Bad News

Things that you can’t talk about, I sometimes wonder if even I will be able to make any sense of this blog when I get out of here. Things that I can talk about are things that can be read in the news paper. Last night was a bad night we had a suicide bomber walk into a gym over here and kill eight CIA agents and wound countless others. One thing this has done for our FOB is make people a little more observant and less complacent. We have many rules here some you never talk about but none the less they are rules and need to be followed. Loss of life in any way makes this place a little more depressing than it all ready is but we should all consider ourselves lucky, our FOB was not targeted and we are all safe all we can do is Pray for the families of the Americans that lost their lives last night fighting for their country.

Ok on a lighter note tonight is New Years Eve and many of my friends are spending the night in our TOC waiting to bring in the New Year. Me however I will spend the time in my room writing on my blog and setting my alarm for tomorrow so I can call my family and wish them a happy new year. I just wish I could be there for the kisses. Night all

The Package

Well I will have to say that today I received the absolute best package ever. Today in the mail I got a huge banner with a picture of my kids and all sorts of kind words from all of them. I cannot tell you how much this package made my day. I am going to try to call home tonight and talk to all of them. This might be my last chance for a while I am on the flight schedule pretty heavy for a while so time is a ticking. I just wish that I had a bigger room so I could hang my banner without having to fold it in half. I just have no wall space but I will take advantage of the great picture of the three kids that we took on our last cruise. I am going to try to post a picture of my new banner tonight if the internet will cooperate.

I hope that all of you are enjoying the holidays and that you all have a great New Year. I wish that I could be in Savannah at the stroke of midnight to give Marie and the kids our new year’s kisses but as you all know I am a little tied up at the moment. But next year you will not be able to stop me from doing so and I am looking so forward to it. For all of you that end up at Sue and Jim’s house this New Years Eve I hope that you all have a great time and that you play many games of cards and eat a lot of junk food and totally enjoy yourselves. I wish that I could be there too, maybe next year.

As for Afghanistan, my friends and I are trying to hold down the fort and take one day at a time. This country has a lot of problems and I really do think we are doing all that we can to try to help make it a better place. I am getting pretty tired of the little kids trying to throw rocks at my aircraft when I come in for a landing and get a little too low though. But fortunately for me the kids over here are more into soccer and not baseball. Next time I am out during the day, I will have to take my video camera with me and try to get some video; they are pretty cute when they try to hit us with rocks.

I would like to thank everyone who sent a package to me this holiday season!! It really meant a lot to me that you would go to the trouble to do that, thanks. I wish that I could have returned the favor there are many things over here that are of real value than can be picked up at the bizarre for a great deal. All you need is time to sort through all the junk to pick out the nice stuff. Many of my friends are learning all about precious gems. Diamonds and emeralds are pretty abundant over here, uncut of course. But you really have to know something about them to find some of value. One of the guys from the Unit we replaced bought many while he was her and I have heard that a couple of the ones that he bought ended up being worth a great deal of money. To me it just seems like too much work, however I do think I am going to try to pick up a Persian silk rug. They are truly beautiful and are totally handmade they have over 1000 knots per inch. They say it takes a whole family over 9 months to make just one, they go for about 800 to 1000 dollars but in the states they are much more. But something like that I would never be able to sell, it would have too much history and I would pass it down to one of my little ones who would pass it down to one of their little ones etc. etc. Ok once again I run on at the mouth time for me to go and get some work done or something, night all

Christmas + 1

Today was the day after Christmas and just a routine training flight with one of our new W2 right from flight School. It was going pretty well we were flying around in the traffic pattern doing normal progression work when over the radio came a call for us to respond to troops in contact. I only had about 900 pounds of fuel on board so we had to hit the FARP which is like a gas station for us where we can get fuel and ammo. So we raced into the farp got fuel and received a little more info on what was going on and where we needed to go. Just as I was repositioning from the farp to the active to set up for departure we got called off. The team of UH-60s that were there were low on fuel and had no more station time so they had to leave So I would not have had a sister ship so they scrubbed the mission until they could launch a team of aircraft. Which after I thought about it for a while it was probably not a bad thing seeing how my front seater at that time had 3 hours in country and was right out of flight school. Not that she is doing badly but a little more practice will definitely not hurt.

Tomorrow I am off and I think I will sit in my room and do nothing all day but call home and try to talk to Marie and the Kids. I got her e-mail today and she told me more about how Christmas morning went with the kids and it made me miss home that much more. I think the big hit item this year would have to be Elli’s new gym shoes with skate wheels in them. Marie said that she had them on all day and even wanted to where them to bed. She is too darn cute. And by the way Shirley if you happen to get on here,, A where are my pictures ??

It’s hard to believe in just a few short days it will already be 2010, time seems to pass by so much more quickly the older we get. Not that I am complaining in this place because I am ready to go it’s just that sometimes I think to myself that when I get home Robby will almost be 17 Shirley 14 and Elli 10. Where did the time go? We are going to plan for the biggest vacation our family has ever taken. I don’t know where or what we will do but I will tell you this it’s going to be epic !!

