Friday, December 5, 2008 2330 hrs.
Yeah, Cheena got shot the other day. Unfortunately for her it was probably entirely too easy for the bastard that did it because of the fact that she had no fear of man. She probably walked with the fucker while he took her out to do it.
I can't say anything about it either because Army regulations state some shit about we can't have any kind of mascots or animals on military installations in a combat zone. Kind of funny how a little bit of ink on a piece of paper can hurt so badly.
What is really unfortunate is the fact that I cannot really voice my true opinions on the subject because if the wrong person reads this I could get myself into some hot water with good ole' Uncle Sam because we aren't allowed to say what we actually think of those appointed over us. Disrespect and all that shit. Well at least when this is over I'll be able to write everything that I really wanted to say to, and about these people.
So don't send any stuff for Cheena because she doesn't need it anymore.
It never ceases to amaze me just how attached you can become to an animal, and it never ceases to amaze me just how little time it takes to get that way.
Well if we're all lucky she is somewhere better...
Shit, she's not here and anything is better than this.
Suffice it to say I have been, and will be pissed off for quite a while about this one.
And my mood has definitely colored my views on this place and this war. Well so be it, I have always been a moody person. Just ask my ex-wife.
Looking out over this whole thing, and what we are doing here it just seems like it has degenerated into a big game of "hold what you got". I mean there is always shit going on here where some General looks at his maps and intel reports and gets all the briefings and all the other shit and decides that he thinks he knows where these guys are and there is some operation, or offensive or whatever you want to call it, and it goes off and there are a lot of explosions and bullets flying this way and that, and in the end nothing really changed. Nothing has really been accomplished.
I don't know what would make this place better but something has got to give sooner or later.
Let me ask you a question, as a westerner, could you imagine your life without school?
Could you even fathom a life lived without the benefit of words and literacy? I sure as shit can't imagine, nor would I want to live a life devoid of learning.
I wonder why the U.S. hasn't placed a school at every base we have in this country. Put one in, get the teachers in here and guard the schools with American soldiers. Make sure that these assholes can't roll up on their motorcycles and throw acid on the girl’s faces.
Offer a free public education to all the people of Afghanistan. If they want to come in and learn they can, and we will make sure that no one hurts you as you learn.
Q: Hey, how you going to pay for it?
A: Pull every dollar of foreign aid from Pakistan and tell them to kiss our ass the Afghani's need to learn to read.
Now you couldn't force an education onto these people. They don't respond well to being told what to do. But make it available to anyone that wants an education.
Why should we pay to educate these people? Simple, the guns and the bombs and the helicopters and the soldiers and all of the other shit will never be able to break their will to fight. And who says that we do want to break their will. These people have proven over and over again throughout history that they don't give a fuck how big you are, or how many guns you've got or how many planes, and helicopters you can throw at them.
However, you give them an education, and you start to change their minds. We always hear that bullshit about winning hearts and minds, and then they put a sign up that says soldiers shouldn't give things to the locals. Well fuck you. If I got a bag of skittles and some 10-year-old kid wants it I am going to give it to him. Court martial me, it'll be fun.
But how about winning the minds by altering the minds. I am not talking about brain washing. Respect their religion and their culture but show them what is out there. My education is easily the most important thing I have ever done (for myself) in my life. It has opened doors that I wouldn't have ever known were there without it. It showed me the depth of the human condition. My education taught me tolerance of others. It taught me to always fight for the underdog. (I take that back, that was my mom) It showed me the beauty that the world has to offer. It opened my eyes to such a myriad of things I couldn't even begin to list them all. It is one of the most valuable things that I have.
And it filled my life from the ages of 4 or 5 until I was 28 and managed to finally graduate from college. I couldn't even begin to imagine my life without it.
These people don't even have the opportunity to go. I mean it isn't even an option. They have no choice. They don't even know any better.
But think of what could happen if you educated a few thousand Afghanis’. You would have people who could think for themselves and decide how they want to live. Decide how they want to worship, how they want to think, and how they want to act. Right now all they have is what is dictated to them by archaic religious notions from 2000 years ago.
Open up the world to them. Right now all they see or know of the world is an endless succession of powerful foreigners who show up in their country and build bases and blow shit up and shoot people. If I were them I wouldn't want much of anything to do with us either. I would actually want to kick a little ass.
Instead of doing all of that, show them what the world really has to offer. Teach them to read and open up the world of literature. Teach them to write and they can spread ideas, debate and improve those ideas and therefore improve themselves and their nation. Teach them arithmetic and they will be able to set up a real monetary system that has some substance to it. Teach them history and they will be able to learn from the mistakes and successes of previous generations. Teach them, so that they can discern between a good idea and a bad one. Teach them, so that they can discern between a benevolent leader and a malevolent one. Teach them, so that they can build a life for themselves, their families and all the future generations of this country.
Would this take a while? Hell yeah, it would probably take a couple generations. A good 40 years or so. But it would be a real change here, from the inside out. Instead of the forced change brought by military force. I mean what was the mission here? To find and destroy all those who would support or perpetuate terrorism. At least that's what I think it was. Well why not change the society so that terrorism can't take root or grow here anymore.
Of course you aren't going to get the old farts, but the children you could get them. And as those children grow and mature and have children of their own they will want all the more for their future generations and hopefully, they would leave all this shit behind. Terrorists would not only have Americans to deal with, but they would also have the children of this nation to contend with.
The greatest tool that any despot or tyrannical regime or religious zealot ideology or terrorist organization has is the ignorance of those being oppressed or co-opted. If they don't know any better why would they stand and fight?
How do you fight ignorance? Education. Simple, not an easy solution or whatever, but it is simple.
I say we give it a shot. Put a school in every one of these provinces, cities, and villages. Stock them to the brim with books. Bring the teachers in. Let KBR, or Halliburton, or Blackwater, or who the fuck ever have the contract so they can make a zillion bucks off this shit. Build the schools, guard them with American soldiers, and educate this nation. Hell, they could make the schools a mission for the soldiers. Have a patrol go out in the morning with a bus and pick up everyone who wants to go to school, maybe even give them a few bucks a month to go to school. I mean the Army bribes its soldiers with education benefits to get them to enlist and fight, why not pay people to go to school? Then have the patrol bring the people back after school is over with.
I don't know, maybe I am just letting hopefulness get the better of me. Maybe I am just naive. But what we have been doing hasn't quite had the effect we were looking for, so maybe its time for trying something new. I say we put that whole, "pen is mightier than the sword" theory to the test.
Who knows? I sure as hell don't, but it’s an idea and we all know a good idea can change the world, but a bad one can destroy it.
Ahh, now my head hurts, something funny better happen tomorrow or I am really going to be pissed. Its time for bed.
Goodbye, Cheena it was fun while it lasted.
Later,
I love you mom...and thanks for teaching me to read.
