1st day off

mmmmmmk, blog time.  Figure now is appropriate.

Ok, where to begin.  should just post all the emails I've been sending to friends on here.  That would cover everything.  I'll just start at random.

So, I'm currently sitting in the green bean cafe here at Bagram Airfield watching a preview for a new bruce willis show called "Red".  Never heard of it.  Just like several of the movies that have come out in the last year.  It's hard to believe that I have been here doing this since May of 2010.  That's how much time of normal life this has taken.  It's been tough but I've had some great experiences and gotten to do some incredible things that few Air force can relate to.  Also, gotten to network with lots of people for future employment or career progression as well.  The deployment has been tough but great but I'm definately ready to get back to normal life.  This has been the first day off I've had in 7 months and it has been wonderful.  I took a nap today that was supposed to be an hour or so and turned into 3 1/2.  Guess it's been a while since I've had a full sleep.  My own doing though.  This is also the first time I've had personal internet since the alst time I came to Bagram a couple months ago. 

Jumping around a little here.  So, at Bagram Airfield(BAF), there are frequent mortar attacks.  Usually they hit the flightline though.  Well my luck has been that the last couple times I've been here, they have NOT hit the flightline and instaed have landed within a few hundred meters of where I was alking or sleeping. Last night, some friends and I were walking to the gym and wheeeeeew boom wheeeeeew boom.  Several rounds landed maybe 150-200 meters away and they were walking in closer and closer to where we were walking.  Immediately we were up and running for shelter.  We scrambled into a wooden building which is definately not the greatest protection but it was something.  the sirens started going off and we ran out to make our way to a concrete shelter.  running for life or limb is intense but not the greatest feeling.  I don't know how all the guys in the field who experience combat every day can deal with it mentally.  I hear explosions nearly daily at the FOB but they are rarely combat oriented and I still wake up at night sometimes heart throbbing whenever there's loud noises thinking we could be under attack.  I jump everytime a fighter jet engine powers down and makes that whistling noise.

Now, our FOB is really not all that dangerous as we bring to much money to the market just outside the gate and thus, there is speculation that the market owner pays off the Taliban.  Plus, the Americans don't do kinetic operations against the insurgents so they usually leave us alone.  The French marines that I work with however, do night raids and compound searches and clearing operations and the whole 9 yards so they get into it a lot.  We've had more than one fallen soldier ceremonies (in French) in the last 7 months.  Fortunately, none of my team members have been seriously injured.  We've had some close calls what with people stepping on IEDs and the convoy being shot at but we've been lucky.  The infantry guys hate it though.  They yearn for combat like they've been trained for but that's not what our team's here for and the French and route clearance packages clear out our areas before we go anywhere.  There is still a risk for suicide bombers and vehicle bombs though.  Things have heated up a whole lot here in the last month with the warm weather and we'll see what happens in the next 30 days with the death of the famed bin laden.

Just a quick side note on that topic, Everyone is asking if now that Bin Laden is dead, can we go home?  the answer is NO!  that's not what it's about.  He may be the reason that we have come here in the first place but that is not why there are thousands of international forces here  If only now we could take out Mullah Omar, the one-eyed iconic Taliban leader, and Anwar Al-Awaki, another high profile Al Qaeda leader.  If we don't stabilize this country first, and bring security, it's gonna fall right back into the hands of the Taliban again.  The American people want the troops to come home because they don't understand what is happening over here.  I could talk about this subject forever but perhaps in another blog.  Afghans do just want to be left alone but there is so much pressure from Iran and Pakistan to destabilize the country, it seems ours is a neverending mission.  We will never win soliditarity for Afghanistan without fixing the situation in Pakistan first.

