Kuwait

Our flight reservations out of Bagram were lost somehow, which was completely expected. We signed up for Space Available for the next flight out to Kuwait. A flight leaving at 0300 Tuesday morning with a midnight "show time" popped up and we were able to get on that flight. That was great news. We flew overnight in a C-17 in jumpseats against the wall of the plane with cargo in front of us. Good Times. We arrived safely in Kuwait on Tuesday morning and just took a shuttle bus to another place in Kuwait where we will wait to go through Warrior Transition on Monday. Therefore, we have a few days to relax and enjoy some ammenities on base. The most important thing is to sleep and eat. We deserve it. I'm with a couple friends here, so no worries there and this place is safe.

For the day in Bagram, we were able to have dinner with an old friend of ours from Combat Training, Rich the IRS Executive. Great seeing him.

We are staying in tents here with about 8 per tent. The temps are around 120 I think, but I'm not keeping track. I'm reading and gettting some Internet time in spite of extremely slow connections.

Shout out to my nephew Jake who has a birthday today - 22. Also Stacey and I missed our 5th anniversary ten days ago. It is the fifth one in a row I missed due to navy responsibilities. She is taking it like a champ.

Please mark Sunday, Aug 24 on your calendars. We are going to have a Welcome Home party at our house. I hope you can all make it. Details to follow. That's it for now. I'll be in touch.

Some Quotes and Thoughts

I’m sure I’ll be able to read my blog on my travels back, but I’m not sure how easy it will be to post since I’ll likely be in a Internet Café-equivalent type arrangement. Please keep your posts coming though! Hopefully, I’ve had my last meal at this base and all will go well in the coming days. The real problem is usually transportation, cancelled flights, things of that nature. Even generals have to suffer it now and then.

At the start of this deployment, I remembered a bit of Kipling, "For God and the soldier we adore, in time of danger, not before! The danger passed, and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier slighted." Our men and women are taken better care of than they, I guess we, were in the past. We do things better than some countries and not so well as others. It’s something we talk about here from time to time (remember there are around forty countries represented on this small base). We have our great leaders here, good ones, and on down to not-so-hot. However, it will always remain our citizens and elected officials who take care of us. So that’s where my thoughts are turning. Of course all of you who have been reading the blog and emailing me this whole time are not the ones who need the message for caring for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. The message has to get out.

During our Memorial Day service a couple months ago, we received a little program. In it was a quote, “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional as to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their country.” I was not familiar with this quote for some strange reason, but was quite surprised to see who said it … George Washington. Obviously, having to address good care for our veterans, most especially our disabled veterans, has always been an issue for us. This troubles me a bit to say the least. It’s our citizens and elected officials who take care of our veterans. It transcends political affiliation and must be maintained. If not, what will happen?

We have the Tali-Band playing again tonight. I’ll attend with my friends, share one last drink for now, and try to rest a bit before I go.

Pictures

The above picture of me and Paul. He is the Canadian I talk about a lot. We are at the Queen's Palace with the King's Palace in the background.

If I knew what I was doing, I would have rotated this one before posting. So tilt your head and you will see some of the countryside through a blown-out windo area from the Queen's Palace. I understand this was not the handy-work of the former USSR, but came after during the civil war. The people here did it themeselves. We still see today insurgents who have no respect for their national treasures. We see it way too much.

Ditto on the rotation, but it took too long to load these up for me to worry about it now. I'm sure you'll all manage. This is the facade of the Queen's Palace from where we parked (that's our vehicle with Ron getting in). By the way, this is not a tourist attraction. It is "guarded" by some of the army - more on that when I get home. The palace is deserted and in almost complete shambles. I'll show more pictures when I get home.

We took a ten minute drive up to another off-limits place, the old Russian Officer's Club. I have some pictures of it. That is one of the palaces in the background, King's I believe. I am here with one the local army sentries. Nice guy, I guess.

Don't know how my posting will be in the near future as I hope to be on the road, but I should have some computer access as I did when I was on my way over.

My Last Thursday Night Here

I haven’t been posted lately as my last few days have been spent cleaning up some projects and things I have been working on. I also am going through a check-out process or “out-processing” so I can leave. I’ll start in a few days with a convoy up to Bagram, await transport to Kuwait, spend a few days in Kuwait going through Warrior Transition, and then to the States. A few days in Norfolk and then back home. That is the plan anyway. I’ll keep people posted as best I can depending on connectivity.

