Hello all!
I want start off by saying Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all had a great thanksgiving with family and friends. Yes, don't worry we got turkey too but not nearly as good as home cooked stuff but it was still pretty good.
Spending the holidays here is kind of bizarre. I was thinking about how big of a deal Thanksgiving and everything is back home and how much you prepared for it but over here it truly is just another day. I mean you could tell once you got to the DFAC that it was Thanksgiving because they decorated it and everything (they even had a little Indian guy standing on a pedestal with no shirt and body painted like a statue holding a bow and arrow dressed like a Native American, I wish I was kidding...seriously the strangest thing I have ever seen). But other than that it was another normal day on KAF. Not complaining just a strange observation.
Things here have being going alright, days are going by relatively quickly which is good, we are definitely winding down here which is very exciting. During our meetings things are brought up like "the 87th will be here on ____ so start preparing to train them up" and "start mailing things home that you wont need so we dont have to ship it back" so its exciting for sure.
I want to take a second before I forget to say thank you to everyone who has sent me any packagaes, letters, facebook messages anything like that. If I didn't say thank you I apologize thigns here were at an insane pace for most of the deployment so I didn't always have time to say thank you but please know that I truly appreciate everything!
We took a PT (physical training) test yesterday and it went pretty well I was happy with the result. For those that don't know, the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test) consists of 3 events: 2 minute pushups, 2 minute situps and a 2 mile run. Basically for pushups and situps you just do as many as you can until you cant anymore and during the 2 mile run you have a time that you have to get under or you fail (for my age group its 16:36). Its graded on a scale of 300 (100 points max for each event) and the more you do or faster you run the more points you get which helps with promotions and stuff like that. The one I was most nervous about was the pushup because I am not a big guy, I have been working out a lot so I knew I would pass but for some reason I was still nervous. I ended up getting 67 pushups, 75 sit ups and ran a 14:30 2 mile for a score of 265. I was a little disappointed in my run score because I thought that would be my strongest event but we ran it outside and it was pretty cold and actually raining. Figures, it has rained 3 times since we have been here and it just so happens that our PT test falls on one of those days. Oh well, I was pretty happy over all. Thats the best score I have ever gotten but probably the 2nd highest run time I have ever gotten so that was upsetting. Oh well theres always next year!
I have been looking forward to seeing everyone whenI get back and every day I think about it! I miss everyone a lot and can't wait to see you all! Just know that if I don't see you right away its not because I don't want to, I plan on just relaxing at home for a few days before I do anything; I'll probably sleep a lot and spend time a lot of time with Lindsey and family but rest assured I look forward to seeing ALL OF YOU! Jaime and I have already mentioned a DTW night/maybe a DTC (downtown Cleveland...I just made it up feel free to use it) as well.
Thats it for now, take care!
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Take a breath, America.
Alright guys I am going to try really hard to not go on a long rant but I feel as though I need to vent a little bit about election day.
We are a nation of results and "what have you done for me lately". NO ONE CARES who brought the idea up, just help us! There are people legitmately struggling, wondering if they are going to be able to keep their house or even put food on the table for their family. That isn't right, Im only 26 (almost 27..wow) but I can't remember a time like this in my lifetime. It really is scary, take into account what is happening Europe with their financial crisis, Earth is going to have a tough time if American politics keep up like this. I wish that politics would adopt the attitude of most of the people here in Afghanistan which is: "Well that doesn't make any sense but we have to get it done so we will do it." In the end, no one will care how the problem was solved or who came up with it, only that the problem was fixed.
Perhaps the most ridiculous thing I have seen is the reaction from the American public. How obnoxious is everyone? I had no idea everyone worked for CNN as a political analyst and apparently every American went back to school and got a doctorate in political science! Seriously? Relax guys because I can almost guarantee you that only about 15-25% of you even paid attention 5 months ago and in another month everyone can go back to worrying more about American Idol than who is President, enough with the Facebook statuses about how screwed our country is or how insanely excited you are that Obama got re-elected. Think about what this country accomplished that seemed impossible at the time! We beat the greatest military the world has ever known at the time (twice) to gain our independence, we survived a brutal Cival War to end slavery, rebuilt and became the strongest union ever. We slipped into the Great Depression and survived by re-dedicating our lives to making it work no matter what, we freed Europe from what was seen as an unstoppable force of evil by planning the most daring military campaign ever seen by man. Now we are saying "Well the guy we wanted for President had different ideas than who is President so our country is done." Wrong answer, the second we accept that idea we may as well just call it a day and move to Canada because that is the complete OPPOSITE of what Americans have done in the past. My grandfathers and yours didn't fight in World War II to have that kind of mentality, guys here in Afghanistan now don't have that mentality regardless of who are President is, we have a job to do and we will be damned if we quit because things didn't go our way. Suck it up. Drive on.
Just the opinion of a dumb soldier in Afghanistan..go on about your days and don't forget to thank GOD everyday that you live where you do and you actually get the option to choose your leaders, many don't and many have died to keep that a reality.
RANT OVER..
We are a nation of results and "what have you done for me lately". NO ONE CARES who brought the idea up, just help us! There are people legitmately struggling, wondering if they are going to be able to keep their house or even put food on the table for their family. That isn't right, Im only 26 (almost 27..wow) but I can't remember a time like this in my lifetime. It really is scary, take into account what is happening Europe with their financial crisis, Earth is going to have a tough time if American politics keep up like this. I wish that politics would adopt the attitude of most of the people here in Afghanistan which is: "Well that doesn't make any sense but we have to get it done so we will do it." In the end, no one will care how the problem was solved or who came up with it, only that the problem was fixed.
Perhaps the most ridiculous thing I have seen is the reaction from the American public. How obnoxious is everyone? I had no idea everyone worked for CNN as a political analyst and apparently every American went back to school and got a doctorate in political science! Seriously? Relax guys because I can almost guarantee you that only about 15-25% of you even paid attention 5 months ago and in another month everyone can go back to worrying more about American Idol than who is President, enough with the Facebook statuses about how screwed our country is or how insanely excited you are that Obama got re-elected. Think about what this country accomplished that seemed impossible at the time! We beat the greatest military the world has ever known at the time (twice) to gain our independence, we survived a brutal Cival War to end slavery, rebuilt and became the strongest union ever. We slipped into the Great Depression and survived by re-dedicating our lives to making it work no matter what, we freed Europe from what was seen as an unstoppable force of evil by planning the most daring military campaign ever seen by man. Now we are saying "Well the guy we wanted for President had different ideas than who is President so our country is done." Wrong answer, the second we accept that idea we may as well just call it a day and move to Canada because that is the complete OPPOSITE of what Americans have done in the past. My grandfathers and yours didn't fight in World War II to have that kind of mentality, guys here in Afghanistan now don't have that mentality regardless of who are President is, we have a job to do and we will be damned if we quit because things didn't go our way. Suck it up. Drive on.
Just the opinion of a dumb soldier in Afghanistan..go on about your days and don't forget to thank GOD everyday that you live where you do and you actually get the option to choose your leaders, many don't and many have died to keep that a reality.
RANT OVER..
Friday, October 19, 2012
Oh, hello again.
Wow it has been a while since I have posted, I apologize. It has been a combination of laziness and being crazy busy. So what has happened since August? Well a lot of missions and some job changes as some people now know.
I no longer am on the road conducting missions, which I have mixed feelings about for multiple reasons. I legitimately enjoyed traveling all over RC-South (Regional Command South), it was fun and exciting and something I will really miss as strange as it seems. Although on the flip side I don't have to worry about being blown up everytime I leave the wire but that was half the fun of it actually was wondering if it was going to happen, its kind of hard to explain but when you do as many missions as we have it is something you just kind of accept, that at any time an IED can go off and the war becomes very real for you instead of just hearing the threat warnings during briefings.
The other reason I miss it is because I made a lot of good friends while running missions and it was fun to talk about the crazy things you see while on the road and I can't really do that anymore. Not that they aren't my friends anymore it's just that I am not involved in that anymore which I will miss.
On the flip side I have done a lot of missions and no one can take that away from me. At the time I took this new job I had run about 30-35 missions for a total of about 3900 miles from June until September. So I am proud of what I was able to do while I was on missions.
So now what is my new job? I started working for our battalion's S2 shop which is the intel section. Every battalion has shops (S sections), S1 is admin S2 is intel S3 is operations S4 is supply I think I cant remember what S5 is and S6 is commo. So basically what I do on a day to day basis is monitor enemy movements and attack patterns to look for possible threats to our convoys along certain routes. We use a variety of different software to do this and all are classified as secret so I can't really get into what they are and what they do because I could get into a lot of trouble. That kid that got in trouble for leaking stuff to Wikileaks did a slightly higher level of what I am doing now and he is currently being held in Ft Leavenworth which is not a place I want to end up so I can't get into it.
Overall, the job is pretty alright. I get in at 0500 and work until 1400 (5am-2pm) and set up all the monitoring software and go through the previous days INTSUM ( intel summary) which summarizes all the previous days attacks form the Taliban, significant activities (SIGACTS) of the enemy and stuff like that. It is interesting to read all of the things that you never really hear about if you were just on mission. When you go out for convoys you get an S2 briefing but it only pertains to the route you are traveling, now I hear about ALL of the SIGACTS in RC-South. Which is kind of crazy.
So we are at about 3.5 months away from getting home and I cannot wait to get there. I can't even fathom how amazing it will feel to get home. Its not that I am totally depressed or even really homesick being here, its just.....This place sucks, I can't even properly describe how drastic the differences are in every category from life in the US. From obvious things like terrain and cultural differences to small things like driving. Its insane how lucky people are in the US and they don't even recognize that. People think they know how lucky they are to live in a country like the United States but they don't have a clue, really they don't and I don't mean that to sound like a slap in the face if you are one of the people that say you are. You know that the US is a great country and arguably the best place to live in the world, but until you come to a country like this or another 3rd world country, you don't truly know. We get the US news here and it's really disheartening seeing some people complain about some of the problems they have there, it's borderline enraging really. There is a comedian, Louis CK that has a joke but it is entirely true, he says:
"We have white people problems in America, do you know what that is? Thats where your life is amazing, so you make shit up to be upset about. People in other countries have REAL problems like 'oh shit they are cutting all our heads off today'. Here we make shit up to be upset about like 'how come I have to choose a language on the ATM machine its bullshit, I shouldn't have to do that IM AMERICAN"
Like that is really funny but I can't think of a better descriptiong for the sense of entitlement people in the US have. I am guilty of it too, I won't lie but I think when I get home I will be looking at things a little differently. People here can't use a cell phone without the Taliban threatening to and in some cases actually killing them. Think about that, some guys come into your town and say, "don't use your cell phone or you will DIE". Then they actually kill you for making a phone call. Insane right? Well it is a reality in a city north of Kandahar. Think about that the next time you see a sign in English AND Spanish.
That's all I got for now guys, I will try to update this a little more often. Love you all and take care!!
I no longer am on the road conducting missions, which I have mixed feelings about for multiple reasons. I legitimately enjoyed traveling all over RC-South (Regional Command South), it was fun and exciting and something I will really miss as strange as it seems. Although on the flip side I don't have to worry about being blown up everytime I leave the wire but that was half the fun of it actually was wondering if it was going to happen, its kind of hard to explain but when you do as many missions as we have it is something you just kind of accept, that at any time an IED can go off and the war becomes very real for you instead of just hearing the threat warnings during briefings.
The other reason I miss it is because I made a lot of good friends while running missions and it was fun to talk about the crazy things you see while on the road and I can't really do that anymore. Not that they aren't my friends anymore it's just that I am not involved in that anymore which I will miss.
On the flip side I have done a lot of missions and no one can take that away from me. At the time I took this new job I had run about 30-35 missions for a total of about 3900 miles from June until September. So I am proud of what I was able to do while I was on missions.
