I struggle...

I struggle… I struggle with what to even write sometimes. Being in a war zone is of minor significance when you consider the number of good days versus bad days you have here. You just don't care that there is danger outside those walls anymore. I also realize that the “bad days” tend to seem somewhat amplified because of our circumstances, but those days – good or bad – are ubiquitous, and can’t be escaped - No matter how many times you’ve been through this, no matter how many lessons you swear you’ve learned from past deployments, no matter…… just….. no matter. Period. We have all reached the stage of this deployment where we can officially declare that “the honeymoon is over.” No more silent anxiety from the rookies worried about traveling to a war-torn country, no more pumped up bravado from men wanting to kick the enemy’s tail, no more patriotic propaganda and pep rallies urging us to “Be all we can be!”…. just hard, cold reality setting in. …those realities that finally catch up to you when you just can’t push past the pain of how much you miss your kids… or how much you miss your girlfriend or wife… and other realities, such as realizing how frustrating even some of your fellow comrades are and how damaging they can be to everyone’s morale here.

That’s where I’m at today. I suppose there should be a “blogging prerequisite” or S.O.P. that states you shouldn’t write when you’re tired and frustrated, but I can’t help it. When I was in Iraq five years ago I kept a daily journal. In it I would write the events of the day along with my most personal feelings. It was filled with my most private experiences and only one person has ever been allowed to even read it. In this blog, however, I’ve come to realize that I can’t really do that here. This is not a diary. Quite frankly, you don’t WANT to know what I’m thinking sometimes…. But allow me this rare moment to speak about the “other” side of war that most don’t get to see.


I miss my kids. As a divorced father, I already came here prewired with guilt about my failures as a father and husband, but traveling halfway around the world just exacerbates those feelings. I worry about them. I wonder how they’re doing. I wonder how they’ll cope if somehow I don’t make it home. I wonder if they begin to forget about me – if their mother even includes me in their lives by mentioning my name. Moreover, do my “kids” even talk about me much? I’m painfully aware that they read this blog, so I hope that they also understand that their Daddy is a human being with feelings….. and with flaws….. who thinks about them every minute of every day! To my kids: I love you!

Shortly before deploying, my visitation with my kids, while much too short, was filled with lots of fun-filled days and new memories. I still see vividly in my mind us all dancing around and lip-synching to the music of High School Musical 2. We even had wigs and a play microphone. My youngest son loves to play his mini-electric guitar and jam to the music playing in the background. I can still see him rocking out to “Rockstar” by Nickelback and running and sliding on his knees while never missing a riff! *lol* I miss finding my older son lying on the floor next to Ellie, our black lab, and quietly stroking her belly. He claims – and I believe him! – to be able to talk to all animals in their language. He is such an encyclopedia of animal facts and trivia, he just amazes me! I miss cooking with my daughter - my oldest child. It doesn’t matter HOW little time my kids have at my house sometimes – even just an hour and a half on Wednesdays! - she always wants to whip something up. At my house she has her own separate “nook” in the kitchen with her own cooking utensils, cookbooks, ingredients, and apron and she uses it like there is no tomorrow. Hmmm. Ironic.

I miss my best friend… the one who has since evolved into an inseparable part of my life… the other half of my once-broken heart. All of the difficulties of the past few years have always been met with her encouraging words and unconditional love and support. She has reminded me more times than I care to admit that it’s not the end of the world, and that while God may close a door, He also opens a window - if we just look. She was so right. I miss her encouragement….. I miss her smile…. I just…. MISS her!


UPDATE: …As I typed this last sentence I just received an email from her and learned of the passing of her grandpa. This is yet another side of deployments that is heart-breaking. The passing of loved ones… the births of children…. significant events in your life that you can’t be there for. I want so badly to be there to comfort her in this difficult time but have to sit here and wonder how she is doing. Is she holding up? Is she struggling like I am?

The pressures here are great. But while we’re human, replete with our many anxieties and flaws, we don’t have the luxury of letting those feelings consume us and detract us from our mission at hand. We are so pent-up at times fighting our true feelings – often stoic – that it’s no wonder so many soldiers suffer from PTSD when they return home and have trouble adjusting to a “normal” life again. You find that PTSD has really very little to do with “the fog of war” or actual combat, but rather “the fog of life.” At least the “life” we know while serving overseas as we await the return of our “normal” life back home. Until then….. I think I will continue to struggle.