Ah Pakistan, those so called "allies" who claim to assist us, and then play dumb when it is found to harbor multiple terrorist networks.  Hell, even in our own province, the main shadow governers(Taliban leaders running the insurgent network in the background) do all their commanding and orders from Pakistan.  Afghans go to Iran and Pakistan for work and insurgents go to Pakistan for shelter and relief from coalition force operations.  We have several of the m running and Talib leaders move several times even multiple times a night to avoid capture but all of that is for naught if we don't fix Pakistan.  That is a tangled web though as Pakistan has a strong military and nukes and thus cannot just be "invaded" as some have put it the same as Afghanistan.  Another thing, everyone is whining about the fact that the pictures are not being released, but why do people really need this?  Look what happened when the German magazine "Der Spiegel" released photos of American soldiers smiling next to bodies of dead innocent Afghans.  it turned many people against and created new insurgents.  Look what happened when the US media released a news story about Terry Jones, a "pastor" in Florida, burning copies of the Qua'ran.  10s and 10s of international forces were killed in multiple protests here in Afghanistan, most notably a riot on a UN compound by normal Afghan citizens in Mazir-e Sharif.  People were killed because of one idiot's craving for media attention.  Pure acts of arrogance and ignorance really get me worked up.  People don't realize how far their actions reach or don't care.  We couldn't go to ceratin areas of our province due to all the riots going on in protest of these actions and this just fuels the Anti-American propaganda of the Taliban.  And one more thing, I find it funny that people call on the White House to "justify" it's killing of bin Laden as opposed to capture.  This man has killed thousands and thousands of people and would not hesitate to do it again but people want him captured.  Then people would critique the way he was treated and the US would receive even more threats and bargain proposals.  lol I'm sitting here listening to Jay Carney at the white house saying that bind Laden will never walk this earth again.  Hoorah.

Anyways...calm down for a minute...so getting ready to head out to Costa Rica for weeks for some rest and relaxation.  Thank goodness.  I've been VERY disgruntled the last couple months.  All I ever heard was people counting down the days till they went on vacation and then thinking how it was so long before I could leave.  I got asked last way back when, when I wanted to take leave so may was the last choice.  May is a terrible time to take vacation anywhere for weather but it will work out as this is the only time of the year my sister can take time off of school for travel.  Imma fly her out for part of the trip.  I think we'll have a really good time and got hiking and canyoning,surfing, snorkeling, sailing, and other activites planned.  Just gotta brush up on my spanish skills now.  Been focusing so much on Japanese language studies lately, gotta kind of switch gears.

In the last month or so, I've gotten to do lots of really cool stuff that I probably shouldn't talk about in a blog but they've definately helped me get the ost out of the deployment.  I've also driven convoys on a couple missions.  how many aircraft maintainers can say they've done that?  I've also gotten to talk to people from all walks of government service about their jobs and where they've been and their experiences.  This is a tremendous help in deciding what I want to do with my future.  Just today even, I was able to meet and Airborne linguist which has long been my job of choice, and ask him several questions about his job.  I've almost met Air guard, army guard, government intel, ground linguists, army people galore, and several other assortments of military A type personalities whether they be American or French or whatever.  I've gotten to fulfill a lot of military desires with this deployment.  I frequently joke about how I made a bucket list in high school that was supposed to be accomplished over the course of 20 years or so and I have already knocked out probably 90% of it in the last 5 years.  Crazy.  If only military life didn't frustrate me so much and I could tolerate it a little more, the sky would be the limit.  I struggle with the decision to re-up every day.  I just don't like the miltiary structure and many other things about it.  It does let me do some pretty cool stuff though.  But if you are not happy in your daily life, is it really worth it?  the grass may not be greener on the other side, but I've never been on the other side, so  I don't know.  I've been in the workforce since high school graduation so I don't know what it's like to do what you want when you want where you want.