So now what is my new job? I started working for our battalion's S2 shop which is the intel section. Every battalion has shops (S sections), S1 is admin S2 is intel S3 is operations S4 is supply I think I cant remember what S5 is and S6 is commo. So basically what I do on a day to day basis is monitor enemy movements and attack patterns to look for possible threats to our convoys along certain routes. We use a variety of different software to do this and all are classified as secret so I can't really get into what they are and what they do because I could get into a lot of trouble. That kid that got in trouble for leaking stuff to Wikileaks did a slightly higher level of what I am doing now and he is currently being held in Ft Leavenworth which is not a place I want to end up so I can't get into it.
Overall, the job is pretty alright. I get in at 0500 and work until 1400 (5am-2pm) and set up all the monitoring software and go through the previous days INTSUM ( intel summary) which summarizes all the previous days attacks form the Taliban, significant activities (SIGACTS) of the enemy and stuff like that. It is interesting to read all of the things that you never really hear about if you were just on mission. When you go out for convoys you get an S2 briefing but it only pertains to the route you are traveling, now I hear about ALL of the SIGACTS in RC-South. Which is kind of crazy.
So we are at about 3.5 months away from getting home and I cannot wait to get there. I can't even fathom how amazing it will feel to get home. Its not that I am totally depressed or even really homesick being here, its just.....This place sucks, I can't even properly describe how drastic the differences are in every category from life in the US. From obvious things like terrain and cultural differences to small things like driving. Its insane how lucky people are in the US and they don't even recognize that. People think they know how lucky they are to live in a country like the United States but they don't have a clue, really they don't and I don't mean that to sound like a slap in the face if you are one of the people that say you are. You know that the US is a great country and arguably the best place to live in the world, but until you come to a country like this or another 3rd world country, you don't truly know. We get the US news here and it's really disheartening seeing some people complain about some of the problems they have there, it's borderline enraging really. There is a comedian, Louis CK that has a joke but it is entirely true, he says:
"We have white people problems in America, do you know what that is? Thats where your life is amazing, so you make shit up to be upset about. People in other countries have REAL problems like 'oh shit they are cutting all our heads off today'. Here we make shit up to be upset about like 'how come I have to choose a language on the ATM machine its bullshit, I shouldn't have to do that IM AMERICAN"
Like that is really funny but I can't think of a better descriptiong for the sense of entitlement people in the US have. I am guilty of it too, I won't lie but I think when I get home I will be looking at things a little differently. People here can't use a cell phone without the Taliban threatening to and in some cases actually killing them. Think about that, some guys come into your town and say, "don't use your cell phone or you will DIE". Then they actually kill you for making a phone call. Insane right? Well it is a reality in a city north of Kandahar. Think about that the next time you see a sign in English AND Spanish.
That's all I got for now guys, I will try to update this a little more often. Love you all and take care!!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The dead zone..
Before I write anything I would just like to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best sister in the world, Jaime. Sorry I couldn't be there but ya know this whole war thing is in the way. You're the greatest, its as simple as that.
So we have entered into what I am referring to as the dead zone. This is basically where you have been here long enough to know what you're doing but not long enough to see any light at the end of the tunnel. This results in frustration with just about everything around you. You start to see incompetence where there possibly is none (even though I totally think there is), you begin to question why you do things and those giving you the orders to do those things and you begin to become slightly complacent with your missions because you have done them so many times. Now to the 1486th credit, I think so far we have done a pretty good job of keeping alert and focused and I think the nonsensical stuff we have to do is a result of a battalion that we only cares about the bottom line and if the missions are getting completed. Its a very rough spot to be in, on top of all this dead zone stuff, the company decided to do some realignment, so some people are working with soldiers they never have before and were seperated from their guys which whom they have worked with the entire time. The reason for doing so was justified I won't debate that nor should I really get into it but it just makes it more difficult.
So anyways this past week has been kind of nuts, we did about 4 missions in a week. This past one we got back on Wednesday and it was a crazy mission. Got up at 3am to get ready to go and did not get back to the base we were staying at until about 1230am, it was a long day. Nothing really to interesting happened except a local national trucker rolled over and we had to stop and get our medic to provide aid for him because one guy broke his arm and the other guy broke a rib and punctured a lung.
Not really sure what else to write about, not much going on here. We are just doing what seems like endless missions. Tomorrow we have a culture climate survey which is basically a survey to ask how you think your leadership is doing and I have a feeling that battalion is going to be torn apart by our surveys. I hope it changes something but I doubt it.
Take care all!
So we have entered into what I am referring to as the dead zone. This is basically where you have been here long enough to know what you're doing but not long enough to see any light at the end of the tunnel. This results in frustration with just about everything around you. You start to see incompetence where there possibly is none (even though I totally think there is), you begin to question why you do things and those giving you the orders to do those things and you begin to become slightly complacent with your missions because you have done them so many times. Now to the 1486th credit, I think so far we have done a pretty good job of keeping alert and focused and I think the nonsensical stuff we have to do is a result of a battalion that we only cares about the bottom line and if the missions are getting completed. Its a very rough spot to be in, on top of all this dead zone stuff, the company decided to do some realignment, so some people are working with soldiers they never have before and were seperated from their guys which whom they have worked with the entire time. The reason for doing so was justified I won't debate that nor should I really get into it but it just makes it more difficult.
So anyways this past week has been kind of nuts, we did about 4 missions in a week. This past one we got back on Wednesday and it was a crazy mission. Got up at 3am to get ready to go and did not get back to the base we were staying at until about 1230am, it was a long day. Nothing really to interesting happened except a local national trucker rolled over and we had to stop and get our medic to provide aid for him because one guy broke his arm and the other guy broke a rib and punctured a lung.
Not really sure what else to write about, not much going on here. We are just doing what seems like endless missions. Tomorrow we have a culture climate survey which is basically a survey to ask how you think your leadership is doing and I have a feeling that battalion is going to be torn apart by our surveys. I hope it changes something but I doubt it.
Take care all!
Friday, July 27, 2012
And the Army goes rolling along...
Hey everyone, I have been slacking pretty hard on updaing this so I apologize for that.
So what has been going on here in Kandahar? Well pretty much the same as the first two months really. Missions and details can really sum it up.
We just returned from a 3 day mission last night at about 5pm. The mission itself went by pretty smoothly with no issues except for on the way back to KAF. Our convoy was about an hour from the front gate of KAF when we received a BFT (blue force tracker, kind of like a super GPS wit the ability to locate and message any friendly forces in the area) from an engineering unit, the 296th. The message was that one of their vehicles had rolled over off a small bridge and needed help recovering it and controlling traffic.
The funny thing is that the 296th is a unit that was trying to take missions from us and rumor was that they didn't like answering to a National Guard unit as they are active duty and thought they were better than us. So of course we felt pretty obligated to play hero for them. So we got there and everyone was ok, a few concussions and scrapes but nothing major.
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The flipped MAXPRO, silly engineers
At the time I was the TC (truck commander) of the scout vehicle so when the traffic was backed up in both lanes I had to dismount and try to tal kto some of nationals to move their trucks so we could get through to the scene. I got out with our interpreter Matt and walked up and down the traffic trying to tell people to move and they would but they only stack up again for some weird reason. At this point these people had apparently been sitting in this traffic for 3 hours so they were very agitated. It is Ramadan right now so they cannot eat or drink until nightfall so that adds into their irritability.
At some point while me and Matt were making our way towards the convoy a bus pulled up and it was full of people who were very angry and they began yelling at Matt and not listening to me. At one point they started to get into Matt's face so I had to push them back and then they began to come at me. At this point I charged my weapon (put a round into the rifle chamber) and told them to step back, get on their bus and move or stay put and wait. That time they listened and me and Matt kept walking. Something about an annoyed American soldier 8000 miles from home with a locked and loaded M4 makes them hear much clearer than trying to talk to them normally.
We ended up getting back to KAF about 3 hours later than we should have but it was alright because we were actually doing things and helping out instead of just sitting there waiting for something to happen.
Overall things here are good, we are almost at the halfway mark which is kind of crazy to think of. It feels like about a month ago that we left Ohio. Im sure it doesn't feel like that back home. Not much has changed here, some injuries and such has forced some people to go home, nothing combat related just stupid things. I really wish they would let us have leave so I could come home for only a few days but unfortunately that isn't the case. Especially with Jaime's wedding coming up it would be an AWESOME break but maybe it will be easier to just finish straight through.
I have kind of hit my stride in this deployment, I have a routine going for the most part and take it day by day. Can't wait to come home but I dont think I am really homesick, I miss home and everyone back home but it isn't to the point where I am sad or depressed, thigns are going ok and I am really happy that it should be cooling down here soon.
Thats about it for now, take care everyone!
So what has been going on here in Kandahar? Well pretty much the same as the first two months really. Missions and details can really sum it up.
We just returned from a 3 day mission last night at about 5pm. The mission itself went by pretty smoothly with no issues except for on the way back to KAF. Our convoy was about an hour from the front gate of KAF when we received a BFT (blue force tracker, kind of like a super GPS wit the ability to locate and message any friendly forces in the area) from an engineering unit, the 296th. The message was that one of their vehicles had rolled over off a small bridge and needed help recovering it and controlling traffic.
The funny thing is that the 296th is a unit that was trying to take missions from us and rumor was that they didn't like answering to a National Guard unit as they are active duty and thought they were better than us. So of course we felt pretty obligated to play hero for them. So we got there and everyone was ok, a few concussions and scrapes but nothing major.
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At the time I was the TC (truck commander) of the scout vehicle so when the traffic was backed up in both lanes I had to dismount and try to tal kto some of nationals to move their trucks so we could get through to the scene. I got out with our interpreter Matt and walked up and down the traffic trying to tell people to move and they would but they only stack up again for some weird reason. At this point these people had apparently been sitting in this traffic for 3 hours so they were very agitated. It is Ramadan right now so they cannot eat or drink until nightfall so that adds into their irritability.
At some point while me and Matt were making our way towards the convoy a bus pulled up and it was full of people who were very angry and they began yelling at Matt and not listening to me. At one point they started to get into Matt's face so I had to push them back and then they began to come at me. At this point I charged my weapon (put a round into the rifle chamber) and told them to step back, get on their bus and move or stay put and wait. That time they listened and me and Matt kept walking. Something about an annoyed American soldier 8000 miles from home with a locked and loaded M4 makes them hear much clearer than trying to talk to them normally.
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| SGT Reese, myself, Matt and SSG Casler trying to sort out the traffic. |
We ended up getting back to KAF about 3 hours later than we should have but it was alright because we were actually doing things and helping out instead of just sitting there waiting for something to happen.
Overall things here are good, we are almost at the halfway mark which is kind of crazy to think of. It feels like about a month ago that we left Ohio. Im sure it doesn't feel like that back home. Not much has changed here, some injuries and such has forced some people to go home, nothing combat related just stupid things. I really wish they would let us have leave so I could come home for only a few days but unfortunately that isn't the case. Especially with Jaime's wedding coming up it would be an AWESOME break but maybe it will be easier to just finish straight through.
I have kind of hit my stride in this deployment, I have a routine going for the most part and take it day by day. Can't wait to come home but I dont think I am really homesick, I miss home and everyone back home but it isn't to the point where I am sad or depressed, thigns are going ok and I am really happy that it should be cooling down here soon.
Thats about it for now, take care everyone!
Thursday, July 12, 2012
A Day in the Life..
Hola again, so I was thinking today that instead of telling all about the missions I have been on, 3 since my last post all of which went smoothly and safely, I would tell you basic stuff about KAF and daily life. I don't think I have done that yet, so here you go!
