And speaking of rawking, the first letter I got came in from Ben. He printed out some Avril Lavigne letterhead and then filled the rest of the pages with his usual hilarity. It's almost ironic how eloquent he can be on the written page. Oh, by the way, Ben...you need to update your web page. The second letter I got was from Jane. It came in a JJMA envelope, so I'm guessing that she probably wrote it during one of her many breaks at work. I don't think she does much there except for surfing the web, updating her weblog, and take naps. Anyway, she clued me in on all of the family gossip and other goings ons at home. Thuy wrote me long e-mail too the other day. I finally got around to reading it yesterday. I think my boy is all growsd up now. Seriously, in six months, I don't think I'll even recognize him.
Anyway, it looks like things will settle down after the busy night last night. I just took my malaria medication with breakfast; so I should be having some wild dreams when I lie down for my nap after the 0400z meeting. That's what they say at least. One of the side affects that a lot of people have with the malaria medication. But yeah, besides that, not too much going on. They did publish the bracket for the chess tournament last night. I'm not familiar with the private that I have to play in the first round, but I've played nearly everyone else in the tournament at least once in practice. If I get through the first round, I should be able to walk in to the finals without really breaking a sweat...hehe...so cocky. We'll see in a day our two how that ends up. I'll be sure to keep you posted. I know you're on the edge of your seat right now.
15 August 2004 1725z - It ended up being a lazy Sunday. I got up early and worked on the stationary bike for about 35 minutes before lifting some weights during my pre-breakfast work-out. Because my guys have to go through PUC watch in the early morning when we have detainees, we don't get a chance to do PT as a platoon as often as I'd like. We'll try to change that in the near future though. The early evening after dinner seems to be a good time for everybody except for me with my two hours or so of meetings.
Anyway, I had a six-hour shift as the watch captain in the TOC today, but there wasn't much going on. Since the registration for the chess tournament ended today, a bunch of people requested that I bring my home-made chess set in to play. I did...and I beat a lot of people. But in retrospect, I probably shouldn't be playing chess in the TOC. It's okay during the night shift just to keep awake, but it's probably not so good for the day shift. Plus, I don't want to hurt everyone's feelings when I keep beating them. *smile*
Besides that, there isn't much to report. It was steak and lobster night tonight, so that is always a crowd pleaser. Tomorrow, my platoon has the night watch for monitoring the computers...so that means I'll probably be spending some extra time online. Plus, we're looking forward to mail again. From what we're hearing, there isn't enough room on the helicopters to push all of the mail down. Not that anyone is complaining. Mail is always good to have. We just may have to find alternate means of getting it down here, that's all.
15 August 2004 0235z - So there's this sergeant that I work with over here. He happens to bunk next to me too. Anyway, he's gone to local vendors on multiple occasions to pick up certain comfort items like blankets and foam padding for his cot, refrigerators, fans, and whatnot. Naturally, I poke fun at him all the time for being soft. In turn, he pokes fun at me for pretending to be hard. Well, two days ago, he asks me if I want a foam pad to sleep on. Of course, being hard, I say no. I think it was then that he realized that I didn't even sleep with a pillow...so he pointed it out. Knowing how hard I was, he offered to find me a rock to use as a pillow; and being as hard as I am, I said that I thought it was a good idea. Fast forward to later that night. I come back to the tent and notice a big jagged rock at the foot of my cot. Alas, a pillow. I've been using it for the last two nights. How's that for a dumb infantryman?
13 August 2004 2145z - So I ended up taking two naps today...hehe, what a slacker, I know. I was just getting ready because I knew I had night shift tonight, from 2000z to 2400z. That doesn't seem so late, but the sun does come up around 0030z, so this is pretty much the dead of the night shift. Plus, when no one is out on operations, things are very quiet. The only thing you hear on the radio are radio checks from all of the different elements. They call them radio checks because they want to check that the radios are still up. Plus, it helps to see if everyone is still awake...not that everyone has to stay awake, but there needs to be at least one person up at each location monitoring the radio in case something happens.
