Friday Night!

Happy Friday Night!  Today was sunny and hot, with a side of dust.  I hear it's warming up quite nicely where the rest of you are as well.  I spent most of the day in my tent fighting was appears to be a nasty cold or flu coming on.  All the usual suspects showed up - head and body aches, chills and general malaise. I hope I beat this because I don't want to feel this way here or ruin my day off on Sunday.  Being down for the count did afford me the opportunity to watch a few movies I borrowed from a co-worker.  Some Kubrick, an action trilogy and one of my favorites - The Breakfast Club.  I didn't realize how much I liked that movie until I watched it again - brought me immediately back to high school and college - also made me wonder what in the hell happened to the Brat Pack and their acting careers???  The music was excellent to...  Judd Nelson had the stoner look down way before Keneau.  Didn't John Hughes recently pass?  Anyway, it was a nice refresher on how we are all different but similar just the same - point noted Molly Ringwald!

I am once again giddy with the anticipation of a day off - today doesn't count because I feel like crap - but Sunday is right around the corner!  I'm hoping to kick this cold in the butt and get to the business of enjoying some poker and a long trip to the gym.  I'm getting much better at poker, but need to remember to keep changing up my technique because they are catching on to my bluffing schedule!  Hopefully this game night won't be ruined by rocket attacks - it's been oddly quiet this week where that's concerned - makes me paranoid because all we hear is about how the Taliban is planning their big offensive in this region.  Hope it hits when I'm here and not on one of those little FOBs - if it happens at all.  We have some big things planned as well so it's sure to be interesting in the next few months.

I am getting ready to ramp up for a big project and simultaneously excited and scared of it - it's in an interesting location near here and is actually a multitude of several small projects within one city.  I heard some absolutely incredible stories yesterday from a few LTs I have become friends with here - they were out checking out some of these sites we are gong to be planning - some are just small check points and some actually FOBs.  At a few, the Afghan guards were high as kites - they have a plethora of things they smoke, chew and sniff over here - but at one, it just sounded hideous as hell.  I will have to study my pics of that site more closely because I haven't been to it and don't think I want to - they said the smell was "peculiar" and that it was coming from a partially covered, unfinished basement next to the guard house - the translator asked them about it and they simply said it was where the Taliban "put things" - apparently they also "put things" there.  In the back of the guard shack, next to this basement was a human femur bone just laying there in the open.  Obviously the "things" in that basement are people in various states of decomposition.  I mean, I am not naive, but this is just absolutely disgusting and an abject disregard for human life.  I think it greatly disturbed not only the LTs telling the story but also the small group to whom it was being told.  All I can say is there must be many families wondering where those people are and they're actually in some festering hole all part of a macabre people-soup.  It's just sad.

On a brighter note, the next couple of days bring some significant events for a few people - my Dad turns 70 - Happy Birthday old man! And my oldest nephew turns 7 and lost his first tooth. I think it's 7, but I know my sister wouldn't let the kids anywhere near my blog so if I'm wrong, he will never know! I was informed that my other nephew has graduated from his sippy cup, but hasn't yet come to peace with that move. And I hear that there's some kind of church related confirmation this weekend for my oldest niece - very sorry to have to miss that one ...  I also want to extend a shout-out to Tina who I hope was sprung from the hospital and is now in her own home incubating some babies for the next few weeks.  And finally to my oldest and dearest friend who just has to get through 2 more long weeks before that husband moves out and she can put an X in front of that word!  Hang in there Ang and get ready to enjoy life again!  It's also May Fest in Covington - I am truly sad not to be there as I love walking down the street to those and drinking beer all night with good friends in the middle of a crowd of crazies!  Excellent people watching too - please enjoy it a little extra on my behalf!

I know this has not been a week of very entertaining blogs and now that I'm actually sick I know why - this lingering cootie must have kept me down for the count and not feeling very entertaining.  I would kill to have my cats on the bed, my fluffy pillows and be at home sleeping with the windows open but that's not going to happen for a bit so I'll settle with what I've created here - a rustic menagerie of random comforts that i've pieced together and call home!  Whatever, but at least I have a ton of night-time cold meds and clean sheets - I'm on my favorite sheet rotation as of today.  Lord I love a high thread count!

