Holidays

Cassie says it's been too long since my last post and I need to add to my blog. So I thought I would take a few minutes since I'm not doing anything today and do just that.
I wanted to start by saying that being home on leave was amazing. Cassie and I had a great time on our cruise and we able to spend a lot of good quality time together. We had great experiences on all of the islands that we went too. We also had great dinner company. The two couples that we sat with at dinner had a lot of things in common with us, which made for great dinner conversations.

Thanksgiving was a lot different this year for me. It was hard being so far away from family, but the dining facility staff did a lot to make us feel like we were at home. They mad us a great meal, not like home cooking, but it was still very good. I know it's just as hard for them to be away from their families, but it was nice to have them do that for us. I'm sure the next few weeks leading up to Christmas will be just as hard but I have a great group of people here that I work with and we all make it more like being with family. I've done Thanksgiving away from family before, during basic and AIT, but this will be my first Christmas away from my family. Over here it will probably just be another day. The dfac will probably make us a nice meal to make us feel like home but I will most likely be working that day.

I am on the down side now. roughly 90 more days before we start getting everything ready to go home. These next 3 months can't go by quick enough. While I have enjoyed my time and experiences here, I am completely ready to be home.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

R&R

I am currently on my way home for R&R. The past few days have been extremely long and tiring. But it was good to be able to spend some time with my buddy Filkins, while I was at Bagram. I miss hanging out with him. He needs someone to be there for him right now. He's going through some tough times. Thursday morning I left my FOB and started my way back to Bagram so I could go on leave. I got stuck at Jalalabad Thursday night because of a sand storm. But I made it back to Bagram on Friday morning. Spent two days there and flew out on Saturday night. No one thought we would get out so quick but we did. Now I am in Kuwait, stuck here for a little longer. I got here around 10 Sunday morning. I would have gotten to fly out last night had I not had any checked luggage but for some reason I brought way to much stuff with me and I wanted to bring some home. I'm ok with it though. I didn't want to be home before Tuesday anyway. This way I have a couple days after the cruise to get ready to go back. Kuwait isn't to bad of a place. It's really hot here, but they have Pizza Hut, McDonald's and KFC. I'm glad that we don't have anything like that at my FOB. I'd go broke and put on a lot more weight. I now am just waiting out the morning and will be put on lockdown this afternoon. If all goes well I will be home very very soon.

12 Oct 2010

Time seems to be moving a lot faster now. Since Ramadan ended we have begun training in both the mornings and afternoons of Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. Sunday and Wednesday we train in the afternoon only, because the ANA have cultural and religious training in the mornings. Thursdays we observe the PMCS that the ANA does on their vehicles. PMCS is Preliminary Maintenance Checks and Services, basically checking over the vehicle and looking for damage or problems so they can fix it, so that it won't brake down while on a mission. They are still learning how to do that properly. Right now they just dust off the vehicles and clean the windows. That apparently is good enough for them. We try to get them to at least start the vehicles so that the batteries do not die, but that can be difficult at times. Thankfully we have not had any type of attack or attempt of attack on our FOB in over 2 months. I hope it stays this way. In September I had to fill in on tower guard a few times for people that were going on convoys, so I was not supposed to have any type of guard duty from the beginning of October until I get back from leave. Unfortunately things have changed and I have had guard duty Saturday, Sunday, today, and will have it possibly Thursday, and for four hours on friday. Luckily though I will be leaving soon enough and going on leave. I look forward to spending as much time with Cassie as I can.

I did not reach my weight loss goal that I had set. I think it's cause I keep getting such good treats sent to me, like this chocolate and marshmallow thing I'm eating now that my Grandma sent. But I have been very good about going to the gym every day, sometimes twice a day. I had a pt test last Friday, and had mainly been working on running because I thought thats what I would struggle on the most. About a week before the test I ran my 2-miles and timed myself at just over 19 minutes. For my age I have to run it in 17 minutes. I stopped working out about 5 days prior to the test to let my muscles recover and I ran the 2 miles in 16:58. Unfortunately I spent most of my time working on running and neglected to work on my sit-ups and push-ups. I did pass the push ups but not the sit ups. But I will be ready for the next one.

