This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: TSO Embedded in A’stan

  • Stuck like Chuck an MP.

    I was disabused today of my previously held belief that QRF was some sort of latin for “Quiet and Relaxation Farce.” Astonishingly, they actually believe in this unit that it is the “when things go to shit, who ya gonna call” force. Which really put a pretty sizeable dent in my plans today, which involved a shower, the barely edible chow, and copious amounts of local videos which are sort of an Afghan version of Mystery Science Theater 3k with local heads bobbing on screen. The selection today was “The Last Boy Scout” followed by “Seabiscuit” and then rounding out the Bruce Willis sandwich with “Mercury Rising.” I did sleep in (to 6AM), ate my Lucky Charms and stopped in the TOC before my plan went the way of mythical beasts like the DoDo, T-Rex and straight guys who watch “The Voice.”

    The first call of the day was allegedly some sort of IED threat. Essentially it was me running to get my stuff, running to the motor pool, and then some frantic prayers that the Doc would show up with the paddles. (Clear!) No cardiac or SP ensued, as we got waved off. As I was walking dejectedly back to the TOC though, I met the Air Force EOD guys, who like EVERY other person I ever met in the Air Force were clearly pleased with their lot in life, ready to share a smile and an explanation of what they do, and show off their digs.

    [As an aside, if there is anyone who reads our dopey blog who is considering military service, hear me loud and clear: Dude, for the love of Spongebob’s ghost, join the Air Force. If you are a dude who wants to be a Marine or Army SF or some crazy bad people ventillation technician, you still go AF, and tell them you want to be a JTAC. Seriously. The grooming standards are lower (“I didn’t feel like shaving this month” is a justifiable excuse in the AF) the scenery is a hell of a lot more scenic (*wink* *wink*) and the level of ability to bring terrorists to room temperature is the same. /end aside.]

    These particular EOD guys had a robot, which no matter how you cut it makes them exponentially cooler than you. And out came Wall-E or iRobot or whatever it was. Thing is kind of heavy, and it is like an 11C humping the baseplate up a mountain, but when you get to the top, and look back on what you just climbed, you can feel pride in knowing YOU JUST CLIMBED UP A MOUNTAIN WITH A ROBOT. [Yes, CAPS LOCK, dude, it is a fricken Robot.] This thing operates off an XBox controller, because the only thing that ranks up with a robot, is playing X-Box.

    So, I sat in the motor pool and ran this heavy little beast into folks because I’m just not that good at these things. Plus, them have these specially made sunglasses that make you look like the unholy cross breed of Tom Cruise in Top Gun and a Borg. You have this little video camera that shows you what Wall-E sees. Frankly it was easier to not watch through the video, but if you got used to it, it might not be so disorienting.

    Then this afternoon the TOC started getting busy. Let’s just say it was interesting to see, but rife with some stress to say the least. The end result of the excitement was virtually nothing, but it was tense. Then came word, call up the QRF, MPs got not one but two vehicles stuck. So out we roll.

    First one was pretty easy. I’m fairly certain they could have gotten it out with a little work, but it wasn’t far away, so why risk it. The second one though, hoofah. I honestly have no idea how this thing got stuck where it did. It was the middle of a village, with side roads literally 20m ahead and about 20m behind, but the driver inexplicably decided to do a 400 point turn (neccessitated by the width of the road) and didn’t quite make it.

    As we were eyeballing the disaster, the ANA rolled up. Now, yesterday I talked about the one side of the ANA, the part where safety concerns are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the US Army (“wear your PT belt and Eye Pro at all times”) mentality. Today I got to see them at their best. Their 1SG rolled up, got out, and took charge immediately. He barely glanced at the vehicle stuck (which I was keying on as it was the obvious excitement) and immediately deployed his guys efficiently and with evident strong leadership. He was pointing out sectors for his men, directing his vehicles and communicating with the locals with a modicum of holering and hand movements. The locals took him seriously, and his men moreso. If there is a future for this country, that dude will be the one that future generations can thank.

    And he wasn’t alone. Other ANA guys came through, and hollered to various US troops that they knew from previous (mis) adventures. That in itself wasn’t surprising, but the US Troops were clearly excited in turn to see these guys. I talked to several of them afterwords as they met their various counterparts, and every one of them told me something along the lines of “That dude is awesome, he’s a great leader.” This went well with what I had heard from a buddy back at KAF. Despite what we hear in the states about Green on Blue, these ANA are making marked improvement. It’s a race now. Can we bring up the substandard ones to bring the fulcrum to a point where the weight of history will be on the side of discipline and prosperity for the country.