Dec 3, 2008
Another Sunset Over The Barrel Of A Gun...
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 1204 hrs.
Well its been a bit since the last time I wrote. Why? Because we have been stuck on 96 hours of guard duty for about 56 hours now. Only about 40 to go. If we aren't in the towers then we are down as the reactionary force if something happens. Loads of fun for me. I can't even take off my uniform to sleep. But whatever, its the Army.
Now lately, I have been feeding the Taliban tiger. Some of you nice folks out there were kind enough to send us some little cans of tuna. So I figured that I would make nice with the beast and see if I couldn't make a new friend. Needless to say, a little bit of tuna goes a long way...with a cat.
So anyways, what has happened that makes me laugh. Well its a bit disgusting, but it was hilarious. So be warned. We got stuck up in a tower again, and the neighborhood kids are learning that we will give them stuff so they are coming around more and more. Last night a couple of these little shits showed up outside the wire near the tower and started asking for stuff. So we launched a few muffins, bags of candy, and a couple of bottles of water out to them.
Well apparently we have been spoiling these little guys, because they took one look at the water and set it on the ground and stomped on it. We were like, "What the fuck?" To which these ankle biters responded, angrily, "Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola!" Now they are actually coming up to the towers with shopping lists. So we sent a few cans of that out there to them. Now we didn't try to hit them with the cans, I mean we tried to tell them to get the hell out of the way so that they could just pick up the cans off the ground. But they were having none of it. They all ran to catch the cans like a herd of single girls at a wedding fighting over the bouquet. And of course since there were like 10 of them all trying to catch these cans at once they couldn't do it, so yeah, a few of them got tattooed by them. But hey, we warned them.
Next, they decided to push their luck. They started talking to us in Afghani, and apparently children think that distance and volume will change the fact that I don't understand your language. So they are talking to us in Pashtu or Dari or whatever it is, and we look at them with the blank stare of a stripper trying to comprehend calculus. Well when they realized that we had no idea what they were talking about they moved right up to the wall and at the top of their lungs started yelling at us. I don't know, but it sounded an awful lot like the teacher from "Peanuts".
Finally they realized that we were not going to understand what they wanted unless they figured out another way of telling us. So they started pretending that they were washing themselves. So we, being the astute observers that we are, understood that they wanted soap. So we started yelling out to them, SOAP?. They looked at each other and then looked to the oldest amongst them, and he nodded, at which time they all started yelling in unison and jumping up and down, SOAP, SOAP, SOAP. Well who the hell carries soap with them to guard duty. I mean we had hand sanitizer but we needed that. So we told them, "tomorrow". Which royally pissed them off. And then they responded to what I can only assume they perceived as a slight. They looked to the oldest one again and he said something to them. At which time they all lined up, yelled "TOMORROW" at us, and proceeded to drop their drawers and start to wag their little tally whackers at us! Yeah, that's what they did.
So you have two heavily armed GI's in a tower staring out at 10 midgets who are now swearing at us in Pashtu, and shaking their pocket rockets at us. Suffice it to say, I didn't get off the ground for about 15 minutes from laughing so damn hard. I can only imagine what that sight would look like to a party who had no idea what was going on.
Finally, we got it across to them that they should come back tomorrow and we would give them soap. Now I was planning on giving them some liquid soap, but no more. Now they are getting the eight bars of Irish spring my buddy Paulie sent me in a care package. Projectile cleanliness you little shits. Watch yourself junior, you flash me and I am going to bean you with a bar o' soap. I think I'll bring my slingshot with tonight. I'll tell you how that works out tomorrow.
Alright, enough of the nasty stuff. After all that entertainment we settled in for what would become an exceedingly long shift. Now normally, being stuck in a tower looking out over the landscape in a country where there are people you know are trying to kill you, is a maddening job. First, its incredibly boring looking at the same thing over and over again. Second, its incredibly hard to keep your guns up for that long and do a good job of watching. But every time something moves, or you hear a sound, your awareness rises to levels I haven't felt in a long time. You tune in to everything. You hear everything, you see everything, your eyes narrow, your ears come flying wide open, your brain loses all superfluous activity and concentrates completely on everything in front of you. Your palms start to sweat, you lean forward on your haunches and your eyes start to dart from side to side and up and down. Your forehead scrunches up so hard that you start to get a headache, and then you hold that until you are satisfied that it was nothing. That is about the only way I can describe what happens to you up in those damn towers.
But then they went and made the shit worse. Who made it worse? The damn NCO's and the intel people. Someone told someone else, who told a "terp" that the Taliban were going to take a shot at us last night. So eventually the information filtered through about 900 people and the wonderful Army game of telephone began. Every person who gets a piece of information puts their own spin on it, and some of these dickbags go so far as to exaggerate, and even add a little bit of their own "intel" and then send it on. So by the time it gets to me (the guy who is actually going to have to fight with whatever it is) it has gone from something fairly minor, to something completely different. For example: Say there was reliable intel that said we were going to receive mortar fire during the night. Not that mortar fire isn't a big deal, but the Taliban can't shoot these things that well around here. They usually launch a few at us that fall harmlessly to the ground. They explode, everyone has a movement and we get on with our day. After we send a few back that because of superior technology fall right on the fucking heads.
However, when that piece of intel goes through the "telephone" by the time it gets to us. Mortar fire has become, a battalion of Afghani Arnold Schwarzenegger's are teleporting themselves into our barracks rooms with nuclear suicide bombs and will annihilate everyone and everything for 100 miles.
I mean, its not that bad, but you get the idea. So then that raises your awareness even higher. To the point where you won't even blink until your eyes feel like they are on fire.
So then I spent the rest of the night like that...and of course not a damn thing happened.
But it wasn't completely lost, I got to watch the sunset, but I had to watch it over the barrel of a gun.
First thing when I get home. I am watching the sunset without any of that shit around me.
Anyways, I am done for now.
Later,
I love you mom...
Nov 27, 2008
Spiderman Sheets, Burning Playstations, And Turkey Dinner...
Thursday, November 27, 1735 hrs.
So it is Thanksgiving here in beautiful, sunny AssCrackIstan. And it really is sunny. It was unseasonably warm today. Probably somewhere around 65 degrees and given the temperatures we have been dealing with for the past few weeks it felt like summertime around here.
We got up this morning. Our first full day as the mission platoon. Basically that means that we are the guys who have to do all the work while the other platoon housesits, err guards the FOB. I guess since it is Thanksgiving the commander decided to give us the day off. However, our platoon sergeant didn't quite see it that way. Now something that anyone who has been in the military for more than a day or two will tell you is this, when they have nothing for you to do, they have no qualms about making it up.
So he decided to have us clean out the platoon conexes. Conexes are basically nothing more than the trailers of semi-trucks that are pulled off their wheels and set on the ground. And the military tends to fill them with shit. So we headed out there at 0900 this morning and started cleaning. Now let me tell you what conexes become after a while, they become the catch all for everything that nobody knows what the hell to do with but they don't want to throw away.
