Cheech and Chong?

When we got to the office today we found this in the parking lot - just like this with the side door and windows open.It looked like someone camped out in the parking lot over night. We thought maybe Cheech and Chong came over for a visit.They have a high end stereo system, complete with speakers on the roof. That's a bag of grain in front of the bench seat. When I was telling someone about what was in the van, I said there was a big bag of wheat. This guy is somewhat hard of hearing anyway and he thought I said a big bad of weed, that's where we got started on the Cheech and Chong theme.

The van comes complete with the rearview mirror tassle, instead of dice, and the dashboard cloth.

We found out later in the day how the van came to be parked in front of our office. These vans are somewhat common, I guess, they are called Madrassa vans. The Madrassas used to be a good thing, they were education centers, but many have become teaching centers for the extremists. These vans are used to drive around to the mosques, using the loud speakers on the roof to broadcast their message to the public. Last night they made the mistake of broadcasting their message at the mosque right outside the main gate to the base. The Khost Provincial Forces, KPF, decided to check it out and stopped the vehicle. They detained the individuals in the vehicle and brought them to the detention center on base, which is our next door neighbor. You can't always pick your neighbors. We haven't figured out why they brought the van too.

A Win for the U.S.

This morning was a good morning, the paving contractors two employees are still in the hospital here on base. I visited them earlier this week and they are doing well. Late yesterday the contractor's project manager called to ask about bringing one of their fathers to visit. I did not get the call and remembered this morning that the hospital does not allow visitors on the weekends.

The Afghani's don't have the same understanding of weekends as we do and did not comprehend even though I told the project manager this last weekend when he wanted to visit his employees. So, I took him to the hospital and we both went in to ask. I got the answer I expected, which was no, but he can come in on Monday. So, we got a visitor pass for Monday and took it to the gate where the father was waiting.

When I saw him, he looked like what you would picture of one of the village elders. Probably not as old as he looked with his gray beard and white head dress, but old. Then I found out he had come down from Kabul to visit his son and would not be able to come back on Monday. I asked the army personnel at the gate to call the hospital and ask if they would change the date on the pass and let him visit today. Again, the answer was no.

So, I decided to go ask in person and further explain the situation. I drove back to the hospital and went in by myself this time, leaving the contractor in the vehicle. After explaining the situation and agreeing to stay with the father, myself, while he visited, they relented and agreed to let him come in. Back to the gate to pick him up and bring him to the hospital.

On the way there, the father, who does not speak or understand English, told me through the project manager, that he now knows the meaning of American humanity. Then when we got to the hospital and he had a chance to talk with his son, he told us that he now knew who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Up to this point he was not certain that the US was the good side. The Taliban tried to kill his son and the US hospital staff saved his life.

That was a pretty good feeling to hear him say that and to see him smiling and talking with his son.

The other patient, the contractor's cook, is doing very well and they are talking about sending him home tomorrow. I think he kind of likes it in the hospital as he said he was not ready to leave. He was up and walking around the ward when we got there and he came over and sat down with us while the father and son visited. He still has a long road to full recovery as they had to cut his chest bone open, horizontally (clamshell like), to repair the hole in his heart sack from the schrapnel. He will be carrying around that piece of schrapnel the rest of his life, it was too close to the heart to be removed. It'll be 6-8 weeks before the bone is healed. They call him their miracle patient.

St. Louis Cardinals

The Cardinals flag is flying in our office, they swept the Cubs this week. If you are a Cards fan, there are not many other teams you want to see them sweep as much as you do the Cubs. We have a lot of fun with baseball in the office, since the group I am here with is from the Missouri Air National Guard out of St. Louis 5 of the 7 of us are Cardinal fans. The others favor the Diamondbacks and the Royals.

Seems no matter where you go, if you are a Cardinals fan, you'll run into a Cubs fan. It's no different here in Afghanistan. We have one in the next office, a civilian contractor that works in the air traffic control tower. We have an ongoing banter with him whenever he comes into the office. Today, I had to correct him that the Cardinals are up three games in head to head games this year, not just two as he claimed. One of the Cards in the office told him he could fly the Cubs flag on our flag pole if the Cubs win more games than the Cards. Little chance of that happening.