Drink of the night - an assortment of thera-flu, hot tea and chicken broth.

All together now ...

A week of mind numbing meetings and all I got was a leg cramp and perfected the meaningful eye roll...  I cannot begin to explain the strange and unusual things a person will do to entertain themselves and others when things get a  little "slow"...  Funny thing is that we're all very busy, but occasionally this whole planning gig pauses while people much more important than us take the time to decide the next move.  Flag poles and an antenna farm are holding up my project momentarily.  This led me to go on and on about how I wanted to run away and join an antenna rodeo or open an antenna rescue... thankfully the other people I work with can be strange as well.  There is usually a day of silence while everyone, plugged into iPods, chills out privately at their desks.  This lasts one day - one long day - and then comes the goofy entertainment and interaction.  It's slap-happy behavior that is the result of 6, 12 hour days every week with not much else going on.  I am anxiously anticipating tomorrow because it's going to be a busy one and I desperately need to be busy.  Losing my mind. slowly ....

I did, however,  manage to arrange a fantastic vacation which took an incredibly long time since the internet is running about circa 1994 speeds - four hours later the virtual video tour finally loaded!  It was really a surprise since I had booked two hours prior but it does look really nice!  I'm going to Thailand - Phuket to be exact - and unlike several of the men I work with, it's not to pay for sex, find a docile wife or passable lady-boy!  So, I hopefully will return without the need for a topical antibiotic.  After coming to the difficult realization that many of you were right, and my presence in Dubai could very well lead to incarceration (much of what I consider to be fun is illegal in that country), I ate some cancellation fees so that me and my travelin' companion could head East!  I am really excited and it makes what I go through here - although self-imposed - totally worthwhile.  Plus, I love to plan for vacations.  It usually is even more involved because I plan the vacation of my dreams and then simultaneously, the one I can afford.  This time, it's in the dreams category!

I came upon an interesting article in the April Time Magazine about a unit in Afghanistan who are trying to reopen a school.  If you can find the article, it's a great read and exemplifies the frustration of trying to get anything accomplished here.  The unit and commanders they cover are the same ones I'm currently working with  - and they are based on one of the remote bases I'm planning.  The combination of local corruption and scattered yet maniacal bureaucracy (compounded by the fact it's coalition decision-making) leads to very little timely forward progress.   Things happen, but not in the order or way they necessarily should.  I'm not sure we could even mobilize ourselves out of a large, wet pizza box - I also heard a little story today about the possibility of handing out recognition and even awarding medals for strategic uses of restraint - why don't we start handing those out in kindergarden and then we can work our way up ... I still don't see many 19 year olds around here with a clear handle on that.  Plus, it seems pretty subjective.  Throwing yourself on a grenade to save your buddies is so much more clearly obvious, but it's a different strategy now.

While the Iraq experience sounds like it was one severe extreme of shooting first and then asking questions, this new approach seems improbable in practice, but not necessarily in theory.  The true effectiveness is probably somewhere in between.  The Afghans are scared of the Taliban, untrusting of their government and not sure of us or our capabilities - something the article I referenced elucidates very clearly.  I'm not sure this culture understands restraint after so many years of conflict and I sometimes think it appears as a weakness.

Well, who in the hell am I to opine on such things, right?  I actually heard myself say that if we went to the homes of drivers who delivered fuel trucks that were short on their loads and shot the driver's family members in the legs, we most likely wouldn't have anymore of our fuel being sold to the Taliban.  What's next for me ... kitten bombs?  I really need to get back to a place where I just stop thinking - just plan, don't think - maybe a new hobby or interest?  Thinking here is greatly overrated and causes me mild consternation over being excited about my paycheck.  But, I'm still excited about my paycheck - I just resent the potential for feelings of guilt.  I digress.