We found a shit ton of office supplies, kitchen supplies, weapons, and ammunition. Yeah that's right weapons and ammunition, we even found three Sony Playstations that look like they have seen more combat than John Wayne. I could've sworn that weapons and ammunition is stuff that the military wants you to keep track of.
Then we had to get rid of all the excess shit that we can't use. How do you get rid of things in AssCrackIstan? Fire it up! Find yourself a 55-gallon drum, drop a few pieces of paper and kindling into the bottom, along with a bit of lighter fluid and you've got yourself a military issue garbage disposal. Don't worry we didn't throw the ammunition into the fire, even though we wanted to. But everything else, into the fire you go.
Playstations, markers, paper, plastic and whatever else we got that we didn't want to throw into the regular trash because we didn't want the locals giving the shit to the Taliban and them making a bomb out of it. Which is one of the things that I wonder about how I will deal with it when I get home. Its gotten to the point where before I throw anything into the trash I think to myself, "Could you make a bomb out of this?" And if I think someone could, I burn it as opposed to throwing it away. I do this automatically, kind of like breathing. I'll probably get a burn pit going in my back yard when I get home. Good God I hope not.
Moving on, I got a couple of more care packages from home. Comfort items really. I got a couple cartons of cigarettes and candy but then the mom dropped the mother load on me. She sent two pillows, you know the fluffy kind that kind of envelop your head when you lay on them, which is fantastic, and she sent sheets for my bed. What kind of sheets did she send me? SPIDERMAN SHEETS! yeah that's right. I am 30 years old and the mom sent me Spiderman sheets for my bed. Needless to say I had an absolute blast showing them to everyone. I haven't had bad feedback on them yet. I don't know, maybe I should give some thought to raising my maturity level just a tad...
Nah, that's no fun. Now after all of that it was 1400 and dinnertime baby. We got it all. Turkey, Ham, corn, stuffing, green beans, biscuits, bread, gravy, and spice cake. It was beautiful. I am looking at my watch right now which is set to local time, its 1755, and my computer's clock is set to the time back home and it is 0725. So in about 7 hours or so the whole family back home is going to gather at my cousin's house and eat all this same stuff. Only real difference is the TLC that goes into the food at home. I can see my mom running around the kitchen arguing with my aunt. I see my brother making fun of everyone there for being old. I see my cousin sitting contentedly in his chair with his skullet. (Bald guy w/ a mullet) I see everyone falling asleep watching football while my mom and my aunt clean everything up. (I should probably help them next time) I see turkey sandwiches with miracle whip and cheese. I see my brother and I drinking entirely too much beer and putting on a performance for the whole family until everyone's cheeks hurt. Then I see my mother yelling at us for drinking too much, but all the while laughing her ass off as we make fun of her for talking to a trashcan. (I'll tell you that story later) Ahh, Its only on the holidays that the homesickness sets in.
It's real simple folks; you never know just how much you've got to be thankful for until you haven't got it. I've got a whole lot to be thankful for.
Later,
I love you mom...
So it is Thanksgiving here in beautiful, sunny AssCrackIstan. And it really is sunny. It was unseasonably warm today. Probably somewhere around 65 degrees and given the temperatures we have been dealing with for the past few weeks it felt like summertime around here.
We got up this morning. Our first full day as the mission platoon. Basically that means that we are the guys who have to do all the work while the other platoon housesits, err guards the FOB. I guess since it is Thanksgiving the commander decided to give us the day off. However, our platoon sergeant didn't quite see it that way. Now something that anyone who has been in the military for more than a day or two will tell you is this, when they have nothing for you to do, they have no qualms about making it up.
So he decided to have us clean out the platoon conexes. Conexes are basically nothing more than the trailers of semi-trucks that are pulled off their wheels and set on the ground. And the military tends to fill them with shit. So we headed out there at 0900 this morning and started cleaning. Now let me tell you what conexes become after a while, they become the catch all for everything that nobody knows what the hell to do with but they don't want to throw away.
We found a shit ton of office supplies, kitchen supplies, weapons, and ammunition. Yeah that's right weapons and ammunition, we even found three Sony Playstations that look like they have seen more combat than John Wayne. I could've sworn that weapons and ammunition is stuff that the military wants you to keep track of.
Then we had to get rid of all the excess shit that we can't use. How do you get rid of things in AssCrackIstan? Fire it up! Find yourself a 55-gallon drum, drop a few pieces of paper and kindling into the bottom, along with a bit of lighter fluid and you've got yourself a military issue garbage disposal. Don't worry we didn't throw the ammunition into the fire, even though we wanted to. But everything else, into the fire you go.
Playstations, markers, paper, plastic and whatever else we got that we didn't want to throw into the regular trash because we didn't want the locals giving the shit to the Taliban and them making a bomb out of it. Which is one of the things that I wonder about how I will deal with it when I get home. Its gotten to the point where before I throw anything into the trash I think to myself, "Could you make a bomb out of this?" And if I think someone could, I burn it as opposed to throwing it away. I do this automatically, kind of like breathing. I'll probably get a burn pit going in my back yard when I get home. Good God I hope not.
Moving on, I got a couple of more care packages from home. Comfort items really. I got a couple cartons of cigarettes and candy but then the mom dropped the mother load on me. She sent two pillows, you know the fluffy kind that kind of envelop your head when you lay on them, which is fantastic, and she sent sheets for my bed. What kind of sheets did she send me? SPIDERMAN SHEETS! yeah that's right. I am 30 years old and the mom sent me Spiderman sheets for my bed. Needless to say I had an absolute blast showing them to everyone. I haven't had bad feedback on them yet. I don't know, maybe I should give some thought to raising my maturity level just a tad...
Nah, that's no fun. Now after all of that it was 1400 and dinnertime baby. We got it all. Turkey, Ham, corn, stuffing, green beans, biscuits, bread, gravy, and spice cake. It was beautiful. I am looking at my watch right now which is set to local time, its 1755, and my computer's clock is set to the time back home and it is 0725. So in about 7 hours or so the whole family back home is going to gather at my cousin's house and eat all this same stuff. Only real difference is the TLC that goes into the food at home. I can see my mom running around the kitchen arguing with my aunt. I see my brother making fun of everyone there for being old. I see my cousin sitting contentedly in his chair with his skullet. (Bald guy w/ a mullet) I see everyone falling asleep watching football while my mom and my aunt clean everything up. (I should probably help them next time) I see turkey sandwiches with miracle whip and cheese. I see my brother and I drinking entirely too much beer and putting on a performance for the whole family until everyone's cheeks hurt. Then I see my mother yelling at us for drinking too much, but all the while laughing her ass off as we make fun of her for talking to a trashcan. (I'll tell you that story later) Ahh, Its only on the holidays that the homesickness sets in.
