Army Sailor -- War in the Sandbox...
The Adventures of a Sailor in Afghanistan...

The following are the pictures from the story I posted on the 19th of March. I was unable to post them at the time, but have since overcome my technical difficulties.

The Children Surrounded the Truck Eagerly Awaiting Their Goodies

Providing Security on a Downtown Kabul Street, Notice the houses built up on the Mountain Behing me!

One of the Nicest, and most Modern Buildings I saw in Kabul.

Providing Security at the School for the Hearing & Speech Impared

Maybe posing... Just a Little...

Protecting our Ride Home

Posing with some of the kids from the School for the Hearing & Speech Impared

The Children at the School for the Hearing and Speech Impared Painted this World Map. I am pointing to where I am, not where I want to be.

LTC Dunlap & I with the school Administrators

Today we delivered stoves, shoes, blankets, school supplies and over 1000 kites to the children at two inner city schools in down-town Kabul. The kites were of particular significance. Kite flying is a long Afghan tradition. They perform what is called 'Kite Fighting'. They will fly the kites in close proximity to each other, the kite string having been specially treated with glass, or metal or anything sharp, and they attempt to cut their opponents kite string. The person whose kite remains flying the longest is the winner. Kite flying is a tradition that was banned by the Taliban. We are encouraging the people to resume their tradition. Surely the site of 1000 brightly colored kites filling the skies over Kabul will serve as a beautiful visual testament to the progress being made in this country, and the positive impact we are having here in Afghanistan.

There is a lot of war still being fought in this country. There are still a lot of very bad people wandering around and unfortuneately we are still taking casualties. I am sure these things are routinely reported on the News back home in the states. What is not reported often enough are missions such as this. I think it is important for the people to know and understand that there are a lot of good things being done in this country and there is a massive Humanitarian Assistance effort being made to help the people of Afghanistan. Often times there are many small projects and efforts being made by individual units, and individual soldiers to help improve the quality of life for the people of Afghanistan. Our ultimate goal is to make the people of Afghanistan, and the Government of Afghanistan self sufficient, so that we can depart and they can maintain their sovreignity with no outside support. We want the people of Afghanistan to be proud to be Afghan. And we are instilling that pride, a little bit each day.

The first school we visited was a regular inner-city school. Class was not in session. They had the day off because they had an exam the prior day, but when we arrived the local kids flocked to the school to get kites, shoes, toys and whatever else they were able to get. They swamped us. It was quite overwhelming. I was there to provide security, and I have to say that the scene was a security nightmare in the sense that there was one huge mass of children surrounding us. I also have to say that it was very emotional, for me at least, to see these children, some could not have been older than three, running around these streets of mud shoeless. I have never seen such poverty before, and when I leave this country I hope to never see such poverty again. It is truly a sad sight to behold. I have also never seen children so grateful to be given anything before. I gave three kids one pen each, and they were thrilled. I gave a little girl a pack of gum which she eagerly shared with her friends and they reacted as if I were Santa Claus himself. It was a remarkable experience which I have neither the words nor adequate time to describe effectively.

The scond school was a school for the hearing and speech impared. Class was in session at this school, and the children did not come out to flock around us. Rather we visited inside of their classrooms. When we entered a room all the children stood up, saluted us, and then said 'Thank You' in sign language. The children were very well behaved and seemed thrilled to be able to meet with Americans. The children in this school made beautiful works of art (paintings mostly), that they sold to help support the school. Many of us purchased paintings, I did not bring money with me, but if and when I get to return to the school, I will be sure to bring enough to get a few peices of art. The work was of phenominal quality. To look at it you would never believe that it had been done by children. Again, it was another experience which I am glad I have had, and one that I will not soon forget. The visit to the second school was a much more up-lifting experience than the visit to the first school.

These are definately the sort of missions I prefer to be a part of. It always feels good to help make someone elses life a little better, and to know that I am helping to make a positive difference.

I have pictures I want to share, unfortunately I have been having some technical difficulties with my FTP connection. As soon as I can, I will post them.

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This post is a little off the normal subject of my blog, but it needs to be addressed. Now I know the issue of Spam is one that has been addressed millions of times on the internet, but this is my little two cents. I have been having a real issue as of late with spammers posting spam comments all over my blog. I recieved 147 comments on my blog in one day. Three of them were legitimate comments, the rest were from spammers trying to get links to their sites where they sell cheap drugs, and cures for impotence, and sex toys. Now this is not that big of a deal, because the Blog Software I use actually has a pretty decent built in system for removing these comments in bulk, and blocking them, but it really sucks that on a blog of this nature, which generates no profit, I should have to deal with these issues. It is my understanding that most of the major search engines penalize sites with too many links to spam sites. I don’t want this to happen to me. I don’t want to lose my page rank due to the lack of consideration on the part of these people who are only out to seek profit for themselves.