Living quarters
As most of you know, we live in CHUs or containerized housing units. Basically, they are a 18x8 room where we live. We live with 2 other people, so 3 people to a room. My roommates are PV2 Anders and PFC DeLong, its very tight quarters with such a small room and 3 people but we make it work. I have the single bed and DeLong and Anders share a bunk bed, I pulled the rank card so I win. The beds are pretty comfortable, at least I made mine comfortable by buying a foam mattress topper and sheets (Thanks Caca!). We have a TV, fridge, microwave and PS3. The most important thing is that we have AC that works very well, if not we would be dying from heat exhaustion in here!
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KAF's wonderful Amenities
So for laundry you really have two options, self service or full service. I usually always go full service because its fast and easy. We got issued laundry bags when we first got here and as long as its under 5lbs they will get your dirty laundry back to you within two days and it's free. The drop off point is right down the street, path or whatever it is these are called, so you can walk to drop it off.
The food when we first got here was pretty good, I don't know if it is because we have been for about 2 months or if the food has gone downhill but it is getting pretty old. It is pretty much the same thing on a weekly rotation, some sort of chicken and rice, potatoes, sandwiches and things like that. I will say that the pulled pork is VERY good, definitely my favorite thing on the menu. They also have the boardwalk which has some restaurants like Fridays and KFC and some food stands but its insanely expensive and somewhat of a walk so not really worth it. Just recently they opened a few places just past the chow hall you can eat. There is a Pizza Hut, Burger King, Popeyes and some other place I can't remember what it is. I had pizza from Pizza Hut and it was pretty good but again expensive so I won't be eating there very much. Now that they made us wear full uniform the chow hall busines has slowed but I still go most of the time.
The gym isn't too far from here, probably about a 10 minute walk or so. I go several times a week when I am not on mission or doing some stupid detail I got put on. There is the MWR gym which is the one I goto because it is closer and has everything I need. There is also a NATO gym for coalition forces which I hear is nicer but I haven't been, I don't see the point of walking past a gym to go to another gym.
The showers and bathrooms and attached to our CHUs on each side. Its basically two CHU rooms for the entire side of the CHU complex. It isnt too bad, somewhat community oriented which is the norm in the military but each shower is an individual stall so thats cool. The only bad thing about the showers is that the water comes from a water bladder, its kind of like a big bag that gets refilled every so often, not really sure. That means that sometimes you run out of water which SUCKS. I was coming off mission one morning and all I wanted to do after sweating and driving for a long time , was to take a shower. You know the rest, no mas agua. It was upsetting but it could be worse.
We have shopettes around to buy some supplies like hygiene items and some food stuff. They run out of stock very quickly because of the border closures in Pakistan. Apparently they dont like it very much when we bomb their borders taking out terrorists. Whatever Pakistan. The PX is over by the boardwalk which has electronics and stuff like that, not too bad but I dont go there very often. A lot of the guys buy stuff from Amazon or Wal Mart because thye have free shipping to APO addresses.
Im not really sure what else to write, in terms of missions it has been a pretty slow week which I suppose is a good thing. Weather here is incredibly hot and getting hotter. Today was really humid for some reason and I am trying to hide out in my room as much as possible. It is kind of crazy that we have been here 2 months and gone from Ohio for 3, I am kind of at the point now where I cannot wait to be home! I miss Ohio very much and the people in it!
Living quarters
As most of you know, we live in CHUs or containerized housing units. Basically, they are a 18x8 room where we live. We live with 2 other people, so 3 people to a room. My roommates are PV2 Anders and PFC DeLong, its very tight quarters with such a small room and 3 people but we make it work. I have the single bed and DeLong and Anders share a bunk bed, I pulled the rank card so I win. The beds are pretty comfortable, at least I made mine comfortable by buying a foam mattress topper and sheets (Thanks Caca!). We have a TV, fridge, microwave and PS3. The most important thing is that we have AC that works very well, if not we would be dying from heat exhaustion in here!
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KAF's wonderful Amenities
So for laundry you really have two options, self service or full service. I usually always go full service because its fast and easy. We got issued laundry bags when we first got here and as long as its under 5lbs they will get your dirty laundry back to you within two days and it's free. The drop off point is right down the street, path or whatever it is these are called, so you can walk to drop it off.
The food when we first got here was pretty good, I don't know if it is because we have been for about 2 months or if the food has gone downhill but it is getting pretty old. It is pretty much the same thing on a weekly rotation, some sort of chicken and rice, potatoes, sandwiches and things like that. I will say that the pulled pork is VERY good, definitely my favorite thing on the menu. They also have the boardwalk which has some restaurants like Fridays and KFC and some food stands but its insanely expensive and somewhat of a walk so not really worth it. Just recently they opened a few places just past the chow hall you can eat. There is a Pizza Hut, Burger King, Popeyes and some other place I can't remember what it is. I had pizza from Pizza Hut and it was pretty good but again expensive so I won't be eating there very much. Now that they made us wear full uniform the chow hall busines has slowed but I still go most of the time.
The gym isn't too far from here, probably about a 10 minute walk or so. I go several times a week when I am not on mission or doing some stupid detail I got put on. There is the MWR gym which is the one I goto because it is closer and has everything I need. There is also a NATO gym for coalition forces which I hear is nicer but I haven't been, I don't see the point of walking past a gym to go to another gym.
The showers and bathrooms and attached to our CHUs on each side. Its basically two CHU rooms for the entire side of the CHU complex. It isnt too bad, somewhat community oriented which is the norm in the military but each shower is an individual stall so thats cool. The only bad thing about the showers is that the water comes from a water bladder, its kind of like a big bag that gets refilled every so often, not really sure. That means that sometimes you run out of water which SUCKS. I was coming off mission one morning and all I wanted to do after sweating and driving for a long time , was to take a shower. You know the rest, no mas agua. It was upsetting but it could be worse.
We have shopettes around to buy some supplies like hygiene items and some food stuff. They run out of stock very quickly because of the border closures in Pakistan. Apparently they dont like it very much when we bomb their borders taking out terrorists. Whatever Pakistan. The PX is over by the boardwalk which has electronics and stuff like that, not too bad but I dont go there very often. A lot of the guys buy stuff from Amazon or Wal Mart because thye have free shipping to APO addresses.
Im not really sure what else to write, in terms of missions it has been a pretty slow week which I suppose is a good thing. Weather here is incredibly hot and getting hotter. Today was really humid for some reason and I am trying to hide out in my room as much as possible. It is kind of crazy that we have been here 2 months and gone from Ohio for 3, I am kind of at the point now where I cannot wait to be home! I miss Ohio very much and the people in it!
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Some week..
Hey all, its been a long week sorry for the delay in posting.
As most of you already know, last Sunday, while returning from a convoy; we lost two soldiers in an explosion outside of KAF. SGT Michael Strachota and SSG Robert Massarelli. I will tell you briefly what happened and what has transpired this past week here on KAF.
Last Sunday (June 24) we were returning from a mission to a base on the west side of Kandahar City. When we got to about 1/2 mile from the KAF gates, approximately 5 trucks ahead of me there was a pretty large explosion. All I saw was a flash and then a fireball and smoke, it came out of absolutely nowhere. At first we weren't sure what was going on because our trucks comms were temporarily down, I got it fixed shortly after we saw the smoke and heard the CC ( convoy commander) calling out "IED IED IED". Of course the convoy immediately stopped and began pulling security and searching for triggerman, secondary IEDs, ambush points and pointing them out on the radio. Instinct kind of took over at that point I think and its true that repetition produces habit. You do the drills we do everytime we leave the wire, which is good, its just extremely unfortunate that it had to be used for this. I don't really want to get into the details of it because you don't really need to know about them but it was an extraordinarily hard day. Its one thing to hear about these things happening, it is quite another to see it happen 300m ahead of you and have it take away people you have worked with. I didn't know either of them very well but from all accounts there were exceptional soldiers and people and it is a horrible feeling to sit there and not be able to do anything to help them. The incident is still being investigated as an IED or whether it was a terrible traffic accident.
If any of you have seen the movie Restrepo, in the movie a good friend of the unit Doc Restrepo is killed in a fire fight and the members of the unit explain how they felt. One guy says "you hear on the radio that someone is hit and immediately in your mind you start going through the list of people on mission with you and hoping it isn't them." I could not put this any better, don't get me wrong, the fact that anyone was hit is awful and of course you don't want anyone you're with to be hurt, but you start thinking who it could be and in this convoy I had one of my good friends and roommate PFC Delong with me and I thought it was him for about 20 mins as we didn't hear any radio traffic from their truck. Later we learned who it was and while I still felt awful and my heart goes out to the soldiers, the 96th trans and their families, I would be lying if I didn't breathe a little easier when I saw Delong and Smith later that day.
The memorial service was a couple days ago and it was one of the saddest things I have ever gone through. They say that there is nothing worse than a military funeral, I would have to say that a close second is the memorial ceremony conducted by those who were closest to the soldiers in their final months and weeks. You create such a bond with these guys and girls that you become close to family. You spend everyday, every waking minute with them and you get to know them better than some people in your own family. It's a bond that can't really be described unless you have gone through it. To watch those people talk about the fallen is very tough for everyone in the room, even if you didn't know them personally because it strikes a cord with you for a few reasons. For one, you start thinking about "what if I had to go up there and talk about ________, what would I say? Would I be able to hold it together? What would I say to their family when I see them?" The other is that the military is a massive brotherhood as cliche as it sounds, it is. Anytime you see an ACH on top of a rifle behind a pair of boots, its sad because you have lost someone that gave up comfort in the United States, left home for a place that wants us gone, sacrificed family friends and relative safety for a place with none of that. They came to a faraway place voluntarily to help in some way, to be something bigger than themselves and to serve the greatest country the world has ever known. Excuse my concieted tone for a moment, but we are the best America has, because no one wants to do this but us. No one else wants to go risk everything for next to nothing, less than 1% of Americans are willing or able to do this job. Having said all of that, it is still an absolute honor to do what I am doing right now and as much as I miss home, my friends, my family, summertime in Ohio and Lindsey, I don't think I would rather be anywhere else.
Don't be mad for that last comment family and Lindsey, I still miss you in an amount that Im not sure I can accurately describe.
Thats really all I have for you all right now, we did go on another mission and returned safely back to KAF on Thursday but having said all I have it really isn't important.
Please just remember SGT Strachota and SSG Massarelli for the heroes they are as well as their families and the 96th TC of Fort Hood, TX. They need your prayers more than I do at the moment.
Love you all!
As most of you already know, last Sunday, while returning from a convoy; we lost two soldiers in an explosion outside of KAF. SGT Michael Strachota and SSG Robert Massarelli. I will tell you briefly what happened and what has transpired this past week here on KAF.
Last Sunday (June 24) we were returning from a mission to a base on the west side of Kandahar City. When we got to about 1/2 mile from the KAF gates, approximately 5 trucks ahead of me there was a pretty large explosion. All I saw was a flash and then a fireball and smoke, it came out of absolutely nowhere. At first we weren't sure what was going on because our trucks comms were temporarily down, I got it fixed shortly after we saw the smoke and heard the CC ( convoy commander) calling out "IED IED IED". Of course the convoy immediately stopped and began pulling security and searching for triggerman, secondary IEDs, ambush points and pointing them out on the radio. Instinct kind of took over at that point I think and its true that repetition produces habit. You do the drills we do everytime we leave the wire, which is good, its just extremely unfortunate that it had to be used for this. I don't really want to get into the details of it because you don't really need to know about them but it was an extraordinarily hard day. Its one thing to hear about these things happening, it is quite another to see it happen 300m ahead of you and have it take away people you have worked with. I didn't know either of them very well but from all accounts there were exceptional soldiers and people and it is a horrible feeling to sit there and not be able to do anything to help them. The incident is still being investigated as an IED or whether it was a terrible traffic accident.