It's real simple folks; you never know just how much you've got to be thankful for until you haven't got it. I've got a whole lot to be thankful for.
Later,
I love you mom...
Nov 24, 2008
Herding Ferrets, And I Have Underwear Now...
Monday, November 24, 2008 1453 hrs.
Two things happened today. First thing in the morning we had another airdrop of water and supplies. Fun for me given the fact that I just got off the towers and had to move directly into gunning for this mission. Always good to be behind a fully automatic weapon with no sleep. So it goes.
Luckily for us, this airdrop was actually on time. I have a feeling that the Air Force takes its cues from O'Hare and really doesn't concern itself that much with time and deadlines and little inconveniences like that. Miraculously, they were not only on time today, they were early.
Which threw everyone off. So we ran out there and cordoned off the area and waited for the boxes to begin falling from the sky. And it did. Only real problem was it also seemed like Afghani children were falling from the sky as well. Hundreds of them. It was amazing. I didn't know that there were that many kids in the area. I sure as hell have not seen that many people in one place around here. So trying to keep all these little ankle biters outside the perimeter was a chore to say the least. They all wanted something. Some wanted candy, some wanted water, some wanted the cardboard, some wanted the wood, but they all were after something. I think a few of them just wanted to see what these new soldiers were all about. Bikes, motorcycles, of foot, in trucks, on camelback, on horseback, pulled by carriages, any means of conveyance you could think of they used it to get out there.
You would yell at one, or one group, "Wa Za, Wa Za" which apparently means "go away" or something like that. And as soon as you turned to look and yell at them a group on the other side would try to sneak by you. The best part was is that after a few times of doing that, like all children, these little shits started to think it was a game. I am not exaggerating when I say that it was like herding ferrets.
Needless to say our commander who was watching this whole debacle was not pleased. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when we got back and he grabbed the LT's and senior NCO's and dragged them into a room and gave them a rather stern talking to. But really what the hell did he want us to do. Everyone knew that we weren't going to hurt these kids. They knew it, their parents knew it, and we knew it. So really how the hell could we have kept them back. I did think it was pretty funny when one of these kids started actually fucking with my team leader. Every time he would say in Afghani "Get back", the kid would parrot him. Then the boss man started yelling at him in English, and the kid would listen intently and whatever he said the kid would repeat it right back to him. Then the kid started to mirror everything "Wheelchair 2" did. Which if you have ever seen a kid about 8 or so, doing this to an adult and the adult trying to trip them up, its absolutely hilarious.
(Explanation: My team leader is one of the older gentlemen in my platoon. He is the second oldest guy in the platoon. So we refer to the 3 oldest guys by the call sign of Wheelchairs 1 thru 3)
I got a hell of a belly laugh out of the whole deal. Finally the ANP's started to help us get all these people into some semblance of order. How did they do that? Well they chased all these kids around the desert with their trucks. Not really trying to hit anyone, just trying to get them back away from where we were working.
The only real worry I have is that because the people know that we will not hurt these kids and what not, I just hope the Taliban pricks don't try and use that to their advantage. We'll just have to do a better job next time.
Made my day though when we were pulling security and one of these little Afghan kids goes skipping by and I tossed Wheelchair 2 a bag of cookies to give to the kid. He gave them to him and the little man started looking at them like he didn't know what they were. So I kind of made the motion of raising the bag to your mouth, biting it and ripping it open. The kid did it. Then he looked back at me for what he should do now, so I pretended to reach into a bag and pull a cookie out and eat it, so he did the same. He bit into the cookie and his face light up like Christmas tree. I couldn't help but feel bad for the kid, but I did get a warm and fuzzy inside. What a world we live in, when some have so much and others are happy as hell to get a bag of cookies. But I am not going down that depressing ass road again today.
Moving on, we brought all this stuff back and unloaded it. Yet while were unloading it we saw about 5 incoming helicopters. What could they be carrying? That’s right ladies and gentlemen they were carrying all of our bags that got left behind when we came down here. OH HAPPY DAY! I am going to get all cleaned up tonight, and yes I am going to put on clean clothes for the first time in two weeks. Socks, underwear, and uniform the whole bit.
Not to mention, now I have 5 cartons of cigarettes. So at least I can keep the nicotine fits at bay for a while. Unfortunately, not only did the birds bring all of our stuff with them, but they also brought our platoon sergeant with them as well. So now we are going to have to deal with him putting his two cents into everything we are doing. Even though we had it running smoothly for the past two weeks without him. But whatever, its the Army.
Well between the kid and his cookies, and the fact that I am staring right at about 5 pairs of clean underwear right now deciding which ones I am going to put on after my inordinately long shower, today was and continues to be a pretty damn good day. I got the day off tomorrow, unless that changes which would definitely suck the most so that is probably what is going to happen. So be it. But I got a new project in mind, and a bunch of us here are working on it.
We want to get a collection going for the kids in the area. There are like 5 villages just outside of our FOB and apparently from what we saw today there are more than a few ankle biters amongst the villagers. We are trying to get a hold of the following stuff.
1. Toys
2. Crayons
3. Coloring books
4. Sweaters
5. Socks
6. Shoes
7. Stuffed animals
8. Candy, and little food items
9. Anything you can think of that a kid would want or need.
So anyone that would like to help out with this just let me know and I'll email you the details and where to take it, and where to have it sent so that we can get these kids some of the stuff they need and some of the stuff they should have just because they are kids.
Anyways, I am done for now.
Later,
I love you mom...
Two things happened today. First thing in the morning we had another airdrop of water and supplies. Fun for me given the fact that I just got off the towers and had to move directly into gunning for this mission. Always good to be behind a fully automatic weapon with no sleep. So it goes.
Luckily for us, this airdrop was actually on time. I have a feeling that the Air Force takes its cues from O'Hare and really doesn't concern itself that much with time and deadlines and little inconveniences like that. Miraculously, they were not only on time today, they were early.
Which threw everyone off. So we ran out there and cordoned off the area and waited for the boxes to begin falling from the sky. And it did. Only real problem was it also seemed like Afghani children were falling from the sky as well. Hundreds of them. It was amazing. I didn't know that there were that many kids in the area. I sure as hell have not seen that many people in one place around here. So trying to keep all these little ankle biters outside the perimeter was a chore to say the least. They all wanted something. Some wanted candy, some wanted water, some wanted the cardboard, some wanted the wood, but they all were after something. I think a few of them just wanted to see what these new soldiers were all about. Bikes, motorcycles, of foot, in trucks, on camelback, on horseback, pulled by carriages, any means of conveyance you could think of they used it to get out there.
You would yell at one, or one group, "Wa Za, Wa Za" which apparently means "go away" or something like that. And as soon as you turned to look and yell at them a group on the other side would try to sneak by you. The best part was is that after a few times of doing that, like all children, these little shits started to think it was a game. I am not exaggerating when I say that it was like herding ferrets.