Tonight I helped Joe put up a shelf in his room for his new TV we spent no time at all getting it done. You pretty much have to help your neighbors do things like this because their walls are also your walls so it’s easier to put screws in from my side to help hold up his shelf. You have to remember that our walls are only sheets of plywood. I look forward to having Joe and his wife over when we get home, they are my age and I think it will be nice to have them over for a pool party sometime. Joe is 45 and his kids are in collage already I can’t even imagine what that must be like. Although Robby is only a few short years away from that himself and Marie and I told him as long as he keeps his grades up we will be buying him a car when I get home. I can’t even imagine what that will do to our insurance but we were all there once. Fortunately for me he is a good student and that help with the rates, and Shirley is not too far behind him. Oh well I have rambled on for long enough and it is getting late so for now I will cut this one off, night all

X-MAS EVE

Christmas Eve 2009 and here I sit in wonderful Afghanistan. But hey I am ok with it, I really feel like we are doing some good over here. Of course we could be doing so much more if it weren’t for all the lawyers that keep stopping us from doing our job and then telling us later we should have taken the shot. It’s all kind of hard to explain really and I can’t even go into it so I will leave it right there.

Well it’s about midnight here in Afghani time about 2:30 PM in Savannah I was going to try to stay awake and call Cincinnati but I am just too tired to wait a few more hours till everyone is together. So I figured I would post to my blog and wish everyone a Merry Christmas I miss you all and I wish I could be with all of you. Especially my loving wife and my three wonderful kids Marie Robby Shirley and my little miss, Elli. I hope that you guys have a great Christmas morning. I am not on the flight schedule tomorrow and tomorrow we are doing our secret Santa gift exchange. We all picked names and spent about twenty bucks. I picked Mike he is one of our new W2’s I bought him a new pair of preflight gloves. The gloves are like mechanics gloves that we use when we are looking at the aircraft they help to keep your hands nice and clean. A lot of people bought Gag gifts from the Bizarre I went more on the practical side and I am sure he will like them.

Tonight we had our official Right shoulder patch ceremony; I was probably the oldest guy in the formation. For those of you who don’t know when you go to combat, you are awarded your right shoulder patch from the Unit that you served with in combat. So tonight I received my official Combat Patch. I received the Third Infantry Division combat patch. 3id is the most decorated combat unit in history, and that I did not know. However my Task Force Commander knew all of the facts about 3id and it was really interesting to hear all about the Units history. I thought the history of our Unit was pretty awesome, and I felt pretty proud to be standing there with some of my fellow soldiers receiving my first Combat Patch. It was like an early Christmas Present and the only thing that could have come close to topping it, is if my family could have been there with me. This is one thing that I will be able to be proud of and take with me for the rest of my life from this place. Well everyone it’s getting pretty late and I actually have to try to get up early tomorrow to try to get some paperwork done so I think I am going to cut this post short. But not before I say a few more things that I have been thinking about today. 1 life is too short, 2 don’t sweat the small stuff, 3 remember that most things in life are small stuff, 4 treat every day like it could be your last, and last but not least Smile, because it is so contagious and it really can make a big difference in someone else’s life. I love you all too much, night all

Just another Saturday

Well I was off shift again today, not that I am complaining its just that we live on a small FOB and there is not much to do so working really helps the time pass quickly. I went to the office about noon and saw that I had four packages, Wow I thought to myself. So I went to our little mail room although its more like a closet and picked up my packages. Three from Kari Schenk and one from sue and Jim. it was like X-Mas and it wasn't even the 25th yet. Sue I did see the sticker that said not to open till the 25th but I thought what the heck. Thanks to both of you that was really nice and Kari many of my friends would like to thank you too for all the greatly needed items you so caringly thought to send, it was awfully nice of you to do all that Thanks. As for me I think the rest of my day will be spent reading and preparing for a class that I will give in the days to come. If I find some free time I think I may watch a movie and spend some time with some of my friends that are also off shift. It's hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner it seems like it was just yesterday that I left Savannah and that was already the 2nd of Oct. Time is going by pretty quickly for now and I hope that it continues to do so. I Love you all and I will try to write more soon, night all

And another day

Well last night I spent a great deal of time trying to get my pictures to up load so that is my only mission tonight. Hopefully it will not take me too long to figure it out. Lucky me all my pictures just popped up so it looks like it was just a slow Internet problem last night. The pictures above are two of me just out flying around Afghanistan and one shot through the front of the aircraft to see my front seater and the forth picture is my sister ship with the snow covered mountains behind them, night all

Just another day

Its been a while, I need to try to keep up with this a little better. We have been busy though and we are trying to keep everyone safe from all the craziness over here. Sometimes it gets just a little to overwhelming there are so many places and so few of us at times to get to all of them quickly. the pictures that I uploaded with this post are from the other day I was out doing QRF with another ship and we flew around the bowl and I took some pictures of the snow capped mountains in the background. Its actually quite pretty to look at sometimes and then you remember that the people on the ground are not exactly what you would call friendly. But you know me I try to see the beauty in every picture I take, and there is beauty over here you just have to look really hard for it.