Good grief, I just noticed it's 23:00.  I don't have anything I have to do tomorrow but nonetheless.  Perhaps I'll add more to this in the next couple days as I don't have much to do anyway.  But that's the beauty of it.  Having nothing to do and no schedule to make and no appointments is WONDERFUL for a few days.  much much needed.  The more time I spend here waiting on my vacation, the less time I have to spend working at the FOB when I get back.  To hell with getting out of here early like some of my other team members did.  Imma enjoy as much time off as possible.  Gonna adopt the Costa Rican motto, Pura Vida!

long time coming

ahhhh, finally, relaxation. blog time. Soooo it's been quite a while since I updated this blog. Some things have happened but not a whole lot. Man, where do I begin though? So in the last several months I've seen a billion helicopters up close and at distance firing away at the mountain, made several friends who are always coming and going, driven on a convoy for a mission, won airman of the month 2x in a row one time competing against several soldiers who I beat in physical fitness, PRT knowledge, and target practice with a rock and spear, attempted and still working on building a rock climbing wall, put up a slackline, worked EVERY SINGLE DAY, been to the gym about 5x every week, started a math class, started taking Japanese lessons 3x a week with a Japanese French foreign legionarre, and worked my butt off.

As people have gone on vacation and still are going on vacation throughout the last few months, I have had to pick up their responsiblities which is quite a bit of work for a meekly E4 Senior Airman. At one time, I have held the responsiblity of Imagery specialist, flight scheduler, deputy analyst/briefer, convoy driver, and linguist manager. I still maintain all of these as primary duties with the exception of flight scheduler. It's quite overwhelming at times but somehow I manage. Don't get nearly as much free time to myself as I used to though. This means that the rock bouldering wall I'm trying to build has all the materials set aside for me to build but I have no time to build it. It has been a gigantic pain to get this thing approved for construction as I had to go through all the political chains and I still can't climb on it even if we build it because we have no pad to crash onto. Oi!

It has finally warmed up here. It was like overnight. Crazy. For nearly a month straight it rained and snowed and hailed almost daily. Then oneday I woke up and went outside and it was short sleeve weather and has been since. Crazy.

One thing I can never get used to here is how dark it is which means you can see an infinite number of stars and shooting stars on a moonless night. Absolutely stunning. Never seen anything like it. I see shooting stars almost nightly. Pretty much every time I pay attention.

The days are often filled with the sound of helicopters churning their rotors just overhead and explosions and gunfire from the french firing at the mountain behind the base for target practice and blowing up unexploded ordnances.

The food as I might have mentioned before is terrible here and incredibly rationed out. Everything is pre made and filled with preservatives so all they have to do is heat it up in the "oven" and serve it. I have pictures of our board of ration sizes indicating that you are allowed to take like 3 chicken nuggets, 1 scoop of butter soaked veggies, and 4 fries. Things of that nature. Health goes right out the window.

An unhealthy diet makes for a difficult time obtaining results from the gym. Several of us here to include myself bust our butts in the gym with little payout due to not getting enough calories and the ones we do get are not very nutritious. I'm taking about 4 vitamins a day on top of malaria pills and proteing shakes after workouts just to keep up with daily health. With the exception of the malaria pills, these were all paid for out of pocket.

Mail takes about a month to get here and we usually only get it once a month. A package may arrive at Bagram in 2 weeks after being sent but we cannot get it until there is a convoy from our team heading to Bagram Airfield to pick it up. There used to be a helicopter that came with mail but it has been down for maintenance for over a month. This is quite frustrating but it's the norm around here.

Our barracks are somewhat nice now. We live in permanent buildings that have 4 hallways in each and 4 rooms in each hallway. We get out own rooms but the catch is that the walls are less than an inch thick plywood and they don't go all the way to the ceiling. There is about a foot gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling. So more or less you get visual privacy but no audio privacy. I put up a styrofoam like substance to block out the hallway light and give me a little more privacy. The rooms are about 5x12 feet. So not that large. We each have bunk beds in our rooms but I took out the bottom bed on mine and leaned it up against the wall so I sleep on top. Underneath I have my own personal man cave with a hammock that I recently bought and am sitting in typing this, a tv, an xbox, a stereo system, 2 chairs, 3 rugs, and a tuffbox. All this is a six foot space. We used to use this area in my room for myself and all my friends to come over and watch a movie together while eating popcorn and then some officer here decided to crack down on everyone's morale and impose a no males with females in the barracks period rule. We can't even be in the hallways. So that was a real buzzkill and really took away from our hang out time together as there's not really anywhere else we can all hang out together. Friends are what make the deployment bearable so I've learned.

