Share This blog is about the experience, and part of the experience is feeling it.  I can relate to readers the way that it feels to be cold, I can relate to readers how it feels to crunch across gravel on the camp.  I can try to relate how it feels to sit and converse with my Afghan counterpart.  I can try to relate how it feels to ride in an MRAP through the streets of Mazar-e Sharif, the feeling of earphones and body armor, viewing the normal world of Afghans through armored slats and thick glass as we do our little part to influence their Border Police to make their lives better, safer and more stable so that we can have that at home, too. How does one convey the feeling of being seven thousand miles from home while two countries go mad?   I swear, it feels as

Share Just wanted to post and say, “I’m still here.”   I’m fine.  We have been locked down in the wake of the Quran burnings at Bagram.   I’ve read news articles about the events, the comments on American news outlets that allow them and monitored emails from friends.  All I can say is that the atmosphere on both sides is disturbing. We were at the Zone headquarters when we got the news, and I thought it had to be a joke, because no one would do something that stupid, would they?  I mean, it’s only been less than a year since that nimrod in Florida burned a Quran on YouTube and people died over it.  Of all the things that you could do in Afghanistan that would cause unnecessary death, this is one that is a proven winner. It wasn’t a joke.   And it’s not a joke.  

Share … some days you’re the pig.

Share … that I’ve seen everything, Afghanistan surprises me again.   Today is the worst day, weather-wise, that I’ve ever seen in Afghanistan.  On my first tour, it rained on me a grand total of six times.   On my second tour, which was 15 months long, it rained enough to surprise me.  I even got rained on several times in Helmand.   I think it has rained about 50% of the time that I’ve been here this time.   Before yesterday, we had several nice, dry days.  A couple of them would qualify for beautiful days. Yesterday, all that came to a needle-across-the-record stop.   The morning was warm.  I was actually over-dressed a little while I was over working with the Afghans.  In the Chief of Staff’s office, I shed my jacket because I was actually sweating.   Later in the afternoon, it started to rain.  It has

Share Most probably know this, but Friday in Afghanistan is like Sunday in the United States.   It’s the day when shops and businesses are closed, when many people go to the Mosque to worship.   We on the team use Fridays for getting caught up on planning, administrative details, logistical issues and so on.  It’s a light day, but we usually schedule some sort of training for sometime in the day.   This week was unusually light because of an Afghan holiday celebrating the day in 1989 that the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan. The Soviets had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and 15,000 Soviet troops lost their lives. I have stood on ground walked upon by Soviets before me.  Not by Brezhnev or Gorbachev, but by soldiers who were doing their jobs.  I have seen sites where some of them suffered the worst days of their lives.  I have seen

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Share It’s been cold a lot here in Mazar-e Sharif (MeS, pronounced, “mez” in the shorthand of English-speakers in Afghanistan).   On my first tour, I think I got rained on a grand total of six times.   On my second tour, there was a lot more rain.  I even got rained on a few times in Helmand.   I think we have had precipitation of one sort of another at least half the days I’ve been in country so far. For water availability year-round, it’s more important to have snow stay on the mountains, especially where I have been before.  In Kapisa, there were mountains that held snow right up to the beginning of July.  The mountains around here seem to be just as massive, but lower in elevation overall.  The snow on the mountains right here near MeS doesn’t seem to stay much longer than the snow on

Share The move into theater was very disorganized.  I’m understating that, but bear with me.   I traveled through Manas on the way into country in 2007, and it was smooth.  We were there less than 36 hours and then we were gone.  All of our baggage made it into theater with us.  We arrived with what we left with, and that was that.  In 2009, I moved to theater through Ali Al Saleem in Kuwait with much the same result.  Not so this time.  I haven’t written about it because I had some small level of trust that it would be ironed out with some kind of focus, but it hasn’t, and so it is no small part of the experience now. On my first two tours, we were allowed either four duffel bags or three duffel bags and a rucksack (backpack), plus a carry-on and a laptop bag

Share The last several days have been sort of a blur, and there has been little time to write when I wasn’t too tired to actually do it.   The RSOI training was okay.  The IED training was worthwhile, even if the only real new news was the tendencies in the RC North.   Getting a chance to check the zero on the weapon is always time well spent. Many team-related things needed to be shaken-out.  Plans have been changed by reality, so there were realignments and modifications.  I’m happy with how that shook out, but again, it took time.  There is always the setting up of email accounts and user access; yay. Then there were the environmental issues.   We are in Alaska tents (named after the manufacturer), in a sub-compound of the larger American zone at the German-run base at Marmal, which is in the Mazar-e Sharif area of northern Afghanistan. 

Share I’ve arrived at Marmal, a German Air Base near Mazar-e Sharif.  Now that the movement is over, I can say that the brigade trickled into theater over the course of about a month.  Some of the brigade has been on the ground here for just over a month.  Others have just arrived.  Most of my team has been in place for several weeks at least.  I was on the third to last (out of a bunch) movement to country, which was passed by the second to last and finally entered country at the same time as the final movement arrived.  Throughout the long, painful movement into Afghanistan, I kept in touch via email with the Lieutenant Colonel, LTC Grass* who is the deputy team chief for the Security Force Assistance Team (SFAT) that I am a part of. A couple of years ago, SFAT’s were called ETT’s or PMT’s.