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.