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Prince Harry...

The big news in Afghanistan lately has obviously been the reports of Prince Harry being secretly stationed here, and subsequently being removed. The most interesting thing about this story to us here at the ISAF Headquarters is that many of us didn't know either. Yes, there were obviously a few who knew - particularly his fellow Brits - whom posess a much higher pay grade than me. But for the most part, we had no idea. Once we got wind of the story, especially after learning that he was a FAC (Forward Air Controller) who called in close air support, we went back and looked up our past missions. We now knew his “call sign” that he used on the radio (which I can't say here for obvious reasons) and with it we were able to see just how much interaction we had with him. To our surprise, we had flown a number of missions with him, and in fact, there were a few missions that put some serious HURT on the bad guys down in the Southern provinces.

To us, we just deal in code names and call signs when we speak to the literally hundreds of different people out there, whether they be ground troops, pilots in the air, or other staff members, so flying missions for Harry was no big deal - no different than any other mission we fly a hundred times each day..... at least.... at the time. But the Brits who work with us in our ASOS (Air Support Operations Squadron) are particularly proud to have learned of their own royalty - the third in line to the throne - serving on the front lines with them. In fact, one of the Brits who works with us actually "trained" Harry last year on his duties as a FAC! He couldn't say anything at the time for obvious reasons, but once news of Harry hit the airwaves, he was finally able to share his story. Pretty fascinating stuff.

Anyway, the questions coming in asking, "Did you know Harry was there?"..... and "Did you work with him?"... were getting more frequent so I thought I would let you in on what little we did know. Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, he was just another call sign at the other end of the radio, but somehow, in the end, it "is" a little exciting that we got to be a part of it.

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Pinky And "No" Brain...

I think it’s going to take me 10 years to catch up on the sleep I don’t get here….

First off, thank you to those of you who have sent me emails asking if I’m ok because I haven’t posted here in a while. *smile* The answer is “yes”, but the effects of working too many hours are starting to really wear on me. In fact, I just woke up from an unplanned “nap” (more like a “pass out”) just 30 seconds ago and now I’ve got to hit the road again soon to do something else tonight across Kabul here.

Speaking of that, since the last time I wrote, I have been traveling in and around the country here a lot lately – quite thrilling I assure you (Ugh!) – and soon I’ll be flying out of country to a few places as well so you could say that my “ops tempo” , as we refer to it, has certainly increased. I’ll spend more time in other blogs talking about those adventures but at the moment I just don’t have the time.

Another good reason I haven’t written lately is that I’ve been injured and typing on the computer has been (still is) quite difficult. We formed a volleyball team a couple weeks ago and we were playing the French (yes, it’s like the Olympics here – one country versus another! *smile*) and we were a little over-confident after pummeling the Italians just the week before. It seems the French took this little friendly competition a little too seriously because just past the halfway point we were already about 20 points behind and they were unrelenting in their efforts to bury us! Then….. it happened. Their star player – a 6 foot 5 tall Frenchman – spiked the ball over the net. And who do you think was there to deflect it? Yep. Little ol’ me. Except that it came so stinking fast that I only got my hands up about two thirds of the way and didn’t have my arms and fingers fully extended, so the ball hit my right hand – particularly my pinky – and managed to pull it out to the side, completely disjointing my pinky at the knuckle. I felt a sharp pain, but it happened so fast that I didn’t think much about it….. at least until I looked down at my hand. Ugh. Looking at my hand, I realized that my pinky was “half good” in that the bottom half up to the knuckle was straight up and down the way it should be, but the top half above the knuckle was bent and disjointed out to the side about 75 degrees! Saying nothing, I calmly walked to the side of the court to let our commander, who was our “hot swap”, come in for me. To quickly, but quietly, let him know why I was stepping out I just flashed my hand to him so that the game would not be interrupted. But I think my hand must have been worse than I realized because he “instantly” recoiled in a painful cringe and diverted his eyes. I honestly thought he was going to puke!