Anyway, tonight is one of those nights when everything is quiet. I've already completed my Officer Evaluation Report Support Form. I've never really enjoyed filling out this one. It pretty much consists of you talking about all of the things you accomplished in the last year and all of the things you hope to accomplish in the next. Every year, I put down similar things. This year, it'll be different though, right? I said that I wanted to do Ranger school and my officer advanced course down at Benning when the deployment is over. We'll see if that'll happen. I also put down 295 for my APFT goal. I should have said 300, but oh well. I would have put down earning a Combat Infantryman's Badge (CIB), except that I really don't have too much control over that one. In order to earn that one, you have to be directly engaged by the enemy. Of course, everyone wants to come back with one of those (they are shiny and pretty), but I think most people wouldn't mind if they never took fire during the next year. I mean everyone is itching to get into a real firefight because that's the stuff we know we'll kick butt at it if given the chance. What everyone would like to avoid would be rocket attacks and IEDs.
Enough army talk though, right? I've got a whole year of that left. The registration for the chess tournament ends on Sunday. I'm looking forward to that. Looking at the sign-up sheet, I've beaten every person on the list except for the Battalion Commander (that's only because I haven't played him yet). Plus, there is only one person on the list whom I've lost to. That's the medic I play every day though. I went 1-1 today, bringing my record to 6-33, I think. I lose track all the time, but that's only because it doesn't really matter.
13 August 2004 0245z - Oh how I do love getting e-mails. It may not seem like it because I rarely return them. However, with only fifteen minutes online, I tend to use more of the time reading than writing. Plus, when I start writing five or six people, I find myself saying pretty much the same things...describing what has been going on here and whatnot. So instead, I tend to talk about stuff on this site and occasionally, I'll have throw in a shout out or two. Who's written me so far? Let's see...sisters, brother, mother, Ben, CRAIG(?!), Rohit, Arun, Stora, Mr.Romano, and Uliya (my Latvian sweetie...long story - for another time). Anyway, I hope you don't feel bad if I don't write back. It's just that it usually takes me five minutes to log on to the computers and another two or three to update the weblog (i.e. e-mail Jane...thanks again). Handwritten stuff I can do better, so I'll try to pull some more night TOC shifts because those tend to be quiet times when I can sit down and do whatever I want.
Anyway, in the tradition of Angry Yenny, there was an incident that occurred the other day that I want to mention. Let me paint the picture. You live in an open tent with twelve other people. Your very loud alarm clock goes off. What do you do? Do you: a) pull your blanket over your head and try to hide from the noise or b) get your butt up out of your bunk to turn it off? You would think it would be the latter; but if you lived around here, you might start second guessing yourself. The whole tent was woken up at 2330z yesterday because of it. The alarm clock was probably ringing for a minute and a half before I started fishing around the tent for the off switch. At that point, a kind sergeant on the other side was assisting by scanning my side of the tent with his flashlight. Eventually, the alarm clock was switched off and all was right with the world once again. How's that for a war story?
11 August 2004 1747z - "I have nothing else to share." I have three meetings that I have to attend every day. The first one lasts about 10 minutes and the other two last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour. What amazes me is that the people in charge of the meetings say that exact phrase about ten minutes into the meeting and somehow the meeting goes on for thirty more minutes. If they have nothing else left, why do I have to waste my time in that meeting? I could be playing chess or going for a run or sleeping or eating or surfing on the internet...any of those things. We used to have the same meetings with the marines who were here as we were transitioning and somehow they were able to get out more information in about a third of the amount of time. It's too bad, we didn't pick up on that kind of stuff.
I'll stop complaining though. Today was a pretty good day. We unpacked a few thousand gallons of water off of the jingle trucks. Jingle trucks are what they call the trucks driven by local nationals that we hire to ship our non-sensitive supplies and equipment. They're called "jingle trucks" because they're often decorated with these long metal strands that jingle with movement. The truck part of "jingle truck" comes from the fact that they're trucks - Mercedes-Benzeses no less. I know a few of the guys have been tempted to pry off some of the insignia from the grills of the trucks because they're huuuge...almost a foot in diameter maybe.