If any of you have seen the movie Restrepo, in the movie a good friend of the unit Doc Restrepo is killed in a fire fight and the members of the unit explain how they felt. One guy says "you hear on the radio that someone is hit and immediately in your mind you start going through the list of people on mission with you and hoping it isn't them." I could not put this any better, don't get me wrong, the fact that anyone was hit is awful and of course you don't want anyone you're with to be hurt, but you start thinking who it could be and in this convoy I had one of my good friends and roommate PFC Delong with me and I thought it was him for about 20 mins as we didn't hear any radio traffic from their truck. Later we learned who it was and while I still felt awful and my heart goes out to the soldiers, the 96th trans and their families, I would be lying if I didn't breathe a little easier when I saw Delong and Smith later that day.
The memorial service was a couple days ago and it was one of the saddest things I have ever gone through. They say that there is nothing worse than a military funeral, I would have to say that a close second is the memorial ceremony conducted by those who were closest to the soldiers in their final months and weeks. You create such a bond with these guys and girls that you become close to family. You spend everyday, every waking minute with them and you get to know them better than some people in your own family. It's a bond that can't really be described unless you have gone through it. To watch those people talk about the fallen is very tough for everyone in the room, even if you didn't know them personally because it strikes a cord with you for a few reasons. For one, you start thinking about "what if I had to go up there and talk about ________, what would I say? Would I be able to hold it together? What would I say to their family when I see them?" The other is that the military is a massive brotherhood as cliche as it sounds, it is. Anytime you see an ACH on top of a rifle behind a pair of boots, its sad because you have lost someone that gave up comfort in the United States, left home for a place that wants us gone, sacrificed family friends and relative safety for a place with none of that. They came to a faraway place voluntarily to help in some way, to be something bigger than themselves and to serve the greatest country the world has ever known. Excuse my concieted tone for a moment, but we are the best America has, because no one wants to do this but us. No one else wants to go risk everything for next to nothing, less than 1% of Americans are willing or able to do this job. Having said all of that, it is still an absolute honor to do what I am doing right now and as much as I miss home, my friends, my family, summertime in Ohio and Lindsey, I don't think I would rather be anywhere else.
Don't be mad for that last comment family and Lindsey, I still miss you in an amount that Im not sure I can accurately describe.
Thats really all I have for you all right now, we did go on another mission and returned safely back to KAF on Thursday but having said all I have it really isn't important.
Please just remember SGT Strachota and SSG Massarelli for the heroes they are as well as their families and the 96th TC of Fort Hood, TX. They need your prayers more than I do at the moment.
Love you all!
Friday, June 22, 2012
Its all uphill from here.
Greetings! So the latest news here is that everyone is pretty angry and frustrated. I know I am. I won't get into all the details mostly because they won't make any sense out of context. Basically, here is what is happening. Our battalion is beginning to really piss everyone off. They keep making rules and regulations that make little to no sense whatsoever and we get no explanation as to why they were created. For example, we are no longer allowed to deblouse anywhere. If you don't know, deblousing means taking off our MCU (Multi-Cam Uniform) top. It may not seem like a huge deal except that it was 120 degrees the other day and we were in the motorpool for most of the day prepping our vehicles for an upcoming mission. I drank an entire case of water by myself within a matter of 4 hours. In any other setting I would've been in the hospital for over hydration but I was still dehydrated due to the heat. Another doozy is that we are no longer allowed to wear PTs (shorts and a tshirt) anywhere unless you are doing actual PT. The reason it is frustrating is that the people making these rules sit in an air conditioned room all day and seldom are seen in the motorpool or maintenance tents. It wouldn't be nearly as bad if they came out and said "hey this is the reason we did this" but they don't, the orders are issued and no questions are asked.
The other thing bothering people here is that the 1486th is being pulled by other companies and used as supplements for their missions. Which is fine, we are happy to be out on the road, its what we came here to do. The issue is that they putting people on missions, when they are prepping for another mission. This means double the work and half the amount of time to do it, this is going to lead to our guys and girls being burned out twice as fast. Being on missions is the time we get messed with the least and that is not how it should be in my opinion. But enough of me complaining, thats not why you're reading this. On to the missions!
So we just got back from a run up north to resupply a FOB using those fine NAT drivers...If you aren't picking up on my sarcasm, you need to get to know me a bit better. This mission started off pretty awful but ended up much better. Lets start from the beginning here. We were scheduled to leave, we were loading up and gearing up in our staging area and literally everyone was in their trucks, guns locked and loaded ready to roll out of the gate and then battalion calls. Mission has been suspended until the next day because not enough NATs showed up to warrant a mission run north. Fantastic. So we parked our trucks back in the motorpool and tried again the next morning. This time we got the release to continue mission, with about 7 more NATs than we were supposed to have. This was not good news-remember me mentioning that these trucks break down alot? Well they lived up to that reputation on this run for sure. The first break down occurred about an hour outside of KAF, a blown radiator. We found out about it because one of the Afghani truckers stopped his truck in the middle of the convoy and began pouring bottles of water into his radiator...for 3 hours...Clearly not the ideal solution in the States, but here in Afghanistan that was probably the best solution at the time. That got us about 1 hour more driving and then his truck just decided that the driver was an idiot (no arguement here) and stopped altogether. We had to tow him with our wrecker. We ended up dropping him at an SF base along the way (again SF is none too pleased but were cool enough to let us drop him there). I won't get into all the stops because there ended up being about 10 of them. We were on the road for a total of about 22 hours or something stupid like that and we didn't even make it to the base we were supposed to end up at. We spent the night, rather the day because the sun was coming up, at a Romanian base about an hour south of the FOB we were supposed to. It would've taken us about 3 more hours because of the NATs driving so slow. We finished the run the next day.
While up north a few things happened that delayed our departure. 1. our wrecker had some engine trouble. This is bad because we cannot leave without them, they tow our broken down vehicles and with NATs you may need multiple wreckers. So we had to spend the day fixing it before we were able to leave. 2. a bridge along our route got blown up by a suicide bomber in a car. Real cool. No one really seemed to mind because as I mentioned earlier, when we are on the road no one messes with us which meant we were able to relax, sleep, play cards, watch movies, whatever we wanted to do without being called down to the motorpool because something wasn't EXACTLY where it was supposed to be (that has literally happened). So what was supposed to be a 3 day mission ended up being a 5-6 day mission.
The ride back was great because we only had 6 NATs and I was driving scout and I was doing about 80kpm...er Im not sure how fast because my speedometer was broken.....We got back in about 8 hours but only because we had to stop at the SF base to pick up our old friend water bottle NAT. We could've made it in 6 hours easily if we didn't have to stop. Oh, Im that good.
So we got back and I have been with my truck in maintenance ever since performing maintenance and fixing the AC unit. Our AC wasn't working real well so we took it for our maintenance shop and they are the best, hard working dudes for sure. They found some animal nest in our AC unit which was blocking the intake. No animals in there, just some kind of nest. If it was a camel spider nest Im never driving that vehicle ever again....ever.
Well I have to go get ready for yet another mission...I think this is my 8th or 9th...time is starting to fly by a little bit. Still, January/February can not get here fast enough. Thank you to everyone who has sent packages, letters and cards. They are EXTREMELY appreciated. As it seems people are asking what to send/not send, heres a little list.
Do not send
-baby wipes (please...no more baby wipes)
-q tips
-kleenex
-gum (thanks for the cavities!)
-soap
-hygentics in general (I sweat, but not that much)
-plastic bags
Do send
-Easy mac (best.thing.ever.)
-anything Browns related (the trash talking has begun)
-Ohio state stuff
-Black pens (they get lost...A LOT)
-video games (this is really for my Mom or Lindsey to send me mine...Im not sure how much more Call of Duty I can play while in an actual warzone)
That's it, thanks in advance and again for those that have already sent things, please coordinate with my Mom, Dad, Lindsey or Jaime because I dont have much room in here for a lot of stuff. I lvoe you all and hope all is well in Ohio, I heard its getting warm and the Tribe is in 1st!! Goto the Jake, don't take them for granted! Go tribe and there's a lot of things I would like to say to the Heat but I fear that little kids are reading and will ask what a lot of words mean..mostly the cursing.
Cya!
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James Stutz Me Atwood
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You will see both watermelons and these motorcycles EVERYWHERE
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Typical Afghan village along HWY 1 selling sodas and other forms of crap
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Not all of Afghanistan is sandy..but Im pretty sure theres an opium field in there somewhere
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I love this
The other thing bothering people here is that the 1486th is being pulled by other companies and used as supplements for their missions. Which is fine, we are happy to be out on the road, its what we came here to do. The issue is that they putting people on missions, when they are prepping for another mission. This means double the work and half the amount of time to do it, this is going to lead to our guys and girls being burned out twice as fast. Being on missions is the time we get messed with the least and that is not how it should be in my opinion. But enough of me complaining, thats not why you're reading this. On to the missions!
So we just got back from a run up north to resupply a FOB using those fine NAT drivers...If you aren't picking up on my sarcasm, you need to get to know me a bit better. This mission started off pretty awful but ended up much better. Lets start from the beginning here. We were scheduled to leave, we were loading up and gearing up in our staging area and literally everyone was in their trucks, guns locked and loaded ready to roll out of the gate and then battalion calls. Mission has been suspended until the next day because not enough NATs showed up to warrant a mission run north. Fantastic. So we parked our trucks back in the motorpool and tried again the next morning. This time we got the release to continue mission, with about 7 more NATs than we were supposed to have. This was not good news-remember me mentioning that these trucks break down alot? Well they lived up to that reputation on this run for sure. The first break down occurred about an hour outside of KAF, a blown radiator. We found out about it because one of the Afghani truckers stopped his truck in the middle of the convoy and began pouring bottles of water into his radiator...for 3 hours...Clearly not the ideal solution in the States, but here in Afghanistan that was probably the best solution at the time. That got us about 1 hour more driving and then his truck just decided that the driver was an idiot (no arguement here) and stopped altogether. We had to tow him with our wrecker. We ended up dropping him at an SF base along the way (again SF is none too pleased but were cool enough to let us drop him there). I won't get into all the stops because there ended up being about 10 of them. We were on the road for a total of about 22 hours or something stupid like that and we didn't even make it to the base we were supposed to end up at. We spent the night, rather the day because the sun was coming up, at a Romanian base about an hour south of the FOB we were supposed to. It would've taken us about 3 more hours because of the NATs driving so slow. We finished the run the next day.
While up north a few things happened that delayed our departure. 1. our wrecker had some engine trouble. This is bad because we cannot leave without them, they tow our broken down vehicles and with NATs you may need multiple wreckers. So we had to spend the day fixing it before we were able to leave. 2. a bridge along our route got blown up by a suicide bomber in a car. Real cool. No one really seemed to mind because as I mentioned earlier, when we are on the road no one messes with us which meant we were able to relax, sleep, play cards, watch movies, whatever we wanted to do without being called down to the motorpool because something wasn't EXACTLY where it was supposed to be (that has literally happened). So what was supposed to be a 3 day mission ended up being a 5-6 day mission.
The ride back was great because we only had 6 NATs and I was driving scout and I was doing about 80kpm...er Im not sure how fast because my speedometer was broken.....We got back in about 8 hours but only because we had to stop at the SF base to pick up our old friend water bottle NAT. We could've made it in 6 hours easily if we didn't have to stop. Oh, Im that good.
So we got back and I have been with my truck in maintenance ever since performing maintenance and fixing the AC unit. Our AC wasn't working real well so we took it for our maintenance shop and they are the best, hard working dudes for sure. They found some animal nest in our AC unit which was blocking the intake. No animals in there, just some kind of nest. If it was a camel spider nest Im never driving that vehicle ever again....ever.
Well I have to go get ready for yet another mission...I think this is my 8th or 9th...time is starting to fly by a little bit. Still, January/February can not get here fast enough. Thank you to everyone who has sent packages, letters and cards. They are EXTREMELY appreciated. As it seems people are asking what to send/not send, heres a little list.
