ONE OUT OF THREE (AIN'T BAD)

(30NOV2008)

I hit a milestone today - I'm 1/3 of the way through the first leg of my deployment.

The time between when I arrived and when I leave next June for R&R is 278 days, and I'm in the midst of my 93rd.

In many ways, it feels like I haven't been here that long. I don't feel as integrated here as I did at this point during my Iraq deployment, in large part because the resources were not in place when I arrived here. In Iraq, I replaced a colleague who'd done all the hard work to set things up for everyone that came after him - including me.

Here, I'm paving the way, defining my role in this theater, and striving to set up the infrastructure (particularly the office). It's a lot of hard work, though I'm not complaining - I'd rather be doing this than anything else. I will have a much longer deployment than my predecessor had in Iraq, and I've every expectation of building this up to a comparable level by the time I hand the reins off to someone else.

R&R = Rest & Relaxation

AH-CHOO!

(30NOV2008)

I’ve never lived in a trailer home, or spent significant time in one (except in Iraq, I suppose), but my neighbor/coworker tells me what we’re living in is a lot like that. It has fake wood paneling and walls that you could put your fist through, and plenty of cracks at the seams where cold air and, presumably, insects sneak in.

The small building is bisected by a wall and I live on one side, and one of the guys I work with lives on the other. We each have a door to the outside and the whole building rattles when either of us leaves or returns.

I usually can’t hear anything going on in my neighbor’s space, though I commonly have the television on (AFN News) for background noise. When he has people over I can hear the muffled buzzing of voices, but generally can’t make out what they’re saying (not that I care to).

I’ve heard him snoring a few times, and I’m sure he hears the same from my side. I never hear his television, and he says he never hears mine, though I used to hear my previous neighbor’s radio when he had it placed right up against the separating wall; I don’t have a radio. I can hear his phone ringing, and I suppose he can hear mine, but phones don’t ring all that often over here and often we're calling each other anyhow.

I think it's important to keep that separation between our living areas. Privacy is something that is very rare in theater, and we're lucky to have what little slice of it we do.

I just sneezed and my neighbor shouted through the wall “God bless you!”

I shouted back, “You’re breaking the 4^th wall!”

AFN = American Forces Network

WHAT YOU’RE HEARING ARE “GOOD EXPLOSIONS”

(29NOV2008)

The aerial gunnery range is now hot.

The Big Voice announces this at least a couple of times each day, and the announcement is shortly followed by a series of low, thumping explosions. I’m not sure where the aerial gunnery range is, exactly, but it’s either fairly close to post or those explosions are pretty sizeable.

There will be a controlled detonation in the next five minutes.

This announcement comes every few days, when one of the EOD unit disposes of munitions and explosives, often confiscated enemy supplies. This is followed by one large explosion that shakes the Earth enough for everyone on post to feel it.

It’s better to hear the warning before the explosion, though at this point I assume any explosion is of the friendly variety. An alarm will sound otherwise, though I have only heard that alarm once in the three months I’ve been here – and that was only a warning of a heightened threat and nothing came of it.

My group here in Afghanistan is growing, and two new colleagues arrived just a few days ago. I was in an office speaking with one of them recently when we missed the ‘controlled detonation’ announcement. When my new coworker heard and felt the explosion, his eyes got very wide and he looked around to see if anyone was reacting with anything more than the indifference with which I accepted the blast.

It won’t be long, I know, before he gets used to the explosions as we all do here. It was the same in Iraq and, in fact, at my home station as well. They test munitions near my office in the States and the building shakes several times each day.

I wonder if this constant exposure to explosions is desensitizing me to them. I imagine being at my home in the States and if the house next door were to explode, I might just turn up the volume on the television.

EOD = Explosives Ordinance Disposal

THANKSGIVING

(27NOV2008)

This is the most significant holiday I’ve been in theater for.

In Iraq I celebrated Easter and the 4^th of July, as well as a few smaller holidays, but nothing to rival Thanksgiving or – soon – Christmas and New Year’s. For the most part, it does not feel like Thanksgiving. For one thing, we still have to work. Most soldiers are given time off after lunch, but the war moves on most of us remain busy with emails, reports, and other responsibilities.