As for me I am doing well and X-MAS is just around the corner. I hope that all of you are having a very festive season and enjoying your time this year with each other. The holidays are for spending time with family, for spending time with the one's you love. It's no time for bickering and its not the time for hard feelings. Its a time to appreciate the one's who love you the most and to show them how much you care. I will miss Christmas this year but I know that my little ones are in great hands, Marie and Santa are good friends and I know that she will let him know how good they have been and I am sure Santa will hook them up. I am lucky that Shirley has followed in her Grandpa's foot steeps, she has become quite the photographer and I will be lucky to see everything through her eyes on Christmas morning. I cant wait to see her pictures and I will look forward to it until I can. Well I know this post is pretty short but I need to figure out why my pictures will not upload, so until next time, night all

Lobster in the House

Well it’s Friday once again and tonight in the chow hall we had steak and lobster tails, all and all it was a pretty good meal. Tomorrow I am on for QRF and Sunday I will be giving a check ride to one of our night shift pilots. Today I was not on the flight schedule so I spent most of my day improving my living quarters and working on the computer. I try to spend my free time doing something worthwhile but it’s getting harder and harder to stay focused on things that matter and easier to sit here in my room and watch TV shows and play games. I guess it’s ok to do that I think it helps me deal with the day to day stresses of being over here. Never the less though I still feel like I should do something positive with all of the time that I have off. Tonight at shift change I hope to be able to get online with Marie and the Kids, its right around the time that the kids get home from school. I talked to them just the other day and they sounded great, although Marie told me that there has been a couple of break Inns in our neighborhood. Fortunately for us one of Shirley’s girlfriends Dad owns his own alarm system monitoring company in Savannah and he has offered to come over and set the house up for his cost. That was awfully nice of him to do that for us, but like Marie said his daughter spends the night there sometimes too. I am sure that the break inns are probably kids looking for high end electronics and what not but you never know.

It’s hard to believe that I have been here for over a month all ready to me it really seems like the time is flying. Command is reworking our mid tour schedule and it looks like I may get moved to July now. This will work for me the kids will be out of school and it will not impact them nearly as much as September would have. Not to mention it’s a little closer to the middle and I think that will make it easier for me.
I will be trying to up load some picture tonight it all depends on how the Internet is working I hope it is pretty quick. We still are not on our own satellite yet but hopefully we will be up and running soon. Today I walked around the FOB with my big camera and took some pretty good candid shots of some of my friends. Joe was out getting ready to do a test flight and they were doing some work on the aircraft before they could launch so I stood around and gabbed with them for almost an hour. I hope to get together with him and his wife when we get home, they are real close to Marie and I in age and we have so much in common. Well as much as I could ramble on all night I need to get off this computer save this word document and put it on my little computer along with some pictures so I can try to upload this post. I hope all of you enjoy your weekend and that you all have great weather to boot, night all

My Home away From Home

Not really a home but it will have to do. I will make this small area work for the next 11 months and then I will turn it over to some new guy who is hoping to come over here and make a difference. Please don't miss understand what I am saying because I truly feel that when it is all said and done the history books will say that we did the right thing over here and that we did make a difference and influenced many lives. As for the pictures in this post, this is my room it's about 7.5 feet by 11.5 feet. And it will work just fine for me for as long as I am here. The walls go up 8 feet from the floor the typical length of a piece of plywood and the ceiling is about 10 feet high so as you can imagine we are living in cubicles the sound travels rather easily over the walls. This picture below is the top that I put above my bed, it allows me to store some of my junk and boxes that I will not need till I leave this place. Needless to say I cant wait till I can get them down.

The Picture below shows my bed and a half shelf that I built to help hold and organise things. Space is limited so we have to be creative. As for wood we have plenty and lucky for me I shipped tools so I can build what ever I want. I plan on building some patio furniture this summer for the rooftop it's going to be our little get away. I will build some stairs to get up there too, not a problem I like to work with wood.

As for the picture below this is the desk that I built and the shelves that I added to the wall to help hold more stuff. All and all I cant complain this room will do just fine, especially once we get our high speed Internet up and running. Then it will be possible for me to post pictures to this blog and not have to reduce them in size. I hate to put pictures up that are such crappy quality. But these four pictures took me over fifteen minutes to get online and they are so small its pathetic.

All right it's getting late now and I still need to get off here and try to call home and talk to the family. I would love to keep rambling on about my penthouse suite but its time to role on off of here. As for me and whats going on, my buddy Joe has me hooked on some TV shows. Can you believe it Me I never watch TV accept to watch the news which I still do over here. My TV is always on FOX. Joe gave me like five made for cable shows and I am totally hooked. The Sara Conner Chronicles a spin off of the terminator movies. A Showtime show called Californication with the star from X-Files "Mulder" and a few others. It helps to pass the time when there is some time. Not that we have much time but when we do its nice to have something to watch. I was so lucky to bring all those movies with me that I got from Dave from my last assignment at Ft. Stewart they too are giving me something to fall asleep to. We work 12 hour shifts with one hour before and after to do a hand off with your replacement so you guessed it we work about 14 hours a day most of the time but you get use to it, its not so bad. OK like I said ten minute ago I need to get off here so I can call home, night all

Someones Birthday

Today was like most days get up check the schedule go to the chow hall and get some grub. Along the way check to see if the laundry is done, it’s running a little slow right now they just fired all the local workers because they were planning something bad. But it’s back on line and as far as I can tell no one lost anything. Well tomorrow is an important day for a little girl I know and I wish I could be there for her 13th birthday. I am sure that she will know that I am there in spirit and that I will be thinking about her on her birthday. I on the other hand have a very early morning tomorrow I will be on Day QRF from 6 till 18:00 a pretty typical day. I will try to call the house before or after the kids leave for or get home from school so I can talk to the kids. As for now getting tired, time for bed, night all

