Yes, I'm Home

If anyone is still checking my blog - Yes, I made it home, I got back about 3 weeks ago and have pretty much holed up at home. I haven't had the same interest in making posts to the blog since being home. But, after talking to a couple people who told me they were wondering if I made it home and were checking the blog, I decided to do one more entry.

Since I couldn't include pictures with the last posting, here are some pictures of the airplane we flew on from Salerno to Bagram. It's called a STOL, Short Take-Off and Landing. It is mainly used to deliver the mail and a secondary purpose is to move small numbers of personnel. We had to help unload the mail before we could load our gear on the plane.

There are eight seats on the plane, enough to get us started on our way home.

The pilot - civilian contractors with Blackwater Aviation. After about a 45 minute flight we arrived at Bagram. Below are pictures of some of the guys on the C-130 while we were waiting the many hours to get off the ground at Bagram.

After 3 long days at Manas AB, Kyrgyzstan, we started the long journey back to the states. The trip started with a 0100 showtime/bag drag on the 23rd of July. It's called a bag drag because you have to "drag" your bags to the terminal and put them on pallets to be taken to the aircraft. Then we were turned loose to go eat, but had to return at 0400. We boarded the aircraft at 0800 and took off for Incirlik AB, Turkey. After 4.5 hours of flying we landed, got off the plane and waited a couple hours, before the next flight to Ramstein AB, Germany. The flight to Ramstein was another 4 hour flight, where we did the same thing, got off and waited a couple hours for the flight to Baltimore. The plane took off at 1700, after 8.5 hours of flying we landed in Baltimore at 2000, the same day we left Manas AB, 23 July. The first time I have experienced 34 hours in a 24 hour day.

After spending the night in Baltimore, I had a short day to get home. Flew from Baltimore, through Chicago and on to Des Moines. I was home by 3 pm on the 24th. Here are some pictures from the airport where I was greeted by family and friends.

Since I have been home, I haven't done much but relax. We did take a weekend trip to St. Louis to see a Cardinals game and go to Six Flags. The Cardinals game was a good one, they beat the Astros. It rained on us at Six Flags, but quit by noon and turned out to be a pretty nice day.
No wonder these seats were available, we were looking directly into the setting sun, but only until the end of the second inning. Then they were pretty good seats.

Two more weeks to relax, the kids (2 out of 3) start school tomorrow, the 3rd starts school on the 15th of September. I don't have to go back to work (my civilian job) until 1 Sep. After being away from that job for 9 months, it'll be like starting a new job. I don't plan to continue with this blog as my Afghanistan adventure is over and my civilian job probably won't provide the material for blog postings as my experience in Afghanistan did.

Out of Afghanistan

I'm out of Afghanistan, we left yesterday morning, arriving at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, early this morning. It was a long day, we had a showtime of 6:30 am yesterday and when we got there our flight had been cancelled, due to maintenance issues. They scheduled a replacement flight for later in the morning, which was good as it gave us time to eat breakfast. At the time we didn't know that would be our only meal for the day. Good thing I packed all those extra snacks in my carry-on.

We got to Bagram at about 11:00 and immediately put our names in for the next flight to Manas. None of us wanted to stay in Bagram and knew it would be best to get the first flight we could out of there, leaving no chance of missing our rotator flight back to the states. After a 2-3 hour "Customs" ordeal we made it on the first flight out, but it didn't go. Had an engine problem, a compression failure in engine 2, glad it happened on the ground. The customs ordeal - we had to empty each of our bags, checked and carry on, have the contents inspected, and repack them. They even made one guy throw out his blood pressure meds because they were not in the prescription bottle.

After the engine trouble, they moved us over to the spare aircraft. We got a little further this time, we taxied out to the runway, but then turned around and went back to the parking spot. They were just teasing us. The altimeter failed, so they had to replace it. After another hour or so, we were back on our way at 9:30 pm for the 2 1/2 hour flight to Manas. By the time we got our cots/beds, it was 3:00 am (1:30 Afghan time).

We have a few days here to turn in equipment, that should take about an hour. These extra days are built in to the schedule, for flight delays (which can easily happen). I should be home towards the end of the week.