Tonight I was invited to a going away party for two officers I worked a lot with in the CJ35 Branch – they do midrange planning. One guy is Norwegian and one a Swede, so we were at Nordic Palace. They had an authentic Afghan dinner cooked, presented, and served by real Afghans. The guys who run some shops on base put it together for them and even included live music. It was really a solid event. After, I and the guys, along with most of the base, attended an unforgettable performance by the Tali-Band. They are really good and the place rocked to say the least. They provide a great deal of motivation, relaxation, stress relief, and flat-out enjoyment for all of us. It gives many people something to look forward to a couple times a month. They spend a lot of time practicing and their work is appreciated. If you remember, they sell T-shirts (impossible to get due to high demand) and CDs to support the women of Afghanistan.

I promised some pictures, still working on that.

Progress in Afghanistan

Here are some things that make the future look bright. We make progress in spite of the insurgency. Painting a glowing picture doesn’t sell as many papers as gloom and doom, but here is how things are.

· The Afghan security forces continue to grow in capacity and capability.
· In 2001, only 8% of Afghans had access to healthcare; the figure now stands at more than 80%.
· We have supported thousands of provincial reconstruction team projects including well-drilling, schools, roads, bridges, medical facilities, micro-hydro power, district centers, and court houses.
· Thousands of kilometers of road have been asphalted.
· Billions of dollars worth of infrastructure projects has been completed since 2001.
· In 2001, 1.2 million children attended school daily; in 2006, 6 million, including 2 million girls, attend school daily.
· Hundreds of thousands of mines have been cleared and destroyed.
· Economy has been expanded by more than 40% yet inflation rate has remained under 10% since 2001.

During my trip to the Palaces the other day, I travelled through an area of Kabul I had never been to before. The shops/business were booming, a lot of products for sale including food markets. We saw many vehicles of all types. Many people walked freely around without a care, we still wore our armor though, comfort level you know.

The Palaces

Today we ventured outside the wire to a nearby district called Darulaman. There were five of us from our office armed and dressed out as usual. One of our guys needed to visit the Counter Insurgency (COIN) Academy and one of our new guys, a Dane, needed to get out and see how to get around. While out there we visited the former Queen’s Palace. I took a load of pictures, which I hope to share sooner rather than later. The place is torn apart, full of bullet holes, graffiti, and the like courtesy of the former Soviet Union and the Taliban. The structure is still magnificent though. From the Palace, one can see the King’s Palace. They preserved their marriage by having separate palaces I gather, or maybe she insisted. We also took a short trip to the former Soviet Officer’s Club. Some neat pictures to share if I can post them. Oh, we also visited where one of the Afghan army brigades is garrisoned, so did accomplish some things.

The other palace I visited on Sunday night was the Nordic Palace. This is the fancy name for the national support element social area here on base for the Nordic countries, similar to what the Germans and Canadians have as well as others. The US doesn’t do fun stuff in our social area, so we have to go to other countries. That turns out to be a great thing as we make new friends and learn about what they are all about. Nordic Palace houses five countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. On Sunday nights, they serve homemade waffles with a variety of choices for toppings including maple syrup, butter, peanut butter, regular cheese, and goat cheese. I kept it real with the syrup and butter. Of course we drank beer with our waffles. Why not?

Shout out to my long-time NJIT friend James who has a birthday today. Also, this evening we said good-bye to Ron who leaves us tomorrow. He is US Army stationed in Poland. Off he’ll go, I won’t be too far behind, although not to Poland. Hope to get the time to post some pictures, but the real issue is the difficulties in uploading them. We’ll see how it goes.

Latest Work

You all know I don’t talk too much about what I do or what goes on other than the fun stuff. Being a side-show has its advantages. The last month or so, however, there have been more casualties here than in Iraq. That is more of a sign of Iraq being a little safer or at least that's how I'll look at it. This is what we call the fighting season here as the enemy doesn’t fight when it’s too cold out. There are a lot of incidents, but I’m safe and looking forward to my convoy out of here.

I was reminded yesterday as to why we call it low battle rhythm rather than a day off or partial day off. I got called into the Chief of Staff’s (COS) office on about five minutes notice to present some things about where the army is and things like that. Remember the COS is the German general that everyone likes. He was meeting with a Lithuanian delegation and needed some info from me, it went well. Lately I’ve been working on a compilation of the army’s armored and mechanized capabilities and providing information and writing for transfer of security responsibility back to the Afghans for parts of the country. This transfer in the long run is important in order to reduce our numbers here and ensure they are and have been trained properly. Our directorate was also singled out a little bit to take the lead in starting a formal program to partner with the Afghans at all levels at our HQ and the Ministries of Defense and Interior. We already partner at various levels, but this hopefully will increase our partnering and ease transition. So I volunteered to start that up, it wasn’t like there was a long line of people wanting to do it.

Last night we had going-away pizza for the six of us leaving this month. The general treated. We received a huge frame that has some command coins, an Afghan flag, and a group picture in it. Quite nice and the best going away present I’ve ever received from a command. As directorate tradition has it, we all get watches when we go; bought from the Bazaar. The larger, the better. I received an authentic imitation Luminor Panerai Regatta. I love it. It’s better than the real imitation Swiss Army watch I won during Canada Day events.