Anyway, I think I'm off to sleep now. I don't really need an alarm clock these days because I'm usually awake by midnight because of the cold. BTW, bedtime is around 1800z and wake-up is around 0100z, depending on the day. There isn't a real solid schedule around here because of details. My platoon has the PUC shift from 2400z until 0400z. PUC stands for Personnel Under Control of the U.S. Military - basically, a more politically correct way of saying prisoners. But yeah, when we have prisoners around, it throws a wrench in the whole wake up and PT routine. We have a whole bunch of other duties too, but my point was actually going to be about the weather. I'm usually awoken by my shivering. It drops from about 90 degrees in the day to 50 degrees at night. 50 isn't that cold, but I don't have my sweats or my comforter to keep me warm like when I'm at home...not to mention the heater. Instead, there is a nice breeze blowing through the tent and I just have a couple of thin poncho liners to keep me warm. When the rest of our equipment gets here, though, I'll be okay. I have my sleeping bag in there and that'll keep me warm even if it's 40 under outside. Okay...bedtime.
11 August 2004 0345z - Ah....the mail. It was like Christmas yesterday when the convoy rolled in with three trailers full of mail. We'd actually had two flights come in with mail as well, but those weren't nearly as fun (mainly because I didn't get any mail on those). This time, though, I got two packages. One was from Stora - thanks for all the juice and the laundry detergent. We'd been using this type called Bingo and it is funny because the package talks about how they use white power to clean out the stains. The other package I received was from some random person who I don't think I know. It was filled with a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't think about asking for, so that was nice. The most useful thing in the package being toothpicks. They have boxes and boxes of beef jerky sent in every few days, so that tends to be the snack food of choice...that and power bars and banana chips. They also ship in hundreds and thousands of pounds of powdered gatorade too. The best part, though, is this. Each of the pouches contain enough powder for one quart. However, the bottled water comes in half liter bottles (about half a quart). The problem is that it's so hard to divide the powder exactly in half, so most people just dump the whole packet into a bottle. It tastes soooo sweet...hehe. Anyway, we started talking about food because I wanted to share about the toothpicks. They're just nice to get the bits of beef jerky out from in between teeth. Oh, and speaking of in between teeth...they had broccoli yesterday for the first time since I've been down here. That was a nice treat...almost like being at home.
Anyway, I'm starting to settle into a bit of a routine. I finally finished reading that chess book - I think I've gotten many times better. I haven't been updating much lately because the TOC shifts have been throwing off my sleep schedule. I'll be back in the swing of things after one or two rotations though. I finished my seventh shift yesterday, so that means I actually get two days off before I have to go again. What will I do with that time? Well, this morning, I went on the stationary bike for about half and hour and did some lifting. The rest of the day will involve offloading trucks and playing chess. The bazaar will be outside the gate today too...so I might end up picking up some two dollar DVDs. We'll see what they have.
09 August 2004 1648z - It was a sad last few days as we lost two soldiers here in a vehicle explosion. I didn't know them all too well, but I'd worked with them for the last two years. It'll be tough not having them around...but I'll try to stay away from talking too much in detail. Anyway, we recovered their vehicle and I worked with a few people who looked through it before sending it up for investigation. It was pretty intense. I didn't get close enough to see the blood, but the body of the vehicle was pretty mangled. This was an armored vehicle too, so I could only imagine what it was like. One of my good friends from OCS was in command of the vehicle at the time. Luckily, he got out with only a few broken ribs. He was MEDEVACed and he's back with us now at camp now. I haven't really talked to him about what happened yet, and I'm not sure if I ever will. I couldn't imagine losing two of my soldiers. We'd gotten pretty close to one another over the last few months, and however cliche it may be, they are starting to feel like family, like brothers and sons. I won't get sappy though.
My chess game has picked up a bit over the last week. I even made my own chess set out of 32 blue and white bottle caps and a manilla file folder. It looks nice - I think you'd be impressed. Once I get my hands on a digital camera, I'll take a picture to show you. Anyway, I've been playing this medic for the last week. Currently, I am 4-27 against him. That's not too bad considering that I started off 0-11. He even lent me one of his chess books to study. I am almost done with it after only three days. During tonight's 4-hour TOC shift, I'm sure I'll have some time to run through the last few annoted games in the back of the book.
05 August 2004 0152z - Sometimes I worry about updating regularly. I worry that people will get worried if I don't update for a few days because they think something mght have happened. Most likely, if that happens, it'll be because I've just been too busy to update. You know, with all that basketball and chess I've been playing. There's this one medic that I pretty much play regularly now. He says that I'm the best he's played since the deployment, but I'm not sure if he's just saying that. I take it as a compliment as he competed in the national junior chess championships a few years back. So far, I am 1-15 against him. That one win was pretty sweet too. He's given me some good pointers and, yesterday, he even tossed me a chess book to read to make me better. But yeah, back to what I was saying. Don't worry too much about me.