And, of course, there’s a distinct lack of my family in Afghanistan – something that Thanksgiving in the States usually involves.

But it’s not a day like every other, and we do enjoy some degree of frivolity, a break from the usual grind. I spend most of the morning running errands with two new colleagues of mine, showing them around the base and getting them in-processed and issued passes.

I settle for a late lunch, meeting up with some of my Army colleagues around 1300. We go to a DFAC that I don’t normally eat at because it’s on the other side of post from where I live, but it’s the one closest to the BDE we fall under and it’s where the majority of my coworkers work and live.

The military has a tradition on Thanksgiving that many from the command will serve the food to the rest of the unit – in our case, the BDE CDR, CSM, BTN CDR, and a few other LTCs and MAJs work the serving line and wish us a happy holiday as they dole out the grub. I find it charming, and they must be enjoying it as well as they serve much longer than the 30 minutes I’d heard they’d be working.

I had arrived with one of my buddies from the BDE, but it’s very crowded and I soon lose him in the bustle. I end up grabbing a table with a SGT I’d not previously met but who works with one of my friends at the BTN. We chat about home and family – there are a slew of common questions we all ask each other when we meet, to include “Where are you from back home?” and “How long have you been here?” I don’t make a lifelong friend, but we have a good chat over our meals and he’ll be a familiar face for the rest of my deployment (or his, I suppose, since mine will last longer).

The food is actually pretty good, though I admit it may just be in comparison to what I eat every other day. The turkey, especially, is a cut above the standard turkey they occasionally serve us here. The fixins are mostly the normal variety, though I’d never seen cranberry sauce here. More than any of that, though, is that everyone is noticeably friendlier, and I soak in the relaxed atmosphere.

When I finish eating, I find some of my colleagues and sit with them to chat for a bit. I’d not previously met one of the girls at the table, and she’s showing pictures on her camera of an R&R trip she recently took to Qatar. The military provides 4-day passes to Qatar for military and military civilians (but not contractors), as long as your orders are for at least 179 days. They fly you direct from BAF to Qatar and you spend a few days in a small compound with organized trips off-post to go shopping, to the beach, or on cultural tours.

I had considered taking such a trip from Iraq last year, but could not find the free time, and I suspect it will be the same during my stay here, though I’d like the opportunity to explore a new country. I may have another way to do that, however, as my job may take me to Qatar in the course of the next year.

I then return to my side of the post, where I work out of my quarters for the rest of the afternoon before grabbing dinner at my usual DFAC. The menu is largely the same as lunch at the other chow hall, which is to say it’s better than usual, and I can’t help but have another heaping helping of turkey and beef.

It’s crowded again, and I sit with a young sailor and, though I have brought a book I’m reading, we chat for a good hour while enjoying the spread. It’s the kind of conversation that makes me feel old, as he asks me about my job and I give him career advice for when he leaves the service. It has not been very long that I’ve been in any position to give career advice, but I guess jumping around from job to job and settling on something I enjoy gives me some credibility in that arena. Many active military (and contractors, for that matter) seek out civilian military jobs so in that sense, too, I have accomplished something they would like to.


After he leaves, I walk around the DFAC taking pictures of some of the decorations. Many soldiers are doing the same, and I offer to take pictures of them if they want. A couple of Egyptian soldiers take me up on it, asking me to stand in with them at one point, and I reflect how alien this holiday must be for them and for all of the other foreign troops and workers.

I would see one of the Egyptians a couple of days later in the DFAC, and he stops at my table to shake my hand and ask me how I’m doing.

No family here, but we often settle for the familiar.

DFAC = Dining FACility
BDE = Brigade
BDE CDR = Brigade Commander
CSM = Command Sergeant Major
BTN CDR = Battalion Commander
LTC = Lieutenant Colonel
MAJ = Major
SGT = Sergeant
R&R = Rest and Relaxation
BAF = Bagram Air Field

FAMILIAR DINNER CONVERSATION

(20NOV2008)

When I go to chow, I generally go by myself and bring a book. It’s really my only form of escape and relaxation here, with the exception of an occasional sporting event on television (though the time difference makes them tough to catch).