Do not send
-baby wipes (please...no more baby wipes)
-q tips
-kleenex
-gum (thanks for the cavities!)
-soap
-hygentics in general (I sweat, but not that much)
-plastic bags
Do send
-Easy mac (best.thing.ever.)
-anything Browns related (the trash talking has begun)
-Ohio state stuff
-Black pens (they get lost...A LOT)
-video games (this is really for my Mom or Lindsey to send me mine...Im not sure how much more Call of Duty I can play while in an actual warzone)
That's it, thanks in advance and again for those that have already sent things, please coordinate with my Mom, Dad, Lindsey or Jaime because I dont have much room in here for a lot of stuff. I lvoe you all and hope all is well in Ohio, I heard its getting warm and the Tribe is in 1st!! Goto the Jake, don't take them for granted! Go tribe and there's a lot of things I would like to say to the Heat but I fear that little kids are reading and will ask what a lot of words mean..mostly the cursing.
Cya!
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Sunday, June 10, 2012
Well that was neat.
Hey everyone, since my last post I have been on about 4-5 missions, I cant remember. I just got back from a 3 day mission to a base up north. Its currently Sunday (June 10) and we got back at about 5pm or something, I cant remember its been a long few days.
For this mission it was all 1486th, our first mission as a stand alone company. Almost all of 1st platoon went (my platoon) and it went really well and it was nice to work with people you actually know. We went in the trucks we were assigned to which meant I was driving the scout vehicle. I gotta say, I really liked it for the most part. You get to see everything in front of you which is a lot, or a little depending on where you were at in Afghanistan. Some parts were very desolate with little to no population whatsoever and other were very dense. A few of the cities along the route had big bazaars, which if you don't know what that is, is basically a big outdoor shopping area where the Afghanis get a lot of their things. One in particular in a city called Shah Joy was very busy and made traveling through the village pretty difficult. I was trying to focus on driving, keeping control of the mine rollers (a contraption that sits on front of your truck to roll over any possible pressure plates for IEDs) and keep look out for people doing a variety of things and making sure we wouldn't get attacked. The Taliban really enjoy shooting at us while we travel through busy areas because they know we don't want to shoot back into a crowd of people. Luckily, we didn't see anything through Shah Joy.
I digress, we left in the morning from KAF at about 10am or so and got up to the FOB at about 1030pm. We hit a few snags on the way, we were escorting HNTs or NATS (local nationals that transport supplies on their trucks to different bases) and they aren't exactly the most reliable means of transport on the world. That is a severe understatement. They break down ALL THE TIME. If you go out with NATs and you don't have a breakdown, it is a literally a miracle. We had one blow a tire and the convoy had to stop and pull security which basically means we block off the road and don't allow traffic through, which obviously pisses off the locals. No one is allowed to get through our convoy when we have boots on the ground for obvious reasons. So after we fixed the one's blown tire another's radiator blew out. We ended up pulling that one back to a nearby FOB run by SF (special forces) who were none too pleased about that at all, but they were pretty cool about it. We had to pick him up on the way back to KAF today. We were stopped in the road for a total of about 5 hours or so between the two NAT breakdowns. Oh, also apparently they just randomly get out of their trucks for no real reason whatsoever. Not while we are stopped, we are still moving as a convoy and they stop and get out and do..whatever it is they do and then hop back in and keep driving. Thats not very comforting when you're rollign through an area known for their IED nad insurgent activity. Not too mention before we left KAF we were supposed to have 20 NATs and only 10 showed up. Either they forgot they were supposed to go (very unlikely because they wanted to get paid) or they got word of something thats going down on the route we were taking. (Much more likely)
After we got the radiator fixed, we ran into something no soldier really wants to see. The wonderful IED. It didn't hit us, luckily it was caught so we had to stop AGAIN and wait for EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) to come and detonate it on site because it was dug in. It only took them about an hour to get there and then they blew it and we had a front row seat. I'll just say it was pretty awesome...and LOUD and it wasn't even a big one I guess. They do a hell of a job clearing routes for us. We got messages from the Romanians (they do a lot of route clearance as well) that the locals were claiming the Taliban had another one somewhere up the road, so we rolled pretty slow looking for it but we never found any indicators so we rolled through without incident. What we did see was a bunch of previous craters from either IEDs or us blowing the road up with MK-19 grenade launchers or howitzers. Whoops.
So the base we went to was a blackout FOB, which basically means that after a certain time of the day there is no lights, no radio transmissions (including cell phones), no noise allowed, nothing because it is kind of in enemy territory and it is an SF FOB that they run missions out of. We also found out at about 2am that they have artillery at this base. Im sleeping very well after being o nthe road for 13 hours or so and I hear a voice over an intercom "Fire mission, fire mission, fire mission." I was groggy so I didn't think much of it...Stupid me. a few minutes later...BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Those howitzers were lighting somebody up, I mean raining hell on someone it was crazy and almost gave me a heart attack. The next morning I woke up and saw that the howitzers were about 50m from where we were sleeping. It was nuts.
My camera kind of died on the way there so I don't have any pictures, but I know some people on convoy did so when they put them online I will steal them and put them up on here for y'all. Yes I said y'all, deal with it. Time for me to go shower and get some rest. Love you all! Take care!
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Bearcat 5
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Scout Truck
For this mission it was all 1486th, our first mission as a stand alone company. Almost all of 1st platoon went (my platoon) and it went really well and it was nice to work with people you actually know. We went in the trucks we were assigned to which meant I was driving the scout vehicle. I gotta say, I really liked it for the most part. You get to see everything in front of you which is a lot, or a little depending on where you were at in Afghanistan. Some parts were very desolate with little to no population whatsoever and other were very dense. A few of the cities along the route had big bazaars, which if you don't know what that is, is basically a big outdoor shopping area where the Afghanis get a lot of their things. One in particular in a city called Shah Joy was very busy and made traveling through the village pretty difficult. I was trying to focus on driving, keeping control of the mine rollers (a contraption that sits on front of your truck to roll over any possible pressure plates for IEDs) and keep look out for people doing a variety of things and making sure we wouldn't get attacked. The Taliban really enjoy shooting at us while we travel through busy areas because they know we don't want to shoot back into a crowd of people. Luckily, we didn't see anything through Shah Joy.
I digress, we left in the morning from KAF at about 10am or so and got up to the FOB at about 1030pm. We hit a few snags on the way, we were escorting HNTs or NATS (local nationals that transport supplies on their trucks to different bases) and they aren't exactly the most reliable means of transport on the world. That is a severe understatement. They break down ALL THE TIME. If you go out with NATs and you don't have a breakdown, it is a literally a miracle. We had one blow a tire and the convoy had to stop and pull security which basically means we block off the road and don't allow traffic through, which obviously pisses off the locals. No one is allowed to get through our convoy when we have boots on the ground for obvious reasons. So after we fixed the one's blown tire another's radiator blew out. We ended up pulling that one back to a nearby FOB run by SF (special forces) who were none too pleased about that at all, but they were pretty cool about it. We had to pick him up on the way back to KAF today. We were stopped in the road for a total of about 5 hours or so between the two NAT breakdowns. Oh, also apparently they just randomly get out of their trucks for no real reason whatsoever. Not while we are stopped, we are still moving as a convoy and they stop and get out and do..whatever it is they do and then hop back in and keep driving. Thats not very comforting when you're rollign through an area known for their IED nad insurgent activity. Not too mention before we left KAF we were supposed to have 20 NATs and only 10 showed up. Either they forgot they were supposed to go (very unlikely because they wanted to get paid) or they got word of something thats going down on the route we were taking. (Much more likely)
After we got the radiator fixed, we ran into something no soldier really wants to see. The wonderful IED. It didn't hit us, luckily it was caught so we had to stop AGAIN and wait for EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) to come and detonate it on site because it was dug in. It only took them about an hour to get there and then they blew it and we had a front row seat. I'll just say it was pretty awesome...and LOUD and it wasn't even a big one I guess. They do a hell of a job clearing routes for us. We got messages from the Romanians (they do a lot of route clearance as well) that the locals were claiming the Taliban had another one somewhere up the road, so we rolled pretty slow looking for it but we never found any indicators so we rolled through without incident. What we did see was a bunch of previous craters from either IEDs or us blowing the road up with MK-19 grenade launchers or howitzers. Whoops.
So the base we went to was a blackout FOB, which basically means that after a certain time of the day there is no lights, no radio transmissions (including cell phones), no noise allowed, nothing because it is kind of in enemy territory and it is an SF FOB that they run missions out of. We also found out at about 2am that they have artillery at this base. Im sleeping very well after being o nthe road for 13 hours or so and I hear a voice over an intercom "Fire mission, fire mission, fire mission." I was groggy so I didn't think much of it...Stupid me. a few minutes later...BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Those howitzers were lighting somebody up, I mean raining hell on someone it was crazy and almost gave me a heart attack. The next morning I woke up and saw that the howitzers were about 50m from where we were sleeping. It was nuts.
My camera kind of died on the way there so I don't have any pictures, but I know some people on convoy did so when they put them online I will steal them and put them up on here for y'all. Yes I said y'all, deal with it. Time for me to go shower and get some rest. Love you all! Take care!
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Tuesday, May 29, 2012
One mission down...??? to go
Hey everyone, ok so I went on my first mission the other night. I cant really go into the specifics of what we did or how we went because it will be a recurring mission for us so i dont want any OPSEC to leak out. Basically, we left at night because we had to run through Kandahar City (KC) and didn't want to run into a crazy amount of traffic. KC is the second largest city in Afghanistan next to Kabul the captial city. KC is also the birthplace of the Taliban, so really the less time we have to spend in KC the better.
I was driving a PLS for this particular mission which is basically a commodity truck. We were hauling some supplies to a base on the west side of KC. We hit KC at night and the city was still extremely busy. Traffic and pedestrains EVERYWHERE, like literally everywhere. Roads are basically suggestions here. In Afghanistan, there are no traffic laws, there are no police to keep order on the roadways, there are no dividing lines to speak of, it is truly the wild west and they drive like it. I will never again speak badly about drivers in America, they are like surgically precise in comparison to Afghani drivers. Cars would cut in and out of our convoy within feet, keep in mind that our trucks weigh approximately 15-40 tons depending on the vehicle, compare that to a 2002 Toyota Corolla. Who do you think wins that fight? We are told to share the road and basically drive normally like we would in America while on convoy. Screw that. VBIEDs (vehicle bourne IEDs) are a big weapon for the Taliban and if a car won't stop for us, we go through escalation of force procedures and if they still don't stop we open fire and take it out. Most of the Afghanis know what those steps are and will stop before we get through all of them so at least they know that.
There are trucks loaded above their racks and then on top of their load...they put cars. They strap down cars on top of whatever it is they are hauling. It is the craziest thing I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any pictures of the convoy because it was kind of impossible with everything going on.
We made it to the base and unloaded our supplies for them and got back on the road shortly after. We ended up getting to KAF about 7am or so. I was wrecked. There was no bus to take us back so we had to walk back in all of our gear and weapons to the CHUs which is about 1.5 mile. So needless to say I was extremely tired, I threw my gear off on to my floor and got in the shower and fell asleep for about 4 hours. Then I went to chow and waited for my roommate, Delong, to come back and we went to the gym. So here I sit, tired and ready to sleep. So thats what I will do.
All in all it was a good experience and I am already scheduled for another mission in a few days and I will be in my MATV so I am excited about that. I will try to post some pictures of my next mission so you can see what the real Afghanistan looks like, we drove back in morning light and I got to see some of the landscape and its actually really cool and parts are very pretty. But there are also parts where you can see what "shock and awe" did. I'll just say this, our military firepower is insanely good you dont really know until you see the craters and "buildings" left behind. There is a reason we are the best military in the world.
Ok off to bed I go. Love you all, take care!!