With that said, let me talk about EOD. I forget what it stands for right now as I just woke up, but those are the guys who defuse the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other unexploded ordnance (UXOs) that we find. They have a few hundred (maybe thousand) pounds of explosives here at camp and they use it to blow up things like weapons and munitions caches. Sometimes, when people go out on patrols, they bring things back for EOD to destroy. That's when it gets interesting...because they don't always tell us that they're going to do it. So randomly throughout the week, you get these big explosions going off outside the wall and people start running for the bunkers. Seconds later, of course, we realize that we were the cause of the explosion and not some huge rocket attack. That doesn't keep a few people from wetting their pants, but it does provide a little comic relief for those who know what's going on. I'm sure there's a better system for doing this - with the radios and PA system and all - but we have yet to implement it. That's the military for you.
01 August 2004 1832z - Usually, I'm out cold in a matter of minutes, but I just couldn't fall asleep tonight. I was lying down in my cot, and I just kept on thinking about things. Not anything all too important, but enough to keep me from my unconscious state. I've been feeling somewhat guilty these last few days because I've been feeling like I've been slacking. Overall, I'm still doing a pretty good job. Everything is getting done and all. It's just that I'm just doing my job these days. I'm not going out of my way to make sure that everything is right in the world. I'm just kinda doing my little part here. And honestly, that's different for me. I don't know if I like it or not. I definitely have more time to myself. I was able to lose three more games of chess today. And this morning, I spent about 20 minutes on the raggedy old stationary bike listening to my iPod. I lifted some weights and played some basketball too. I even had a chance to throw a football around with a few of my soldiers. There's definitely a lot more down time now that I'm not trying to know everything about everything. On the other hand, I did still have three hours of meetings today.
I don't know. It doesn't feel right. It really does feel like I've been slacking. But maybe every month or so, I should take a break like this to help regroup and rejuvenate. In a day, we will start a rotation between a handful of officers here. When the bigwigs are asleep or away, they need to put someone in charge of everything...it's called the watch officer. I hung out with the marines when they did this rotation. The duty itself wasn't all that special. You just kinda sat in the operations center listening to the radio until something happened. If nothing happened, nothing happened. That would actually be a good thing. But if something went wrong, you'd etiher fix it or find the person who could. That's pretty much it. I feel kinda special being one of only two lieutenants given the opportunity. Honestly, though, most of the other officers chosen probably resent having to pull the shift every day. I probably will too, after a while. But I think this'll keep me in the loop for the time being and it'll give me something to do.
Besides that, we had movie night tonight. We watched Euro Trip...very funny. I'm glad we're relatively safe where we're at because if we were farther out, they probably could have located us from all the laughter in our tent. Hehe...one last thing. I'd forgotten to add this to my list of stuff that I need...money. You see, they don't have ATMs here in Afghanistan, so you understand. I don't need much (like fives or tens or ones) since we don't have to pay for anything here. It's really just for souvenirs and postage for packages and stuff like that. So if you want anything from here, tell me and I'll try to find it. Also, I've been meaning to write, but I don't have very many addresses. I've been sending postcards to my parents and my siblings, but not anyone else. So if you want me to write, e-mail me your address. I'm sure I'll have plenty of time to write during some of the graveyard watch officer shifts.
But yeah...I'm going to try to fall asleep again. I'm sure I'll write more soon.
31 July 2004 1732z - So not too exciting today...just a lot of manual labor. We offloaded something around 9,000 cases of bottled water and a few thousand pounds of batteries. I didn't have to do a lot of thinking today...so that was almost like a vacation by itself. I gave myself a haircut today too. That made me feel a lot better too. Besides that, I really can't think of much else that I did. I won a couple of games of basketball, 3-on-3 type. That's all. I'll write more tomorrow. I'll try to do something exciting.
