(19FEB2009)
The guy who scooped food on to my lunch tray today said “good luck” when he handed it to me.
I didn’t appreciate that. It’s obvious that English is not his first language, though, so I took my tray and found a seat. I bring a book with me to meals and enjoy the escape, the break, but often find myself chatting up the people around me.
My book didn’t make it out of my pocket today.
A very chatty female AF SGT sits down across from me just as I’m settling in, and she quickly starts asking me what I do. My service tag – “RDECOM” – often elicits questions, as I am likely the only person in Afghanistan with that on my chest. The active Army all have “US ARMY” tags, and the KTRs don’t wear uniforms at all, so it’s only us civilians who offer any variety in that regard.
I tell her what I do and she tells me a little about her work, and we get to talking about traveling in Afghanistan and around the world. We’d both spent some time in Croatia, though she was serving there during the war and I was there as a student some years afterward. She tells me about her time on a small base in the outback in Australia, and I regret that my job will never take me to such locations.
We talk about other bases in Afghanistan, and she shows me on her camera some pictures from her recent trip to Kabul. I’ve heard interesting things about the bases in that city, though it will be a stretch for my efforts here to ever take me there. Most of my work involves Army vehicles and equipment being used in the fight, and Kabul is primarily an HQ, where all the high-ups and muckety-mucks are.
As much as I’d love to tour the country for curiosity’s sake, it’s not at all why I’m here. While the dangers of traveling around Afghanistan are low, they’re certainly greater than staying put in Bagram, and so every trip away has to be justified – if to no one else, than to myself.
I’ll largely stick around home (where Bagram = home), but I am glad that in the course of my work I’m able to escape from time to time for a change of pace and, more importantly, to do a better job.
AF SGT = Air Force Sergeant
RDECOM = Research, Development, Engineering Command
KTR = Contractor