Needless to say our commander who was watching this whole debacle was not pleased. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when we got back and he grabbed the LT's and senior NCO's and dragged them into a room and gave them a rather stern talking to. But really what the hell did he want us to do. Everyone knew that we weren't going to hurt these kids. They knew it, their parents knew it, and we knew it. So really how the hell could we have kept them back. I did think it was pretty funny when one of these kids started actually fucking with my team leader. Every time he would say in Afghani "Get back", the kid would parrot him. Then the boss man started yelling at him in English, and the kid would listen intently and whatever he said the kid would repeat it right back to him. Then the kid started to mirror everything "Wheelchair 2" did. Which if you have ever seen a kid about 8 or so, doing this to an adult and the adult trying to trip them up, its absolutely hilarious.
(Explanation: My team leader is one of the older gentlemen in my platoon. He is the second oldest guy in the platoon. So we refer to the 3 oldest guys by the call sign of Wheelchairs 1 thru 3)
I got a hell of a belly laugh out of the whole deal. Finally the ANP's started to help us get all these people into some semblance of order. How did they do that? Well they chased all these kids around the desert with their trucks. Not really trying to hit anyone, just trying to get them back away from where we were working.
The only real worry I have is that because the people know that we will not hurt these kids and what not, I just hope the Taliban pricks don't try and use that to their advantage. We'll just have to do a better job next time.
Made my day though when we were pulling security and one of these little Afghan kids goes skipping by and I tossed Wheelchair 2 a bag of cookies to give to the kid. He gave them to him and the little man started looking at them like he didn't know what they were. So I kind of made the motion of raising the bag to your mouth, biting it and ripping it open. The kid did it. Then he looked back at me for what he should do now, so I pretended to reach into a bag and pull a cookie out and eat it, so he did the same. He bit into the cookie and his face light up like Christmas tree. I couldn't help but feel bad for the kid, but I did get a warm and fuzzy inside. What a world we live in, when some have so much and others are happy as hell to get a bag of cookies. But I am not going down that depressing ass road again today.
Moving on, we brought all this stuff back and unloaded it. Yet while were unloading it we saw about 5 incoming helicopters. What could they be carrying? That’s right ladies and gentlemen they were carrying all of our bags that got left behind when we came down here. OH HAPPY DAY! I am going to get all cleaned up tonight, and yes I am going to put on clean clothes for the first time in two weeks. Socks, underwear, and uniform the whole bit.
Not to mention, now I have 5 cartons of cigarettes. So at least I can keep the nicotine fits at bay for a while. Unfortunately, not only did the birds bring all of our stuff with them, but they also brought our platoon sergeant with them as well. So now we are going to have to deal with him putting his two cents into everything we are doing. Even though we had it running smoothly for the past two weeks without him. But whatever, its the Army.
Well between the kid and his cookies, and the fact that I am staring right at about 5 pairs of clean underwear right now deciding which ones I am going to put on after my inordinately long shower, today was and continues to be a pretty damn good day. I got the day off tomorrow, unless that changes which would definitely suck the most so that is probably what is going to happen. So be it. But I got a new project in mind, and a bunch of us here are working on it.
We want to get a collection going for the kids in the area. There are like 5 villages just outside of our FOB and apparently from what we saw today there are more than a few ankle biters amongst the villagers. We are trying to get a hold of the following stuff.
1. Toys
2. Crayons
3. Coloring books
4. Sweaters
5. Socks
6. Shoes
7. Stuffed animals
8. Candy, and little food items
9. Anything you can think of that a kid would want or need.
So anyone that would like to help out with this just let me know and I'll email you the details and where to take it, and where to have it sent so that we can get these kids some of the stuff they need and some of the stuff they should have just because they are kids.
Anyways, I am done for now.
Later,
I love you mom...
Nov 23, 2008
The Taliban Tiger...
Saturday, November 22, 2008 1800 hrs.
I thought I might begin this post with a funny story about something that happened on my guard shift last night.
So there I was, in the middle of the Afghan mountains with nothing but my trusty S.A.W. and 9 mm by my side and my keen senses and wits to get me through the night. I was on a guard tower. Making sure that all my fellow soldiers could sleep peaceably in their beds because nothing was going to get by me, on my watch.
It was a cold night, the kind of cold that forces your balls to take up residence just beneath your sternum. So as I sat there looking out over the Afghan landscape and shivering, I heard it. The rocks beneath the tower moved. At first I thought that it might be one of my brothers in arms attempting to sneak up on, and scare me. You know, just to make his night go by quicker. So over the edge of the tower I looked. To my chagrin I saw nothing, but I did hear the rocks just beneath me move once more. I again attempted to ascertain what was making the strange noises beneath my tower and scanned the area thoroughly and methodically. I couldn't see anything that could've made that noise.
Satisfied that I wasn't in any danger, I returned to scanning my sector. Mere moments later I heard a new and more disturbing noise. A "tip, tap" rose through the night air and met my ears. Over and over again, tip, tap, tip, tap, tip, tap. Now I was nervous. I couldn't believe that any person had managed to avoid my gaze as I searched for the source of the sound, but you never know. I drew my 9 mm, you know, just in case, and asked my partner in the tower to come and help me find the entity responsible for this maddening noise. And just like when you take your car to the mechanic, as soon as he came out the noise promptly stopped. After listening intently for what seemed like an eternity, he exclaimed, "You're nuts, kiss my ass, I am going back to sleep." And with that he slammed the door behind him and without missing a beat after the door slammed the tip, tap, tip, tap began again.
Now I have looked for the source of this noise through my night vision apparatus, I have looked with the naked eye, I even went so far as to turn the lights on and look under a white light. And yet the culprit avoids my prying eye.
I have begun to wonder whether the cold, and the sleep deprivation are beginning to manifest themselves in the form of eerie noises in the middle of the night.
I return to my post, and begin to scan my sector once again. Like clockwork the steady tip, tap, tip, tap begins again. This time I try to block it out. "You aren't hearing that, you haven't slept in two days your mind is playing tricks on you." No matter what I tell myself the noise grows steadily closer until I can damn near feel the tip, tap rattling my bones.
As I stand there trying to block this noise out and scan my sector at the same time I feel something rub against my leg and before I could even look down to see what it was I heard a soft and sweet, "meeeeeooooowwwww". To which I responded, in an ever so girly voice, with, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH", and I do believe I jumped at least 3 feet in the air and ran to the other side of the tower. I turned in time to see the face of a cute little kitty cat, which due to my screaming like a little girl was terrified and ran off into the night. Ridiculous as it may sound, I almost took my first "battle shit" due to a 2-pound kitty cat.
And that is the story of the Taliban Tiger, a cute little kitty cat sent by our enemies to scare the shit out of our brave soldiers.
Moving on, what else is going on? Well our stuff isn't here yet. Its supposed to be here on the 24th but needless to say no one is holding their breath.