30 July 2004 1732z - The whole logistics aspect of this mission has been pretty straightforward so far...which makes me much less useful. I'm used to being needed to solve problems and stuff like that. So without anything to do, I've resorted to playing chess and taking naps during the day in between answering constant radio messages from the gate guards who seem to think that I'm in charge of running the whole camp. That's what happens when you try to solve problems...people think you're in charge and stuff.
Well, anyway, this morning - since I didn't have much else to do - I decided to start my day in the kitchen. The mess section kinda falls under me, so they've been asking me to join them in the kitchen for a while. In the past, I hadn't because I never really had the time. But since I'm not as needed these days, I figured I'd give cooking a shot. So my contribution to the battalion mission this morning was cooking about 20 pounds of hash browns. One of my young mess specialists showed me the basics, to include spatula styles and the right mixture of spices. After watching him demonstrate one batch, I was off on my own. I think I did okay, though people were started ragging on the potatoes when they found out that I'd cooked them. I think most of the soldiers had fun with it though. My mess guys appreciated the fact that I went down to the kitchen to experience what they did all the time, and most of the other soldiers seemed to like the fact that an officer was serving them breakfast.
Anyway, I'm off to bed in a few minutes because we have to get up early (2300z) in order to do some heavy manual labor type missions. I'll try to write more soon.
29 July 2004 1742z - So today was a good day overall. It started off a little rough...not too grueling, but just boring and filled with mundane details which include, packing and unpacking trucks and escorting local workers around the camp. The fun stuff came during the evening though. I ended up playing a couple of games of chess with one of the sergeants that I work with too. Of course I won both times. *evil, cocky laugh* But that was followed up with a long discussion about science and religion with the soldiers in my platoon. It was very enlightening and entertaining at the same time. I won't go into it too much though.
Random funny quote from inside the tent:
Soldier #1: Someone's feet smell like cheese.
Soldier #2: You better watch out for that mouse eating your feet at night.
A little background information on that quote...with the lack of running water and showers around here, everyone's feet smell like cheese. We've also seen a mouse running around the tent these last two days. I love it here in Afghanistan.
28 July 2004 1652z - This morning, some locals set up shop outside the gate and started peddling their wares. There were a whole bunch of bootleg DVDs and some arts and crafts-type stuff too. And there were rugs. Everyone's been telling me about the rugs and how nice they were here. Honestly, I can't really tell the difference between a good rug and a bad rug, but I started learning quickly as I was bargaining down the vendor. He showed me a whole bunch of different rugs, big and small, red and brown. There was one that I really liked, but he kept on asking for $350. It was a very nice red, asian-looking rug. It was hand-made...or so the guy said. Anyway, after almost walking away, I bargained him down a bit and finally handed over a wad of cash. He could very easily have ripped me off, but it was a nice rug. Unless I find some place to put it down here, I'll probably send it home once I figure out what that process is. The rest of my guys picked up bootleg DVDs, so it'll be movie nights for a while. They already went through I, Robot today and they're now working on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Me, I think I'm going to take tonight off and get some sleep. I feel like an old man these days. For example, I played some basketball tonight after dinner and I don't know...I was just off my game. I'll be a regular Yao by the time I get back home though. I'm sure I'll have enough time to practice.
Anyway, I'm getting bored and smelly around here these days. I think I'm going to pick up chess to help with some of that - the boredom...I don't think that'd help with the smelliness. Plus, everyone is going to start sending me letters and e-mail because they know how happy it makes me. *smile* That's it for now. I'll write about Gatorade tomorrow. How's that for a cliffhanger?
27 July 2004 1152z - Burning poo...there are about three or four Afghans that come in the gate every day to burn our poo for us. Oh, how I miss running water. You can see the columns of black smoke rising from the poo buckets every morning, and they burn throughout the day into early afternoon. And the smell lingers for hours. If you've never smelled it yourself, consider yourself one of the lucky ones.
Today was relatively uneventful. I volunteered for a couple of details today, to include offloading about 16,000 cans of Sprite from a truck to a storage container. I also ran a rifle range this morning. Let me tell you, there is a lot less red tape when you're running a rifle range in theater compared to peacetime ranges back home. You don't have to worry about monitoring radios all the time and that whole safety thing is much more simplified. Now that everyone is used to carrying live rounds with them in their rifles all the time, you don't have to go through all of the formalities of clearing your weapon every time you do something. So instead of taking 10 minutes for every iteration we did at the zero range, it took closer to three. After about a dozen iterations, you can see how fortunate I was to be in a war zone.
