{"id":29689,"date":"2012-04-26T00:04:21","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T04:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=29689"},"modified":"2012-04-27T09:10:30","modified_gmt":"2012-04-27T13:10:30","slug":"outside-the-wire-fun-with-the-ana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=29689","title":{"rendered":"Outside the Wire, fun with the ANA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nEven 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.\u00a0 “Awesome unit, awesome leadership”, he said.\u00a0 “They love the CO, but they worship the 1SG, dude is a stud.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He sort of smiled, “Well, that’s half right, we pretty much worship the CO too.”<\/p>\n

Getting here wasn’t easy, and it was rife with anxiety.\u00a0 KAF-BAF-Sharana-Andar is a pain in the ass travel scenario.\u00a0 At one point a AF person told me my ticket would cost $122.\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.]”\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

So by the time I made it here, I was pretty tight and apprehensive all around.\u00a0 Every unit I’ve been in has had some defect.\u00a0 Whether it is the leadership being\u00a0not up to par, or the troops not getting along, there’s always s0mething.\u00a0 Here, not so much.\u00a0 Everybody gets along great, and they play jokes on each other constantly.\u00a0 And the PLs and PSGs all seem top notch, none more so than the\u00a0Platoon I went out with yesterday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ostensibly the mission was to check out this area for a range.\u00a0 Nothing too sexy, but it was outside the wire, and any vehicle leaving from this place that belongs to Able Co, I am headed out on.\u00a0 So, we load up in the vehicles (I think I am forbidden from saying what types, but some of you will know) and headed out to the location that was selected by the Mike Golf (master gunner) from overhead shots and map surveillance.\u00a0 We get there and I dismount with a few other dudes.\u00a0 At this point the PL, PSG and a 3 man detail\u00a0goes to check the right limit to make sure it is clear.\u00a0 They go on foot.\u00a0 I am standing there with\u00a0the platoon medic, an amazingly affable SSG whose Dad was\u00a0a lifelong 11B and virtually begged his son not to enlist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

rat-a-tat-tat.\u00a0 rat-a-tat-tat.\u00a0 “Holy [expletive], what was that?”\u00a0 So we duck behind the vehicle and the PSG comes across the radio letting us know the ANA is firing in their direction with a DShK<\/a>, and our vehicle needs to SP over to their location and tell them to stop firing.\u00a0 So we load up, and thankfully I popped the video camera on and captured the scene I am about to describe.\u00a0 We move about 500m over to the right, where the firing was coming from and dismount.\u00a0 Sure enough, there is a Humvee with ANA, and a DShK.\u00a0 About 5 pax, all smiles and “my friend, my friend.”\u00a0 Handshakes all around as Doc is explaining is hand talk, “hey, our dudes are over there and would prefer not to get shot.”<\/p>\n

Another 2 ANA vehicles pull up and I notice two things at this point.\u00a0 First, the test fire of the DShK must not have gone well, because they have stuck a metal rod down the barrel and are proceeding to wail on the end of it with a big rock.\u00a0 A hangfire round isn’t a good thing, but\u00a0 I am fairly certain the manual says nothing about immediately beating a rod with the rock.\u00a0 But, whatever, this pales in comparison to what I see coming down th road from the other vehicles: a guy walking with an RPG round, and he is swinging it around like a golf club, and flipping it up in the air.\u00a0 Oh boy.<\/p>\n

Eventually the PL, PSG and Terp get out of the dirt from where they took cover and start heading towards us.\u00a0 They look less than enthusiastic over the range clearing procedures of the ANA.\u00a0 Understandably so.\u00a0 What follows is an animated discussion wherein the ANA guy tells us he only fired it in the air (little known fact: Newton’s laws of physics dictate even in Afghanistan that a round fired up in the air still does not leave orbit, and must of neccessity return to terra firma at a great rate of speed.)<\/p>\n

I’ll save the rest that for when I can upload the video, but it was full of mirth let me tell you.<\/p>\n

At this point we get back to firing, and then a storm rolls in.\u00a0 Because we are needed elsewhere, we load back up and head out.\u00a0 We take up a position for security about 2k outside the FOB, and just sit there.\u00a0 It was every bit as exciting as I remembered it.\u00a0 My absolute and complete boredom was interrupted by one of the crew members every 15 minutes saying “drop the ramp, I have to take another leak.”\u00a0 Said it before, will say it again, as neccessary as force protection is, it is the most mind numbing experience you’ll ever go through.\u00a0 As I was contemplating how dumb I was to leave Indiana to sit in a vehicle half a world away, the Doc suddenly screams and jumps into me.\u00a0 It seems the driver had seen some movement outside the vehicle, jumped out to take the thing into custody, and brought it back.\u00a0 A desert turtle.<\/p>\n

You ever meet a guy afraid of turtles?\u00a0 Neither had I until yesterday.\u00a0 Either way, this is a good distraction from just sitting there, and the vehicle jointly comes up with a game that can be played, “Turtle Staredown.”\u00a0 This involves holding the turtle at eye level, and staring at it.\u00a0 I’m sure more rules would have developed if we had had time, but for what happens next as the PSG engages in this clearly athletic sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Apparently when you stare a turtle directly in the eyes, they reciprocate by emptying their bowels.<\/p>\n

As Visini from Princess Bride might have said, never go up against a turtle when poop is on the line.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even before I made it out here (FOB Andar) I had heard an NCO tell me … Outside the Wire, fun with the ANA<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tso-embedded-in-astan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}