Incoming

Incoming, well let’s just say it was the highlight of the day. Not that it has not happened before it’s just this was the first time that it has happened during the day and I was not in my room counting the inbound rounds. We had about 4 rounds impact all over the FOB luckily no one was hurt and we lost no equipment. We had aircraft out at the time so we were able to address the source of indirect fire.
I received two boxes from Richmond Hill High School today; it was nice to get a little something from home. They were both filled with heartfelt cards and lots of things that we can all use. So I took what I wanted and put the rest in the TOC “tactical operations center” for all to pick through.
I was going to fly tonight but I was on the schedule for single ship and the LT is RL2 now so I need to fly with another aircraft so I can teach her multi ship operations. We will try to get her on the schedule later this week with another aircraft and get her some mission time. As for mission time I am on for Wednesday not to sure what we are doing but at least I will get to fly outside the boul. Not that doing training flights in the bowl is not worth while and helping the unit, I just want to do more. I will try to write more when I can I will be pretty busy for the next few days, night all

My off day

I sit in my room, its 22:30, today was my first official day off since I have been here in Afghanistan. I am not too tired I have been flying nights mostly since I got here. Last night I signed off one of our new female LT’s RL2 “readiness level” which means that she can now go out and fly with a normal PC “pilot in command” to do maintenance test flights and what not. I had a little reservation but she was ready, but still I can’t help to think that if something should happen will she truly be ready. I asked her last night after our 3 hour flight if she thought she was ready and she said yes. She told me that she was ready to take off the training wheels and get to work. I know how she feels but yet I still wish we could have flown more. I am the only person she has flown with since she graduated from flight school. I flew her in Savannah and I will finish here to RL1 here in Afghanistan. I sometimes feel like a parent to some of these pilots. I have lost two that I have trained since these wars have started. It never gets easy; you always think about what you might have done differently or possibly what could I have trained better. I am sorry for posting such a sad downer post but when you have the day off to do laundry and clean your little room and all the other things that I really don’t have time to keep up with through the week when I am flying every day, I had a lot of time to think about a lot of things. Some good and some not so good, but I will try to bring this post out of the doom and gloom and cast a more positive light on it. Today was the first time in many years that I went to church; I had no reason to go there was no wedding no funeral I just wanted to go. My new friend Chaplin Authors did not give the sermon today but he was there and I think he was glad to see me come. He and I have had a few talks about religion and what my background and beliefs are. I think it’s just his way of communicating with people, I really like him he is a good man. Some of the other things that I thought about today were pretty simple like for instance I went to lunch in my PT “physical training” uniform and I just felt so free. And they had the white chocolate chip cookies that I like and I felt so lucky to be able to take a couple back to my room for a later snack. Such a small simple thing but yet it is I felt so lucky when I was walking back to my room with two of them in my hand. It really made everything in my life right now seem so insignificant. As I walk past enlisted soldiers I also smiled and said hi, how you doing instead of rendering a salute to ever person that I passed. It’s not that I don’t think saluting is important it’s just that in PT’s no one knows what rank you are and you can be friendlier and so much less formal. Back to my day off, well the first thing that I do in the morning when I get up is check my e-mail. I look forward to getting e-mails from everyone but most importantly, from Marie. And today was another lucky day, I got one. Marie has such a good way of making me feel like I am still in Savannah with her and the kids, if only I was not 8000 miles away, I miss you guys. We are still trying to get our internet working better and we hope to have it fixed real soon, but for now we just don’t have the bandwidth for video Skype. And this will just not do, and as for the Hajji net that we are all spending 100 bucks on through Afess they should be ashamed. They are screwing the soldier and they know it but yet they keep doing it they know that their crappy service is all that a lot of these guys can afford and they could so easily up the service but why would they care they get your money because they are the only show in town. Well not for long a bunch of us went in on a 10000 dollar satellite system and we should be up and running soon, I hope. Well it is getting pretty late over here and I did want to try and call home so for this post I will close for the night, take care and be safe, night all

Turkey diner in Afghanistan was a lot more than I thought it would be. I was with friends and the food was great although it could have been a lot better. Better would have been home with my Wife and Kids but for what it was I will not complain. I was suppose to fly tonight however today is also an Afghanistan Holiday and when we went to the Aircraft all you could see in every direction was tracer fire. You see in this country when the people celebrate they go outside and fire their weapons up into the air. Although it can be kind of pretty seeing how most of them have tracers so it lights up the sky with bright red streaks. It makes it really hard to figure out whom the bad guys are, and no one wants to hurt the wrong people. As for diner the Army did a really nice job trying to make Thanksgiving as close to home as they could. I will remember it for a long time I just hope that next year I will be thinking about it with Marie and the kids in my own house. I have an early morning so I need to cut this one short, night all