Besides that, I'm supposed to have a dinner date with some general in the area. I won't say his name for the sake of operational security (that and the fact that I don't actually know his name). That dinner is supposed to be in a little over an hour, so I better hurry up and get pretty. Oh, forgot to mention that I am going to start keeping track of my official shower boycott starting now. My last shower was just over a week ago, and I'll see how long I, along with the people around me, can hold out. Now, I'm not saying that I'm boycotting personal hygiene altogether. I will still wash and shave and cut my hair regularly - I just won't shower...to serve what purpose? Only I know. But it'll be fun...maybe.
26 July 2004 1725z - So it's starting to get warm around here. Yesterday, the thermometer went up to 109 degrees. Of course, at night, it feels like it's freezing. It's probably only around 60 or 70 at night, but that 40 degree drop can do wonders. I'm starting to fall into a bit of a routine around here - I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I'm hoping that it'll make the time pass faster. Right now, things seem like they're dragging like crazy. The last few days have felt like weeks, and the last few weeks have felt like months and the last few months have felt like years. I think I'm close to 40 years old now by that count.
Today was a little different though. I ended up going for a run this morning. We went about a mile+, but it took a little longer than usual. The air is pretty thin here at about 1.5 miles high, so some of my guys were lagging behind. I think we'll be in shape in a few weeks though. But hey...I was thinking today, especially since people have been asking me since I left; and I thought I'd come up with a list of things I could use around here. Before you send me anything, let me warn you not to try to speed up the process by sending priority mail or anything like that. What happens is that all APO mail ends up in Delaware or something like that..and it just builds up until there is enough to send into theater. When it gets into theater, it'll just sit until a helicopter runs by our fire base...it usually stops by once a week or so. So if you send something overnight, it ends up sitting in Delaware and then in an airport in Afghanistan until that weekly flight shows up. So yeah...anyway, here's the list:
Those are kinds of things that I can't get enough of down here. I'd take some more time to finish up this list, but we're starting Zoolander on our tent theater system, and I'm starting to crack up already. I'll have more later
24 July 2004 1525z - I'm so proud of my boys. No thanks to me, they ended up running a convoy in some pretty rough terrain yesterday and they did a good job. They came back telling war stories and one of them was even solicited by one of the local males. It's very interesting how that worked out...suffice it to say that most of the guys are making fun of him.
All in all, I'm having a pretty good time. I get a chance to get online for a few minutes almost every day and I get two hot breakfast and dinner on top of that. You can't complain about that, right? We even moved in to a new tent the other day and I have my own little space with a 4x6 sheet of plywood as my floor. That's actually luxury compared to many of my counterparts. And thanks to the LIFO supply chain we tend to have here, I already have my computer, laser printer, and DLP projector up and running even before all of the headquarters here. How's that for an army of one?
Oh well...I feel kinda nasty because I haven't showered since hitting the ground here. I did try out the no-water shampoo the other day and gave myself a haircut though. That made me feel like a new man. Plus I finally changed out of my DCUs tonight. I'd been wearing them for nearly two weeks straight. They were so thick with dust and gunk, that it felt like I'd starched the heck out of it. Enough about poor personal hygiene though. There's more than that to go around. Surprisingly enough, though, I have been able to maintain my regularity...OH!!!! Too much information, right? Okay, I'll stop. I'll write more later...like when I turn 8 years old.
22 July 2004 1856z - So my platoon finally hit the ground yesterday and it brought a huge smile to my face when I saw them get off the bird. Even better, they came bearing gifts. For me, they brought a pistol with a new holster. Kinda cool, huh? Of course I have no ammunition for it and I've never fired one in my life - but it's the thought that counts, right? I'm sure I'll get it squared away eventually. Plus, the bad guys can't tell, right?