Pinky: "Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"

The Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky—Try to take over the world."

As he stepped in for me, I walked over to an Austrailian who was helping referee the game on the sidelines and asked, “Hey, can you pull on this for me?” He looked at it….. and after he was done cringing…. gave it two good tugs (as I let out a couple good yelps!) and he got it to pull back closer to “normal’ than it was, but it was still very disjointed. That’s when he said to me (in his Austrailian accent), “I-eev played Rugbee fo’ years and I’ve disjointed my fin-geh many times. But I-eev ne-ve seen one this bad mate! You nade to go to the cla-nic.”

(by the way, these pics were taken "after" the Australian pulled my finger back closer to normal!)


I’ll fast forward. The "cla-nic" couldn’t pull it back either. (Yes, they tried…. And yes, I yelped – AGAIN!). Their opinion was that there was no way it could be pulled that far out to the side without also being broken. They were also concerned about blood veins and tendons being damaged. The only clinic that was equipped to deal with broken bones was the Czech Republic tent hospital at KIA (Kabul International Aiport), which was not good news. My little crooked pinky was now committing two of the hospital staff, myself (and Bixby who offered to stay with me), and about eight Macedonian soldiers in tanks who formed our QRF (Quick Reaction Force) to racing through downtown Kabul in the middle of the dark through one of the most dangerous routes in the country! *shaking head* Needless to say I felt stupid.

Once at the clinic, I was poked at several times while I just sat there, helpless, in a chair with my arm extended out on a stretcher in front of me as they spoke in their native language their theories on what they thought was wrong. I had no idea what they were saying. I wondered if they weren’t joking about how much this was going to hurt to have it yanked back into joint! They rushed me off to a small, portable X-ray trailer and had me assume several uncomfortable positions to try to get the right angle for the picture. When the X-rays came back they looked at them, puzzled, and then said to me, “Eet ees not br-r-r-oken.” But they didn’t look like they were totally convinced.

Thirty minutes later, they had put a cast on my right hand, covering only my two outer fingers (plastering my ring finger and pinky together) that went all the way from the tips of my fingers down to my wrist. “After” it dried, they decided that they wanted to take more X-rays. What?!! (I “told” you they didn’t look convinced!) The second set of X-rays were even more uncomfortable as I now had a cast on my hand and the positions they wanted me to assume were doubly difficult. After the second set was developed, they came back and said once again that it wasn’t fractured "that they could tell", but admitted that because my ring finger was now in the way of the pinky they couldn’t really see the bone as well. Ugh! At this point I just wanted to “suit up” and put my armor back on and head back to base here. I was done with these guys. So I did.

For the last week I’ve been wearing this annoying, itchy cast with the fingers bent down at an angle, making even hunting and pecking on the keyboard difficult. Last night, I couldn’t take it any longer. After taking yet another shower, with my handy dandy plastic bag wrapped over my right hand, I unwrapped it to discover my cast completely soaked. That was the last straw. I came back to the room here and cut it off. My finger is still a discolored yellow and purplish hue, and much to my surprise, “still” sticks out to the side a little. It is also painful to the touch and still quite swollen . And for the last 24 hours I’ve painfully banged it and jammed it so many times I can’t even count. About the only advantage to not having the cast now is that I can type more easily, but what’s funny is that now that my finger is still slightly off I keep missing the keys on the right-hand side of my keyboard! Oh well… what can ya do?!

Gotta go…. Will post more tomorrow.



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Keeping up-to-date...

Hello all...

I know it's been several days since I've been able to keep this blog up-to-date, but that is not because this past week hasn't been devoid of it's ups and downs nor lacking in any stories to share. It's just been a busy week, compounded by the fact that I've been sick as a dog. It doesn't matter how many times you've traveled to the Middle-East here, you are bound to succumb to the "crud" - in this case the "Afghan Crud." *smile* (just count yourself lucky you can't hear my lung-hacking barks as I write this article!)