No pictures as my HP laptop decided to take a vacation. It quit working last Thursday night and I am now using the morale computers at Manas. Since it is a government computer, no external devices can be hooked up to it.

The next blog posting will be from my home computer!

Sunset

Down to our last few days at Salerno, I thought this picture of the sunset would be a good start to what will probably be my last blog from FOB Salerno. In our last week here, I've been looking back and adding up some numbers. First, today is day 184 since I left home back in January and the total will be close to 195 by the time I get home. Most of every day was spent in this building, the FET Office. The porch was nice, but lately the temps have been hitting 110 degrees in the afternoon on the porch.
One thing that has helped me through the days is keeping track of things and numbers and countdowns, keeping track of the days was just one of them. Another, was haircuts, today was my last one, #13, every two weeks. It's a lot of work maintaining this low maintenance hair style. Also, with out the daily chores of home, and no TV (at least in my room), I've had time to do some other activities. I've read 26 books to help pass the time and will probably read a few more on the trip home, as there will be a lot of sitting and waiting for airplanes. Also, going to the gym has helped burn about an hour and a half each day (except Sundays, the day of rest). I started adding it up and figure I've put a little over 300 miles on the treadmills and the same on the eliptical machines in the last 6 months. The math classes also helped fill in the evening hours - over 100 hours of instruction and many more grading tests, and it was much more enjoyable being on the teacher side of the class than the student's this time around.
As a team, Team Panther, the seven names painted on the Air Force rock outside our office, we worked on over 100 construction projects worth millions of dollars and can see the improvements that have been made in the base facilities. The soldiers and airmen on base are now living and working in facilities that provide better protection against the many rocket/mortar attacks the base receives and there are more rocks and less mud as well as many paved roads.

Speaking of rocket/mortar attacks, FOB Salerno is also nicknamed "Rocket City", which I didn't know until I got here, but now I know how it got the nickname. I kept track of the rockets and mortars -20 separate attacks, 40 individual rockets/mortars and the one suicide vehicle bomb just outside the base in the local national parking lot. It's a good thing the enemy doesn't have the technology we do, out of those 40 rockets, they only hit one building on base, the tent in the pictures below.
This tent was hit the first part of July, and luckily it was empty at the time and no one was hurt. The building in the background is the PX (post exchange) and behind the tent to the right is the gym tent. The rocket hit just before 11 am, if they had waited about another hour there would have been a lot more people walking by on their way to lunch, the DFAC is behind me.
The rocket hit the metal support structure of the tent and exploded near the roof of the tent, sending shrapnel all over the area, even into the gym tent.
This is the plywood floor of the tent, you can see the many small holes from the shrapnel.

This is some of the shrapnel from a rocket that hit on the base back in February. It hit out in an open area near the heavy equipment contractors yard. One of the guys picked it up and brought it into the office for us to see.

Early July, with the rocket that hit the tent, and with an increased frequency of attacks, the force protection level was increased and we had to wear our full body armor and helmet everywhere we went, even if we were in our PT clothes. We were even supposed to wear it to the shower and latrine! Also, the gym and other non-mission critical facilities were closed. But after just a few days and with some increased patrols in the area to disrupt the enemies capabilities, we have since went back to normal operations and have not had a rocket attack since July 6.

This sign is located out near the runway and I'll be walking by it in a few days on my way to the aircraft that will be the start of my trip home. See you all soon.

5k Proof

The pictures are out, so, in case any of you doubt that I actually ran in the 5k last weekend, here is the proof.At the registration desk the afternoon before the race, with my twin brother, Russ (not really, I don't have a twin). Many times in our stay here, people have mixed us up. They'll stop one of us and start talking about something we have no clue what they are talking about. They talked to the other "twin". This week topped it off when someone sitting across the table from us at lunch made the comment that we could be brothers. Though we don't think we look that much alike, I think it is because we both wear the same clothes, like twins, work in the same office, and have the same hairstyle (yes, it's a style, not bald, we choose to cut it this way). The start of the race, even had a three helicopter fly over right at the start. I think some of the guys out front tried to keep up with them.