I was driving a PLS for this particular mission which is basically a commodity truck. We were hauling some supplies to a base on the west side of KC. We hit KC at night and the city was still extremely busy. Traffic and pedestrains EVERYWHERE, like literally everywhere. Roads are basically suggestions here. In Afghanistan, there are no traffic laws, there are no police to keep order on the roadways, there are no dividing lines to speak of, it is truly the wild west and they drive like it. I will never again speak badly about drivers in America, they are like surgically precise in comparison to Afghani drivers. Cars would cut in and out of our convoy within feet, keep in mind that our trucks weigh approximately 15-40 tons depending on the vehicle, compare that to a 2002 Toyota Corolla. Who do you think wins that fight? We are told to share the road and basically drive normally like we would in America while on convoy. Screw that. VBIEDs (vehicle bourne IEDs) are a big weapon for the Taliban and if a car won't stop for us, we go through escalation of force procedures and if they still don't stop we open fire and take it out. Most of the Afghanis know what those steps are and will stop before we get through all of them so at least they know that.
There are trucks loaded above their racks and then on top of their load...they put cars. They strap down cars on top of whatever it is they are hauling. It is the craziest thing I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take any pictures of the convoy because it was kind of impossible with everything going on.
We made it to the base and unloaded our supplies for them and got back on the road shortly after. We ended up getting to KAF about 7am or so. I was wrecked. There was no bus to take us back so we had to walk back in all of our gear and weapons to the CHUs which is about 1.5 mile. So needless to say I was extremely tired, I threw my gear off on to my floor and got in the shower and fell asleep for about 4 hours. Then I went to chow and waited for my roommate, Delong, to come back and we went to the gym. So here I sit, tired and ready to sleep. So thats what I will do.
All in all it was a good experience and I am already scheduled for another mission in a few days and I will be in my MATV so I am excited about that. I will try to post some pictures of my next mission so you can see what the real Afghanistan looks like, we drove back in morning light and I got to see some of the landscape and its actually really cool and parts are very pretty. But there are also parts where you can see what "shock and awe" did. I'll just say this, our military firepower is insanely good you dont really know until you see the craters and "buildings" left behind. There is a reason we are the best military in the world.
Ok off to bed I go. Love you all, take care!!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Sunburnt...oh so sunburnt
Ok...It has been a while since I last wrote, like almost two weeks. I apologize for the delay things have been kind of nuts. I don't really know where to begin here. So, its currently Sunday night (May 20th) and today was an extremely long day and I am sunburnt a lot...and I never sunburn really. Apparently desert sun is slightly different. Intense! Ok so let me travel backwards a few days here.
The unit we are replacing, the 1484th is preparing to leave country and head back stateside within a few days here. I reccommend you attend their welcome home ceremony on June 2 at the JAR at UAkron. It'd be a cool thing to see and you may get to see and hear some of the things we are doing currently in Kandahar. Anyway, I digress. Since the beginning on this week the 84th has been training us up on some of their convoy operations and what all goes into it. Its a lot of work but it is all pretty important. Once you get the notice that you have an upcoming mission, it kind of sets into motion a bunch of different things. First you have to inspect all your equipment. Everything from your IOTV (body armor) to your MRAP or whatever vehicle you happen to be driving on that particular mission. We as 1st platoon have been designated as a majority guntruck platoon, but we do have some commodities trucks (pretty much anything that is not convoy security related). I have been reassigned from a gunner to a driver in the scout vehicle for the convoy. Although by the end of the tour I am sure I will be doing a little bit of everything. The scout vehicle is out in front of the convoy and is a very uparmored truck with dual mounted weapons in the turret and mine rollers on the front. I know it sounds dangerous but I promise you it isnt as bad as it sounds. I cant get into any of the tactics and battle drills we go into for obvious reasons but we do a lot of those and pretty much have them memorized by now.
I have not yet gone on any missions but our company has been getting a lot more now that the 84th is done and hopefully by June we will be a self sufficient unit and won't have to attach onto other companies convoys. Things are going well over all I think. I am starting to get used to the heat and such, the dust however I dont think I will ever get used to. It plain sucks, it blows all over the place and gets on EVERYTHING and in your mouth. This place is completely desolate, KAF is the only thing around except for Kandahar City which I hear is a madhouse. Its the birthplace of the Taliban so take that for what its worth.
We are all safe and no one has been hurt or anything like that. Things are as good as they can be and I think I just want to go out and do some missions and see what Afghanistan is REALLY like as opposed to KAF only. I am going to try and post some pictures from around base and I will label them accordingly. I am cutting out a lot of things and I apologize for that but its a mix of me being really tired and some of it being borderline classified. So I will answer questions the best I can. Aaaand heres some pictures!
outside of our CHUs
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inside our CHU...and yes, that is a pink TV. It rules
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CHU alley, leads into the DFAC at the far end. Rocket attack bunkers at the end with sandbags around it
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Our motorpool, all of our trucks and such are here. We spend a lot of time here.
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Walking back from the motorpool. Pretty much all the roads look similar to this, this one is in the process of being paved.
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What the cities/villages look like on mission. MRAP Maxxpro ahead.
The unit we are replacing, the 1484th is preparing to leave country and head back stateside within a few days here. I reccommend you attend their welcome home ceremony on June 2 at the JAR at UAkron. It'd be a cool thing to see and you may get to see and hear some of the things we are doing currently in Kandahar. Anyway, I digress. Since the beginning on this week the 84th has been training us up on some of their convoy operations and what all goes into it. Its a lot of work but it is all pretty important. Once you get the notice that you have an upcoming mission, it kind of sets into motion a bunch of different things. First you have to inspect all your equipment. Everything from your IOTV (body armor) to your MRAP or whatever vehicle you happen to be driving on that particular mission. We as 1st platoon have been designated as a majority guntruck platoon, but we do have some commodities trucks (pretty much anything that is not convoy security related). I have been reassigned from a gunner to a driver in the scout vehicle for the convoy. Although by the end of the tour I am sure I will be doing a little bit of everything. The scout vehicle is out in front of the convoy and is a very uparmored truck with dual mounted weapons in the turret and mine rollers on the front. I know it sounds dangerous but I promise you it isnt as bad as it sounds. I cant get into any of the tactics and battle drills we go into for obvious reasons but we do a lot of those and pretty much have them memorized by now.
I have not yet gone on any missions but our company has been getting a lot more now that the 84th is done and hopefully by June we will be a self sufficient unit and won't have to attach onto other companies convoys. Things are going well over all I think. I am starting to get used to the heat and such, the dust however I dont think I will ever get used to. It plain sucks, it blows all over the place and gets on EVERYTHING and in your mouth. This place is completely desolate, KAF is the only thing around except for Kandahar City which I hear is a madhouse. Its the birthplace of the Taliban so take that for what its worth.
We are all safe and no one has been hurt or anything like that. Things are as good as they can be and I think I just want to go out and do some missions and see what Afghanistan is REALLY like as opposed to KAF only. I am going to try and post some pictures from around base and I will label them accordingly. I am cutting out a lot of things and I apologize for that but its a mix of me being really tired and some of it being borderline classified. So I will answer questions the best I can. Aaaand heres some pictures!
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Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Greetings from Kandahar, Afghanistan!
Well we made it! It was a looooong ride but we made it Kandahar finally! We ended up leavin Saturday (May 5) at about 8am or something. I dont really know, over the past few days time has become a completely abstract thing, I am just know starting to know what time and day it is here.
We left El Paso and flew directly to Hahn, Germany which is near Frankfurt, about an 9.5 hour flight, I dont really know what time we arrived there, something like 7am German time. It is an old Airbase and now serves as a transit center for people flying from here in the Middle East back stateside. It looks a lot like an old prison, rundown buildings with barbed wire and stuff. Kind of crazy. We were there for all of about 2 hours and didn't leave the little reception area they had us in. Kind of disappointing but I guess I can say I have been to Europe? I got myself a German pretzel though, pretty delicious.
Manas AFB and the mountains along the side, pretty sweet.
So we boarded back on the plan about 2 hours later and took off from Frankfurt, Germany and then flew towards Manas AFB in Krygzstan. Its the only country I have ever seen with almost no vowels in it so I have no idea how to pronounce it, thus I will not. But its was a very beautiful place. Mountains, like legitimately big mountains that I have never seen before. I thought the mountains in El Paso were cool, these made those look like southern Ohio. It was cool though, there were all the NATO countires there and people coming from and going to Afghanistan. The Air Force runs that base and its a deployment site for them. There was a bar that they could drink at, some movie theatres, USOs, awesome 24 hour DFACs. I wish our deployment was there the whole time! It was pretty cool I liekd it there a lot. Unfortunately, we were only there for about a day and slept for about 3 hours of that time. The time difference kicked our butts real bad and then you add in minimal sleep and bam, exhaustion sets in. So on our 2nd day there, we boarded a C-17 and began our trip down here to Kandahar.
We did a combat landing into KAF (Kandahar Air Field), basically you land like twice as fast and drop altitude extremely fast in order to avoid the Taliban locking on to your plane and shooting it down. It was nuts. So we landed and the rear of the C-17 opened up and we got our first view of Afghanistan and it was hot....Oh so hot. Again, I went into no grass, there was a couple of random trees which was weird. We loaded on to some buses and drove to our CHUs where we will live for the next 9 months or so. Then we drove past the poo pond.....Its pretty self explanatory and the smell is pretty epicly bad. It smells like crap piled on top of crap and then set on fire. KAF itself is really hard to describe in words. There are concrete T-walls EVERYWHERE along with bunkers for pretty much daily rocket/mortar attacks (dont worry they are extremely inaccurate and random, pretty much they are always aimed at the flightline where the jets and helicopters take off). The CHUs themselves arent terrible but are pretty tiny, we have 3 to a CHU. We are still in the process of setting everything up but so far so good, I'll post a picture now and then one later after its all done.
I got to see a lot of my friends fromthe 84th and thats been really good to have them here to kind of show us around and see what its all about. Today I met up with Freeders, Kreger and Tomey and we went to the Boardwalk. Its crazy theres a TGI Fridays, KFC, pizza shops and a bunch of Afghani shops n such. Pretty cool.
So I am going to go and pick up our TV and stuff from Freeders so thats pretty sweet. Hopefully by the end of tonight we will be about set up. I will try to post more stuff as we go, Im still kind of figuring everything out here. I'll answer questions if you have any I guess! I will post again soon, love you all!
We left El Paso and flew directly to Hahn, Germany which is near Frankfurt, about an 9.5 hour flight, I dont really know what time we arrived there, something like 7am German time. It is an old Airbase and now serves as a transit center for people flying from here in the Middle East back stateside. It looks a lot like an old prison, rundown buildings with barbed wire and stuff. Kind of crazy. We were there for all of about 2 hours and didn't leave the little reception area they had us in. Kind of disappointing but I guess I can say I have been to Europe? I got myself a German pretzel though, pretty delicious.
So we boarded back on the plan about 2 hours later and took off from Frankfurt, Germany and then flew towards Manas AFB in Krygzstan. Its the only country I have ever seen with almost no vowels in it so I have no idea how to pronounce it, thus I will not. But its was a very beautiful place. Mountains, like legitimately big mountains that I have never seen before. I thought the mountains in El Paso were cool, these made those look like southern Ohio. It was cool though, there were all the NATO countires there and people coming from and going to Afghanistan. The Air Force runs that base and its a deployment site for them. There was a bar that they could drink at, some movie theatres, USOs, awesome 24 hour DFACs. I wish our deployment was there the whole time! It was pretty cool I liekd it there a lot. Unfortunately, we were only there for about a day and slept for about 3 hours of that time. The time difference kicked our butts real bad and then you add in minimal sleep and bam, exhaustion sets in. So on our 2nd day there, we boarded a C-17 and began our trip down here to Kandahar.