Did I mention it's getting really hot over here ...

Hopefully my next posting won't be so melancholy and serious.  You just need to find the fun in war, dammit!  There was a nest of baby vipers found in one of the office tents a few days ago - I don't remember seeing any mousetraps in there either, so now I know why.  Mystery solved!  Speaking of which, I haven't seen any mice in my tent lately either...  I'm just keeping my feet up and my eyes open!

Drink of the night - Fake-milk-microwaved-cafe-latte concoction that I frothed by blowing through a straw ... not pretty, but still kind of good.

The Sally Struthers Army

Good Evening and Happy Mother's Day!  I have finally returned from my remote outpost and it was a most interesting trip.  I was able to collect a ton of needed data and also to make some acute, anthropological observations while there as well.  I know I've mentioned before that these FOBs are really in the middle of the conflict and are involved in things that rarely make the news, but I have no way of really exemplifying that point.  To begin with, they are under fire constantly and the teams that go out to patrol encounter continuos fire and IEDs.  For example, I spent a good portion of the evening standing outside and watching the stars ... and simultaneously watching the heavy artillery firing, flares and listening to the machine gun encounters.  Wild! This would go on all night or at least a good portion of it.  Thankfully, I was sleeping in a steel reinforced container, but that got pretty lively when the shelling got under way - lots of vibration!  There was also only one day that we were allowed to sit down and eat in the DFAC - the rest of the time you had to take it with you and find someplace to munch because they didn't want too many people in one place.  This is how these troops live on these posts - and the cats, dogs, horse and monkey who also live there - now if I could see the monkey ride the horse, all would be perfect in my world!

Now this base is full - and I mean full - of largely 19 year old infantry boys/men.  Let me put it this way, there was so much testosterone in the air that I feared I would develop balls that would drop and my voice would change!  Even many of the young ladies were tough as hell - I think it was the combination of the environment and their mission, but there was no playing around!  Which reminds me, even the insect life here is tough and aggressive.  The flies, which I took to calling the Sally Struthers Army, were voted most likely to crawl on your eyeball while you were still alive.  They were horrible and resembled those aggressive, nasty flies you see crawling on poor, third world kids on the infomercials in the middle of the night.  The ants are huge and then there were a variety of other crawlies that weren't at rest unless they were landing directly on  you.  Afghanistan is truly a shit hole for the most part - hot and dirty with Sally Struthers flies.

Speaking of hot and dirty, I had one brief moment of reprieve from the heat followed by a stunned horror as I realized what it actually was - it's still too early to determine if I will need therapy.  I had been walking for hours around the camp talking with stakeholders to get their input on everything from kennel placement to artillery range requirements.  I had blisters from my boots, drank a plethora of bottled water without every having to use the restroom, and a constant grind in my mouth and eyes from the dirt and sand.  I was standing still, finishing a few note entries when I felt a refreshing light spray on my arm and side of my face - somewhat like a misting tent sensation - only to turn to my right and see the Afghan contractors placing the poop sucking hose back into it's holder before they drove off to the next port a john to service it.  I was downwind on a gusty day and suddenly had a clear understanding of what had just "misted" me - I literally opened my mouth to gag, wondering how quickly I could cut my own arm off (Civil War style if necessary) and a Sally Struthers fly flew right into my pie hole - I was spitting, pissed-off (and on, I guess) end-of-a-hot-day mad.  I then briskly huffed off to try to wash the offense from my person and the friggin' water had been turned off in the only women's wash area - luckily i had plenty of disinfectant gel to slather on.  However, this happened a couple of days and at least one intense shower ago and I still have a catch in my throat thinking about it.  I still feel covered in pee pee!!! That little anecdote totally sums up what it can be like to spend a little quality time at one of these FOBs.

