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!!