    Nonetheless, after several hours we got the vehicle out. But what I saw on scene in that time was great. One guy in particular that I noticed was a PFC. Young kid, fairly new to the country, and we owe him everything if this works, because dude does the right thing without even apparently noting it. The local kids had come out in droves. I mean, probably 100-200 of them all told filtered through. And being around the vehicle that was immobilized was obviously not something anyone needed. This PFC that we’ve spent thousands of hours and dollars training to bring destruction to the enemy was out there ACTUALLY winning hearts and minds. He was in the middle of the kids, smiling, learning their language, answering questions, making them giggle and so on.

    I was reminded of a old German man who once came to an event we had. He had been 7 when Germany was in it’s second World War, and surrounded by utter destruction when one day he saw US Troops approaching down a road. He’d never seen one, and was justifiably worried what this would mean for his family. One GI smiled at him, approached him and knelt down. He gave that kid a stick of gum, tried to speak German with him, and basically just devoted attention to him. That kid decided then that one day he too would be an American, all because one tired Joe took the time to make him feel important.

    As I watched that PFC do that today, I quietly talked to my Medic buddy. “Yeah, he’s like that. He just walks up and gets them talking.” I can’t help but wonder if somewhere in this tiny village was a kid who was distracted from a stuck vehicle by a smiling young 20 year old who really was interested in engaging the children. Will that kid come to America, or will he one day be a leader of men here in this country? Either would be fine with me.

  • Outside the Wire, fun with the ANA


    Even before I made it out here (FOB Andar) I had heard an NCO tell me how lucky I was to get embedded with Able Co, 3-66.  “Awesome unit, awesome leadership”, he said.  “They love the CO, but they worship the 1SG, dude is a stud.”  That was my first impression when I met the leadership as well, but I decided to ask one of the NCO’s I was out with yesterday.  He sort of smiled, “Well, that’s half right, we pretty much worship the CO too.”

    Getting here wasn’t easy, and it was rife with anxiety.  KAF-BAF-Sharana-Andar is a pain in the ass travel scenario.  At one point a AF person told me my ticket would cost $122.  I was somewhat stunned, since the orders just said I was to have access to anything I needed, but I said “ok, how can I pay.”  What followed was a surreal experience as they explained that I couldn’t pay cash, couldn’t pay credit card, couldn’t be billed for it.  Then the AF female and a KBR person just started screaming at each other, and the loadmaster that was for my bird whispered to me, “We’ll get you on the bird man, don’t worry about this horse[expletive.]”  At the next stop, an Army female and a KBR guy also got into it over who had priority for weighing folks on the one scale they had.

    So by the time I made it here, I was pretty tight and apprehensive all around.  Every unit I’ve been in has had some defect.  Whether it is the leadership being not up to par, or the troops not getting along, there’s always s0mething.  Here, not so much.  Everybody gets along great, and they play jokes on each other constantly.  And the PLs and PSGs all seem top notch, none more so than the Platoon I went out with yesterday.

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  • Top 5 Things I hate about Afghanistan

    1) BAF

    2) The Pax Terminal at BAF

    3) The personnel at the Pax Terminal on BAF telling me my flight is cancelled.

    4) After personnel at the Pax Terminal on BAF tell me my flight is cancelled, and that there is some Space A, and I should give them my passport and then either sit on these torturous chairs, or sleep on the floor.

    5) The Weather which necessitated the Pax Terminal personnel to tell me my flight was cancelled, and I should go to sleep on the floor until my name is picked from the magic barrel that contains my passport.

     

    In the immortal words of Eric Cartman- Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

  • Officers in the mist….

    Living with officers in a hooch, I can’t help but feel like Jane Goodall or whatever her name was.  The officer class is an inscrutable race.  I live with 5 O4’s, an IG, G2, JAG, PAO and Chaplain.  The Chaplain has been remarkably tolerant.  One should never get 3 Mass guys together around a chaplain who isn’t deaf.

    However, I was absolutely delighted by the literally 2 hours of talk about poops they had taken in the past that we had last night, and I am holding my own in Gay Chicken.  (For those that don’t know what that is, you do something gay, and the dude either ups it, or flinches.  For instance, patting a guy on the knee and then sliding your hand up the inside of his leg during IED lanes training.)

    So, the MRAP rollover thing.  Yeah, that sucked.  We missed the TTP where you put the smallest person up in the turret, and instead, a 250lbs dude fell into my lap.  I braced my arm on the roof, and nearly broke my ulna.  Good times, good times.  I tried to upload the video to YouTube, but it didn’t work.

