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!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
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!!
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