That's me, #146, at the start of the race. The base photographer was pretty brave, she laid down in the middle of the road and took pictures of the group at the start. I think she might of gotten stepped on once or twice, all you can see in one of her pictures is a leg in front of the camera lens. Some very good pictures though.

Me and my twin a little over half way done.

Same picture, just a close up of me.At the finish line, so I did finish, just behind my older twin brother.
And, the recovery begins. "Where is the oxygen?" Or, "Someone call a medic!"

Feel free to make up your own caption.

I did beat Bleck! (the dog)

Afghan Mafia

Sorry, no pictures today, just stories.

After working with the Afghanis now for nearly 6 months, we've started to notice a pattern of behavior or lack of ethics. They have many similarities to the mafia, or least what I know of it from the movies and TV. We've seen several examples -

First, is the gravel trade. The base enters into contracts to purchase gravel from the quaries/suppliers and we get pretty good prices. But, we've figured out that the price isn't what it appears. The supplier can offer the gravel at these prices because he will do whatever he can to short you on the order. We counter that be having one of our local national engineers do the quality control and estimate how much has been delivered. However, we have suspicions that he may be on the take. Then, once the gravel is on base our contractor that is supposed to haul and place the gravel around the base, has been found to be selling the gravel to contractors. And, when we call him on it (after the contractors complain), he sees nothing wrong with it, but gives the money back with a smile on his face. We probably are not catching him every time, it's a game to them. So, we pay for the gravel, pay a contractor to haul it, and he charges contractors on base for what we tell him to deliver to them.

Second, the paving contractor leases two vehicles to transport his laborers to the base every day. He leases one of these vehicles from the Khost Provincial Forces (KPF or Afghan Army) commander, who lives on the base. The paver told me yesterday that he is paying $800 a month for this service and part of the reason is the extra protection he receives from the KPF since they are using the commander's vehicle. So, in a sense, they do have insurance in this country, you just have to know who to buy it from.

Third, there were some old generators on the base that were no longer in working order and beyond repair, so we cleared it for the heavy equipment contractor (the same one that sells the gravel) to remove them from the base. It was cheaper than shipping them back to the states for disposal as excess. The contractor came to us and said the KPF commander put the squeeze on him the other day about these generators, saying they were his. We think he was looking for his cut.

Anyway, we only have suspicions, no proof, and pretty good imaginations, but it does seem to be a little bit on the shady side of business. What else would we expect in a lawless country like this, everyone is just trying to make a decent living and stay alive. And, the US is certainly doing it's best to help keep them actively employeed, which is good, if they are working, they are not trying to kill us.

On a brighter note, we are now in the single digits and getting shorter by the hour now. At least for our departure date, arrival at home is several days after that. We can see the end and it's looking better all the time.

Attack Dog

The other Tim decided to put on the Michelin Man suit and be a chew toy for the military working dog. They are happy to get some volunteers and the dogs have fun. This was yesterday afternoon and he did about 4 runs with the dog, then it was someone else's turn.

This dog has a pretty get set of teeth, the suit doesn't provide complete protection.

This is a new dog for the FOB, his name is Bleck. Here is a video of the fun.

We are trying to convert the local national engineers in our office. We tried the man jammies, so we thought they should try the StL Cardinals gear. Looks pretty good over the top of the man jammies.
We completed our third and final race, the 4th of July 5k, in coordination with the Music City 10k/5k run in Nashville, TN. We're missing #147 in the picture, he was still getting ready for the run, he had not woke up from his nap. He did make it up by the start of the race, the extra sleep didn't seem to help him though. This was the largest, participation wise, of the three runs. There were 250 plus runners, our group finished in the same order as we have in the past. Our top finisher was 39th, not bad for a 49 year-old. I was just a couple seconds behind in 41st place.

I've went the last 5 1/2 months and have only seen one small lizard. Today we came across three good sized ones just on the way to lunch, they were about 3 feet in length. I was only quick enough to get a picture of this one, these guys can move pretty fast.