On the subject of friends, people here are always coming and going to this and our other bases, and on vacation so we rarely ever get to keep the same group. It's tough always saying goodbye to people. Especially if you know they are going into dangerous areas and you may not see them again. You just wish them the best and say "see ya when I see ya, shoot straight and get back here".

Everyone on this deployment gets 2 weeks R&R and so far everyone has gone back to either their home station or back to the US. The catch to this is that the military will pay for a FREE plane ticket to just about anywhere in the world long as it's out of the Middle East and not on the forbidden countries list. SO WHY WOULD YOU GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM IF YOU HAVE NO SPOUSE/CHILDREN AND NO OBLIGATIONS??? I swear, I don't know what it is about people being intimidated by travel. All these guys are going back to their hometown, getting drunk, spending lots of money, then coming back with nothing to show for it. The infantry guys are notorious for it but they are all Army National Guard guys so they are military once a month on a normal basis. ANYWAYS...so yeah, I convinced my coworker, who was also going to go back, that we needed to break this trend and travel elsewhere. Its funny becuase so many people before this deployment said they were all going to these crazy places and so far NONE of them have followed through with it. SOOOOO...my coworker and I will be the first to go somewhere other than back there. I can't list our destinations right now as it's a security risk but let's just say we're both gonna have a blast. lol, someone played country music on his mission today and he got all homesick and told myself and others he was gonna change his mind and go back to the states. I proceeded to explain to him why that was such a ludicrous idea and what an opportunity this was and Alas! peer pressure won this round. I got him back on track for adventure.

People in the miltary think you are crazy when you tell them you are going to a foreign country by yourself where you don't know anyone and have no plans. Who would do such a thing right? GASP! lol, people who love sponteneity, that's who! I've had a better time on trips when I was on my own and meeting new people than I did taking people along. No offense to anyone I've traveled with before who so happens to be reading this blog.

Things I miss...hmmm...well...ROCK CLIMBING! Gosh I miss rock climbing like a sin. It knawes at me every day when I wake up to see these snowcapped mountains all around us and know that I can't climb them or anything else on the base. All I can do is do these ridiculous rock climbing workouts in the gym to keep my strength up which seems to be surprisingly effective but the true test will come when I finally get this wall built and get on the holds I've ordered. If it ever happens and the political nonsense doesn't stop it. it takes forever to get a project approved around here. i've been working on this one for moths...

Other things I miss...well of course the gal I had a great relationship with prior to this deployment. Man, that was an incredibly painful separation. I miss good, real food, beer, longboard skateboarding, snorkeling, mountain biking, swimming, scuba diving, surfing(the little bit I did), airplanes(but not the noise), crazy spontaneous adventures, TRAVELING, kayaking, slacklining, bouldering, sand, the beach, mountains I can go in, A PERSONAL INTERNET CONNECTION THAT IS NOT A COMMUNITY ROOM WITH NO WIFI, fast mail(a week), Japanese people, sort of miss driving, my big screen tv, did I mention food?, cookouts, lightning, family, a bed that's not bunk, not being woken up by roomates, A SHOWER THAT'S NOT A 5 MINUTE WALK THROUGH THE COLD TO GET TO!, nice people lol, and other things...

The other day I went for a run, and got caught in the prop wash of a French helicopter probably no more than 20 or 30 feet over my head coming in for a landing (I was close to the helo pad). It was like being in a dust storm and I got covered. Not the first time this has happened though. The Chinooks are worse. Seeing the helicopters constantly flying around is one of the coolest things about living here. Riding on them is even cooler.

Running here is near impossible as the terrain is so rough and uneven. I roll my ankle every time I try it. I already wear a brace on one ankle. Just gotta slow down over the rocks. Also on my run the other day, I saw some French guys training their dog. One of the guys had the suit on and the dog was attacking him. I also ran by all their combat vehicles. Also smelled poop as I passed some Afghan workers on the base. As you can imagine, plumbing in Afghanistan is pretty much non existant so they all squat wherever they can. As a result, pretty much all of Afghanistan as I've been told, smells like poop.