The corn and cucumbers are growing, I think they like the heat and sun. We haven't had much for rain since I planted them, so far I've remembered to water them every day. We also rigged up a makeshift irrigation system for the corn, we extended the condensate hose on the air conditioner to get the water to the corn, works pretty good, but doesn't produce enough water for the entire patch. One of the KBR employees that works for us as a surveyor has adopted the cucumber patch. He has been working on them this week and they look like they are doing better. Maybe we'll have some corn and cucs before we leave here.
Here's another example of Afghani contractor ingenuity -

The contractor is constructing the concrete drive and awning on this building. When they installed the columns next to the building, the posts were a little too short, it didn't look like we would be able to open the doors when they were done. No problem, the contractor cut a couple pieces of 2X6 for spacers to get the needed height.

The next example I noticed this morning when I was taking a look at the contractor's work. They were supposed to attach the side X braces with lag bolts. When I looked closely the contractor had pounded the lag bolts into the wood. The head of the bolt was flattened and driven into the wood. One of the army mechanics in the building came out to talk to me and confirmed it, they installed the lag bolts with a sledge hammer. If you don't have a wrench, no problem, just drive them in like a big nail.

Other than these "minor" touch ups, the contractor has done a nice job on this project. Just needs to follow the drawings and specs a little closer. We have been taking a closer look at the projects this week as we had a bad failure earlier this week. A wind storm came in on Monday afternoon and took down a structure that was under construction by the airfield passenger terminal. There were a couple people injured by the structure when it collapsed. It appears it failed due to some of these "acts of ingenuity" that the contractor took on this one, not building it exactly as designed.

Happy Anniversary

This post is for Amy - today is our 26th wedding anniversary. She didn't know what she was in for 26 years ago, three great kids, a 24 year military career and now 7 months being separated by thousands of miles.

She has the tougher job being at home taking care of those great kids, even when they are not so great. Keeping track of everything they have going on, working, and keeping the house together. My job is easy compared to that, the military takes care of all my basic needs. I only have to worry about myself, and sometimes the others on our team.

Happy Anniversary!! I love you and miss you.

Here are some "then and now" or "before and after" pictures -

We have aged pretty well - except for my hair.

Before kids -

After kids.
Love you, I'll be home soon.

Night and Day

Last night (Tuesday) at about 9:30 the helicopters were out shooting'em up. They were shooting into or on the other side of the mountains to the north of the base. The first video is the night time fire, the little red dots are the tracer rounds, you can see some of them ricochet off the ground.



We woke up to the same sound this morning at 5:00. The helicopters were at it again. Don't know if this was a live target or just practice runs. Maybe they wanted to finish off what they missed in the dark last night. If it was not a live target and only target practice, you would think they could wait until I was up and going in the morning. It's tough to get back to sleep when you know it's daylight out side. Found out at dinner tonight it's just target practice.

I need some help from those of you that are country music fans. We have another concert coming to the base, but I haven't found any one that knows who the band is. It is Matt Poss - Guitar Slingin' Man and Rolling Thunder on their Stan Tour, any ideas who he is? I looked him up on the internet and I still don't have a clue. At least I had heard of Toby Keith. Anyway, his visit is appreciated, I saw his schedule today and it includes 5 or 6 bases/concerts in a 3-4 day period.

Can't think of a title for this one

I couldn't come up with a title for this one.

Not much happening this past week, the contractors are just getting back to work today (Sunday). Only about half are back to work. Math class is over, final grades are submitted, I'll have a couple extra hours in my day for the next two weeks.

This video is from my trip to Chapman the first of last week. They were pouring a concrete culvert and the wooden forms did not hold up. They came up with the idea to use the excavator/backhoe to pull the form back into place. It worked pretty well, I thought this video was fun because of all the direction the excavator operator was getting from the crew.

This video is of the mosque which was just outside the base, Chapman. It was about noon and I caught the tail end of the call to prayer. This will give you the idea of what it sounds like, the call lasts about 30-45 seconds. There is a call to prayer several times a day.