One interesting thing that happened this past week is I apparently attracted the attention of David Stanford, Duty Officer and webmaster for the Doonesbury Town Hall. Yes THAT Doonesbury, as in the comic strip. He ran across my blog here and asked if I would be ok with him featuring an ariticle I wrote a few posts back entitled "In The Zone..." He called it "...a great day-in-the-life-and-work portrait ...a fascinating piece, and [it] really gets into an area we haven't had anyone post about before on our site...." Once I checked out his site ( http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/ ) and found it to be legit, I said it was ok. I also learned that for getting featured on his site, I will now also receive a complimentary copy of "The Sandbox" book that came out last October - a collection of about 90 pieces from the first six months of the site. *shaking head smiling* This blog thing has really opened up a new world for me. :-)

We just had one more from our unit back home just arrive here two days ago. Seth is a "power pro" guy who will help Chris Lambert and I figure out our generator and power "issues" that plague us here. It was suggested by the outgoing unit that we bring a power pro troop but our commander initially resisted, thinking that we didn't really need him. After just the first couple weeks, it was obvious we needed his expertise, so like the rest of us, he dropped everything in his world as he knew it.... a teacher and high-school football coach.... and packed his bags for a fun-filled vacation to a cold, dirty, and lonely abode in the middle of a war zone. What fun! *smile* Wes and I helped get him situated and awaited his arrival late at night. Of course, I also had to greet him with the customary "Welcome to paradise!" He nervously smiled.

Several of you have asked about the guy who exposed his "I [heart] Condi" t-shirt to Condoleeza Rice during her visit here a few days ago and I now have a picture of said shirt. I was also given a few other pictures taken by other guys in our unit - to include another shot of Wes and I standing by Condy that I was oblivious to. Enjoy!

Today was a sad day in Kandahar - one of the worst bombings we've had in the country here in as far as the number of casualties go. It's those types of intel reports that we get that remind us to stay vigilant in what we do here, and that we are still in the middle of the fight. If ever we begin to complain about "routine" days and being locked down here on the ISAF compound, something like this always pops up and promptly reminds us to just keep our mouths SHUT!


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I "heart" Condi...

Every now and then, our "ground hog day" here in Kabul gets shaken up a bit and opportunities present themselves for you to step outside the normal routine - should you choose to take advantage of them. Yesterday, one such opportunity appeared in the form of a couple dignitaries visiting the compound here - Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, and British Foreign Secretary, David Milibrand.

Now I'll be the first to say that meet-n-greets are not really my thing, but something intrigued me about Ms. Rice and I thought I would go - if for nothing more than to break the redundant cycle of my days here. Many years ago I used to work for D.I.A. at the Pentagon and seeing high-ranking Generals and government dignitaries were an everyday occurance. Back then, Colin Powell was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense, ironically. Lunches spent in the center courtyard of the Pentagon regularly turned up familiar TV personalities and the like. Five years ago I spent every waking moment with the likes of other Generals and government officials whom are now portrayed as heroes in non-fiction books that recount the major combat phase in Iraq. And also during that time, shortly after successfully taking Baghdad, Don Rumsfeld was coming to visit us to say congrats and I was one of only 6 chosen to to attend, but I turned it down because I had other work to do. The guy I let replace me came back jumping around, thrilled that he went, and thanked me by turning the viewscreen on his camera around for me to see that he had just had his picture taken side by side with the Secretary of Defense himself! Ugh. Oh well... I'm glad he was happy, but through it all I've come to realize one thing. They're just people. So going to see Condy Rice was more of an, "Ehhhhh, what the heck!" kind of choice.

A few others from my unit and I went to stand in line in front of the gymnasium - the only place big enough to house that many people. After standing in line for about 30 minutes, the announcement came that she would be delayed by an hour. We left. When we came back an hour later, we were let in the door, checked for weapons, passed through security, and led into the gymnasium. I had slowly wandered my way back to the gym after running a few errands, but little did I know that as soon as I had walked in, WHACK!.. they shut the door behind me and wouldn't let anyone else in.

The Sergeant Major on the compound here ran us through several drills of getting lined up in formation, standing at attention, resting "at ease", and bunching up X number of steps into a second formation. I had NO idea that this was going to be such a dog-n-pony show.... I mean sheesh!.. I just wanted to hear her two-minute speech, shake hands if the opportunity presented itself, and then get back to work.