I am now on the downward side of 6 months, hopefully these next few weeks will go slow while I am on leave and then the months fly by when come back here.

9-5-10 Update

There really hasn't been a whole lot going on here, which is why I haven't been adding to my blog more often. Which on one side it's a good thing but it is also a bad thing. The good thing is that we haven't had any threats since August 7, which was the beginning of Ramadan. The bad part is that we haven't done much training since Ramadan and therefore haven't had much to do during the days, making my days very long and boring. There is about 4 more days left of Ramadan and then the ANA will be off for 4 days to celebrate, basically to eat a whole lot. Were not allowed to be in PTs before 4pm so I can't spend the down time in the gym. Instead I lay around surfing the internet, reading or watching movies. I haven't watched pretty much all the movies I have and the Afghan store doesn't have any good movies to buy. I have come up with a plan to help make my days go by faster and increase my weight loss/muscle gain. Starting on the 8th I will begin my day doing the Ab Ripper from P90X. In the afternoons instead of watching movies and just laying around I will begin doing the P90X series, and still go to the gym at night. Hopefully this will help increase my weight loss because I seem to be at a plateau and don't seem to be losing anymore. I haven't weighed myself since I left Bagram and I'm not sure I want to. I kind of want to wait until I get home but I am also curious to know if I have lost anything. Another reason why I am going to begin working out so much is because at the beginning of October I will have to do a PT test. Since I just turned 27 my standards have gone down, which will help me out but I don't want to rely on that to pass. I will do the best that I can and give everything I have. I have to run 2 miles in 17:58, which I timed myself on the treadmill and did 2.6km in that time. Almost there but I have a way to go still. The course for the run will be a lot harder than the treadmill so I need to shave at least a good 5 min off of it on the treadmill.

So as far as what I am doing here with the army. We have gone down to trainging 3 days a week, when they show up. They have stopped all training on Sundays and Wednesdays for prayer. I still pull tower guard, have to fuel generators and now am going to be servicing generators and doing head count at meals. Last Wednesday the ANA were going out on a recon mission at night and I and one other soldier were selected to pull tower guard in one of the ANA towers. From 8pm until 4 am we were in the ANA tower with 4 ANA soldiers. I had gotten up at 6:30 that day but was given the day off to rest and be ready to stay up all night. Of course I didn't really rest, I was awake all day and that made it even harder to stay up. The ANA pull 72 hour shifts in their towers. They have 4 beds so that they can take turns sleeping, and they like to smoke hash while on duty, which is completely legal over here. There command frowns upon it but it is not a legal issue. Of course nothing happened and at 4 we left and went to bed.

Tomorrow is labor day, I don't think we will be getting it off since we really only work in the mornings but we will be haveing a competition. Every year the army has a soldier of the year competition and that consists of a physical course, I however will not be participating but will be watching.

Slow days

The past week and a half has been really slow. The Afghan people started Ramadan last Tuesday, which is a month long religous period. We only train for a hour or so becuase during this month they can not eat or drink from sun up til sun down, and they pray a lot more during the day. Since this started we have only trained 2 or 3 times. The first few days they didn't show up cause they were doing religous training during our training time. So things are kinda boring right now. Since there isn't a whole to do on this FOB I find myself sitting in my bunk a lot. Sometimes watching movies, sometimes sleeping and sometimes talking with my roommate and of course occasionally talking to myself. I wish I could say that I was talking to myself because the heat was getting to me but I'll admit I do it quite often. I am currently just sitting on my bunk, about to fall asleep but trying not to. I am on fuel detail today. At 0800, thats 8 am, I had to fuel all the generators that power our Toc, and I will do it again at 1900, 7pm. It only takes about an hour but that cuts into my gym time so I really don't like doing it. Oh well, I will just have to work harder tomorrow. Well I suppose I will just watch a movie and fall asleep.