Getting busy

Well it’s not to late tonight so I thought I would post something quick. First I would just like to say that my days are getting fuller. Second thing I would like to talk about is what an ugly country this is. I have now flown over a great deal of this country and all I can say is that there is nothing to see but mud huts and dirt. This country hardly has any roads and has great deal of peasant goat herder’s way up in the mountains that are all packing heat. I cannot believe how many people live up above ten thousand feet in these mountains with nothing more than a donkey trail to get down to the small towns. It makes for a stressful time flying around you really have to keep a close eye on all of them. For the most part they seem friendly and they wave but I still don’t trust any of them. It’s really strange to see all these people over here caring weapons, it is totally the norm. They are just trying to get by and live their lives up in the mountains raising their herd and trying to keep to themselves. As for the towns, I would not really call them towns they are more like gathering points usually around street intersections. There is where you will see many mud huts close together this is where they come to trade and buy the things they need. It’s more like an open air market that you would see in Asia or China. I have been flying more missions lately and I have been seeing more of the country. Some of our typical missions last anywhere between 4 to 9 hours of flying, for obvious reasons I will not go into what the missions are all about. I just wanted to hit on how long they are sometimes to give everyone an idea of why I can’t always get on here and post. I asked one of my crew chiefs to take a picture of me in my office and that is the picture I will post tonight. I miss home, and I miss my family but I still feel that we need to be here and I hope that we get the support from our new Boss so we can win this thing. Well I need another ten minutes to upload this picture so I am going to end this post with a shout out to Marie and the Kids, I Love you guys and I am doing all that I can to land it on cotton, night all

Steak Night

Me sitting around in the TOC

My front seater helping to load a Hellfire

Say hello to my little friend

Friday night, long night, long day what can I say. Well one thing for sure Steak and shrimp in the chow hall and it was pretty good, again. I am sure it won’t be long and I will be like come on steak and shrimp again, but for now I am happy to see it. I sit here in my little cubical listening to my new nanno that I spent 6 hours downloading ITunes just so I could put some music on it but I hope for a quicker connection soon. I am not much of a music guy but it does allow you to drift off a little bit and really think about other things and other places and times in your life. I will try to not get to weird on you guys but I think and like I tell people all the time, Life is too short. I look back at my life and think to myself if I could change one thing what would it be. And I really can’t come up with any significant thing that I think would have changed my life. One thing leads to another and you have to look at the big picture, if I would have done this one insignificant thing a little different it could have created a snowball effect and changed my entire life. And that will just not do, I am truly a blessed man. Family, friends, children and experiences that I have shared, lives that I have touched in some way and people who have touched mine. When it comes right down to it we are all so interconnected either through family or friends or perhaps some activity we partake in. I am relatively new to this Unit, but all ready I am developing bonds with guys and gals that will never break. We are so dependent of one another here. Over here you have no family you are lucky if you have a good friend. But yet I may have to ask one of these people to put themselves totally in harm’s way for me and I might be called upon to do the same for one of them. Ok this post is getting a little out of control so I need to spin it a little bit. I am off tomorrow, but then I am on the schedule for like 7 days straight so I will try to enjoy my last day off for a bit. I think I may go see Chappy, he is about my age and he’s our Chaplin we have a lot in common. I met him on my flight out of BAF into Sal. He has a hard job here in the FOB I really don’t think I could deal with his work load. He is always at work and he really cares about these young guys and girls. We have a lot of young Americans here and for a lot of them this is their first time away from home. You see many tearful eyes here, and there are a lot of troubled young folks here that need his expertise. We are lucky to have him! Well I will cut this short because I want to put some pictures up too, so be happy for what you have and remember Life is so short and so precious, cherish every day. Night all

Not flying today

Today started out like most days, get up go shower and shave and brush my nasty choppers. Then I went to the office to check the flight schedule to see when I am flying next. Some time they update it in the middle of the night so you never can tell. What a surprise to see that I am not on for today and that I will probably not be on for tomorrow. This almost makes up for the next 7 days that I am on there for 4 to 7 hours a day doing check rides and progression training. We have some of the more seasoned aviators in this task force however we also have some of the newest aviators too. Next week I will start working on one of those aviators and try to get them up to RL “readiness Level” 2 which means that they will be able to start helping out with test flights. We have three Test pilots and three Instructor Pilots. All of us are pretty senior and this has helped out a great deal. I guess I will take this opportunity to improve my room and catch up on some more reading now that I am not flying today. I need to watch the clock closely though because I want to catch Marie and the Kids getting ready for school. I got my first package from home today, and let’s just say it came with lots of Love from Marie and the Kids. I miss them so much all ready and I just got here, I hope it gets easier as the days go buy but I am not holding my breath. Well I hope you are all doing well despite what you have all just gone through with Mary Rose; she will surely be missed by us all. Night all

Reading file day

Well today was the first day that I was able to wake up from a good night sleep in a few days. I think my cold is finally behind me. Thank goodness I was not on the flight schedule. Tomorrow I will try to get a few more things done records and what not. Starting Saturday I think I am on the flight schedule for 7 days straight, mostly Readiness Level Progressions and Aparts. Typically 4 to 5 hours a night, not to bad considering that a lot of guys have had some 7 to 9 hour flight days. We are all just about settled in our little rooms with the help of my tools and the Army’s wood we have all been able to build up our rooms pretty nice with shelves and cubby’s and what not. I am really glad that I packed the power tools and what not they have made it pretty nice. I spent most of today reading all the required material for flying here in Afghanistan. Its amazine what we are required to know and how much we are required to support as far as other units. We are here to take care of ground forces and help keep them safe. We respond to TIC’s troops in contact when we are on QRF quick reaction force and this mission is probably one of the hardest because you are maneuvering to an area that you don’t really have a lot of info on. All you know is that there are American soldiers on the ground and they are in contact with the enemy and you will do anything that you can to get there and help them. I have to be careful about some of the topics that I talk about. I will try to generalize as best I can when it come to mission specifics.
I have been really disappointed with our internet it has been down a lot the last couple of days and it seems like when I really want it to be on and working it never fails, its down. Tomorrow I am going to try to call and talk to Robby and the girls I have not talked to them in a couple of days. I can’t wait till we get our own internet up and running. One of our CW3’s bought the Satellite system from some of the guys from the 101st it will be a lot nicer than what we are getting from aafes. Oh well it’s getting late and I want to get this post up before the internet quits again. I typically type these in word and then copy and paste them into my blog. I hope all are well and I will try to write soon, night all

