49 Days

So, in case you were unaware, I am in Afghanistan. More specifically, I am in the Zhari District, of the Kandahar Province, in Afghanistan. In case you've been living under a rock for the last oh, almost 10 years, there's a little bit of a skirmish going on over here. It's kind of a war zone. I knew this going in, so I have accepted the risks that are inherent to war zones. I know there is a possibility I could die here. Obviously, it's not my first choice of things to do while I'm here, but it's a possibility. Anyone who thinks otherwise and is here, is mentally unbalanced and should go home, because they are dangerous.

That being said, we were hit with our first Indirect Fire (IDF) attack a few days ago. It was marginally humorous, as all of the DynCorp personnel were in one place, at an all-hands meeting, when the first round hit. (That's funny, because of the whole "don't put all of your eggs in one basket" thing.) Our site manager was talking about something, probably how to use the toilets correctly (wish I was making that up), and we heard a rather close and loud kablowie. There was a very brief pause, and then we were told, in a rather urgent fashion, to get into the bunkers. A couple hundred people trying to fit through the opening to a bunker doesn't work well. I followed my boss to the next closest bunker, and as we were on the way, moving calmly, but quickly, we heard a second rather close and loud kablowie. We picked up the pace a bit and all huddled into the bunker.

I am not afraid to admit I was scared. Scared there were more coming, scared they would get closer to us, scared the two that had already hit, had hit someone. (Excellent ending to the story though, but I'll get to that ...) In the bunker, for the first few minutes it was pretty quiet, as I'm pretty sure everyone was thinking the same thing I was: "Is it over? Is there more? Damn it's cold in here". But, we had the fun crowd in our bunker, so the tense silence didn't last for long. Like many, I use humor as a tension diffuser, and why should IDF attacks be any different? There was no shortage of jokes and cracking on each other. For being a fairly terrifying experience, it wasn't all bad.

We later learned that there were no casualties, nor any injuries, to anyone on the FOB. YAH! We also learned that the baddies that perpetrated the attack were pretty dumb, and were very quickly caught. Not sure if they are still alive, but I really don't care. Less baddies on the planet is a good thing.

If you're wondering about the title of this post (49 Days), that's how long we (Jason, Mike, and I) had been at Howz-e Madad before we experienced out first close IDF attack. There was a rocket attack while we were at KAF, but we didn't even hear it hit, so it was nowhere near us. Not too bad, considering this place used to get hit significantly more often. Of course, I should clarify: we were here for 49 days before our first attack; there hadn't been one for several weeks before that, either.

So, there ya go: my first IDF attack. It was definitely scary, I definitely experienced a heightened sense of awareness for a few hours, and other than a couple of super tiny craters in the ground, nothing or nobody was injured. As far as attacks go, it wasn't too bad.
I am glad we finally got the first one out of the way. I knew it would come eventually, and I hate waiting. :)

There was going to be a continuation of this post with the tragic story of a water bottle leading to toilet guards, but I'll save that for later.