combat

Saturday was the first serious combat situation I have been in. Around 10:53 I was in bed and heard a very big boom. To me it sounded like outgoing fire, meaning that we had shot off something. I heard someone yelling in the hallway that it was not a drill so immediately I put on my gear and got to my position. During base defense I am assigned to tower #7. As I was running to the tower I could hear weapons being shot and had loud explosions going off over head. I did what I was trained to do during those situations and I got down and got as much cover as I could. I moved along the hesco barriers that are next to every building until I reached my tower. Tower 7 is located on the western side of the FOB, we were being shot at from the western side. I could see the Afghan army shooting but did not know what they were shooting at. I positioned myself along the wall of the tower keeping an eye on the hole that is in the ANAs wall and watching the perimiter. Air support showed up around 11:35 and they began to scatter. We were in the tower until 1am and were then released. No US or Afghan soldiers were injured. There were 5 local nationals that were killed. I do not know if they were killed by the Afghans or by the taliban.

My New Goal

As I sat in the tower today I decided to make a list of goals that I would like to accomplish before I leave Afghanistan.
First of all I wanted to say thank you to any of you that has sent or is sending me gift packages. Thank you for the support and love that you have shown to me and to Cassie.
I want to thank you all for the snacks and various goodies that you have sent me, but would like to ask that you refrain from sending to many more. If you have recently sent some or are preparing to send some don't worry I will still eat and share them. I have comprised a new list of things that I would like that will help me with one of the goals I have set for myself. What is the goal you ask. Well I have set for myself a goal of wieght lose. I am currently well over my weight standard for my age and height. That limit is 185. I would like to get to that or 180 by the time I go on leave. So I have about 3 months to work on this. I plan to begin my workout regime that I have comprised tonight and will do my absolute best to work out every morning and every evening. But with all the snacks and junk food its easy to get side tracked. What I need the most is encouragement and motivation. Motivation is probably the hardest thing I struggle with. I have a very hard time motivating myself to do anything, you can ask Cassie and she will agree, in fact she's probably rolling her eyes as she reads this. I have a few other goals but this is one that I have decided to make public so that I may get some outside encouragement. Do not feel that I do not want your snacks. If you want to send them, by all means send them. I will eat thim in moderation as well as share them with other soldiers.
I want to thank you in advance for your encouragement and help motivating me. The following is a list of things that I could use to help me in achieving my goal.

Protien Bars
Meal Replacement Bars
Granola Bars
Creatine
Motivational Music
Fitness Magazines

Some places to buy these things at discounted prices are www.bodybuilding.com and www.prosource.net

I have bought enough meal replacement shakes to last me until I go on leave. So with those and dieting I hope that I can achieve my goal.
Thank you so much
Matt

Training Week 2

Today was the end of week 2 of our training the Afghan National Army. Monday we taught them how to change oil on their vehicles and Tuesday I had them explain to me step by step how to do it. By then end of the day Tuesday they wanted to move on and learn how to do something else. Unfortunately for them we are tasked to train on oil changes for two weeks so we will still be doing that. Today we let them go and change the oil by themselves, with our supervision, and they did it with no problems. Tomorrow we have 3 more vehicles for them to do. Today we also got to eat in the ANA dining facility. Two of our guys hadn't been there yet and they were skeptical about eating there. I have pics of my tray that I'll put on facebook, but the meal consists of rice, flatbread, corn and potatoes and some type of green veggie, today it was okra, and then a type of meat. The ANA guys we ate with thought it was sheep that we had today but they weren't even sure, and then there is always some type of fresh fruit. All in all this week has been good, no problems here yet. We had a General come through yesterday so surf and turf night was even better than normal. I had a steak almost as big as my plate and then a huge lobster tail. I had to set my baked potato aside and eat some of the food on my plate so I could get it out of the aluminum foil. That's one thing I love here, every Friday I eat steak and seafood.

Today is my first full day where I will be stationed for the duration of my deployment. Today it reached 105 by 10:00 am. We haven't begun working yet, right now we are just getting accustomed to the area and the climate. Today however we did get the opportunity to eat the the Afghanistan Army dinning facility. The food wasn't bad, we had lots of rice, flat bread, corn and potatoes, green beans, watermelon and goat. The hardest part of the meal was eating with my hands. They have untensils but they do not get cleaned well so unless you bring your own you eat with your hands. I was actually surprised with the food. Yesterday we actually had a great lunch for the 4th. Made me feel like I was back home, other than there was no fireworks and I wasn't with Cassie it was a good day. We should get started working very soon and hopefully time will go quick then. The bad thing about this place is that there isn't a lot to do for fun, there is no PX or chapel. Once in a while there is a chaplain that comes in but not very often. When we need something from the px we will have to convoy to the nearest base. But on the bright side I won't have those temptations to buy things and I should be able to save some money.