The last couple of days the DFAC has been very crowded and I’ve not been able to find a seat by myself like I usually do. Tonight I sit next to some soldiers and airmen, and am shortly joined by another airman who sits across from me and we strike up a conversation.

He comments on how crowded it is and I tell him it’s usually not like this. He suspects it’s the 400 personnel backed up to leave for R&R; he knows because he’s one of them. His usual job is down at Kabul, at the airport, KIA – a poor acronym if I ever saw one. Even though KIA is a major airport, almost all personnel leaving theater come through BAF on their way out.

As we describe our work to one another, his story sounds similar the Air Force captain I met several weeks ago. He, too, works to help the ANA set up and secure their communications hubs, and has been frustrated by their still nascent computer knowledge. Worse, he tells me, half of the ANA signal corps is completely illiterate. How do you show someone how to use a computer who can’t read anything on the screen? In the US military, the signal corps contain generally very well-educated, bright, whiz-kid types. Not so in the ANA, where they’ll generally take anyone who’s willing to join up.

To compound the problem, the programs they use are partly in Dari (with Pashto, one of the two major Afghan languages), and partly in English. Being illiterate in every language doesn’t particularly put you in a prime position to learn two quickly, and it’s been a struggle for the US forces trying to train the ANA.

He recounts more frustrations with the ANA, many of them seemingly typical problems of any fledgling military organization. I’m told they have a reluctance to remove disabled vehicles from their inventory, even when they’re taking up valuable real estate. The unit he works with went so far as to tow 20 completely unusable trucks from one base to another when their HQ moved, despite the fact that the US Army had provided them with brand new vehicles. My new friend shrugs. “They’ll learn” he says.

We go on to speak of families and home. His home is currently in Ramstein, Germany, my jumping off point into theater back in August. I lament that I have only flown in and out of Germany, and have yet to explore the country. He gives me some ideas of places I should see when I get the chance and I imagine traveling for fun – something I’ve not done in a long time.

It’s definitely a regret of mine that I travel so much for work and yet so little of it translates to any sort of wider knowledge of the world’s cultures and peoples. My dinner companion agrees; we learn an awful lot about military bases, but spend precious little time with locals.

As I’m sure I’ll fly out of Germany on my way home sometime far in the future, I’m now thinking of taking some time – a week or so – and traveling around the country before I come home.

They have beer in Germany, I hear.

DFAC = Dining FACility
KIA = Kabul International Airport
BAF = Bagram Air Field
ANA = Afghan National Army

NO SHOWER FOR YOU

(17NOV2008)

I try to take showers in the middle of the day or very late at night, times when the shower point won’t be too crowded and there will be plenty of hot water.

I walk up to the showers tonight just before midnight, and am met by a female soldier standing at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the shower bays. She shakes her head and tells me I can’t take a shower. “We’ve got a detainee in there.”

I nod and walk on to the next nearest shower point, further up Disney Drive.

There’s a fairly large prison on post. I work with a guy on the airfield and when I visit him I walk right past the high walls topped with concertina wire. I’m not privy to who’s being held there or why, and the only stories I hear are second and third-hand accounts from soldiers who occasionally stand guard inside as part of their duty.

I rarely think of the prison, in fact, unless it interferes with my shower. Tonight it results in a much longer, and therefore colder, walk back to my room.

VISITORS FROM HOME

(11-16NOV2008)

I’ve deployed twice for fairly long periods of time – last year in Iraq for 7 months, and this year (and next) in Afghanistan for an as yet unknown duration.

But I’ve also gone on 3 short missions – one to Kuwait in 2006, and one each in Iraq and Afghanistan earlier this year (2008). The branch I work in back home goes into theater a lot, and I always volunteer to help out when I can. I enjoy getting dirty in the Middle East as much as I dislike sitting behind a computer in a cube in the States.

The short missions are always less than 17 days. The military has set that cut-off for personnel traveling into theater - if we keep the trips under that threshold, we don’t have to attend the week-long training at CRC (what I went through at FT BENNING in August). Not wanting to send our guys through CRC and endure that cost of time and money, we generally plan multiple short missions, which also give a variety of our personnel an opportunity to deploy and thus increases our workforce’s experience and knowledge of OIF and OEF – where the rubber hits the road.