What else? Oh, there wasn't enough space for everyone in the tents when my guys showed up, so my platoon decided to go sleep out on top of the sandbags on the bunkers here. Yeah, I know...it'd make more sense to sleep in the bunkers, but my guys aren't the smartest. Anyway, since no one else in my platoon was sleeping in the tents, I couldn't be a pogue (that's army talk for a wuss or a weasel) and sleep on my cot either. So I picked up my poncho liner and went out to sleep under the stars. There are a few things I want to talk about here. First off, it was a beautiful night. I had never seen so many stars in the sky before. I even caught a shooting star and made a wish. Well, I didn't catch it like the little prince...but I caught a glimpse. Do you remember that cartoon? *theme music* The little prince, from outer space, can catch a shooting star and fly away / perhaps one day, he'll fly your way! *sigh* Oh, the memories.
But yeah, slept outside last night with my poncho liner and one additional one borrowed from one of my staff sergeants. Oh, before we go on, let me flash back a few months to when we packed our duffle bags to be pushed overseas by boat. You see, there was this packing list thing. They call it a packing list because it's a list of all the things you're supposed to pack into your duffle bag. And since the packing list was photo-copied over and over again, you shouldn't be mistaken if you were to assume that all of the duffle bags were then identical. You would think, right? Well, let me share with you one of the items on the packing list...sleeping bag. And guess what I saw everyone in when I went to sleep. Yeah, everyone was sleeping in their sleeping bag, which is strange because our duffle bags haven't arrived yet...bingo! Which means no one followed the packing list except for me. Which I guess is ironic because I was the one who ended up freezing my butt off last night when the temperature dropped about 40 degrees in a span of three hours. Everyone else was nice, cozy, and undisciplined in their sleeping bags.
I don't mind being hard though. Let me tell you how hard I am. I had to look through my weblog in order to remember the date of my last shower. That would be 17 July. My last shower before that day was the 12th. I'm thinking about boycotting showers altogether, but I don't think I would be able to live with myself. I mean, I have the shower in a box type wipes. And there's this shampoo I bought back at the P/X that doesn't require water for use. So I'm keeping relatively clean. I could shave and brush more though...and I could definitely use a haircut. Once I unpack everything, and move in to my semi-permanent tent, I'll get on all of that stuff. Until then, I'll just suffer in silence. Hey, didn't I saw I was going to try to stop complaining?
19 July 2004 1806z - Today was a pretty exciting day. We started off early as we left for our permanent (for now) assignment. We rode down on CH-47s (big helicopters...I figured I'd save you the trouble of googling "CH-47" for those of you who didn't know). The ride was long enough for me to fall asleep, but I did stay awake for most of it. It's pretty amazing as you go over the mountains. When we hit our final destination, we hurried off the helo and *cue bright lights and music* if was like paradise. Well, it wasn't really paradise, but it was better than I expected. Suffice it to say, it seems pretty safe here and I think it'll be a good time.
The highlight of my tour of the camp was the row of piss tubes. Three guesses on why they're called piss tubes...come on...come on. Hehe...some are made of metal and some are PVC, but piss tubes are basically big long tubes stuck a few meters into the ground at about a 70 degree angle with the ground. As you would imagine, people urinate into these tubes and it gets absorbed into the ground...or at least I think that's how it works. It didn't seem all that complex so I held back from taking one apart. In one place I was at, the piss tubes were all filled up and they had buckets over the cover. I'd imagine that over time, the level would go down and it would be functional once again. I was so fascinated, I tried to drink as much water as I could today so that I could test the system more. I'll share more if I find anything further.
I ended up riding along on my first real convoy in a combat zone today. I felt pretty safe throughout though. We ended up driving through the city, and there'd be people all around. It was strange because I hadn't really had to interact with locals at all my whole time here. But today was pretty eye-opening. As we drove through the city, the males would tend to give us scowls and dirty looks. Some of them would smile at us, but most would be either negative or neutral. The kids, though...the kids are a blast. They'd run out to the road and cheer and wave. Some of them would give thumbs up signs or that hand sign that surfers give. It felt great to see that kind of response from all of the kids. I think, for the most part, that they're doing that in the hopes that we'll throw them stuff, like candy or water or whatever else. But we've been reminded over and over again not to do that because it could cause problems with kids rushing the vehicles and causing traffic jams. Anyway, I'm back in one piece still and things seem okay.
I had to leave most of my gear because of the weight limitations of the helicopter, but I brought all of my computer stuff because I knew I had to do work. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of stuff to keep me warm, just a poncho liner. They're telling me that it'll get cold here tonight, especially since we're about a mile and a half up, but I'm thinking I'll survive. You'll know if I end up updating again in the next few days. Until then...
