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.