The 3 short missions I’ve gone on have all been in support of a specific initiative to install data collection devices on Army vehicles. Though I am no mechanic, I can drill holes, grind metal, and remove armor from a vehicle if you just tell me where (and sometimes how). I am also willing to work very long hours without food or sleep, a necessity on these missions. We work on vehicles when the units don’t need them, but since needs can arise at a moment’s notice, we work around the clock to ensure that we won’t interfere with the soldiers’ more important work.

This initiative has grown since I first helped out with it during the summer of 2006, to the point where a new team stood up to run it, and one of my friends and colleagues became the team leader. I have stayed with my old team, watching the new team grow quickly and I still help out, especially with deployments, as much as I can.

On Tuesday, two of my colleagues arrive just before midnight on another one of these missions to install instrumentation. I’m at the APOD to greet them and, though it’s late, their internal clocks are lagging somewhere above the Atlantic so we grab midnight chow at the DFAC and catch up – they tell me of changes back at the home office, and I relate to them my experiences here, so far.

They had each deployed to Iraq where I had – in fact, I replaced one of them and was replaced by the other – and so I find it easy to compare/contrast my role here with that in Iraq. We finally crash late that night, agreeing to meet early in the morning with the unit I’d coordinated with here on BAF.

By 1400 Wednesday, we’re in a maintenance bay, boxes of tools splayed around an RG-31 MRAP as we begin the installation.

We finish 29 hours later, at 1900 Thursday night. In that time we each drank a few Diet Cokes, several bottles of water, and had 2-3 oatmeal raisin cookies one of us had been smart enough to snag from the DFAC. We haven’t slept. The mission is a success.

My body aches. My feet, especially, are pounding. I’ve been on my feet on a concrete floor for more than a day. My hands ache from grabbing on to the metal handles to hoist myself into or on the side of the vehicle, from turning wrenches and screwdrivers. My back and my legs are sore. My eyes, of course, are heavy.

I’m sure my colleagues must feel the same, but none of us voice it – it’s hard to complain considering how poorly others are living around us: soldiers at outlying COPs and the Afghani people all live in generally austere conditions under constant threat.

When we finish, we have to pack up our things and get all of the tools and equipment back to my hooch somehow. I share a vehicle with my colleagues on BAF, but it’s needed this night to pick someone up at the APOD and so I don’t have access to it. We’ve tried to get permission for another vehicle, but the base is overcrowded as it is and so far they’ve turned us down. But we do have a borrowed MRAP, and it wouldn’t hurt to give it a test run with our equipment installed.

One of my colleagues was a commercial truck driver in another life, and has a military driver’s license to drive the MRAP, so we load our equipment and tools into the back of the vehicle and make our way slowly across post to my quarters.

We’re forced to detour near the MWR tent. The MPs are out with their blue lights flashing, blocking traffic on Disney Drive due to a show that night – I always hear about the shows after they happen, and I’m not aware of this one until we’re being routed away from it, down smaller streets. I keep waiting for the crunch of metal, the MRAP seems far too large for where we’re driving, but most oncoming traffic makes way for us and we pass through unscathed.

The housing area is more of the same – tight dirt roads between buildings, buildings made shoddily enough that we probably wouldn’t even notice if we clipped one, though the inhabitants would. We make it to my hooch swearing and cringing the entire way.

After piling all of the boxes into my already too-small room, we take the MRAP back to the maintenance facility, choosing to go the long way around base to avoid the harrowing detour. It seems like a good idea, but the drive is a lot longer and we have trouble figuring out how to turn on the windshield wipers when it starts to rain. Visibility is already diminished in such a large, armored vehicle. We eventually pull over and search until we figure out the wipers.

Near the end of the trip around base I start to doze off, the lack of sleep weighing on me heavily. I wake up and look over at my friend driving and see he, too, is getting dangerously sleepy. I ask him about his family, to keep us both awake (mostly him!), and we chat amiably until we get safely back to the shop.