In all seriousness though, there are some incredible people at these places and it's like extreme camping in many ways.  I spent my first night around a fire pit smoking fat Cuban cigars - I am finding this is a secret inner-circle activity that I have been fortunate enough to be invited to enjoy on several occasions - it may be my talent for appreciating - and telling - a good dirty joke and not flinching at incredibly inventive uses of the F word!  I also refer to all posters of half nude women as "I didn't know you were so fond of your mother/sister/aunt ..."  These havens of late evening decision-making are crucial to cutting the deals and getting the information necessary to achieving key planning goals so i am incredibly thankful to be present.  I also had access to all the guard towers, both Afghan and NATO, which are incredibly interesting places to hang out - a little stinky, but thankfully there was a nice wind and the opulent B.O. oozing from the Afghan forces was somewhat diminished - who am I to talk anyhow... I had been sprayed with a mist of human waste and wasn't feeling fresh as a daisy myself.

Well, I'm as tired as hell and signing off - hoping for a good and restful night's sleep!

Drink of the evening - COLD, bottled water mixed with Crystal Carrington Light.

The Monkey Ranch

Good Day!  Finally the internet god let me access this blog site again - it seems to allow me access 2 or 3 times a week - the remaining bandwidth for the week must be designated to others for communication with the big world out there.  I may have to move up to human sacrifices.  Busy week so far - busy - and I also had the good fortune to eat from an actual plate for the first time in months!  It's the little things, right?

So, this has been a week of planning - lots and lots of it, and with too much planning comes headaches, disorganization, too much talking, male posturing and adult-baby behavior in some instances.  The best part though, by far, have been some of the discussions regarding who we are ultimately planning for in the long run.  We are,  basically, in a Third World country trying to build and train a military and police force - however, we are attempting to do so with Western standards and expectations - I kid you not, this is like handing the keys to your brand new house to a gang of monkeys.  Much of what we plan will eventually be staffed and supported by the Afghan military and police forces so we try to take into consideration what we need versus what they can maintain.

Before I write the next couple of very derogatory and ethnocentric sentences, I do understand that lack of education and gaping cultural differences play a huge role in these situations - but they're still damn funny even considering that!!!  I think you could leave unsupervised, 15 year old boys alone for the weekend with better results.  The most common things - like using a toilet correctly, per the design - are impossible nuggets of information to impart to many of these guys.  They are literally taking large poos in the shower stalls, and breaking off the toilets at the base by standing on the seats to use them - apparently, they use something more "turkish" if at all (largely the great outdoors).  This standing results in a "painting" of the toilets or breaking them altogether.  How do you toilet train a nation???  Secondly, perfectly operating generators and electrical systems are something they can't resist - it's like a giant shiny penny and the minute we leave them alone with them, they are taking them apart and creating third-world wiring scenarios that shock, kill and maim them.  Finally, you can't build kitchens for them or construct anything of wood - they all eventually burn down.  Tents make them crazy and we actually have force retention issues if they have to live in them too long - I ask you, why then aren't we just building the mud hut villages they are accustomed to???  We are spending billions on infrastructure they can't even maintain or are willing to learn to use.  So, by and large, we are planning, designing and building these mini-bases that will eventually be left to the Afghans - complete with kitchens, electrical systems and latrines that they will burn down, electrocute themselves with and poop all over.  It's truly like a giant monkey ranch!!  I have never seen a group of people harder on equipment in my life - it's like an army of "Man-childs"!  And the conversations are always something like ... "nope, nope - you remember what happened last time ... they shot the toilet instead of flushing it ... "  or,  "they just crap right next to the port-a-john".   It's truly amazing and interesting - I still don't know yet what the best compromise will be, but I have a feeling we'll have ghost bases of modern, tattered facilities full of goats, kids and the Afghan Army.  There has to be a better way because the Afghans are a pretty ingenious people from what I can see - it's truly an example of the huge cultural divide.

Weeeellll,  hope you found this interesting!  I don't have the energy to pontificate on anything else tonight - I have to get up early and head out to a FOB tomorrow unless the dirt fog causes the flights to be cancelled again - seriously, it's creepy - brown fog with a layer of dirt floating in it.  Toby Keith will be here tomorrow night apparently and I will be sleeping either under the stars or in a shipping container converted to a sleeping berth!