So that’s about it for now. Tomorrow should be my second to last (or third) brief to the Commander. Hopefully my friends and I will enjoy some more cultural awareness with some different countries Sunday evening. We’ll see.

Smell the Goal Line

Well, I’ve been off the blog for a bit more than usual, but am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am scheduled to leave in less than three weeks. As you may have seen in the news, there is some activity in this country. Despite the fact that we are the sideshow to Iraq, more troops are in danger here than there. No worries where I am in spite of the embassy bombing a few days ago. I look forward to getting back home.

Last week I was invited by my Spanish colleague to join in some Spanish national festivity with paella and sangria. It was amazing, no comparison to what I’ve had in the U.S. How they cook it, what they cook it in, and who cooks it makes all the difference. My breakfast friend, the Romanian Colonel, leaves in a few days. Tonight he invited me to dinner with his command; the PsyOps group (Psychological Operations). They are a close-knit command. The dinner was a nice BBQ with a Romanian thread, including an assortment of alcohol. He had me try an aperitif that I would swear was Kentucky moonshine including the bottle it came out of. It could have been made in the still they used on M*A*S*H, only higher quality. So it goes. A few of the guys and I were entertained by the Thursday night karaoke and then some camaraderie at the German National House. So ends another Thursday evening. Back to work in the a.m.

Fun on the Fourth

My 4th celebration started with taking my General’s invitation to the US Embassy reception on Thursday afternoon. It was not too eventful although I got a new level of disrespect for one of our generals who decided to go around talking business and handing out tasks for the coming days during the party. It’s bad form to conduct business at a party especially for our national holiday considering where we are. It was all a good experience though. The Ambassador said a few words; there was some nice food, which was about it.

You’ve heard me talk about the other nation’s holidays, so now here is what we did. By chance, the 4th fell on a Friday, so there was a bit more free time. At 0630, there was a 5K fun run. I never figured out how 5K is fun, but a few showed up I’m told. During the day there were tournaments for volleyball, basketball, dodgeball, and horseshoes. Horseshoes was the big thing with games running into the evening. I went to the bazaar for a bit and picked up a few things including a special gift for a certain someone special. The funniest party of the bazaar was that I brought in something this time to sell or barter. Jane and Shauna regifted a regift from me, yes, the red tea lamp. I went in as a trader and used all my lines at the shop of my bodyguard, remember him? Jawaid. We both laughed. He asked how much and I replied how much make you happy. He would say an amount and I would tell him that was my cost. I mostly went back and forth with him for pure entertainment. I wouldn’t sell it for money, but did trade it for something small at his table.

The best part of the day was a real traditional BBQ with chicken, ribs, burgers, and three types of sausage as well as watermelon, ice cream, and chips. Everyone raved, so I guess it was good. In the evening, the Taliband played and they just keep getting better and better. I took some pictures this time. They opened with God Bless America and closed with the Star Spangled Banner. There were some great songs in between too.

As I’ve said, it has been busy with a war going on and things like that. Our focus is to build the capabilities and capacity of the Afghan forces and I think we are doing well although it is a slow process. I’ve gotten outside the wire a bit more lately and I think I see things improving or perhaps I am just accustomed to the area. Time will tell.

O' Canada!

July 1 is Canada Day marking their independence from Great Britain. There’s a lot of that going around. They took off in 1867. The day started with Canadians serving real maple syrup for our pancakes. The normal syrup here is some weird stuff. It was good to get the real thing. They held a ball (street) hockey tournament, strangely enough the two Canadian teams made it to the finals. The underdog won though in a stunning upset. They had their flag raising ceremony in the morning and flags were everywhere. I wore my Canada flag pin.

At night, they had an excellent party in the Gardens. They served BBQ ribs, chicken, beer, Moose Milk, Beaver Tails, and maple cookies. Beaver tails are a light pastry shaped like a beaver tail with jam. They had games like a football toss, ball hockey shoot, and something that Paul and I won at. We were a team where Paul was blindfolded and had to hold a cardboard canoe over his head and portage through cones with me giving him directions. I won a fake Swiss army watch and he won a good lock-blade knife. Not bad at all. Music was played through the speaker system, all Canadian artists.

So to answer Terry and others, I suppose it does seem we just party all the time drinking and eating and drinking. Strange but true. We do get our jobs done and fight the bad guys, but we wouldn’t last long without these distractions. We also have to watch the movies and read the books that people send. It’s just non-stop sometimes!

The real party should be on Friday for the 4th. It happens to coincide with our “day-off.” Should be fun, I’ll report out on it this weekend.