I am taking a math class here in addition to Japanese classes 3x a week. It's funny at the Japanese lessons becuase the guy teaching it doesn't speak the best english so he says things in Japanese, then attempts them in English but ends up saying them in French to another guy who's in the class who then spits it back to me in English. It's pretty entertaining and we have a blast. the other guy in the class already speaks like 6 or 7 languages. Good grief. My freakin rold model. The classes are taking up a lot of my time on top of my primary duties and I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed so I'll have to find a deputy to help me out with my duties. I am working nonstop from whatever time I come in in the morning until about 7 pm. At 530 I eat. Once I leave work, I still have to do math homework and work out and Japanese class on certain days and shower. I do this EVERY SINGLE DAY. For myself and the others that work in my office, there are no off days, not even half days. I sort of feel like I should be getting overtime pay for the amount of effort I have to put to making things work. It's like they say, if you don't want to do something, then don't do good at it. I guess people thing they can trust me to get things done and that I can handle the responsiblity so it is handed to me. It is also because of where I work. I promise I am the hardest working lower enlisted guy on the whole team. Not to toot my own horn, just a statement of truth. The infantry guys go on missions but when they get off, they usually get to sleep or do what they want. When they are not sleeping or on mission, they are constantly doing crap busy work like kitchen duty or cleaning connexes or sweeping or whatever the Seargants(real pricks) can find for them to do. So I guess in that sense I'm grateful for staying busy. I love my job and all, it's just really difficult to handle everything. Especially when movies and tv shows are always on the television and I am extremely ADD prone. lol. I counter this by drowning out the noise with loud Trance music in my headphones(usually DJ Tiesto) which has GOT to be detremental to my hearing. This usually helps me focus. I have to write a lot of reports and memos and read tons of reports and emails on top of getting whatever imagery required for the mission and taking care of the needs of a dozen lingusits and attending meetings wherever I'm needed. It's mentally exhausting. Thank goodness for the gym at the end of the day. It's difficult when I don't make it cause I'm too busy. Results are slow to come too due to always making up for hunger with sugary snacks cause we are so rationed at the chow hall and even if you do eat a lot, youll probably have a heart attack.

All in all, I try to stay positive and as far as deployments go, this is a dream come true. I don't get to go on missions nearly as often as I want for multiple reasons but mostly cause the infantry supervision is very biased about using their own guys exclusively for security and driving despite us AF guys being trained as well on the vehicles and gunning systems. Then when we get up there and have questions about it, they ridicule us for not knowing because we never get the opportunity to use them. I still have a good time though and make it all work.

lol the constant war between AF and Infantry guys is, "we go outside the wire, do you?". But truth be told, they never do anything on missions anyway and always complain about how they never get any action. It's just the best default they can come up with. It creates a lot of feelings of animosity and most of them have no idea what any of us "Staff" guys do but you just learn to laugh it off after a while. Well, I have. Some other staff members still get angry but I just blow it off as I've heard it SOOOO many times. Besides, I go out sometimes. I've even been a driver on a mission so...

I try to keep my time productive and not spend too much time doing unnecessary blogging and stay on time killer facebook all the time. I'm learning quickly that time is precious and I've got to manage it best as I can. Tonight I just decided to stay up late and type this out as I've been putting it off for a long time. Random thought, man I wish I wasn't out of tuna. I eat tuna every day especially after my workouts but I'm out of stock now and keep forgetting to order more.

Alright, that's enough nonsense rambling for tonight. I'll blog more another time. I'm past the halfway point in this deployment and counting down the days until I get to go on R&R and until I get to leave this place. Oh how I miss normal life. Definately gonna do a lot of traveling this summer. So it's 1230 am and I have to go to work in just a few hours so I'm outta here. Goodnight to all and to all a good night. -Deuces.