Drink of the night - a hot, decaf tea with an actual lemon wedge I have been carrying in my pocket the entire day -

I Have Defeated Menno Paws!

Yea, I killed my mouse.  Kind of a let down and he died in a back alley channel of my room, with a face full of jam - similar to Elvis signing off on the toilet - when the mighty fall, it's not always pretty...  While I'm happy to be momentarily rodent free, I was hoping for more of a Moby Dickish epic hunt - manic in my sole purpose of finding - and then killing - Menno Paws!  In the end, I ran back to my room to grab something and saw his little carcass laying under the trap - a paper towel, a quick case of the willies, a carefree toss of the his lifeless, rodent casing in the bin (with my pinkie poised upward) and the saga was o-vah!  He was a formidable opponent, but like Rome, was conquered and partly due to his own gluttony.

I am in the waning hours of my coveted and celebrated day off.  I do nothing on these days, but clean my room, read, watch movies and play on the computer.  It's too hot out to enjoy anything and I'm usually totally over other people by Sunday - these are fantastic days!!  Last night was some colored level of alert which meant you couldn't go outside without wearing your body armor and helmet - boring - and hot!  There was going to be a poker game on the picnic table but the forces in charge of ruining even the smallest amount of fun were in full swing.  I stayed in my room (which is getting very warm these days) and made creative, edible things with hot sauce and ramen noodles. It was also the night for the malaria pill which means nice dreams and deeps sleeps!  If I had the confidence (and privacy), I would take a how-to-sleep page out of my nephew Brody's book - it involves partial nudity and a leg-cross but looks incredibly comfortable - ah, the freedom of being two ...

Today has been the periodic detonation of controlled explosions - they will announce them "within five minutes", but then 20 minutes later the GD things go off ... I have changed my shirt twice and shorts once from coffee and soup splashing all over them every time I am startled by the late-in-coming detonation.  It's amazing that something so loud and forceful can become a common, every day thing.  It's also amazing that nobody making these announcements has a true concept of what  5 minutes actually are ...  you would think that somebody, somewhere would be shooting for some accuracy being that we are in a war zone and explosions do make one ... edgy.  Between those explosions and the random boom of the sound barrier being broken or the anticipation of waiting to hear the giant cargo planes crash as they struggle to get off the ground - it's been pretty noisy around here today.  I basically live next to the runway and under the subsequent flight path so it's pretty festive at times.

I have been watching back to back "bad girl" films - I guess you would call them morality films, but they are hysterical, politically incorrect and I think cast with Hollywood hopefuls who never really made it past the casting couches.  These were part of a DVD collection sent to me by very dear friends - friends who know how much I enjoy these types of things!  Some of the titles include ... "Delinquent Daughters",  "Escort Girl",  "Ten Nights in a Barroom" and "She Shoulda' Said No"... I can't express how much I love these old 30s films - complete with the crazy eyes and tough-talking bad girls.  There are also a few on the perils of Marihuana (their spelling) and cocaine.  The best one was about syphilis ... I am dedicating the last CD of my cult classics to all of you bad girls out there - I think we all know one another - and I will include you too, Craig ...  So goes another lazy Sunday!   The final film of the day will be "Terror in a Tiny Town" which is a western filmed entirely with little actors.  Thank you Collins sisters - I almost feel like a normal human today. "Drinking and smoking feels swell! Just don't let mother find out!"  Love this dialogue ...

Drink of the day - Jailhouse rot gut, brewed in a dirty toilet and filtered through pantie hose and an old sock ... naw, that was what a bad girl would drink - in prison - which is where you end up if you don't listen to your mother.  Today I will stick with a cold, fake Becks with a chaser of Crystal Light - which I've taken to calling Crystal Carrington Light in my attempt to honor the pinnacle of the entertainment era found in the television dramas of the 1980s - BLLAAAAKKEE!