Without a vehicle now, we walk the couple of miles back to our rooms, stopping at the DFAC to get some food to go. We’d have preferred to have eaten in, but security won’t let us carry bags into the building so one of my colleagues waits outside while the other two of us indiscriminately pile food into the styrofoam containers, not really caring at this point what we’re going to be eating.

As we continue the walk back to housing, we pass by the MWR tent and learn that the ongoing concert is the Yin Yang Twins, a rap group none of us had ever heard of, but which has drawn a fairly large crowd.

I stumble into my room and collapse into bed. I am disgustingly dirty from working in, on, and under vehicles for the better part of two days – I’m covered with oil, grease, and stale sweat. I am thus torn between sleeping, eating, and showering – all of which I desperately need. I have the food in front of me, though, so I eat, and though I don’t remember making a decision on what to do next, I fall asleep, waking in my clothes some 6 hours later in the wee hours of the morning, when I finally go take a much-enjoyed shower.

We get up far too early on Friday, but time is limited and we’ve more coordination to achieve with the unit that owns the MRAPs we worked on. It’s a busy day and we’re still tired throughout, but we finally end up back at the APOD just 3 days after they arrived, hoping to get them on a flight homeward. Another colleague had come in from Kuwait in the meantime, for an even shorter visit, and he too is trying to get back to Kuwait this night.

As per usual, the flight they want is cancelled. A good rule of thumb in trying to get out of theater is to take whatever flight you can get on, even if it’s not going exactly where you want to go. My guys want to get to Kuwait, but they settle on a flight to Al Udeid, Qatar, knowing they could get from there to Kuwait more easily than they can from BAF. My two friends from home leave by midnight, their visit short and work-filled for all of us. I’m sorry to see them go, but also looking forward to getting some damn sleep.

Our newcomer decides against the flight to Qatar, opting instead to hold out hope for a direct flight to Kuwait scheduled for early the next morning. He is of course bumped from that flight, and from another one later in the day, and ends up taking a flight to Qatar late the next night at which point my bubbas are already on their way home to the States from Kuwait International Airport.

A flight in hand is worth two on the schedule.

CRC = CONUS Replacement Center
CONUS = CONtinental United States
OIF = Operation Iraqi Freedom
OEF = Operation Enduring Freedom
APOD = Arial Port of Debarkation
MRAP = Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle
COPs = Command OutPost
BAF = Bagram Air Field
MWR = Morale Welfare and Recreation
MP = Military Police
DFAC = Dining FACility
KTR = Contractor

A WEEK OF DRY STEAK CELEBRATIONS

(10-14NOV2008)

We’re being spoiled at the DFAC, or at least we’re experiencing what passes for it here.

The USMC celebrated their 233^rd birthday on the 10^th, and the DFAC celebrated with a cake, patriotic streamers, red-white-and-blue tablecloths, and the go-to menu for a celebratory meal: mummified steak.

I expected them to leave the decorations up for Tuesday’s Veteran’s Day, but they removed the streamers and tablecloths, opting only to serve us steak and cake again in recognition of the holiday.

And, of course, they always serve steak Friday nights, along with some sort of seafood – “lobster tails”, fried shrimp, scallops, or the like. Many of my colleagues look forward to Friday dinners, but I have never craved the dry, fatty steak they plop on my tray. I eat it, usually for lack of a suitable alternative, but I use it mostly as a conveyance for A-1 Sauce, and I always pass on the seafood in deference to my New England upbringing.

I have craved real clam chowder (‘chowdah’) more than once since I’ve been here, and one day of war zone steak a week is more than enough for me.

DFAC = Dining FACility
USMC = United States Marine Corps

BUT WHO'S COUNTING?

(10NOV2008)

One of the first things I received from my colleagues when I arrived in Iraq last year was an Excel file titled “Freedom”. I input my deployment start and end dates, and the spreadsheet reports how many weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds I’d been deployed – and how many of each I had left before I redeployed home.

The spreadsheet also displayed a pie chart wherein a desert scene was slowly replaced by the image of a tropical island as my time in country grew and my time left shrank. We each had one of these spreadsheets, and we would look enviously on others’ who were further along, closer to going home and a day off.