My first real mission

One of the CH-47s

5.9 hours definitely something that I am not use to. The mission was pretty routine, the legs were pretty far and the weather was good. This was my first time out of the bowl, the bowl being around Salerno. Sal is in a great big valley surrounded by mountains on three and a half sides. We have a few passes through the mountains to get out of this bowl and that is what we did on this mission. We made two fuel stops and we loitered a few times to boot waiting for our link ups. On this day we would support two CH-47s, their mission is not important and the locations aren’t either. We all enjoyed the day flying around Afghanistan like I said the weather was good for the most part and except for all the dust and haze it was a pretty day. This was also my first real look at Afghanistan some of the things that I really can’t understand is how much effort they put into their property. They have these huge walls all around their huts it’s like they build these 10 foot mud walls all the way around their property and then inside they will build their little mud huts. I say mud but it looks more like a brick made from mud. They seem to hold up pretty well, pretty sturdy. All of the homes / properties are the exact same color, dirt brown. One thing that I noticed right off the bat is because of all of the walls there are too many places for them to hide. On this flight I was in the front seat trying to use the optics to get a good look into our objective areas to make sure that all was clear and that all was safe. The walls force us to circle a few times to get a good look from many angles. The terrain is unlike anything I have ever seen, one minute you are in the mountains and the next you are flying over the desert. I will try to add some pictures to this post to show what I mean. I have been getting a great deal of support from home and that really helps, thanks guys it means a lot to me to hear from all of you! Even when its bad news, I was sad to hear that Mary Rose passed on but part of me knew that she is in a better place and she is in good hands. She will be missed by us all. I will not be able to be there to show my respects but I am sure she knows how I feel. And for all of you that can be there, just remember that she is in heaven and she is in good hands.
Well even though it’s in the middle of the day and I should not be tired I finally caught the crud and I am going to try to take a nap, I loaded up on cold meds and I hope to be able to get a couple of hours rest to make up for all that I lost last night. I hope that you all are well and doing great, till next time, night all

Our open air mart where the locals sell everything

Two Afgani Army trucks that came to the mart to shop

First Flight

Today I had my first flight in Afghanistan, well lets just say the natives are a little restless. We took off from FOB Sal and headed toward the free fire zone which is a place in a remote area where we can do test fires. As we approached we noticed many of the locals coming from the village nearby they were heading straight for our target inside our gunnery range. We did a couple of high speed low passes to try to shoe them away and for the most part they stopped their advance however we noticed as we would fly by they were throwing rocks at us, go figure. So once the area was safe to fire up we turned inbound and shot up a target with some 30mm and followed it with some willy pete" white phosphorus" a rocket that burns everything in its path. This confirmed that our weapons were right on target so we circled around to look at the targets one more time and we noticed that the locals were moving in to collect up the 30mm casings that dropped when we fired the gun. Apparently the use the metal to make all sorts of things or they just sell it. I think to myself how lucky I am to have so much when there are those that have so little. Most of the people from the village were just kids, living in the middle of nowhere in mud huts willing to put themselves in harms way for a few empty bullet shells. It really make you think. I fly tomorrow night again to continue with my local area orientation but in the morning I need to get up and do some reading and rearrange my flight gear. Today when I got into the aircraft I could hardly move, between my vest and body armor and 9mm and my M4 rifle and a ton of other S*** this will just not do. All this crap will not do me much good if I can't get out of the aircraft quick enough to use it. Well its time to turn in for tonight I will try to write more tomorrow, night all

Our Gym

Beyond the basketball court is our gym the tan tent is filled with just about every piece of equipment you could imagine

One of our many Bunkers

Friday, Steak and Crab Legs Day

Friday the 13th and all is well. Well I was suppose to fly today but we had some issues and I got scrubbed from the schedule. No big deal I am sure that I will have many opportunities in the near future to log many flight hours. Today was my first experience with indirect fire from outside the FOB. As we were walking towards the chow hall all hell broke out, we had sirens and loud speaker announcements and everyone started to run for the bunkers as I was at the threshold to the chow hall I just continued on my way. Once inside they rushed us through the line so we could all move to the dining area deeper inside the chow hall because it has a fortified ceiling. I never did find out what was hit, for the most part all they do is hit and runs anyway. They don’t spend any time trying to zero in on anything they just hit and run. They occasionally get lucky and blow up something of significance. All of our buildings are poured concrete with poured concrete ceilings and although we have windows I still feel pretty safe when I am in my room. I Ran into a friend today from the 101st actually he was one of my students when I was teaching at Ft Rucker. He has been recommended to attend the Instructor Pilot course at Ft Rucker and remain there to teach. He has a lot to offer and he will do well there. As for me I am ready to get this party started, we are on the schedule for tomorrow for Local area orientations and then Sunday we will start mission training and hopefully a few days from now I will be signed of FMC “fully mission capable” Well its only 1950 but I have some reading to do to help me to understand this area better so I need to get off here and hit the book. Not to mention that I hate when I can’t post right to my blog, till next time, night all