First day on the other side of the world

Now I sit and wait. Most of my unit is getting ready to head out, I however have to wait a couple more days. There was a select few of us that have to wait because there isn't enough room on the plane. We'll be gone soon though and be able to get into a routine and get this deployment over. So far where I'm at now is pretty nice. We have a nice view of the Himalaya's, which makes me wish I had brought my snowboard, not that I could go snowboarding. This whole base it pretty nice. The weather is about the same as Atlanta, right now it is 68. My buddy Filkins is heading out tonight, so for the next couple of days I'll be pretty bored. We have a lot of fun together. We decided on the flight over that we are going to try and do Bible studies together as often as possible. Hopefully that will go well and we will have the same schedule so we can do that. Right now it is 11:45pm and I am wide awake. I have not yet adjusted to the time difference. My sleep schedule is very random right now. I try to stay up and sleep when its night here, but I just can't stay awake that long. Tonight I probably went to sleep around 4:30pm and woke up around 10pm. Hopefully that won't take too much longer to adjust to the time difference.

traveling

The past couple days have been traveling. We left sat morning and arrived Sunday evening, or Sunday morning Georgia time. That was the longest flight I have ever been on. It was very tiring and I am extremely jet lagged now. We have roughly a 9.5 hour difference from back home. I will be at my current location for a few days before moving on to my final destination. I don't think I've ever watch as many movies in 1 day as I did on the flight over here. Well it is about 1:30 am here so I need to try and get some sleep so I can get on the right schedule.

Leave

My 4 day leave has come to an end and tonight I must return to base. As I pack up and get ready to head back I look back on all the good time I have had with Cassie and friends throughout the years. This next year will be very hard to be away from everyone but hopefully with the new friends I have made within my unit I will get through. This next year is going to be very different and probably very difficult. I will be experiencing things I never thought I would, and will be in a completely different part of the world. Friends and family, I look forward to seeing you all when I get home, you all are amazing and with your prayers I will get through this deployment safely and quickly. Thank you to all of you who have been praying for me and Cassie and thank you to all of you who will keep an eye on her while I am gone. I will miss every one of you.
Matt

Training has begun.

Finally our training had begun. Yesterday I had a drivers training course so I am now licensed to driver a hummer. It was pretty fun and I hope I get to do some more driving. Today we did some training on IED's. Tomorrow we will do some more of that and also some convoy training. At the end of the week we will be spending a few days out in the woods. I'm not sure how that will work out because we have a few people who didn't seem very excited to be going out there. Oh well, hopefully it will go quick and they won't complain to much.

First week at Fort Hood

This week has been kinda boring. We did our SRP, to make sure all our paperwork and everything is correct. I got a total of 17 shots, 15 were for smallpox and then I got a ppd test and a anthrax shot. Yesterday we got our new gear, new helmet, uniforms, etc... Tomorrow we will start are training. I'm not sure what all we will be doing but hopefully we will be a lot busier than we have. The days have been long, we get up at 4:30 and lights out is at 11.

Ft Stewart Training

The past month I have been training at Ft Stewart, GA. Most of the training that we did was infantry training. Basically a refresher of what I learned in basic training and a little more. We were up at 4:30 pretty much everyday and on the go until 8 every night.
The funnest thing I got to do was called a Heat trainer. It was a hummv that was setup to simulate a rollover. It would spin in a complete 360. The instructor would stop it at different angles and we would have to climb out as quickly as possible.
I met a lot of really cool guys that I'll be going with and of course some that will not be as fun to be around. Some of them are just so young and think they know everything.
We did a lot of tactical movements and learned how to react to different things and how to do different tasks. Our search and seizure class was the funniest. Searching people is going to be quite interesting if I have to do it.
It is very nice to be home this week and to be able to spend time with Cassie. I will cherish the time I have with her this week and look forward to many years together when I return.