I didn’t receive or seek out that spreadsheet when I arrived in Afghanistan 73 days ago, but eventually I pieced together my own. If I leave for R&R when I expect to, I’ve got 278 days left before then – which means I’ve completed 26.27% of this first leg of my deployment. The first quarter of the first leg of my deployment went by quickly.

I’ve only completed 14.51% of my entire deployment, though, and that pie chart does not similarly inspire me. Also, that departure date – the date I leave Afghanistan for good – is entirely fluid. I could be even less far along.

I also looked at the total amount I’ve deployed over the past couple of years. I arrived in Kuwait on March 17, 2007 for my Iraq deployment. It’s been 600 days since then, and I’ve spent 309 of them in the Middle East.

You’d think my Arabic (or Pashti) would be better.

R&R = Rest and Relaxation

FIRST WARNING

(10NOV2008)

On my 73^rd day, I experience my first warning announcement. The Big Voice announces an “Amber Alert” (one step down from a “Red Alert” and very different than an Amber Alert stateside) and says something largely unintelligible about an indirect fire attack (usually meaning mortars, sometimes referring to rockets as well).

Just a few minutes later, the Big Voice declares “All clear” and then proceeds to announce that over and over again intermittently over the next half hour.

I was stationed in Balad, Iraq, last year – affectionately nicknamed “Mortaritaville” though I only heard it referred to as that when I was away off-post. If we went a day without a mortar attack in Balad, the enemy usually made up for it the next day. You get very use to IDF attacks there, almost to the point of complacency.

Here on BAF they are much less common, and we later wondered aloud if there was in fact an attack or whether it was a drill, a false alarm, or bad intel.

IDF = InDirect Fire
BAF = Bagram Air Field

A SMALLER WORLD AT WAR

(08NOV2008)

My grandfather (on my mother’s side) served in WWII and my grandmother recently told the family about a record she had received from him during that time. It’s a recording he’d made just for her, a letter of sorts, that had no doubt taken weeks to make it across the ocean to her from Europe.

My father served in Vietnam and occasionally received tapes my Mother made for him. She mailed them and they, too, undoubtedly took weeks to find him.

My parents and sister have sent me care packages that arrive in less than a week, and last year in Iraq I had a phone on my desk that was routed through a base stateside. My parents could (and did) call it on their cell phones and it was treated as a call to NJ – free for pretty much every cell phone plan nowadays.

I don’t have a phone like that here in Afghanistan, or an office for that matter, but I have a computer with an internet connection that works pretty well after midnight when most of the soldiers are asleep – it’s when I reply to most of my work emails, especially if I have to attach a file.

This morning, long after I should have been asleep, my brother and I are chatting online and I may as well be in the States, or even in the same city as him. In this way, among many others, technology has made being at war on the other side of the world very different today than it was for the military of earlier generations.

My brother is getting married next June, and I’ve arranged to take R&R during that time, after ~9 months here. I think of it often, as we all tend to focus on the next time we’ll be home, the next time we’ll see family and friends, have a beer or – and this is a constant topic of conversation – eat well.

My brother sends me links to a couple of the restaurants we’ll be visiting as part of the wedding week, and I’m all but slobbering on the keyboard as I read about and look at pictures of porterhouse steaks, lobster risotto, and grilled pork chops. I go to bed with those thoughts and when the conversation inevitably turns to food later in the day, I relate to my colleague Alex all that I now crave.

And then we go to the DFAC and have God knows what for lunch.

R&R = Rest and Relaxation
DFAC = Dining FACility

ELECTION DAY(S)

(04-5NOV2008)

Election Day for me starts well before the first polls opened in the States, owing to the time difference and the fact that I have trouble sleeping sometimes. I'm up early and working mostly because I have things to do, but partly because I'm very curious how the day and night will go, and how it will all turn out.

I go through my day, with the news on in the background, waiting impatiently for the first results to come in. It progresses slowly through the afternoon, past dinner and into my bed-time. I watch most of the news from my bed, drifting in and out of sleep as the map of my country changes colors and Wolf Blitzer interviews holograms.