Some pictures from Chapman. It is home to the PRT, Provincial Reconstruction Team. They travel around the province helping the locals complete school projects and other government building projects, like paving roads, improving government buildings, etc. The main building, offices for the PRT. View from one of the tower/bunkers.
Some of them aren't exactly busy all the time and they have time to do stuff like this in the middle of the day. You might have to zoom in or enlarge the picture to see it, but look on top of the metal conexes in the middle of the picture. I didn't want to get too close when taking the picture, didn't want to disturb him.

I included this last picture as proof to how hot it is getting here. The thermometer hit 110 F yesterday. I don't think it was actually that warm, the thermometer is on the porch which has direct sun in the afternoon. I think the porch holds the heat in, the actual temperature was probably closer to 100 F. Good weather for my sweet corn though, it's growing everyday.

Afghani Contractors Are "Heros" Too

I usually like to keep my postings light hearted and funny (at least I think they are funny), but I can't come up with a way to do that with this posting. A lot of material for the postings comes from the local national contractors on base. Yesterday, there was an incident that reminded me that these contractors are risking their lives the same as we are, maybe even more so. Their lives and their families are threatened every day by the Taliban, just because they are working for the US on the base. They have to be cautious when they leave the base at night and when they come to work in the morning. Yesterday morning was one of those days.

At about 7:30, the Taliban set off a car bomb in the local national parking lot right outside the base. Some of you may have seen something about it on the news, it briefly made the headline stories on Yahoo and Google (my main sources of news over here). Until the news went back to the Afghan civilians killed by the US airstrike. The initial reports said 7 local nationals killed in the explosion and 21 injured. A couple US soldiers were slightly injured at the front gate when they were knocked over by the concussion from the blast.

The paving contractor's employees were just arriving to go to work on base when the explosion occurred. One of their employees was killed in the blast and 16 others were injured, two severely. The employee that was killed was an older gentlemen, and like all of the contractors, a very nice person, always waved or shook my hand when I was on the job site. I went to the hospital, on base, yesterday morning to check on those that were injured. I found the paving foreman and he had many cuts and bruises, but in good shape, considering he just survived a car bomb. He wanted to find his workers, so I walked with him around the hospital trying to find them. It was pretty hectic, but we got a list of names of those the hospital was able to identify. He helped us by identifying a couple of the patients that had no form of identification. Many of the injured were sent home yesterday, but four of the paving employees were in over night, two will be in the hospital for weeks.

This morning the paving contractor's manager called me asking me to help locate the cook. He is a younger guy (21) and his mother was at the office trying to find him. She had not heard from him and he had not come home last night. I told him there were still a couple patients that were not identified at the hospital and that I would go check. I checked and this morning they had names for all the patients. I told him that, but he said the family still wanted to come out to the base to check.

This afternoon, I signed the cook's brother onto the base and took him to the hospital. We checked and they told us there were no patients by his name. We asked if he could just walk through the ward and look at the patients. When we walked in, I could tell by the look on the brother's face that the first patient we came to was his brother. The hospital had the wrong name on his chart. He had been unconcious since coming in and someone told them the wrong name. He had been through surgery today, he had a piece of shrapnel that had punctured his heart sack, he was lucky (and not so lucky). It looks like he will be OK, but will be spending some time in the hospital. He opened his eyes when he heard his brother and was able to shake his head when his brother asked him questions.

This was a very good ending to a dismal day for me. I decided to post this story because the locals that work on the base are putting their life on the line and there is not much news at home about the work of the Taliban and the support we get from the locals. Also, not much is said about the work the US military hospitals do to save the lives of Afghani's injured, both the enemy and innocent civilians. But, we do hear plenty about the civilian casualties "caused" by the US military. I'm sure we have saved more lives than we have taken.

Here are some pictures, taken today, of the local national parking lot.

I think the pile of wood is the shack for the parking lot attendant.

The next posting will back to my usual style, at least I hope there won't be more like this to write about.

Outside the Wire

I broke rule #1 of being a fobbette Monday, I left the base, went "outside the wire". I had the opportunity to go on a convoy to another nearby base. It was a twenty minute ride and I got to see something other than the confines of FOB Salerno. We provide concrete to the other base and they have been trying to get a concrete culvert constructed since we have been here. So, it's a convoy of 4 MRAPs and 2 concrete trucks.