Well, soon one hour turned into two..... and then we got the message that she would be here in 30 minutes..... An hour had passed and still no one. To fight the bordeom, I egged the guys on to run up on the still-empty stage and get our picture taken all together, so we did. And then finally, after another 90 minutes, we were all called to attention and in walked our dignitaries. Finally! After 3 1/2 hours of waiting, they were here.

As expected, they both got up on the make-shift stage - back dropped with the flags from each of the 39 nations represented here and covered with a huge traditional Afghan rug for good measure - and spoke of the work we were doing and the pride they had in us and the many sacrifices we had made. To be perfectly honest, I originally just wanted this part to be over, but when Condoleeza got up on stage, I felt that her words were very sincere and genuine. It was an impromptu speech... nothing prepared.... and she spoke with candor and made good eye contact with all of us as she scanned the entire gymnasium from left to right. She made no mention of her attempts to try to garner more support from other NATO nations..... she just simply said, "Thanks!" I have to say, I for one, was pleasantly impressed with her.

After the short speeches by both, they came down off the stage, Condi going left, and Milibrand going right, to shake the hands of the troops. I was on the right and was awaiting my chance just to see her up close, not expecting to actually get to shake hands with her or anything, but then something happened by the time she got to the middle formation to shake hands. Lieutenant Cox, an EW (Electronic Warfare) guy that works with us pulled a fast one on Ms. Rice and unzipped his flight suit. He then pulled it open to expose his t-shirt underneath that had written on it, "I [heart] Condi Rice!" *LOL* Once he did that, the formation erupted into laughter. The news media, not wanting to be left out, went running over to them to see what had happened and then filmed the entire thing. We were briefed beforehand not to ask for autographs, but Cox didn't care. He asked her if she'd sign his shirt and she happily obliged. *smile* That was the ice-breaker we needed! Once that happened, all formations and semblance of organization were gone. She then began to simply walk through the crowd, shaking hands and taking pictures with everyone that was left - to include "my" formation (which now looked more like a cluster than anything else).

A minute or two had passed, and then BOOM... there she was, standing right in front of me. She reached out her hand and I shook it as I said, "Thank you..." (I don't even know WHAT I was saying thank you about!... It's just the only thing I could think of to say! *lol*) She said, "Heeeeyyy... thanks for your service. Nice to meet you!".... About that time, Wes asked if he could have his picture taken with her, and she turned around in between the two of us and "SNAP!"... a picture was taken for posterity.



The thing I observed about her was that she was very genuine when greeting all the troops here, and would often say to them, "Hey you want to switch cameras now and have your picture taken too?" so that no one was left out. She laughed - not a fake laugh - and engaged in real conversations with many people. She wasn't just putting on a show in my opinion. But based on how the previous day's agenda went with other NATO commanders and Afghan Prime Minister, Hamid Karzi, I'm sure this was probably the highlight of her day.

I wish her and Mr. Millibrand well in their quest to get more support here from other NATO nations because I for one don't want the U.S. to have to pick up the slack AGAIN and be forced to come back for my "fourth" tour.

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Random thoughts...

It's not been "all" doom and gloom here by what you hear in the news reports, and hopefully you get a glimpse into some of what real life is here at ISAF in Kabul by reading this blog. But let me share with you some other not-so-well-known truths I've discovered so far on this tour and some other light-hearted things we do to keep ourselves entertained here.

Lessons learned so far:

1. 
   Do not take off your shoes on a cross-Atlantic flight and expect to find clean, “dry” floors in the lavatory
2. 
   Do not take off your glasses, place them in your unzipped toiletry bag, and expect to find them later after swinging and dangling your toiletry bag on your way back to your room from the shower.
3. 
   Do not mix a packet of Crystal Light lemonade into your water bottle, and then immediately attempt to put in your contacts without first washing your hands!
4. 
   Do not go to chow with your M-4 Carbine, unsling your weapon, sit down and eat, and then walk out lighter than when you came in.
5. 
   Do not put on your armored vest AFTER you’ve already slung your weapon over your shoulder!
6. 
   Do not walk into work carrying 5 care packages you just received in front of the only guy in your unit who hasn’t received any mail!

And some other fun things we do here to keep entertained.....