I'm awake when the election is called at 0830 Wednesday morning my time, and Barack Obama is our President-elect. It is hard to ignore that Republicans took a tremendous hit in this election, due in large part to the recent economic woes, but also to the sustained and persistent arguments against the ongoing war in Iraq.

I continue to watch the news, to see the reactions of pundits on both sides of the outcome, and by the emotional reaction of so many regular citizens. I'm struck by something a CNN reporter comments on; she reflects on how our peaceful transfer of power every 4 or 8 years stands in stark contrast to the often violent struggles for authority and control in many parts of the world.

Parts of the world like Afghanistan, for example.

I recognize that I'm in a fairly unique place during the election, geographically speaking. I believe Obama's victory will be one of those "where you were when-?" moments for my generation, like the Challenger explosion and, of course, 9/11. Being a part of something bigger than myself, and a part of history, is one reason I volunteered to deploy to Iraq last year, and to Afghanistan a few months ago. It will give me stories to tell my grandkids (though, my Mom is quick to point out it's hard to have grandkids if you keep deploying and don't settle down).

Unlike those in the States who go to bed after the election is called, or who stay up partying to celebrate or commiserate, I start my day and get to work.

I receive a number of emails from friends during the day, asking me how I, the troops, and others out here feel about the election. I feel some are fishing for a specific reaction, as if their own disappointment or elation will be justified by the warfighter who doesn't want a Commander-in-Chief lacking military experience, or by the trigger-puller who just wants to come home.

The truth is, the reaction to Obama's victory is very muted here, and conversations I have with my colleagues and the troops I interact with are mixed. Many are happy, many are disappointed. Most seem unfazed. It doesn't change our day-to-day life, at least not until Obama is sworn in in late January, and likely not even then.

Both candidates advocated focusing military attention on Afghanistan, and we've never been targeted for troop withdrawals. Indeed, thousands of Marines and a new Army BDE will be on the ground here within a few months, and that wasn't going to change regardless of who won the election.

Troops in Iraq will experience many more changes, of course, especially if Obama is able to follow through on his desire for combat troops to pull out within 16 months of his taking office. It will reduce the number of units in rotation, and hopefully serve to give soldiers more time between deployments, and this relief will of course trickle down to units deploying to Afghanistan as well.

The prevailing attitude here is one of wait-and-see. The waiting part we all have down to a science.

BDE = Brigade

TIME CHANGES AND SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAINS

(02NOV2008)

The US "fell back" this morning, turning their clocks back an hour to mark the end of daylight savings time. Afghanistan does not observe this practice, and so we find ourselves suddenly 9.5 hours ahead of the US East Coast (that extra half hour causes a lot of heartache). NFL games will start at 2230 tonight, and the last "Sunday game" will finish after I'm up and starting my day Monday morning.

I was in Iraq last year when the US clocks moved forward in the Spring, and the GOI did change theirs as well, but not on the same day. We received an email the day of the proposed change saying the clocks would move ahead the following morning. Our IT folks made sure the computer clocks changed, and everyone who got the email (which wasn't everyone) set their personal clocks and watches as well.

And then the GOI changed their mind. And didn't tell anyone.

They decided not to adjust their clocks just yet, but rather to wait a few days. When they finally decided it was time, they again didn't notify anyone until after the fact and so many US forces and commands (my unit included) found out a day or so later. There were a lot of missed meetings and appointments in those confusing days, and the GOI's inability to change their clocks without causing major hassles did not instill in us much confidence that they were ready to run their country.

Perhaps they've gotten that - and lots of other things - straightened out since I left in October 2007. I don't know.

I walk out of my room this afternoon to see a soldier standing on the bunker outside my door taking pictures of something distant over the roofs of the little buildings we live in (called B-huts). I see several other soldiers and civilians doing the same thing further down the line of bunkers, and I ask what I'm missing. She points to the mountains, "Snow."

Sure enough, it's the first time we've seen snow on the mountains that surround BAF. It's a particularly clear day, probably due to the rain I got caught in last night, and the mountains stand out distinctly. The Hindu Kush Mountains are a series of parallel ranges here, and it's the second row of peaks that are sporting the white caps.