18 July 2004 0400z - It's been two days now, and things are still pretty good. It's kinda strange bringing a loaded weapon with you everywhere, from the tents to meetings to chow to the shoppette to the gym to anywhere. The only place we're not required to have the weapon is the shower...hehe. Let's see...what have I done so far since I've been down here? It's strange in that I haven't really done much. I've sat in a few meetings, but I'm really just settling in right now. I've gone for a short 2+ mile run yesterday morning with my boys. It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Then today, we went to the gym to do some weight-lifting. I did about twenty minutes on the stationary bike too. The gym here is pretty good. They have ESPN playing from back home and you can keep up to date on a lot of stuff. They have clean towels too and even refrigerators full of bottled water. That's something you don't run out of around here. They keep the bottled water pretty well stocked. I'd imagine they spend a few billion dollars on that stuff every month...(doing calculations in my head)...yeah, that sounds about right.
As far as sleep goes, it hasn't been bad. The schedule isn't too intense right now, so we get a chance to grab a nap during the day as we try to adjust to the 8.5 hour change in time. Oh...it's really dusty here. I ended up getting a nose-bleed yesterday because of it and anything lying around gets a film of dust on it within hours. Besides that, I've kinda run out of things to write about for now. Oh, I did get an e-mail the other day from the parent of another soldier - a hokie, no less - and they found my site while he was searching for some stuff. That's kinda good and bad. I mean, I've been keeping a close hold on all of the operational security stuff, but I probably need to stop complaining so much now. That'll be tough. But yeah, I'll try to update whenever I get the chance...I'm basically going to e-mail attachments to Jane and have her upload them because they have so much security on the computers that they won't let us ftp...or at least I haven't figured out how yet. Oh well.
17 July 2004 0400z - Yeah, okay, so that last update was kinda sappy. I didn't know what was going on though. You know, our plane could have been shot down or something...so I wanted to make sure things were said. But now that we're here in country, it doesn't seem that bad. In fact, it's actually very nice. We're living in what is known as "tent city" right now. Three guesses why it's called that. Come on...come on...yeah, well, it's pretty much a city consisting of tents. Imagine that. It's funny though...they've got pretty good ventilation systems in these tents, so it's actually cooler here that it ever was in our barracks at Fort Bragg. Then there are the showers. They actually have these things called curtains that divide the different shower stalls. Isn't that amazing? They didn't have those at Bragg either. Other things they have here: in the offices, there is air conditioning, and then there is the internet cafe and better chow. Dinner last night was steak and crab legs. Again, not bad.
There are down sides though. There are rocks everywhere. Big rocks, little rocks, you name it. Grandma would probably like it around here. There are lots of big smooth rocks that would look nice in the garden. Other down sides...oh, the time change. It's strange here. We work off of zulu time, which is pretty much GMT. Local time is +4.5 hours though. So the sun comes up just after midnight and it goes down at 5:00 in the afternoon. It's weird. We wake up with the sun though. We did a two-mile run this morning before breakfast. It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be running in the high altitudes. It's about a mile up where we are right now.
Speaking of mile high, let me talk about the plane ride here. It was pretty cool. I'd never ridden a C-17 before. The inside floor was brushed steel with some black grip pads. It almost looked like the interior of one of those spaceships you see on tv. I slept through the first 8-hour leg on the way to Germany though, so I missed the aerial refuel. I heard is was a bit rocky though. After we hit Germany, I just hung out in the airport for a few hours before heading off again. I stepped outside for a little walk, but they didn't stamp my passport on the military side. You had to walk the few miles around the whole airport to the civilian side for that...I didn't do that though. I just stayed and hung out, making about 8 or 9 trips to the little shoppette there. On the last leg of our trip after Germany, I took a nap on the floor of the plane. That was cool. After we got in the air, they let us get out of our seats and lay blankets on the floor. There was an in-flight meal too. The air force is pretty good with that kind of stuff.
Oh well...I should probably get dressed and going though. I did want to update you all on my address though. It's almost the same as what I posted a few days ago, but a letter or two changed. If you sent it to the other address, it should still be okay, but this might just get here faster:
Louie, Sonny W
HHC/3-116 IN/Support Platoon
APO AE 09354