Now the latest running around the PNN is that someone called a radio station back home and told them that we are short a lot of cold weather gear and so that radio station began a clothing drive for us. A great thing if you ask me. However, another one going around the PNN is that there is an investigation into whether or not the person who called the radio station broke OPSEC.
You see I get OPSEC. It is a good thing. You know the enemy doesn't need to know how many guys you've got, how many guns, how many trucks, how much fuel, food, water and what not. Because all of that is stuff that they could use to determine where and when they are going to attack us. And in this case maybe the enemy doesn't need to know that in a few short weeks we are going to be freezing to death. But sometimes it seems like the military uses OPSEC as justification for silencing those of us who tend to question the authority of our superiors. I don't really question their authority; I just question their intelligence. I mean when a private with 7 months in the Army can figure something out that an Officer can't then maybe there is a problem.
Nothing will probably come of it but just the fact that they would investigate makes me laugh. Someone calls home and makes someone in the chain of command look like a tool, and all of a sudden there has to be an investigation into OPSEC violations. I'll bet that if they wanted to they could dig up some violations in this here blog. But I haven't made it to their radar just yet, but I have only been here a month and we got a long way to go. We'll see.
Other than that it was a good day. I am finishing up with this post and I am off of duty tonight and everyone else in my room has to work, so needless to say I am going to give myself a little TLC and hit the rack. Well it’s about that time.
Later,
I love you mom...
I thought I might begin this post with a funny story about something that happened on my guard shift last night.
So there I was, in the middle of the Afghan mountains with nothing but my trusty S.A.W. and 9 mm by my side and my keen senses and wits to get me through the night. I was on a guard tower. Making sure that all my fellow soldiers could sleep peaceably in their beds because nothing was going to get by me, on my watch.
It was a cold night, the kind of cold that forces your balls to take up residence just beneath your sternum. So as I sat there looking out over the Afghan landscape and shivering, I heard it. The rocks beneath the tower moved. At first I thought that it might be one of my brothers in arms attempting to sneak up on, and scare me. You know, just to make his night go by quicker. So over the edge of the tower I looked. To my chagrin I saw nothing, but I did hear the rocks just beneath me move once more. I again attempted to ascertain what was making the strange noises beneath my tower and scanned the area thoroughly and methodically. I couldn't see anything that could've made that noise.
Satisfied that I wasn't in any danger, I returned to scanning my sector. Mere moments later I heard a new and more disturbing noise. A "tip, tap" rose through the night air and met my ears. Over and over again, tip, tap, tip, tap, tip, tap. Now I was nervous. I couldn't believe that any person had managed to avoid my gaze as I searched for the source of the sound, but you never know. I drew my 9 mm, you know, just in case, and asked my partner in the tower to come and help me find the entity responsible for this maddening noise. And just like when you take your car to the mechanic, as soon as he came out the noise promptly stopped. After listening intently for what seemed like an eternity, he exclaimed, "You're nuts, kiss my ass, I am going back to sleep." And with that he slammed the door behind him and without missing a beat after the door slammed the tip, tap, tip, tap began again.
Now I have looked for the source of this noise through my night vision apparatus, I have looked with the naked eye, I even went so far as to turn the lights on and look under a white light. And yet the culprit avoids my prying eye.
I have begun to wonder whether the cold, and the sleep deprivation are beginning to manifest themselves in the form of eerie noises in the middle of the night.
I return to my post, and begin to scan my sector once again. Like clockwork the steady tip, tap, tip, tap begins again. This time I try to block it out. "You aren't hearing that, you haven't slept in two days your mind is playing tricks on you." No matter what I tell myself the noise grows steadily closer until I can damn near feel the tip, tap rattling my bones.
As I stand there trying to block this noise out and scan my sector at the same time I feel something rub against my leg and before I could even look down to see what it was I heard a soft and sweet, "meeeeeooooowwwww". To which I responded, in an ever so girly voice, with, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH", and I do believe I jumped at least 3 feet in the air and ran to the other side of the tower. I turned in time to see the face of a cute little kitty cat, which due to my screaming like a little girl was terrified and ran off into the night. Ridiculous as it may sound, I almost took my first "battle shit" due to a 2-pound kitty cat.
And that is the story of the Taliban Tiger, a cute little kitty cat sent by our enemies to scare the shit out of our brave soldiers.
Moving on, what else is going on? Well our stuff isn't here yet. Its supposed to be here on the 24th but needless to say no one is holding their breath.
Now the latest running around the PNN is that someone called a radio station back home and told them that we are short a lot of cold weather gear and so that radio station began a clothing drive for us. A great thing if you ask me. However, another one going around the PNN is that there is an investigation into whether or not the person who called the radio station broke OPSEC.
You see I get OPSEC. It is a good thing. You know the enemy doesn't need to know how many guys you've got, how many guns, how many trucks, how much fuel, food, water and what not. Because all of that is stuff that they could use to determine where and when they are going to attack us. And in this case maybe the enemy doesn't need to know that in a few short weeks we are going to be freezing to death. But sometimes it seems like the military uses OPSEC as justification for silencing those of us who tend to question the authority of our superiors. I don't really question their authority; I just question their intelligence. I mean when a private with 7 months in the Army can figure something out that an Officer can't then maybe there is a problem.
Nothing will probably come of it but just the fact that they would investigate makes me laugh. Someone calls home and makes someone in the chain of command look like a tool, and all of a sudden there has to be an investigation into OPSEC violations. I'll bet that if they wanted to they could dig up some violations in this here blog. But I haven't made it to their radar just yet, but I have only been here a month and we got a long way to go. We'll see.
Other than that it was a good day. I am finishing up with this post and I am off of duty tonight and everyone else in my room has to work, so needless to say I am going to give myself a little TLC and hit the rack. Well it’s about that time.
Later,
I love you mom...
Nov 21, 2008
Just A Little Footnote...
Hello all, I know that a lot of you are pissed about the last post. I wish to make a few things clear. This blog is meant to be therapeutic for me. Being able to vent about things that happen here is my goal. I do NOT want anyone to actually do anything or call anyone regarding anything that I write.
I understand that there are a million things that are going on in the military that I know nothing about that affect whether or not things happen. We are getting our winter gear sooner or later, whenever the military is able to get it for us.
I like my pay grade and would like to keep it. So please don't pursue any actions regarding my posts. I mean them as information for you and therapy for me. The best thing you can do is read and comment and let me know you care. The military would probably let me have it pretty good if someone called their congressman about all of this.
Thanks and keep on reading...
My apologies for the somber tone. I usually like to spice it up with sarcasm but here I guess I can't.
Later,
I love you mom...
I understand that there are a million things that are going on in the military that I know nothing about that affect whether or not things happen. We are getting our winter gear sooner or later, whenever the military is able to get it for us.