Joe cutting some wood for his room

Other side of room

Inside our church

My Room

First flight tomorrow

Well I know its been a while but I am here in Sal and I start flying tomorrow, finally. Last post was a little out of date but there was nothing I could do. We just got Internet to work about 75% of the time. I think Sal is going to be OK I am living in a 8 by 12 foot room with plywood walls. Pictures are of my room and my buddy Joe cutting some wood for his room.

I feel pretty lucky, I have been in country for over a week now and except for a little crud and cough I have been able to fight off the big Afghan crud that most are getting. it is leaving most in bed for up to a week. As for Salerno I am pretty impressed, the chow is pretty good but not as good as it was in Iraq. Our gym is top notch and we have a really nice chapel. I have gotten to be pretty good friends with Chaplain Author he is a really great guy who wants take care of Soldiers and it shows. He spent a great deal of his time in Louisiana in the inner city and he has a great look on life. I walked to the other side of the FOB today to check out the Bazaar to find out that it is closed on Thursdays and Fridays, oh well I am sure I will have time to check it out soon. For those that don't know the Bazaar is a place on the FOB where local Afghan's can come on to post and sell the local wares and if you really need something they can sometimes get it for you. So we will see the next time hopefully they will be open. Well getting pretty tired I think I will cut this one short, Now that the Internet is up and running though I will try to get on here more often, night all

Older post

OK this might be a little different, We landed safe at BAF Bagram Air force Base inside Afghanistan, however we are on the transient side of the airfield and we have no internet or wireless capability. So what I will do is post this to my blog the next time I have internet. By the way its 1348 hours Friday the 6th of November and its hotter than I would expect for November in the mountains. We are being told that we will be here just a couple of days for some training and then we will get pushed north to Salerno. I took some good pictures today and I will post them too, as soon as I have some internet.
I have been here almost a week now and I can say with out a doubt that I am smoked, we are spending all our time preparing to and getting ready to get onto flights that never seem to work out. As for yesterday, I got up at 0500 to get ready for a 0700 formation with all of my gear for a flight that finally took of 20 hours later the next morning at 0300. Needless to say during that time I got no rest. Then we arrived after some delays at Manas in BAF after the three hour flight at around 0700 to be told that our classes will start at 0900. Well after a few of us forty year old W4 types complained they pushed our classes off till tomorrow, thank God because I am sure this W4 would have slept right through them and I am sure they will be important. I bought a phone today and once I figure it all out I will try to call Marie and the kids on my new Cell. For now though I think I am going to catch some shut eye, night all

BAF

Life at BAF "Bagram Airforce Base" could have been better, but at least the light is on at the end of the tunnel. We should be out of here soon and final stop FOB Salerno where I will spend the next 12 to 15 months. My back is a little sore from sleeping on a cot and I think I might be getting the local crud but all in all I will not complain. Home seems so far away right now but I hope that once I get to Salerno and I am flying every day time will move more quickly. I only have ten minutes on here so I need to try to keep this post short and sweet. I miss everyone and I am thinking of all of you every day. once I get to Salerno I will have some out of date post with many pictures. I am keeping my blog going on my computer and taking pictures every day but I have no Internet access here. Till next time, night all

Leaving for Afghanistan, Finally

Well its 0054 and we are all sitting here in lock down getting ready to load the C130 to Bagram. We will be there for two days minimum to attend some classes then it will be off to Salerno. I will be glad when this trip is finally over. The biggest problem I have had is that we are allowed to have one bag which is suppose to be a so called 72 hour bag with what we would need to sustain ourselves for 72 hours or more. You know clean socks underwear t-shirts and what not. My problem was that I elected to bring my camera bag and I could not fit much of that gear into my camera bag. So I have things in every pocket and every little crevice I have available to me. Oh well I need to get my laptop packed into my bag so I am ready when they call us to board the plan. I will try to write more when I can, night all

The Flag was taken in the load out hanger on Hunter the other two shots were taken in Manas one of nearby mountains and one of the bizarre

The trip over to Afghanistan

Well I left Savannah yesterday night after a wonderful diner with Marie and the kids. We ate at Carabbas one of my favorite places to eat as you know. I had to be at the hanger by 2100 for a flight that would not leave for another six hours but none of us knew that at the time. So we sat around saying goodbyes for about two hours and then we all went to a different hanger where they could get us all on a manifest. After all of that was done we sat, and sat and finally three more hours past and we started to move for the aircraft. The DC 10 showed up to Hunter Army airfield after picking up 100 Marines or so. Needless to say we were all packed on there like sardines it made for a really long next couple of flights. We flew out of Hunter around 0330 for our direct flight to Shannon Ireland 3770 miles and about 7 hours later we arrived in Ireland where we off loaded the plane so they could refuel and resupply the same plane for our next flight to Manas Kyrgyzstan a nice little Russian country just to the north of our final destination Afghanistan. About two hours later we departed for Manas it was another 3675 mile flight around 7 more hours to get here which is where I am sitting right now typing this blog post. We are being told we may sit here for a couple more nights, who knows. I will be glad when we finally get to Salerno and I can build my little crib and have some sort of normalcy to all of the madness. Well it is now 0300 Savannah time and as much as I wanted to try to reverse out I am just too tired, Night All