I can see why people like living where mountains are always visible, as I've enjoyed the sights of these every day. I grew up on the ocean and always enjoyed the accessibility of something so enormous, powerful, and beautiful. (My mother just sent me a digital photograph she took of the beach near where I grew up, and it's now my screen saver.) I can't get to my mountains, though; I won't be hiking or skiing or otherwise enjoying them but for a nice view and photograph.

I'm told we're to get snow here at BAF at some point, though it's not been nearly cold enough for that yet. I enjoy the changing seasons, something I did not experience in Iraq where from March to October (when I was deployed) it was hot. It rained once the first week I was there, and once the last week, but in between it was dry and scorching, and the skies were blue and clear. Not a drop of rain for 6 months, and literally weeks between spotting even a rogue cloud.

I'll enjoy the snow when it comes, and I'll enjoy next summer when it comes, especially as I'll be returning home for R&R next June.

GOI = Government of Iraq
BAF = Bagram Air Field
R&R = Rest and Relaxation

OKAY, I DESERVED THAT

(01NOV2008)

My "good day all around" wraps up with my locking myself out of my room for the first time. In the rain.

Luckily Alex has a spare key to my room, and I to his, but it's nonetheless a bother for both of us, and a wet one at that. As so many of us here say sarcastically, 'another day in paradise.'

FUN WITH INTERPRETERS & A GOOD DAY ALL AROUND

(01NOV2008)

I’m having a good day, though I’m very tired.

My brief with the BDE CDR goes very well – he thanks me for a productive meeting as I’m walking out – and I’m glad to have it behind me. It goes long but finishes up by 1315. As usual, such briefings create other work – questions that need to be answered, tasks to be completed – and I find myself suddenly busy, but that too is an desirable condition. Time moves more quickly here when I’m busy.

As I’m leaving, I have a brief conversation with a MAJ I work with. He reminds me of a meeting we had with some other colleagues and refers to it as ‘last night’. I question him on that, thinking certainly that was several days ago – Tuesday, wasn’t it? He tells me it was after the VTC, which was last night. Time plays tricks on you. The similarity of one day to another makes them hard to distinguish.

I return to my hooch and send some follow-up emails from my briefing, and am glad to report that it went well. A bit later, as I’m leaving my room to walk up to the PX, I see two LNs standing outside my door looking away from me toward where the Kiwi forces live and stage their vehicles for missions. I see that they’re watching two Kiwi soldiers seeming to attend to two other wounded soldiers lying prone on the gravel. The LNs turn to look at me questioningly and one of them asks, “Training?”

I nod and say “Yes. See how one’s holding a clipboard? Plus, they wouldn’t bring their wounded here. The hospital is just down the street.” They accept this and point out that the blood doesn’t look real, either. Their English is very good for LNs and I ask if they’re interpreters. They acknowledge they are. I have a lot of respect for the LN interpreters. It’s a very dangerous and largely thankless job, but very important to the international forces.

As another interpreter walks out of their quarters and comes toward us, one of the LNs I’m speaking to smiles at me and holds one finger up in front of his mouth. As the newcomer notices the Kiwis he gets a concerned look on his face. His friend shoots him a sad and serious look and says something in Pashto, but makes a motion as if the soldiers are dead. The new guy looks at me pleadingly and I just nod somberly, trying not to laugh. I walk away before I see the conclusion, as I’m sure I won’t be able to keep a straight face. The new guy looks absolutely mortified as I leave.

The day gets even better when I find the PX has deodorant one the shelves. They have been out of stock for at least two weeks and though I’d rationed my deodorant carefully I had finally run out a couple of days ago. They only let me buy two sticks, but I’m glad to have it. I’ll come back over the next few days and stock up. These are some of the lessons you learn being over here.

I return to my room and am working at my computer when my colleague, Alex, knocks on my door to drop off two packages. We check the mail every few days and will pick up each other’s whenever we can. My father and sister each sent care packages that arrived today, and it seems only fitting that I receive them on such an already fruitful day.

Now it may be time for a nap.

BDE CDR = Brigade Commander
MAJ = Major
PX = Post Exchange
LN = Local National