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!!