Honorary Afghanis

"Said Wali"

We showed our picture to the local national engineers in the office and they thought it was very nice. In fact, they gave us honorary Afghani names. My name is "Said Wali", I asked them what it meant, but I could not understand their translation. So, I turned to Answers.com -

"Said" means happy and "Wali" means friend, client, kinsman, or patron, or Muslim Saint/Holy Person. The others names, left to right in the picture above are - Ibrhim, Naseem, Gul Zawan, Wali Jan, Jamal, and Said Wali (me). Frank, the third from left took some exception to the names, he thought he looked more like a "Jamal" than Justus does.

Since the posting of these pictures, I've had some interest in my pink flip flops. Amazingly, in 5 1/2 months, I've only had two people brave enough to say something about the flip flops. The first was the Senior Master Sergeant in the group and all he could say the first time he saw me wearing them was - "Tell me those aren't pink". The other individual was a little more subtle - I was brushing my teeth at the sink and he asked me if the flip flops used to be red? I was clueless as to what he was getting at, so my response was no. He replied back, "I was hoping you would say yes and that you have had them so long they have faded to pink."

The real story - when I got to Combat Skills Training at Ft. Lewis, WA way back in November, I realized shortly after getting there I did not have any shower shoes/flip flops. I had some meetings to go to, so I asked someone that was headed to the BX/PX (military version of Target) to pick up a pair of flip flops for me. When he came back, he had the pink flip flops for me. He claims that's all they had in my size. They served me so well in training, and I'm too cheap to go buy another pair of a more suitable color, I decided to bring them with me to Afghanistan.

Yes, these are my feet, you've already seen my legs.

Another 5k fun run tomorrow - the good news, it's the last one I'll be running in Afghanistan.

Check for Low Flying Aircraft!

Saturday afternoon we got a call asking if we had any HESCO barriers (earth filled wire baskets). The pilot of this airplane was not quick enough with his decision to abort the take off and you can't stop a plane very quickly on a gravel runway. The sign was appropriate on this day, this one was flying really low.This is what the plane looked like after it was recovered from the HESCOs, it won't be flying again any time soon. Needs new engines, new landing gear, new props and probably some other things. Luckily, no one was hurt, the two pilots and 6 passengers all walked away. The pilot decided at the last second he did not have enough speed to get off the ground, so he decided to lock up the wheels. We have a fencing project going on right off the end of the runway to install a new fence over the top of the HESCOs. You can see the new fence posts that were just installed in this picture. The pilot only hit three posts.

I think we have successfully tested a new aircraft arresting system. The HESCOs did a good job of stopping the airplane before it dropped over the edge. I think it will be a better arresting system when we get the fence installed.

The fence post are bent over by design, so that we don't snag any other low flying aircraft. You can see the concertina wire on the top of the HESCO barriers. We're told that about a year ago a C-130 was taking off and did not gain altitude fast enough and hooked the concertina wire with the landing gear and ended up taking it with them to Bagram. So with that history and this incident, I don't expect a very long life for this fence.
This is where the airplane was headed if our new arresting system had failed. This is pretty much a straight drop of about 40-50 feet. And, I put my life at risk to take this picture, I stepped out on the outside of the HESCOs and while taking the picture, one of the little rascals across the way decided to throw a rock at me. I was so wrapped up in getting my pictures, I didn't see the first rock that sailed over my head and hit the earthmoving equipment behind me. As my attention was drawn to the guys around me stepping back, I saw the second incoming rock as it landed at my feet. I need to get this kid's name, he'd make a heck of a baseball player with that arm.

Had quite the crowd gathered in the neighboring village to watch us pull the airplane back on to the base. This was only about half of the spectators. We also had several KPF (Khost Provincial Forces - Afghan Army) on site below, in case any of the locals decided to get rowdy.
Once we got the airplane removed, the equipment guys, Mohammadullah and crew, cleared out the old destroyed HESCOs and set the new ones in place and filled them with dirt. While they were working on the HESCOs, they set their bolt cutters down on top of the barrier. They turned away for a second and when they looked back the bolt cutters had sprouted legs and were running off towards the village. One of the kids, a future track star, snuck up and stole the bolt cutters. They hollered at him that they would send the KPF into the village and the bolt cutters decided to come back.