Here I am before we left the base, looking tough, yes the gun is loaded, with more than one bullet. I rode in the MRAP directly behind me in the picture. I took the pictures below out the back window. You'll see from the video at the end of this blog, that it was a bumpy ride, the suspension in the vehicles is about like sitting over the back wheels on the school bus.

This picture is an Afghanistan Quik Trip. I saw three of these along the way.

Everyone's homes along the way are walled and gated. Some of the gates are pretty ornate. As we drive by the kids come running to the edge of the road. I guess the gunners will some times throw them candy, bottled water, etc. Kind of like a parade at home.

Everything is tight to the road, no clear zone (safety zone) along the road here.

Not sure what this is but I thought it looked kind of neat as we drove by, so I took the picture.

We had one bridge to cross along the route, it was a pretty deep canyon, with little or no water. Below is a video of part of the trip, it ends at the bridge crossing. Notice the guy in the sand bag tower along the road. His one and only job is to make sure no one plants a bomb under that bridge and tries to blow it up. Also, in the video you can see how all the vehicles along the road, cars, trucks, scooters, bikes, have to pull to the side of the road and stop until the convoy passes. Everyone seems to know the rules and complies, those who don't get stopped another way.

In my next blog, I'll put in some pictures and video of the base I visited and the concrete pour, it was entertaining.

The Smell of Summer

With the rising temperatures, we are experiencing the smells of Afghanistan. We have quickly learned that the Afghan personal hygiene is not the same as ours. As it has gotten warmer out we have found that we can not stand as close to some of the Afghan contractors as we used to. It's become apparent that deodorant is not a big seller over here. I had another reminder this morning in the DFAC as I was reaching into the cooler for my milk carton. There was an Afghan employee restocking the cooler and I got more than I bargained for as I grabbed my milk. The smell was almost enough to ruin my breakfast.

The winner of the this contest happens to be one of my contractors and has earned him the nickname of "Stinky". It's almost bad enough that we know he's coming before he gets into our office. And, we keep air freshener close at hand around the office, to clear the air after he leaves. A few weeks ago a couple of us gave him a ride out to the gate to check on something. He rode in the back seat and we had all the windows open and both of us still felt like we needed to stick our heads out the windows as we were driving down the road. It can also be quite the ordeal when they want a picture with you and then they decide to put their arm around you for the picture.

Not all Afghani's adhere to this practice of no deodorant, but many do. I find it interesting that they go days without doing something about the smell, but they will wash their feet and hands before praying every time, which is 4 or 5 times a day. They do this so that they will be "clean" for the prayers.

Smelling of a different kind. The pictures below are of one of the dogs that we have on the base. There are several dogs in the military here, this dog is a bomb sniffing dog. We have the dog handlers bring the dogs out to sniff all of the gravel coming on base. It has to be dumped outside the main base in a controlled area and then sniffed by the dogs before it can be loaded onto trucks to come on the base. The contractor's have to plan ahead for delivery of the materials as it takes a little longer to get them on base.

Saw my first big (bigger) lizard yesterday. They can be hiding anywhere. This guy was in a stack of sand bags on one of the bunkers. We found him when one of the local national interpretors came running out into the road in a panic. He ran into the road and flagged us down. He had put his bathroom stuff on top of the bunker while he went into the port-a-john. When he came out and reached for his stuff, the lizard hissed at him and the interpretor took off towards the road thinking it was a snake. We had some fun with him after we found out it was a lizard and not a snake. In his defense, at first you could not see the lizard's leg like you can in the picture and all he saw was a long tongue flicking out of the sandbags and he could hear the hiss.

Plenty of Room on the Truck

On Saturday we borrowed some picnic tables for a AF barbecue, well not really a barbecue. Just a chance to eat a meal somewhere besides the DFAC, outside our office, and a chance for the AF personnel on base (less than 100) to get together. All the food was precooked by the DFAC, all that was needed was picnic tables. Afterwards we were looking for a way to return the tables. One of the local engineers flagged down one of the contractor's trucks as they drove by. He stopped and loaded up the tables in the back of the truck. After the second table was put into the truck we suggested they make a second trip. But, they had other plans, even in Pashto, I knew what the driver was saying. "Nonsense, we can make it fit and my friend here can sit on the table to make sure it does not fall out." They were right, see the pictures below.