    Anyway, I am headed downrange, and just checking in from the O’Hare Airport of Afghanistan, as I wait to fly back on the exact same friggin route I flew to get here, but which will stop at my actual destination.  I should be with the men of Able Company 3-66 AR by somepoint tonight.

    Miss the wife and (gay) dogs, but the rest is all well.

     

  • Stuck inside of Kandahar with those Sharana blues again….

    Disregard, I may have found a guy who knows a guy whose second cousin once dated a dude who can fly me in an ultra-light.  (Actually, I may have a bird.)

    Unicorn Shit Pancakes for Brunch FTW.

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  • No shit, there I was….

    So I land at KAF and we head over to check in.  Dude gives the “Welcome to War” speech and then goes into the does and don’ts of KAF.  Wear your PT belt, eye protection at all time, rockets bad, sex bad, beer bad etc.  So the guy gives the spiel about rockets and when the siren goes off you lay on the ground and cover your head with your hands.  (LIttle known fact, fingernails stop 107’s.)

    So right after the dude finishes this, the siren goes off.  Headhunter and I assumed it was some ridiculous role playing nonsense and gave each other the “this is gay” look and get down.  Well, turns out a) it was a real one, and b) we were in a bunker and didn’t need it, so there goes any potential cool points.

    After the room turns into a sauna of ass, the all clear comes and we head out with this female medic who is going to drive us over to the place where we draw room keys.  No sooner do we get to the car than the siren goes again.  Some of the dudes get down, Headhunter says “eff this” and I just crawled in the back of the vehicle.  So, we wait like a minute, and run back to the aforementioned, and still ass-stank ridden bunker building.  Some E4 chick from somewhere like SC is talking nonstop, and we are trying to figure out how we can dispose of her body here in front of all these people because she’s riding our last nerve, we haven’t eaten in 12 hours, and are exhausted.

    1/2 hour later the all clear comes, we pack back in the vehicle and head out to the housing.  So Headhunter goes in with other folks to draw keys and I stay and talk to the medic.  No sooner do we start talking than Air Raid nonsense iteration 3 goes off.  I should interject that it is this obnoxious sound, followed by what seems to be a Hong Kong female national telling us that rockets are inbound or something.   I guess the yyeeeee hawwwww, yeeeee hawwww noise isn’t enough of a clue.

    So I amble over to the bunker, taking my sweet ass time, because I am old and tired.  Headhunter finally comes out and tells me about what happened inside the bldg.  Apparently the siren went off and all the new dicks hit the turf, per the instruction from an hour ago.  In walks a squad of infantry guys with dirt still on their gear and with a terp, and the LT leading them looks at all the squishes laying on the ground and goes “What’s up guys?”

    Moral of the story, I’m not friggin ducking and running anymore.

     

  • Waiting on the birds

    Crossposted from my other home…

    Kentucky. $#!^! I’m still only in Kentucky. Every time I think I’m gonna wake up back in the desert. When I was home after my first tour, it was worse. I’d wake up and there’d be nothing. When I was here, I wanted to be there. When I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the desert. I’m here a week now. I’m waiting for a mission – getting softer. Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker. And every minute Taliban Achmed squats in the bush, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around, the walls moved in a little tighter.

    –        Adapted from Apocalypse Now.

    Right now I really am in a hotel room in Kentucky, waiting for the call to head over to Ft. Knox and board the plane to take me in theater.  However, I am enjoying the solitude.  Said my goodbyes to the wife and dogs yesterday, and now just waiting for the call to head over to the base.  I was actually over there this morning filling out some paperwork and getting my Eagle Card (like a credit card).   I also got to interview the CSM of the 3rd ESC that I will embed with first, but because of some technical difficulties, it may take me a day or two to figure out how to get a post up on it.  

    As I noted on my Facebook page the other day:

    Inventory of electronics: 2 kindles (1 fire, one touch), 1 MacBook Pro, 1 iPod, 1 digital video camera (GoPro), one digital still camera, 1 blackberry, about 17 cords. That’s just the computer bag. It’s almost as if the Spartans didn’t do it quite like this.

    A bit different than my last trip over there.  No rifle (that makes me unhappy.)  But, no privates and specialists to worry about either.  No commander riding me, no LTs getting lost (just kidding).  Just me, which is pretty sweet.  My travel in theater will likely be waiting for a bird to take me where I need to go, but I have my laminated letter from the ISAF Public Affairs that is apparently a golden ticket. 

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