Winding Down

My time here in this country is coming to an end. I have roughly 60 days before I leave and begin traveling back home. I don't have an exact date of when I will be home yet, but know that its coming soon. I will be spending a few days in Mississippi for de-mob before returning back to ATL for good.
I have learned quite a bit being over here. Most of all, how we as Americans, take a lot of things for granted. It's very eye opening seeing all of these people and what they don't have, living in mud huts, and basically doing whatever necessary to survive. I know I will probably go home and take the things for granted that we have but I now have a much better understanding on a third world country. Yesterday I got to see for the first time what the villages look like. After getting some dental work done I rode back from a nearby base on a convoy. I saw a lot of little kids coming running towards us waving and giving us a thumbs up. They seemed happy to see us.

In a few days I will be leaving my current location and beginning a new mission for the rest of my time here. Because of Operational Security I can't really say a whole lot about it. I will be escorting some ANA soldiers as they get more in depth training than what my team has been doing. So today and over the next few days I will be packing to go home. I will be leaving Gamberi and (hopefully) never be coming back. As I've begun packing I realize that it's hard to pack a years worth of my life into 3 bags. I have things that I will either be giving away or trashing some things I will be mailing home, sorry Cassie. It's hard to decide what I need and what to give away.

I want to thank all of you that have supported me and Cassie. Through prayer, gifts, care packages, being amazing friends. Whatever it is that you have done, on behalf of both of us, we greatly appreciate it. This year has been hard on both of us, and we could not have done it with out an amazing family and friends. Now on my aspect I really appreciate all the goodies and snacks. It has help to make me feel more at home. I know I asked not to send me to many snacks, but thank you for not listening. I looked forward to spending time with all my family and friends once I get home. Thank you again for all you've done.

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.