Recently we all finally finished in-processing the base by attending the last orientation class about a week ago. But up until that day, before getting issued our meal cards, we had to manually "sign in" when going to the chow hall to eat. There were over 30 different notepads with each nation's flag on it, so it was a hassle to sign in every day. It only took 2 or 3 episodes of this to turn it into a fun exercise in names. One day Bixby signed in as Bert, and I signed in underneath him as Ernie. The next day I was LuLu, and he was Trixy... and on and on and.... (you get the picture.... *grin*)

We also have these forms that have to be filled in and submitted to the chow hall if you plan on picking up a "to go" meal, for instance, if you are on-shift and can't leave your post. Bixby went to pick up two meals for "Bruce Banner" and "Clark Kent" the other day when two of his guys couldn't leave their post. *lol* It's not done to make fun of the guy who sits there monitoring signatures, but it does seem peculiar to us that he can't even read English. *smile*

Ok...enough random humor for now.... have to head to work.

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Boring Days...NOT

Some days around here you have to be careful what you complain about. A couple days ago the guys and I had just complained about how boring it was that morning, and then BOOM!, off goes another bomb just a few blocks away. Strangely enough, I heard it muffled in the background, but didn’t even take notice, but Roger was the one who said, “Was that a bomb?...” We all looked around the room at each other, pondering his question, and then finally said, “Yeah…. I guess that was.” And without missing a beat, went back to work without even opening the door to see what happened. Heck, no one even got out of their seat for that matter… nor was another word spoken about it. (It’s a surreal world we live in here.)

About an hour and a half later, someone called my shop. Roger answered, but couldn’t understand a word he was saying so he gave the phone to me. Now, I won't go into detail about what was said or what exactly occurred, because I am sensitive to the fact that my family – and particularly my kids – read this blog, so I’ll just say it was VERY suspicious. And rather than act on what I was told to do in that phone conversation, I questioned him on several fronts, stalled him, and then notified the authorities. Before we knew it, the gentleman at the other end of the phone call was gone. Crisis averted. What really bothers me about all this is that, this time, it directly involved me. This was not some incident I heard about second-hand, or some “boom” I heard down the street. It was “right there” in front of me and I had to deal with it. This whole "suspicious" episode encompassed about an hour of time, and it was exhilarating, frustrating, and frightening, all-in-one. By the time it was all over I was exhausted. But when we finally knew that the coast was clear, the guys and I decided that we would no longer complain about being bored. *smile*

Despite the threats of that morning, the day went on as usual (finally) and by lunch time, I had taken Roger and Wes back to Bakhtar Jewelry for a full-course Afghan meal that Ismatullah and Abdul were preparing for us. Inside their little shop there, they brought in home-cooked delicacies, like beef and chicken kabob, a rice/beef/spices/grapes combo in a big bowl, another spicy meat wrapped into what looked like a fillet, and then lots and LOTS of fire-oven-cooked Afghan bread. (and of course, once again, LOTS of green tea! *smile*) They both spread out a nice table cloth over their jewelry counter, brought in fancy plates and silverware, set out the chairs, and made a nice spread. You can tell by the pictures, this was no small meal. This is the way Afghans congregate or, in our case, “negotiate” when doing business. I have brought just about everyone from my unit into their shop now, and they’ve all purchased various items, but the ironic thing is I haven’t yet. I guess you could say that I’m working on what they refer to as my “friend price” and maybe at some point I can afford to actually buy something there. Either way, I love sitting and chatting with them. They’re incredible people.


Things at work have been busy… and to add to our hectic schedule, we’ve recently discovered some additional duties that we’re supposed to perform that we weren’t told about by the outgoing unit. *frown* A critical data link for a "key office" (can't say who) went down at the end of the month because their crypto expired and….. well…. we fixed it once we were frantically made aware of it. Add it to the list I suppose. Also, I have resigned myself to the fact that there is no such thing as an 8-hour day…. It just doesn’t work…. Minimum 12… most of the time 15-16 now… but that’s still better than before, and besides!... What would I do with my extra time here anyway? *smile* Ok…. Don’t answer that. *lol*

Praying for more “boring” days ahead….

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