I like my pay grade and would like to keep it. So please don't pursue any actions regarding my posts. I mean them as information for you and therapy for me. The best thing you can do is read and comment and let me know you care. The military would probably let me have it pretty good if someone called their congressman about all of this.
Thanks and keep on reading...
My apologies for the somber tone. I usually like to spice it up with sarcasm but here I guess I can't.
Later,
I love you mom...
It's A Pretty Country Once You Get Past The Smell & The Fact That People Are Trying To Kill You...
November 21, 2008 1507 hrs.
Truer words have never been spoken. Pigpen is a sage for this age.
So here I sit, within spitting distance of the Pakistani border feeling every bit of the cold as the winter descends on us. Why do I feel every bit of the cold? Because these dick-bags who are commonly referred to as our command cannot seem to get a company's worth of rucksacks across a country that isn't even all that big. None of us have our winter gear. We are sitting here beginning to freeze and what is this bunch of shitbags doing? Making lists. That is how they respond to this. Make a list of what you are missing and the command will take care of it. Really? We have a hard enough time getting water out here and they are going to get us all this shit that we are missing before the winter hits? Well just to be clear, it gets down to like 25 degrees at night here right now and I don't know if it has made it past 55 during the day and 90% of us don't have jackets. Well thank you very much Uncle Sam, always nice to see you taking such good care of those that fight for you. Please excuse me, but the guy is a fucking asshole.
Normally, I wouldn't place all the blame square on any one person's shoulders but this time its just so outrageously incompetent that an entire company of soldiers could occupy an outlying, forward FOB and not be properly equipped to make it through the winter. Which are rumored to be absolutely horrendous here. Now we only move shit through the air around here. Why? Because there are bombs on all the roads. The roads around us are labeled as some of the worst roads in this country, so much so that we don't even use them. We leave this place we either walk or we drive right through the sand. No one has the balls or the ridiculous stupidity required to drive on the roads here. Well you would figure that if everything moves through the air they could throw all our shit onto a plane and drop it from the sky. They do it with our water and food and all of that. Why can't they do it with our clothes. I would have to say that our clothes would fare better than bottles of water when falling from the sky. Not to mention the fact that helicopters flown by contractors and locals are flying everyday. They bring the mail, they bring this they bring that. But no one seems to be able to bring our shit. Someone will have to explain to me why a helicopter that has no guns, no armor and some local yokel flying it can get out here, but the vaunted American military aviation corps, or the Air Force can't seem to move a company's worth of shit from one place to another.
Now we are making this list, which can mean only one thing. They are going to field-loss all of our shit and try to get us reissued all this stuff. Which when you are talking about military bureaucracy this could take months. So operating off the whatever sucks the most principle, we will be issued all of our cold weather gear right around the time we are going to be sweating our balls off in an Afghani summer.
Alright, sorry about that. Just had to get it off my chest. Now I feel better. Don't worry about us, if there is one thing that American GI's can do its improvise. We'll get through this one way or the other. I personally think that if it gets too cold we should be burning the commanders cold weather gear for warmth. But I digress.
So what else is going on? Not a whole lot. I got stuck on the guard platoon for the next two weeks. Mission platoon the two weeks after that. So the stories should get a little better when I start that.
But a few things I would like to point out. I was reading in Stars & Stripes the other day and I read an article pointing out just why we are here trying to help these people and change this country's direction. Apparently, a coordinated attack took place in Kandahar where 15 schoolgirls at a bunch of different schools were attacked by masked men on bicycles, motorcycles and on foot where the men came up to the girls as they left their schools and threw acid on their faces.
Yeah, let me say that again. They threw acid of the faces of little girls who wanted to go to school. Let that one sink in real deep. I think I may have to start living by a new phrase, as opposed to "embrace the suck", I might have to start going with "embrace the hate". I have never felt such a burning desire to hurt someone in my life. I don't really need a winter coat anymore, because I think that article will keep me very warm for the duration of this deployment. Warm with the hate that is now burning inside of me.
How could you even think to do that? Defenseless little girls going to school, get acid thrown on their faces by these backwards, fanatic, religious zealot cocksuckers. You know there are American soldiers everywhere here. Do they come out and fight with us? No, they attack the weakest members of the society here. Chickenshit cowards, the lot of them. I hope Islam says something about what Allah will do to those who would hurt the weak. I can barely even type this, my hands are shaking with anger.
I wonder what can make a person so low, so degenerate, so violent, so insane that they could actually hurt little girls. You know what, I don't even care. The simple fact is that someone should find all of these pricks and send one 5.56mm message right through their skull. End of story.
Then I hear other stories from the terps and other GI's. The following is one of those stories, whether it is true or not I don't know, but the story illustrates one of the more disturbing aspects of the culture here that definitely needs to be addressed by a whole lot of people who better be a lot smarter than I.
Apparently, there was a young girl in the village outside of our FOB and she had a broken leg. The father brought here to us for medical attention. He said she had fallen, but everyone knew she had been beaten. They told him they couldn't do anything for her here, but they would fly her to Bagram so she could get better care. They put her into one of the buildings outside the FOB for her to stay the night and then get on the bird the next day. Sometime during the night the father took her out of the building and drove her out into the desert and left her there to die. They found her dead a few days later. They never did locate the father again...
Women are regarded as nothing more than talking cattle here. Its a funny thing that there is a cliche that the GI's use to mock the Afghani's and their culture but it goes something like this..."Boys are for pleasure, women are for breeding". Brood mares, that is all that women are here. Girls, they are worth even less, because the men don't even want to "play" with them.
You know, I will never claim to be the most enlightened person as far as women's lib and what not are concerned. But I do know this, I can't walk through a door before a woman, and my dear old mother would bash my skull if I ever even dreamed of hitting a woman. Here abusing women is a common part of everyday life. Yeah, this is a culture worth helping.
Yet, I can't help thinking that there is no way that all these people are like this. There has to be some good here. There have to be good people here. There has to be hope. There has to be a future for all these little kids that I see everyday. There has to be a way to pull this country out of the state its currently in. There has to be a reason that all this blood was shed. It cannot all be in vain.
Looking out of my guard tower and seeing the vast stretch of desert leading to the mountain ranges that surround us on all sides, and looking up into the sky and seeing the millions of stars that I could never see at home. Seeing the sun come up over the mountains and turning the sky blood red. Watching as the moon rises against the mountains and brings the night light to the desert that illuminates the vast expanse so brightly that you can see for miles in the middle of the night. Watching as the shooting stars dance across the sky and wishing that maybe I can make some small difference here.
Then I look down and see a small boy, about 10, walking toward my tower. I give him a sort of half hearted grin, to which he responds with a big old smile. He waves at me, I wave back, he says in perfect english, "Candy!!" So from my guard tower, I move the huge machine gun out of my way, I cock my arm and launch a bag of skittles over two sets of razor wire, and 10 foot barriers. They land on the ground, he picks them up, and shouts back at me. "Manana" Afghani for "Thanks", he turns and walks back toward the village and disappears into the darkness.