We did a combat landing into KAF (Kandahar Air Field), basically you land like twice as fast and drop altitude extremely fast in order to avoid the Taliban locking on to your plane and shooting it down. It was nuts. So we landed and the rear of the C-17 opened up and we got our first view of Afghanistan and it was hot....Oh so hot. Again, I went into no grass, there was a couple of random trees which was weird. We loaded on to some buses and drove to our CHUs where we will live for the next 9 months or so. Then we drove past the poo pond.....Its pretty self explanatory and the smell is pretty epicly bad. It smells like crap piled on top of crap and then set on fire. KAF itself is really hard to describe in words. There are concrete T-walls EVERYWHERE along with bunkers for pretty much daily rocket/mortar attacks (dont worry they are extremely inaccurate and random, pretty much they are always aimed at the flightline where the jets and helicopters take off). The CHUs themselves arent terrible but are pretty tiny, we have 3 to a CHU. We are still in the process of setting everything up but so far so good, I'll post a picture now and then one later after its all done.
I got to see a lot of my friends fromthe 84th and thats been really good to have them here to kind of show us around and see what its all about. Today I met up with Freeders, Kreger and Tomey and we went to the Boardwalk. Its crazy theres a TGI Fridays, KFC, pizza shops and a bunch of Afghani shops n such. Pretty cool.
So I am going to go and pick up our TV and stuff from Freeders so thats pretty sweet. Hopefully by the end of tonight we will be about set up. I will try to post more stuff as we go, Im still kind of figuring everything out here. I'll answer questions if you have any I guess! I will post again soon, love you all!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
And here we go..
Hey everyone, Im sorry its been so long since my last post. It has been a combination of being incredibly busy over the past few weeks and me just being straight up lazy when we are done for the day. So I will try to catch you all up on what has been going on and whats coming up.
So I was licensed on the MATV which is pretty cool. The driving portion of actually becoming licensed sucked really hard though. We were driving from about 1215 until 0130...It was a very long day. Most of that was spent riding in the back of the truck which is not especially comfortable and your butt falls asleep in about 10 minutes. We split it up into day driving and night driving. The night driving was a little more difficult, we had to drive a portion of it with night vision and that has very little visibility especially since when I used it the sun was down but still had whitewash (the light was still coming over the mountains and made nightvision pretty much useless.) It was cool none the less.
As you can see there is very limited visibility through the NVGs and no peripheral vision.
The following day began our validation process. Its a 5 day process where basically they check to make sure you are ready as a unit to deploy. It included some convoy practice in different scenarios, it was pretty boring which I think is something I am going to have to get used to. It will be long periods of bordem followed by some sporadic activity of some sort and then right on back to being bored. Good thing I will have a PS3, I should be a pro by the time I come back. On day 2 of the validations, we had to conduct base security. My position was in a tower along the entry point of the base. It was a really good piece of training. They had actual Afghanis and Iraqis come in the play people attempting to enter the base. Everyone had a different responsibility. Mine was to watch those entering and make sure they didnt start trouble and if they did. Light em up. Towards the end of the day, they sent over about 30 villagers and they started a protest outside of our gate and demanded to talk to our commander or else it would get "ugly". This went on for about 30 minutes the whole time the other soldier in the tower with me had a M240B in case thigns got out of control. Oh and to top things off, all radio traffic was going through me into HQ. It was a madhouse with everyone needing to tal kto the commander and me having to relay messages thigns got a little chaotic. We did the best we could but in the end a van pulled up and opened fire on the villagers. No US personnel were hurt and we were able to kill those i nthe van but it could have all been avoided. Thats why we train, make the mistakes here and learn from them instead of figuring it out over there and getting innocent people and your fellow soldiers killed. It was a really good training exercise and I enjoyed it.
So after the validation was done, that was it. Our training here is complete and now we sit and wait for our ride to Afghanistan. The anxiousness of all of us here is growing and you can sense people just want to get over there. We are sick of waiting around and are ready to get started. Im ready to relieve the 84th, let them go home to their families and friends and let us wait for that day 9 months down the road when our relief comes so I can do the same. Its a very exciting time and a sobering one as well. When I signed my contract I knew this day was going to come and now that it has, its just so surreal. Its going to be an interesting 9 months and one I know I am never going to forget. I am ready to go and so is the 1486th.
So for probably the last time stateside..Adios!
So I was licensed on the MATV which is pretty cool. The driving portion of actually becoming licensed sucked really hard though. We were driving from about 1215 until 0130...It was a very long day. Most of that was spent riding in the back of the truck which is not especially comfortable and your butt falls asleep in about 10 minutes. We split it up into day driving and night driving. The night driving was a little more difficult, we had to drive a portion of it with night vision and that has very little visibility especially since when I used it the sun was down but still had whitewash (the light was still coming over the mountains and made nightvision pretty much useless.) It was cool none the less.
The following day began our validation process. Its a 5 day process where basically they check to make sure you are ready as a unit to deploy. It included some convoy practice in different scenarios, it was pretty boring which I think is something I am going to have to get used to. It will be long periods of bordem followed by some sporadic activity of some sort and then right on back to being bored. Good thing I will have a PS3, I should be a pro by the time I come back. On day 2 of the validations, we had to conduct base security. My position was in a tower along the entry point of the base. It was a really good piece of training. They had actual Afghanis and Iraqis come in the play people attempting to enter the base. Everyone had a different responsibility. Mine was to watch those entering and make sure they didnt start trouble and if they did. Light em up. Towards the end of the day, they sent over about 30 villagers and they started a protest outside of our gate and demanded to talk to our commander or else it would get "ugly". This went on for about 30 minutes the whole time the other soldier in the tower with me had a M240B in case thigns got out of control. Oh and to top things off, all radio traffic was going through me into HQ. It was a madhouse with everyone needing to tal kto the commander and me having to relay messages thigns got a little chaotic. We did the best we could but in the end a van pulled up and opened fire on the villagers. No US personnel were hurt and we were able to kill those i nthe van but it could have all been avoided. Thats why we train, make the mistakes here and learn from them instead of figuring it out over there and getting innocent people and your fellow soldiers killed. It was a really good training exercise and I enjoyed it.
So after the validation was done, that was it. Our training here is complete and now we sit and wait for our ride to Afghanistan. The anxiousness of all of us here is growing and you can sense people just want to get over there. We are sick of waiting around and are ready to get started. Im ready to relieve the 84th, let them go home to their families and friends and let us wait for that day 9 months down the road when our relief comes so I can do the same. Its a very exciting time and a sobering one as well. When I signed my contract I knew this day was going to come and now that it has, its just so surreal. Its going to be an interesting 9 months and one I know I am never going to forget. I am ready to go and so is the 1486th.
So for probably the last time stateside..Adios!
Monday, April 23, 2012
Lets go!!
Hello again, alright so randomly our training schedule has picked up pretty substanitally. This is good news but also very confusing. We have been doing a lot of dismounted foot patrol tactics. Its actually a lot more fun and interesting than what we normally do (mounted patrols) but unless something has changed we are slotted to do any so Im not sure what the purpose of it is. It's probably our company just adding any training we can get into our schedule to satisfy us and keep us busy until we leave. Im ok with that, the more training you have and are validated on the more well rounded soldier you will be I suppose. A lot of people are freaking out because they think we are going to be slotted into some sort of infantry roll, which is not out of the question but highly unlikely. Theres a lot of rumors flying around the closer we get to leaving, Im trying to ignore all of them unless they come from higher ups. The PNN always has crazy things going through it. The PNN is the private news network, basically lower enlisted hear something and then blow it out of proportion or drawing crazy conclusions.
The past two days I have been doing MATV training. It is an MRAP variant that replaced the HMMWV and its a very cool vehicle. Today was kind of an off day and I was just doing some details around post for the company but yesterday we did the MET (MRAP Egress Trainer). Its bascially a simulated vehicle rollover where you learn to evacuate a flipped vehicle, more specifically an MRAP. You get flipped upside down and have to egress out of the vehicle within a certain amount of time and pull security afterwards. Its kind of fun but I've done it about 4 times so it's not as cool as the 1st or 2nd time.
Tomorrow is going to be a very long day. We have daytime and nighttime driving so I will basically be driving all day and all night in order to become licensed on the MATV. The night time driving we have to drive with a DVE (driver vision enhancer), its basically a thermal camera attached to the front of the MRAP that allows you to see heat signatures so that you can drive without headlights on. So that should be kind of cool but from what I hear its kind of difficult since you have little to no depth perception.
I talked to a few people in the 84th and they are getting anxious for us to show up because that means they are about to go home. That date has yet to be confirmed to us so I can't really release it yet but from what I am hearing its pretty soon, we have begun packing up all of our ACU patterns and shipping them back to Mansfield and should be switching over to multicam uniforms sometime this week, so take that for what its worth.
Continue to keep us in your prayers, we are all doing well. We did have a bit of a tragedy today, my squad leader lost a child today and is currently en route back home. Baby was to be due in May so it was pretty tough. Definitely keep him and his family in your prayers.
As always I miss and love you all, hopefully the next time I update it will be from somewhere other than the United States. Take care!
The past two days I have been doing MATV training. It is an MRAP variant that replaced the HMMWV and its a very cool vehicle. Today was kind of an off day and I was just doing some details around post for the company but yesterday we did the MET (MRAP Egress Trainer). Its bascially a simulated vehicle rollover where you learn to evacuate a flipped vehicle, more specifically an MRAP. You get flipped upside down and have to egress out of the vehicle within a certain amount of time and pull security afterwards. Its kind of fun but I've done it about 4 times so it's not as cool as the 1st or 2nd time.
Tomorrow is going to be a very long day. We have daytime and nighttime driving so I will basically be driving all day and all night in order to become licensed on the MATV. The night time driving we have to drive with a DVE (driver vision enhancer), its basically a thermal camera attached to the front of the MRAP that allows you to see heat signatures so that you can drive without headlights on. So that should be kind of cool but from what I hear its kind of difficult since you have little to no depth perception.
I talked to a few people in the 84th and they are getting anxious for us to show up because that means they are about to go home. That date has yet to be confirmed to us so I can't really release it yet but from what I am hearing its pretty soon, we have begun packing up all of our ACU patterns and shipping them back to Mansfield and should be switching over to multicam uniforms sometime this week, so take that for what its worth.
Continue to keep us in your prayers, we are all doing well. We did have a bit of a tragedy today, my squad leader lost a child today and is currently en route back home. Baby was to be due in May so it was pretty tough. Definitely keep him and his family in your prayers.
As always I miss and love you all, hopefully the next time I update it will be from somewhere other than the United States. Take care!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
3 weeks and counting...
Hey everyone, sorry it's been a bit since I last posted. Things are actually picking up a bit which is very good. I think out command team has given 1st Army enough crap that they hadded some thigns to our training schedule so thats very good. I think the last time I posted was last Thursday so I will try to pick it up from there, the last few days are kind of a blur.
Saturday we had pretty much all day off which was alright. Me and Locklear went to the PX at Fort Bliss and got some food at Denny's and picked up a few things we "needed" for our bay, mostly things we can eat in between chow times. We ran into a few other people and decided to see a movie. We saw Wrath of the Titans in 3D and it was pretty cool. When we left the movie we discovered that a sandstorm had kicked up. This things are no joke! My first real sandstorm, this thing was crazy. You couldnt see 50 feet ahead of you and it dropped the temperature down to about 45, it was crazy. Heres a picture:
Sunday we woke up early because we had a range scheduled called SRM or Short Range Marksmanship. Basically the targets are 5m, 10m and 15m away and you have to engage the targets from various angles. The main point of this is to practice lining up your traget and facing them while shooting. By doing this, the weak point by your sides in your IOTV (your protective vest) are taken away and if you get shot it would be in your chest where the plates are largest. It was a pretty easy range altogether.
