12 June

Just a little manlove...not that there is anything wrong with that. (It is nothing to see Afghan men and boys holding hands. They will take breaks from work and lean and lay on each other...just imagine pulling up to a construction site at lunch time and seeing a group of workers just lounging around in the shade with their heads on each other's chests. A few of the Afghan officers have tried to hold my hand while talking or walking...I am just not ready to take our relationship to that level yet...my best technique is to break out into a coughing fit.)


Afghan traffic. No driver's license required here...just a set of wheels. This is the most patient culture I have seen in every facet of life except the roads. When traffic slows or stops, they will go three wide with the quickness. This is wall, car, truck, truck, curb, 1000' drop. As far as the guy wandering around in the road, unexplainable.



Flat tire...we couldn't secure the road for 45min b/c that pisses off the people and pissed off Afghans blow stuff up, so we had to set security and hurry up.


Moral of this story: Poppy (Opium) Kills and Wheat makes delicious bread. Because of the low literacy rates (about 30% across the country; higher in the city and much lower in the mountains), the make signs that tell the story with pictures.


Traffic on the switchbacks...all the cars on this road are jam packed with people. It is common to see a 4door sedan with 6 or 8 people in it. Most of the trucks have people on top of the cargo. Notice the curb that keeps you from plunging 1000'.


Typical view from an eastern Afghan valley floor.


Flood plain of Kabul River. There are people in some spots fishing from large inner tubes and the roads near the lakes are dotted with fishermen selling their catch.


Donkeys


Cow


Middle Aged-Middle-Eastern Camel Heardin' Man


Smoke in the Cab


This is an Afghan Police Sub Station


Entering a Tunnel

Another week in the books. I started my work week early Saturday morning by driving in a convoy to Kabul. It is only about 91 miles, but it takes about 3.5 to 5hrs to get there. We drove there, dropped off the ANA trucks that made the trip with us, refueled, and drove about 40miles north to Bagram Airfield (1.5 to 2hrs). At Bagram, we dropped off some U.S. guys for various reasons, did some shopping, picked up some U.S. guys, and a truckload of supplies. The FOB I live on has a small store(approx 150 square feet). We pick up supplies to restock it from Bagram once a month. Then it was back on the road to Kabul for the night.Sunday morning I went for a run (6,000 feet elevation and the air quality of your garage with the car running) and attended a two hour class on how to stay out of federal prison (learned how to properly spend your tax dollars to help the Afghan Army where there supply system is lacking). Sunday afternoon, it was back to Jalalabad.
This was my first extensive ground travel in the country, and mileage wise, it is not that extensive. I saw some of the most beautiful terrain God has created. During that short trip, we drove through tunnels built by the Russians, saw gutted out Russian tanks, drove through mountain passes where Afghans have defeated their enemies for thousands of years. I saw goats, sheep, cattle, and camels. Almost hit one of each at some point in the drive. Our speed varied from dead stop up to 55mph. We went through an area we call "The Switch Backs." It is a few miles where the road climbs over 1,000 feet. You drive one direction up the mountain,then you do a U-turn and drive up the mountain the other direction. The only thing keeping you from going to the bottom is commonsense and a 1foot concrete curb.The route took us through several towns and many small villages. The streets were lined with small children constantly giving us a thumbs up and yelling. They would stop giving the thumbs up only long enough to make a drinking gesture in an effort to get us to come off a few bottles of water. We cannot give them water for several reasons (a. 30mph bottle of water is hard to catch and if you catch it with your face, your face is broken...not good for winning hearts and minds. b. if it bounces in the road, they will go after it, they will fight over it, and they don't care what else is coming in the road.)

Other than a suicidal cow that was only being kept off the highway by a young boy with all his strength, the craziest thing I saw was ...well,there were a few of them.

1. ANA Fire Drill: while driving down the highway (my truck was the last in the convoy that stretched several kilometers), the ANA cargo truck in front of me stopped dead in the road. At that exact moment, an oncoming ANA Ford Ranger stopped next to it. One soldier from each truck jumped out, they exchanged a weapon, and the one from my convoy got in the other truck headed back to JBAD, and vice-versa. This all lasted about a minute. My gunner was yelling at them to hurry the hell up, we were getting left. My truck commander was trying frantically on the radio to inform our convoy commander (over a mile away now) what we were seeing.I was just honking the horn and looking on in amazement. It took us over 5minutes and several miles to catch up on some of the curviest roads I have ever traveled.


2. U.S. Fire Drill: While driving from Kabul to Bagram (no ANA at this point) down a very bumpy road destroyed from IED attacks and vehicle wrecks, the U.S. truck in front of me radios in that there is smoke in the cab of their truck and they must stop. I immediately stopped and positioned my truck to block the rest of the convoy ahead of me from any traffic coming behind us and watched as they all bailed out of the truck with a puff of white smoke. We were there for about 15 minutes while they inspected everything and slowly started up equipment until they had enough equipment to safely drive and communicate. It wasn't until the next day that someone found that the turn signal module by the driver's left leg had melted.

3. The same truck got a flat tire on the way back from Bagram that night that we had to stop for about 45min to change.

Nothing too exciting by war zone standards, but it was an interesting trip, nonetheless.
The rest of the week went pretty fast. My Officer in Charge (OIC) is on leave back in Ohio. We are doing a ton of construction work here on the FOB, so I had to adjust some security measures for the Afghans that will be working here. There is a Catholic chaplain in town, so we had mass last night and will have it today and Saturday. Out of the 4 of us that showed up, I had been most recently for Easter, so naturally, the priest wanted to perform Easter mass...at least he didn't want to do vigil. Today, we are doing last Sunday's, and Saturday, we are doing this coming Sunday's. This guy obviously doesn't prescribe to the "Once you show up to mass, you are all caught up theory." He did make it abundantly clear that Saturday's mass would count for Sunday...that is nice of him.

Everyone have a great weekend. Take care and God Bless.

BMP