At the end of the day on Saturday, I stopped by the paving job to see how things were going. I got there just as the crew was wrapping up. The tractor and water trailer/sprayer was just finishing up and heading back to the plant. As usual, the labor crew does not like to walk, so a group of them jumped on the tractor and water trailer. I pulled my camera out in time to get this picture.

After seeing my camera the contractor's project manager requested a picture of me with him. As they were about to take the picture, two of his workers tried to join in. The project manager walked away, he just wanted a picture of the two of us. The other two guys then walked away and would not come back for a picture. So, we took this picture, notice one of the laborers snuck back into the picture as it was being taken.

After taking the picture the contractor's surveyor wanted his picture with me. He was a little more friendly. This is not uncommon among Afghan men, to see them with their arms around each other or walking down the road holding hands. At least he didn't try to hold my hand. Can you imagine seeing American road contractors walking hand in hand? Notice the guy in the back ground again, it's the same guy, he really wanted to be in the pictures.

Half Marathon Relay

Today we ran in the Indy 500 Festival Mini-Marathon (relay). The Indiana Guard unit sponsored the remote version at Salerno of this mini-marathon event. They claim this event has the most participation of any mini-marathon, that includes those of us in Afghanistan and Iraq that participate. Below is the team, before the race, all smiles, glad to be up early in the morning and ready to conquer the 13.1 miles. When we signed up we thought there were age brackets for the relay event, but that was only for the individual race. For the relay teams, no age brackets. We had already formed our team so this group of 40 somethings decided to take on all the young army and air force teams. We did pretty good at it too, finishing third. And, before you come up with the idea that there might only have been three teams, count the number of runners at the start line in the picture below.

There were twelve teams in the race, so not bad for some old air force engineers. Guess the last three months of time in the gym paid off. Yes that is my bald head, second from the right, in case you were having trouble finding me. I was checking out my watch to make sure the stop watch started so I could keep track of how slow I was running. This picture is prior to the race, still joking around in anticipation of the race.

We were beat by an army team and an air force team. Below is the air force team that beat us, I think the oldest one is 30. We have filed an appeal on the first and second place teams, they should be disqualified, making us the winners. The army team's first runner dropped out at about the 3 mile point, he must have eaten breakfast before the race. I did not look as I passed him, but he was doubled over. That was the only way I was going to catch him. Their #3 runner jumped in and finished the 4-mile leg. So, they should be DQ'd for running out of order. The air force team was so far ahead on the second leg, their runner missed a turn and ran off the course, no one to follow, running through the gravel pit, but around the hill the rest of us had to climb. I don't think it was any shorter and it may have been harder as it was off road. So, they should be DQ'd for leaving the course. Just kidding, we did not really file the appeal, but we had a lot of fun with them over it.

And, in case you don't believe me about our 3rd place finish, here we are accepting the third place certificate. Yes, we did fire the photographer for taking such a lousy picture, he could have stepped in front of the official photographer (the head of black hair) and waited for the presenter to get out of the way. The stats for our race - I ran the 4 mile leg in about 32 minutes and the other 3 ran the rest of the 13.1 miles (3, 3, and 3.1 miles) in 1 hour and 14 minutes for a total time of 1 hour 46 minutes. We felt pretty good about that time until we heard the winning times for the individual racers, several of them were faster than our time.

In case you are wondering why I am in uniform and the rest of the team is still in their PT uniform, or if you're thinking I did not run, there are a couple explanations. I ran first so I had time to go back to the room and shower before the others finished the race. Or, maybe because I spilled the gatorade, I tried to drink while running, all over the front of my shirt and decided to change for the picture. The real reason, we finished the race before 9:30 and the awards ceremony was not until noon after the individual race and there is no hat to wear with the PT uniform and I needed to protect my bald head from the hot Afghanistan sun.