Made It (April 14th)

After two weeks of travel, I have made it to my new home. Today I got to ride in a Canadian helocopter through the Afghan mountains and over some beautiful country side. We literally flew through the mountains in that when you looked out one side, you saw the face of a cliff and the same out the other side less than 100' away on either side at times. It was a great ride and a great way to see the quickly changing unforgiving terrain of this country. I got picked up from the helo pad (gravel lot) by a couple of guys driving "Gators" (gas powered, heavy duty golf carts with truck beds) and was brought to my FOB (Fwd Operating Base). We share some real estate with an Afghan National Army (ANA) Post. There isn't much here which is nice because that means there is no significant infastructure to attack and minimal reason for high ranking officials to visit and ruin our fun. The guys that I'll be working with seem like a bunch of good guys...a few from each branch of service except Coast Guard. I have been assigned as the Force Protection/Security Officer for the base. My job will entail ensuring our security and status of readiness is always good to go and advise the ANA in security matters. For those that are questioning, yes I do have experience in this...force protection is a big deal for submarines and we trained on it in Kansas. Right now the area is a muddy mess, but the say the weather has been real nice until today. There is one spot where you can go up and look through a gun hole and look out over some fields where farmers are working just outside the wall. The consensus here is that it is a great place to be, so I am looking forward to getting to work. Our main mission is, as advertised, to mentor the ANA in running a base. We also do Humanitarian Aid drops to the surrounding villages. The Afghans in the area that I saw when we did a walking tour of the area outside our FOB (still on the ANA Base) are friendly and seem happy. One thing that is frustrating is that the language training I did in KS is the wrong language for the area...I guess I'll have to relearn those 5 phrases. Hope all is well. Take care. BMP