but it obviously affected me this week. I certainly knew an increase was going to happen, but did not know how much it was going to be. I normally send out USPS box #4 which, regardless of weight, costs $8.05. That same box this week cost $8.95. I suppose it’s all relative, but that extra $.90 cents seems a little steep. That’s an 11% increase and much higher than any cost of living increases or percentages. I know our gas prices are unreal, but does than mean our postage has to be as well?! Who approves these things? I was not aware the United States Post Office was in the business of making a profit! Shouldn’t someone be held accountable?
The C Huts that we had planned to move into are no longer our concern. A couple of minute repairs remained and they ready to inhabit. As with anything in the military, once a piece of crap that no one wants is refurbished, suddenly everyone now needs it. The same is true with these C Huts. We have been patient in their development and care. Now that they are nearly 100% in shape, we were informed that they would be transported back to Camp Vance for the use of some schmucks there. Really, if these C Huts go to soldiers who need them, I’ll be happy, but I am very sure that isn’t the case. They’ll go to some windbag who thinks himself important to some degree and who is successful in convincing someone with authority of the same. Que sera, sera!
With the loss of the C Huts fresh on our minds, we were told by our POC that we would be moving out of the cramped confines of B Hut #55 to another B Hut with fresh remodeling that increased the square footage up to 50%. Exactly which new hut and on which date this move will occur is as of yet uncertain. There is no doubt in my mind that it will be the one day that is the absolutely most inconvenient day to move. On top of that, I am convinced that we will be provided with absolutely limited notice to make the move happen. I would be surprised if we were given 15 minutes of advance notice. Why is this like going to a movie I have never seen, but already know the storyline and outcome?
Jinkies! Wasn’t that Velma’s exclamation on Scooby-Doo? Well, if she were here, she would be saying that and more because of our on-hand beer supply! It is critically low and we don’t even have another batch ready to bottle (partially due to a lack of available bottles). Where does the beer go? Shouldn’t it have lasted the two of us longer than this? It’s not like were drinking them every day and certainly not during “business hours”. Yeah, we have shared a few, but you would think 6 gallons of beer would last us quite awhile. We’ll obviously have to crank the brewery back up and produce another vibrant batch of hand-crafted goodness. I do so enjoy the fruits of this labor.
One of the nights this week, the Taliban must have been bored. They decided it would be prudent to launch five mortar rounds onto Bagram. Fortunately for us the rounds landed in the junk yard owned by DRMO. Don’t ask me what DRMO stands for, but it is that place where generally out-dated or broken stuff is sent when no longer wanted. It’s amazing to me that they can actually launch the mortars, let alone five of them, and have them all land in the same vicinity. Does that mean they fired all five from the same tube in rapid succession? Just imagine if those guys could actually aim or direct the mortar rounds.
Further good news about this attack was that no one was injured and we did not have to move to the bunkers for an hour after the attack. We did go into Red Alert, which means that we were required to stay indoors (preferably in hard buildings unless mission dictates otherwise) and wear or have at-hand our weapons and protective gear. The leadership must be waking up to the fact that putting everyone into bunkers after an attack for an hour and announcing it multiple times over Giant Voice only benefits the enemy. Bravo on lessons learned! Hopefully my weeklies had something to do with that.
Now that the temperature has been steadily in the 80s and 90s, the Air Force has embraced this by wearing their PT (Physical Training) uniforms all day. At least it seems that way. Rarely do we see Air Force personnel in their Desert Camouflage Uniforms (DCUs). I do know this is an air base and it is critical for resupply and the like, but other than load and unload planes, what are the gobs of Air Force personnel doing here and why are they doing it in their PT uniforms? Technically, this is a combat zone for which personnel residing here get an extra monthly stipend coded as “Combat Pay”. It amazes me that military personnel here are not wearing helmets and vests daily. It further astonishes me that they are not even wearing combat uniforms. I thought service member safety was our top priority regardless of comfort. In my mind, receiving combat pay means wearing the uncomfortable stuff.
This week’s picture has absolutely nothing to do with me here on the opposite side of the globe. Instead, it is a picture of my son, Cole, sitting in the ‘dugout’ waiting for his opportunity to bat. He is wearing his super batting gloves that he coerced his mother into buying because they no doubt help his swing and batting ability (read average). To Cole, his batting gloves give him the power and might of Zeus with the nimbleness and dexterity of a vascular surgeon. He credits is batting success to these gloves (as opposed to the hours we spent the last couple of summers playing waffle ball). Anyway, if it works for him, then it works for me. I just had to share this picture and my immense pride that goes with it.
Next week’s thrilling and awe-inspired tales will be focused on the impending move: Will it happen or is someone just having their way with us?, What must we do to coax the rain clouds off and around the mountains and into this high plateau, and finally Memorial Day weekend: preparation, frivolity, and whether or not we actually get a day off for the holiday.
Don’t work too hard this next week; I won’t either.
Craig
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