Four more days

Well it's Wednesday night and I have only four more days till I depart for Afghanistan. I really can't explain how I feel, I am not worried or alarmed I guess for the most part I am just glad that the clock will start ticking and I will finally be in country and although the light will be extremely dim it will be on at the end of my tunnel. The Kids and Marie seem to be dealing with it pretty well. And that makes me fell really good, I would hate for them to spend any time thinking about this deployment. They all have many things going on in their lives now and I really don't want that to happen. Elli is the only one that I think might have a real hard time with this deployment. Marie, Robby and Shirley are older and have a pretty good idea what one year equates to. And I wont even think about the chance that it might be 15 months. Our command is telling us to prepare for 15 and if its only 12 then that will be a nice surprise, only time will tell.

Marie is in our room studying for her first sociology exam and Robby just laid down. The girls should be asleep by now its 10:00 PM and they laid down a while ago. I sit here in the kitchen typing on the laptop that I took to Korea three years ago and I think to myself that there is still much to do. Today I went to work just to label two bags, my ruck and my duffel. I need to think long and hard about what to put into them and what I need to put into all of these priority mail bulk boxes Marie got from the post office for me. I am under the impression that when we leave next Monday that we should be in Salerno within 72 hours. That is what I have heard, and that is what I will plan for. even though I have packed a tough box and another duffel bag that should all ready be there I need to think about all of the things that I will need to sustain me for those 72 hours if that's how long it takes to get from point A to point B. All right I have rambled on for quite some time now its time to get off here, Night All

Sunday the 25 of Oct

Well tomorrow I will go into work to try and find out if they have figured out when we will be leaving for OEF? As of right now I am still being told the it will be the 30th 2nd 4th or the 6th of next month. I am ready to go, I hate this time, the time before you leave. The uncertainty and all the confusion. I all ready know that I will be there for one year at a minimum and it could be as long as 15 months, Lord I hope not. Don't get me wrong I love my job I would proudly serve my country for two years if it asked but again it is the uncertainty and the fact that they just can't tell me I will be gone from this day till that day and that is pretty sad. Don't even get me started on my big boss our dear leader, he is waffling around like a week indecisive spineless twit and the end result will be lost lives. I truly believe that since the election our country is weaker and looked upon as weaker in the eyes of our adversaries. Oh well now I can go to bed upset thinking about things I have no influence over and that always makes me mad, Night All

23 Oct 2009

Its Friday night and we are all getting ready for bed. Well Robby, Marie and I are. The girls are all ready asleep and Shirley is sleeping over at Kia's house next door. Earlier tonight Robby and I went to see what some are saying is the scariest movie of all time, Paranormal Experience. It was OK but it reminded me of the Blair Witch Project. Robby enjoyed it though and once I leave I don't think he will have the opportunity to go and see many movies. So needless to say we are trying to see as many as we can before I leave. As for that date I am still in the dark we are being told it could be the 30th 2nd 4th or the 6th so who knows. Not that it matters, all of those dates are less than two weeks from now. I am starting to really think about what it is that I am getting ready to do over there and I still have serious reservations about the whole thing. I am sure though that things will fall into place once I get into theater or "In Country" we will see. that is all for tonight, night all

Pictures of the pool cover

Well its up and I think it will keep the leaves and bad weather out. As for trying to get a patent for my wonderful design, doubtful.

Pool Cover

Well today I spent most of my time putting together a pool cover to keep the pool clean. I hope it is able to make it through the winter for Marie and the kids. All and all I spent about 5 hours on it. Marie helped Robby helped and the girls helped a little. Lets just say I am glad its done. Tomorrow I will try to add some pictures of the pool with its new cover. I might even try to patent it, it really is a clever design if I say so my self. It ended up costing me about 500 bucks but with a little luck I might be able to get a few seasons out of it. Oh well getting late I have a lot to do again tomorrow, pick up my car finish the pool and try to spend some quality time with my family. Night All

Two more weekends

Well its Friday night, this weekend is the fisherman's fest and the kids are really looking forward to it and so am I. Its hard to think that 16 days from now I will be 8000 miles from here and that I will be there for 15 months of my life. however I do feel that it is needed and that it is the right thing to do. We have it so good in our country I think it is the right thing to do to give back. I hope that it makes a difference in that part of the world and that it helps to protect our great nation from events like 9-11 from ever happening again. I really do hope that I will be able to have just a little spare time to keep this up once I am in country. Night All.

Two weeks to go

Well its 15 Oct. and I will be leaving soon for OEF I just wanted to get on here and drop a quick note and say hey, Hey

It begins

Well I don't know if I will be able to keep up with this but I am going to give it a try. I leave for OEF on the 5th of next month and I will be there for at least 12 months possibly 15.

It all started when

I thought it might be nice to keep a journal of what I was doing during my year in Afghanistan.