Well at least for now the little man has got some skittles. But it is a pretty country once you...
Later,
I love you mom...
Truer words have never been spoken. Pigpen is a sage for this age.
So here I sit, within spitting distance of the Pakistani border feeling every bit of the cold as the winter descends on us. Why do I feel every bit of the cold? Because these dick-bags who are commonly referred to as our command cannot seem to get a company's worth of rucksacks across a country that isn't even all that big. None of us have our winter gear. We are sitting here beginning to freeze and what is this bunch of shitbags doing? Making lists. That is how they respond to this. Make a list of what you are missing and the command will take care of it. Really? We have a hard enough time getting water out here and they are going to get us all this shit that we are missing before the winter hits? Well just to be clear, it gets down to like 25 degrees at night here right now and I don't know if it has made it past 55 during the day and 90% of us don't have jackets. Well thank you very much Uncle Sam, always nice to see you taking such good care of those that fight for you. Please excuse me, but the guy is a fucking asshole.
Normally, I wouldn't place all the blame square on any one person's shoulders but this time its just so outrageously incompetent that an entire company of soldiers could occupy an outlying, forward FOB and not be properly equipped to make it through the winter. Which are rumored to be absolutely horrendous here. Now we only move shit through the air around here. Why? Because there are bombs on all the roads. The roads around us are labeled as some of the worst roads in this country, so much so that we don't even use them. We leave this place we either walk or we drive right through the sand. No one has the balls or the ridiculous stupidity required to drive on the roads here. Well you would figure that if everything moves through the air they could throw all our shit onto a plane and drop it from the sky. They do it with our water and food and all of that. Why can't they do it with our clothes. I would have to say that our clothes would fare better than bottles of water when falling from the sky. Not to mention the fact that helicopters flown by contractors and locals are flying everyday. They bring the mail, they bring this they bring that. But no one seems to be able to bring our shit. Someone will have to explain to me why a helicopter that has no guns, no armor and some local yokel flying it can get out here, but the vaunted American military aviation corps, or the Air Force can't seem to move a company's worth of shit from one place to another.
Now we are making this list, which can mean only one thing. They are going to field-loss all of our shit and try to get us reissued all this stuff. Which when you are talking about military bureaucracy this could take months. So operating off the whatever sucks the most principle, we will be issued all of our cold weather gear right around the time we are going to be sweating our balls off in an Afghani summer.
Alright, sorry about that. Just had to get it off my chest. Now I feel better. Don't worry about us, if there is one thing that American GI's can do its improvise. We'll get through this one way or the other. I personally think that if it gets too cold we should be burning the commanders cold weather gear for warmth. But I digress.
So what else is going on? Not a whole lot. I got stuck on the guard platoon for the next two weeks. Mission platoon the two weeks after that. So the stories should get a little better when I start that.
But a few things I would like to point out. I was reading in Stars & Stripes the other day and I read an article pointing out just why we are here trying to help these people and change this country's direction. Apparently, a coordinated attack took place in Kandahar where 15 schoolgirls at a bunch of different schools were attacked by masked men on bicycles, motorcycles and on foot where the men came up to the girls as they left their schools and threw acid on their faces.
Yeah, let me say that again. They threw acid of the faces of little girls who wanted to go to school. Let that one sink in real deep. I think I may have to start living by a new phrase, as opposed to "embrace the suck", I might have to start going with "embrace the hate". I have never felt such a burning desire to hurt someone in my life. I don't really need a winter coat anymore, because I think that article will keep me very warm for the duration of this deployment. Warm with the hate that is now burning inside of me.
How could you even think to do that? Defenseless little girls going to school, get acid thrown on their faces by these backwards, fanatic, religious zealot cocksuckers. You know there are American soldiers everywhere here. Do they come out and fight with us? No, they attack the weakest members of the society here. Chickenshit cowards, the lot of them. I hope Islam says something about what Allah will do to those who would hurt the weak. I can barely even type this, my hands are shaking with anger.
I wonder what can make a person so low, so degenerate, so violent, so insane that they could actually hurt little girls. You know what, I don't even care. The simple fact is that someone should find all of these pricks and send one 5.56mm message right through their skull. End of story.
Then I hear other stories from the terps and other GI's. The following is one of those stories, whether it is true or not I don't know, but the story illustrates one of the more disturbing aspects of the culture here that definitely needs to be addressed by a whole lot of people who better be a lot smarter than I.
Apparently, there was a young girl in the village outside of our FOB and she had a broken leg. The father brought here to us for medical attention. He said she had fallen, but everyone knew she had been beaten. They told him they couldn't do anything for her here, but they would fly her to Bagram so she could get better care. They put her into one of the buildings outside the FOB for her to stay the night and then get on the bird the next day. Sometime during the night the father took her out of the building and drove her out into the desert and left her there to die. They found her dead a few days later. They never did locate the father again...
Women are regarded as nothing more than talking cattle here. Its a funny thing that there is a cliche that the GI's use to mock the Afghani's and their culture but it goes something like this..."Boys are for pleasure, women are for breeding". Brood mares, that is all that women are here. Girls, they are worth even less, because the men don't even want to "play" with them.
You know, I will never claim to be the most enlightened person as far as women's lib and what not are concerned. But I do know this, I can't walk through a door before a woman, and my dear old mother would bash my skull if I ever even dreamed of hitting a woman. Here abusing women is a common part of everyday life. Yeah, this is a culture worth helping.
Yet, I can't help thinking that there is no way that all these people are like this. There has to be some good here. There have to be good people here. There has to be hope. There has to be a future for all these little kids that I see everyday. There has to be a way to pull this country out of the state its currently in. There has to be a reason that all this blood was shed. It cannot all be in vain.
Looking out of my guard tower and seeing the vast stretch of desert leading to the mountain ranges that surround us on all sides, and looking up into the sky and seeing the millions of stars that I could never see at home. Seeing the sun come up over the mountains and turning the sky blood red. Watching as the moon rises against the mountains and brings the night light to the desert that illuminates the vast expanse so brightly that you can see for miles in the middle of the night. Watching as the shooting stars dance across the sky and wishing that maybe I can make some small difference here.
Then I look down and see a small boy, about 10, walking toward my tower. I give him a sort of half hearted grin, to which he responds with a big old smile. He waves at me, I wave back, he says in perfect english, "Candy!!" So from my guard tower, I move the huge machine gun out of my way, I cock my arm and launch a bag of skittles over two sets of razor wire, and 10 foot barriers. They land on the ground, he picks them up, and shouts back at me. "Manana" Afghani for "Thanks", he turns and walks back toward the village and disappears into the darkness.
Well at least for now the little man has got some skittles. But it is a pretty country once you...
Later,
I love you mom...
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