I am also appalled at the amount of spam I see coming to official .mil & .gov e-mail addresses. Not only does this mean that they are specifically targeting military and government employees to try to scam, but it also means that they are not smart enough to realize that this will ultimately only attract the ire of the government, and give legislators more ammunition to use to shut them down. Of course then the problem comes with the fact that there is no real way to form legislation that is easily enforcable over the internet, especially not without trampling all over the rights of good people. Spam is a scourge, and is becoming a real paiin in my ass, as I am sure it already is for millions of others.

Turns out that what I thought was a simple case of ‘the Crud’, was actually an Upper Respiratory Infection. Being sick here sucks in a major way, because all the dirt and dust in the air makes it really hard to get better, especially when you are congested. Luckily for me, a week and about 5 pounds of pills later I am feeling much better. I still have a bit of a cough, and some light congestion but I feel better enough that I am working at 100% of capacity again.

We drink tons of water here. It’s really important to stay hydrated, especially at altitude. When you start to dehydrate you can really feel the difference in your performance, mood and just your general state of being. I have never drank so much water in my life. I don’t even like water that much, but everywhere you turn here there are pallets full of cases of water, and there is always someone (usually a Sergeant Major or a Corpsman) telling you to “drink more water” or “HYDRATE!” It’s funny. It’s almost as if they got paid a bonus for making us drink more water. I drank a whole case (6 litres) of water, by myself in 48 hours here. All the water does help clear up the congestion though. And it also is important to keep your throat and mouth moist with this much dirt in the air.

We no longer have to live in a tent! It sucked, when we got here we were living in a big ass tent. It wasn’t even a military tent (like a GP Medium), no it was like a big white and blue circus tent full of cots. It really sucked, and it leaked like a seive when it rained. Since then we have been moved into a ‘B-Hut’. I am not sure why it is called a B-Hut but it is much nicer than the tent. It is basically a wooden shack. It’s pretty raggity, but it doesn’t leak, and it has a heater and an air-conditioner, which makes it leaps and bounds better than the tent. I am living in a B-hut with three other Navy guys. The huts were built to house 8 men. Our hut is split in half, the 4 of us have one half, and a Sergeant Major has the other half (rank has it’s privileges). It’s ok though, because over the weekend we took the time to build some walls in our half, and we split it into 4 separate little rooms, so now not only do I not have to live in a tent, but I also have my own room. Yes sir, life is getting better all the time here in Afghanistan.

Of course there is still no indoor plumbing. If I have to poop I have to either walk through the mud to a port-a-potty, or I can walk through the mud to a Latrine Cell. A Latrine Cell is basically a trailer with 4 toilets (they are tiny, and made of plastic but better than a port-a-pot) and 2 sinks. I also have to walk through the mud to get to the shower cells, which are the same as the Latrine cells, but instead of toilettes they have showers and sinks in them. All of the facilities here have a nasty oder to them. They all get pumped empty and cleaned four times a day, but somehow they still stink of stale water and shit.

The B-Huts are made of a really flimsy plywood, which naturally gets very, very dry in this climate. We are not allowed to have any sort of electric heaters or candles in the hut, because it’s a Major fire hazard. Each hut is equipped with 2 fire extinguishers, and there is a giant ‘flight line’ fire extinguisher that is shared by 4 huts. Through our own efforts, and with the help of our Sergeant Major and our Supply Sergeant, we have actually made our hut a much nicer place to live than I had ever expected it could be. We built walls and shelves, and beds. I even have a real desk in my room, and some plastic drawer units that our Sergeant Major got us. It’s not much, but it’s a nice place to be able to come back to at then end of a long day.

I am still a bit lonely, and more than a little home sick, but all in all it’s not too bad. I have no real complaints. For now I am compiling a list of things to have sent from home to make life a little more comfortable. All I can think of so far that I want is a box of slim jims, some packets of ‘Crystal Lite to Go’ (they are the perfect size to mix with a half litre bottle of water), and a rheostat for a small project we are working on… We are building a ceiling fan for our hut. We have already installed the fan (a regular floor fan that we braced to the ceiling), but we want to install a rheostat and a voltage controler so that we can better control the speed of the fan. I’ll post some pictures when I can.

Here they are, at long last. Each one cleared by the G2, as not to get myself in any trouble... My first pictures from Afghanistan.

Afghani Coca-Cola Can

Afghani Sprite Can

I took this picture during our lay-over near Siberia. The mountains were gorgeous.

Our Living Quarters are delightful aren't they?

Sunrise over the mountains... Simply Stunning. The Photo does the actual scene no justice at all.

There are so many beautiful snow capped mountains here...

There are also many beautiful green valleys.

The last thing the bad guy will see... ;-)

More to come...