Yesterday (Monday) we had this range called Gunnery. That is where you shoot from the mounted position on a vehicle. In this case it was an M1151 uparmored Humvee. I was the driver at this range even though overseas I am designated as a gunner. That doesn;t mean I will be gunning the whole time but it would be my primary job. Im not allowed to post videos of this on here but I did take a few pictures of it.
I am scheduled to go to a 4 day MRAP class beginning Friday which is good. I will be licensed on the MATV MRAP which is pretty cool. I am excited about it I suppose, people who have already been through the class said it sucked but whatever Im staying positive about it. There aren't a lot of people who can say they are licensed to drive a vehicle that weighs 16 tons and is capable of killing a whole bunch of bad guys, so suck it naysayers.
Anyways, as always I miss and love you all! I'll keep updating as long as there are things to update!
Saturday we had pretty much all day off which was alright. Me and Locklear went to the PX at Fort Bliss and got some food at Denny's and picked up a few things we "needed" for our bay, mostly things we can eat in between chow times. We ran into a few other people and decided to see a movie. We saw Wrath of the Titans in 3D and it was pretty cool. When we left the movie we discovered that a sandstorm had kicked up. This things are no joke! My first real sandstorm, this thing was crazy. You couldnt see 50 feet ahead of you and it dropped the temperature down to about 45, it was crazy. Heres a picture:
Sunday we woke up early because we had a range scheduled called SRM or Short Range Marksmanship. Basically the targets are 5m, 10m and 15m away and you have to engage the targets from various angles. The main point of this is to practice lining up your traget and facing them while shooting. By doing this, the weak point by your sides in your IOTV (your protective vest) are taken away and if you get shot it would be in your chest where the plates are largest. It was a pretty easy range altogether.
Yesterday (Monday) we had this range called Gunnery. That is where you shoot from the mounted position on a vehicle. In this case it was an M1151 uparmored Humvee. I was the driver at this range even though overseas I am designated as a gunner. That doesn;t mean I will be gunning the whole time but it would be my primary job. Im not allowed to post videos of this on here but I did take a few pictures of it.
I am scheduled to go to a 4 day MRAP class beginning Friday which is good. I will be licensed on the MATV MRAP which is pretty cool. I am excited about it I suppose, people who have already been through the class said it sucked but whatever Im staying positive about it. There aren't a lot of people who can say they are licensed to drive a vehicle that weighs 16 tons and is capable of killing a whole bunch of bad guys, so suck it naysayers.
Anyways, as always I miss and love you all! I'll keep updating as long as there are things to update!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Frustration meet exhaustion
Hey everyone, so its currently Thursday night. This week has been somewhat more eventful than last, but that certainly isn't saying a whole lot.
I have been licensed on all the vehicles we currently have here available at McGregor which were the ones I posted about earlier, M1088, M1083, LHS and M1151 Humvee. So thats a good thing to have out of the way.
Yesterday we had our familiarization class with the MRAP which is the vehicle we will be primarily driving while over seas. From what we have been told we will be driving two different varients of the MRAP. The first is the MATV, this is a very cool vehicle. Its the smallest MRAP available and weighs about 16 tons, so that tells you how big this beast is. Its taking the place of the uparmored humvees as it is DRASTICALLY more mine/IED resistant and much more technologically advanced. I really wont get into details about it as Im not sure how much I can or cannot say but I will post a few pictures of it below.
The second one we may have over in Kandahar is called the Maxxpro. This thing is a beast, it is extremely tall and can carry troops is the rear of the vehicle. I wasnt really able to get many pictures of this one, but what I have I will upload. The doors alone weigh 600lbs and you need a pneumatic (air pressure system) assist to open them. They are pretty cool. Both of these vehicles have hulls designed to break away in the event of an IED detonation. This means that we can roll over an IED and get directly hit and the worst injury we should sustain is a concussion and minors scrapes and burns. These things are incredible and a far cry from the early days with the Humvees, I feel safe. The only down side is that there is a lot less visibility due to the amount of armor on the vehicles. My job as gunner will be to basically be the eyes and ears of these trucks and relay information back down to the driver and TC (TC is truck commander, he/she sits in the passenger seat and is tasked with raido contacts and calling in medevacs or anything else we may need).
Today, I did combatives. I am tired. It was a lot of fun though. Basically it was a 4 hour class. The first hour all we did was "warm ups", this was the only time in my Army career that I thought I was going to throw up due to PT. It was hot, I hadn't eaten in fear of throwing up and we just ran, did push ups, sit ups, some crap I have never heard of before but Im pretty sure they made it up to make us throw up. It worked on a few people. After the fun part, we got into actual hand to hand combatives. The focus on this class was if someone gets too close for your to shoot them with your M4, to give yourself space to either use your M4, M9 (pistol) or knife to....neautralize them. It was very good info and things that were relatively simple to pick up on. The second phase was focused on grappling and take downs. Over all it was a really good course, probably one of the better and more useful ones I have taken. I learned some new moves to put on Lindsey if she acts up!! Just kidding babe.
Anyway, time for a shower and sleep! Good night and I love you all! Take care.
I have been licensed on all the vehicles we currently have here available at McGregor which were the ones I posted about earlier, M1088, M1083, LHS and M1151 Humvee. So thats a good thing to have out of the way.
Yesterday we had our familiarization class with the MRAP which is the vehicle we will be primarily driving while over seas. From what we have been told we will be driving two different varients of the MRAP. The first is the MATV, this is a very cool vehicle. Its the smallest MRAP available and weighs about 16 tons, so that tells you how big this beast is. Its taking the place of the uparmored humvees as it is DRASTICALLY more mine/IED resistant and much more technologically advanced. I really wont get into details about it as Im not sure how much I can or cannot say but I will post a few pictures of it below.
Today, I did combatives. I am tired. It was a lot of fun though. Basically it was a 4 hour class. The first hour all we did was "warm ups", this was the only time in my Army career that I thought I was going to throw up due to PT. It was hot, I hadn't eaten in fear of throwing up and we just ran, did push ups, sit ups, some crap I have never heard of before but Im pretty sure they made it up to make us throw up. It worked on a few people. After the fun part, we got into actual hand to hand combatives. The focus on this class was if someone gets too close for your to shoot them with your M4, to give yourself space to either use your M4, M9 (pistol) or knife to....neautralize them. It was very good info and things that were relatively simple to pick up on. The second phase was focused on grappling and take downs. Over all it was a really good course, probably one of the better and more useful ones I have taken. I learned some new moves to put on Lindsey if she acts up!! Just kidding babe.
Anyway, time for a shower and sleep! Good night and I love you all! Take care.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
A little bit of training
Hey everybody, first of all. Happy Easter! It is Easter night as I write this here, so I hope you all had a good Easter and got to eat ham and all that good fun stuff. Im going to rewind a bit to Saturday.
Saturday was really the first full day of training I have had since I have been here. We did some driver training and began the licensing process of a couple of vehicles. The first one we did was called an LHS (load handling system) it is used to load trailers and racks, I will post some pictures below of the trucks and of our small convoy we did. The other 2 were an M1151 which is basically an uparmored hummer that the Army used to use for convoy security missions. It has since been replaced by the MRAP. The final vehicle we will be licensed on here is the M1088. Its kind of like an all purpose truck, it can be used for a lot of different purposes, supply hauls, troop transport, things like that.
The licensing process is kind of frustrating, before you drive you have to be a passenger for at least 50 miles. So Saturday I had to sit in the passenger seat of the LHS and just sit, no driving, no navigating, just sit. It was pretty awful but necessary I suppose. We got a late start because whoever used the trucks before us did not fill any of them up. The LHS has approximately a 120 gallon tank and the pump we had pumped fuel just like a normal gas pump at a BP or shell so it took about 40 minutes to get our truck filled up alone. By the time we filled them all up and were ready roll, it was lunch time so we decided to eat before rolling out. So we really didnt begin driving until about 1200-1215. Its fine though because we will have plenty of time to get everyone licensed on all of the vehicles necessary as 1st Army Division has kind of screwed us over in terms of training. So far the only thing they have us scheduled to train on and validate on are combatives (Army hand-hand combat) and MRAP training. So the rest of our trianing schedule relies on our company/platoon to make up some training.
The issue is that while we were in Ohio, we validated on all of the tasks we were supposed to be validated on while we were down here in Fort Bliss. So instead of repeating all of the tasks which we have done within the past 3-6 months, they decided to no retest us. We are basically being punished for doing what we were supposed to do. Whatever, suck it up, drink water and drive on I suppose.
So Sunday, today, Easter! I went with 3 other soldiers to Center Chapel One where they held the Porestant service. It was a very nice chapel and it was in an actual area with grass! Yes you heard right...Grass...In the desert. What a strange coincidence it was right where the officer's quarters are and where the post commander lives. I guess its one of the perks of being an officer, you get to look at grass.
The service was very different from what I am used to. It seemed to me like it was heavily influenced by the Catholic services. There was no sermon, which I was not a fan of. Im not sure if it was because if it was Easter or not but I didnt like it very much. They had communion which I took and everything but the vibe of it was different and more conservative.
Came back from church and we went the PX and I got a haircut and a little fan to go next to my bed which is AWESOME. I love sleeping with a fan so it feels a bit more comfortable!
Motor pool with LHS on far left and M1088 on right.
Pictures from convoy
Center Chapel One
Thats about it for now. I will post pictures below of various things over the weekend. Take care everyone! Love you!
Saturday was really the first full day of training I have had since I have been here. We did some driver training and began the licensing process of a couple of vehicles. The first one we did was called an LHS (load handling system) it is used to load trailers and racks, I will post some pictures below of the trucks and of our small convoy we did. The other 2 were an M1151 which is basically an uparmored hummer that the Army used to use for convoy security missions. It has since been replaced by the MRAP. The final vehicle we will be licensed on here is the M1088. Its kind of like an all purpose truck, it can be used for a lot of different purposes, supply hauls, troop transport, things like that.
The licensing process is kind of frustrating, before you drive you have to be a passenger for at least 50 miles. So Saturday I had to sit in the passenger seat of the LHS and just sit, no driving, no navigating, just sit. It was pretty awful but necessary I suppose. We got a late start because whoever used the trucks before us did not fill any of them up. The LHS has approximately a 120 gallon tank and the pump we had pumped fuel just like a normal gas pump at a BP or shell so it took about 40 minutes to get our truck filled up alone. By the time we filled them all up and were ready roll, it was lunch time so we decided to eat before rolling out. So we really didnt begin driving until about 1200-1215. Its fine though because we will have plenty of time to get everyone licensed on all of the vehicles necessary as 1st Army Division has kind of screwed us over in terms of training. So far the only thing they have us scheduled to train on and validate on are combatives (Army hand-hand combat) and MRAP training. So the rest of our trianing schedule relies on our company/platoon to make up some training.
The issue is that while we were in Ohio, we validated on all of the tasks we were supposed to be validated on while we were down here in Fort Bliss. So instead of repeating all of the tasks which we have done within the past 3-6 months, they decided to no retest us. We are basically being punished for doing what we were supposed to do. Whatever, suck it up, drink water and drive on I suppose.
So Sunday, today, Easter! I went with 3 other soldiers to Center Chapel One where they held the Porestant service. It was a very nice chapel and it was in an actual area with grass! Yes you heard right...Grass...In the desert. What a strange coincidence it was right where the officer's quarters are and where the post commander lives. I guess its one of the perks of being an officer, you get to look at grass.
The service was very different from what I am used to. It seemed to me like it was heavily influenced by the Catholic services. There was no sermon, which I was not a fan of. Im not sure if it was because if it was Easter or not but I didnt like it very much. They had communion which I took and everything but the vibe of it was different and more conservative.
Came back from church and we went the PX and I got a haircut and a little fan to go next to my bed which is AWESOME. I love sleeping with a fan so it feels a bit more comfortable!
Grass!!
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