Only in AF can you get a tire mark on a guard tower 4ft off the ground over a concrete barrier and have no one around to explain how it was physically possible.
Delicious bread. Naan is cooked in this mud oven. You can pretty much see the stages from the round dough balls in the center, to the flat circles of dough on the right, and the finished product on the left. They press the flat dough onto an upside down metal bowl type object and then slam that up against the ceiling of the oven. The dough sticks to the mud and the bread bakes between the mud wall and the bowl. It is 120F outside this building and hotter inside.
M16 Training
16 Aug
Weeks are flying by quicker and quicker…a sign that I am getting busier and busier. I have spent most of this week pushing to finish election security projects and helping the ANA do the same. Didn’t have the day off Friday due to planning a security mission for the elections.
I was given a directive to train the ANA up on the M16A2 weapons system. No, problem. The Afghan Ministry of Defense (MOD) has been given a bunch of these and their plan is to trade them out for the battered AK47s, some of which are 50yrs old. The problem is that I was told to train them and qualify them in less than a week and a half. So, what did I do? Said, “Yes, sir, I’ll make it happen.” NOTICE: Expectation management failure.
Wednesday was a very frustrating morning. I nearly lost my voice trying to hammer too much information into their heads too fast. I realized it mid morning and vowed to get it under control. I went back Thursday with a different/reasonable attitude that they were going to learn at whatever pace they learn, and I was going to have to slow down the teaching to more closely match that pace. Thursday was much better. I will not issue any weapons before the elections because they will not be familiar enough with them to be combat effective. I may take some heat for this, but it is the right answer and it is what is safest.
Other than election security, I haven’t been up to too much. Spend a few minutes a day watching the news. Seems like health care and clunkers have the spotlight right now. We get AFN (American Forces Network), which has one channel of each variety: sports, news, prime time tv, radio station etc. The news is rotated between the major networks and cable news channels throughout the day. So you’ll be sitting listening to O’Reilly bash some bad plan and after the commercial, Rachel Maddow comes on and bashes O’Reilly. I get to see all sides of the story, but never the truth of course. All of these people are paid to talk, and talk they do. If you don’t know who Rachel Maddow is, look her up, and make sure you have a garbage can nearby. As far as I am concerned, she is anti-American and spends more time attacking conservatives than conservative policy or proposing her own ideas. Both sides are guilty of this from the anchors to the politicians.
Check out what the Great Communicator had to say about socialized medicene 48 years ago:
Which leads me to ask everyone to look at goooh.com. GOOOH (Get Out Of Our House) is a political idea to replace all 435 members of the House of Representatives with everyday people that will make a decision based on what they believe is right and wrong, not what will get them support in the next election or appease a special interest group. There is only one special interest group that counts, and that is the American people. Just because one group of people decides to exercise a certain right doesn’t make them special, it makes them American. Goooh recently sent out an email that was rather thought provoking. The text went something like this: The federal gvt just took over a portion of the car industry…months later, they develop a program that gives people up to $4500 to give their old car up for a new one, thus incurring a new monthly payment and getting money flowing to the gvt owned auto industry. Hmmm? Sounds like a hidden bail out to me. Additionally, didn’t we just tell everyone to chill out on financing crap they cannot afford.
What about the “turned in vehicles?” They must be drained of vital fluids and have the engines rendered useless on the lot and scrapped entirely. No recycling of any parts…that is really green guys…good job.
Check out these videos of Aghans dancing. Remember, they have parties all the time for weddings and engagements with up to 1000 people. Men and women are kept separate and there is no alcohol…enjoy.
Counting down the days. God bless and have a great weekend.
BMP
Are you going to show off some of these sweet dance moves when you come in town for leave?
ReplyDeleteMurl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQgEoDr1tjo&feature=related
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you saw this one. Yeah Cash for clunkers is a crock.
Just think if we still had the old bronco it would be worth $4500.