Impressions of the Afghani Countryside

So I needed to go to Kandahar (KAF) to get a CAC. If you don't know what that is, it's not that important ... the point is, I needed to go to KAF for legitimate business purposes. Naturally, there were secondary reasons for the trip, namely acquiring an AFN decoder for the Chief. This allows us to receive the Armed Forces Radio and Television Services signal ... so he can watch bowl games, I can watch the Super Bowl, and we all enjoy some well-deserved telly.

I didn't get on the first flight, a Blackhawk, but I did get on the second flight, a Chinook! Woohoo, my first Chinook ride! I was hurried onto the helicopter first, and was sent all the way toward the front. I ended up sitting next to the Gunner. It is important for the Gunner to be able to shoot his weapon if he needs to, so there is a giant a window in the side of the bird. I was sitting next to this window. Awesome thing about it: I got to see outside. Terrible thing about it: it's really freaking windy, and therefore, really freaking cold. We made a few stops and it took a while to get to KAF, so I was pretty certain I would never, ever be warm again by the time we arrived.

But the trip was incredible! I finally got to see what the area around my FOB looks like! It's pretty barren and there are what looks like empty swimming pools around. Oh, and we have a moat. It's usually dry, but it's a moat, nonetheless. (The moat is actually a drainage ditch for when the rainy season hits. There is aactually a rainy season, and this area tends to flood. Yah for proactive mitigation measures!) There really isn't much around, but that's a good thing. Fewer places for baddies to hide and shoot stuff at us from. Woohoo!

As we left, I have no idea what direction we went, but the terrain made me think of the dry lake beds around Pahrump, Nevada. Pieces of land were sectioned off into what I can only guess are manageable plots for growing whatever will grow here. There was very little outside of the various shades of khaki, sand, and tan one finds around here, but every now and then, there would be some bright colors hanging on washing lines.

The houses seemed to be of two kinds: the walled compound variety and the nomad-looking variety. The walled compounds weren't very big ... I don't know how high we were flying, so I couldn't give an estimate of dimensions. The buildings inside tended to be along one wall, opposite the entrance/exit opening of the compound. It looked like the wall of the compound was the back wall of the buildings inside. Imagine a terra cotta tile ... that's what the roofs looked like ... a big terra cotta tile, except not red at all. Everything was the same color ... sand/mud. They reminded me of adobe villages of the southwestern United States, except not tall, and not carved out of mountains. Though, as we got closer to some hills, it did appear that many houses used the natural landscape to their advantage, and some of them were actual built into the side of the hills.

The nomadic-looking villages really just looked like big camp sites. There appeared to be a main living area, made of a big tent (again, no idea how high we were, so no guesses at dimensions), with a few smaller patches nearby with various things in them. There were a bunch of sites that had a little ring of something with camels inside! Camel pens! And some farming plots nearby also, but much smaller than the ones near the walled compounds.

For a while, it was the dry lake bed looking land, then it turned into kind of scrubby land. Certainly not anything with serious growth potential, but again, like something out of the American southwest. Mostly flat, with some minor changes in elevation, with sparse vegetation. That land smoothed out into the rolling sand desert that one thinks of when imagining the Sahara, or various parts of the Middle East. Southwest Asia has them too. Camels live there! In big packs! Do camels (the non-cigarette kind) come in packs? A drove of camels? A flock of camels? A gaggle of camels? A den of camels? Hmmm ...

Anywho, the camels were cool! Then we flew over a cliffy area that had actual water! River-looking things. Not necessarily actual rivers, because they appeared to start and end sporadically, but honest-to-goodness above-ground water! It was kind of exciting to see. In this area, there were actual GREEN farmlands! I'm assuming that's where they grow the pot! The cliffy area gave way to mountains (not very tall ones) and then the mountains gave way to more flat scrubby land, and then more khaki houses, more densely packed as we got closer to KAF, and then we hit to poo smell, and we knew we were almost ready to land.

Our "travel agent", the guy in charge of putting people on flights, gave us our flight briefing (don't get your head chopped off by the rotors) and told us we'd be making a couple of stops, but not to get off the helicopter until it smells like poo. Sure enough ... we hit the poo smell, landed, and voila! We were at KAF!

Another consequence of sitting by the Gunner was that my hair, unsecured, was whipped into a delightful frenzy of enormous knots that I was pretty sure I'd need to go to the barber to get out. As in, shave my head, there's no way I can get these out. Fortunately, I did not have to shave my head, though I did lose A LOT of hair getting the knots out. And the end result was me having a bad hair day for two days. Worse than normal hair day, anyway. The bad hair day got worse over the course of the day/night, but that's not what this post is about. That's another rant one.

I was hoping to get back to Howz-e that same day, but alas, the flight gods were not on my side. But the good thing about that, is that I got another daytime flight! In a warm, cozy Blackhawk, I returned to my little FOB. We went a different way this time, but the landscape didn't really change. The strongest thought that stuck out for me on the way back, was as we neared my destination ... if it wasn't for the large amount of in-ground swimming pool-looking holes, my part of southern Afghanistan doesn't look that much different from, say, rural southern Nevada, or rural southern Utah, or most of the rural southwest US. US roads are bigger and more plentiful, but that's about it.

What I assume to be normal, everyday, Afghani people were out doing normal, everyday things. Tending their animals, tending their farms, tending their houses. Life went on as if they weren't living in a war zone. While one knows life goes on, regardless of external events, it is really nice to see that war hasn't made things completely foreign to the people that still have to live here when the fighting is done. A little normalcy is nice.

Anyway, it was a cool thing ... to see what was outside the wire, without really being involved in anything bad. (It's a war zone, so the world can fall to shit at any second, but you know what I mean.) The trip to and from KAF was great. The KAF experience shall be ranted about later. Not really the whole experience, just the living arrangement part.

'Til next time, keep the brave men and women of the Armed Forces in your thoughts! :)

We got ambushed and we need to kill more people

Calm down, mom ... the base didn't get ambushed ... the fire department did. By the IT guys. Of course, we did start it when Jason and Nathan decided to attack IT with nerf-like discs and suction cup arrows. IT retaliated with shaving cream. The best part was their IT ninja outfits. If Dan had black shoes, we never would have seen him coming.

Of course, I had *nothing* to do with it ... seriously. I just sat back and watched the carnage unfold. Poor Jason and Nathan were pretty much killed by shaving cream. Plans for future attacks are in the works.













Needless to say, it was an entertaining night last night.

And now, for something that amused me quite a bit: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101221/od_nm/us_deathpenalty_odd

Yup, it is too expensive to keep killing people on death row. What amazed me the most about this article is not that there isn't enough of a drug to kill people, or that people are scared to execute criminals on death row for fear of being wrong, but that the 10 comments I read ALL offered reasonable, less expensive alternatives to killing said criminals! How effing cool is that?? Finally, something we can all agree on! Killing bad people is a good idea, and there are alternatives to the nice, friendly lethal injection!

Several comments offered money-raising options for the states, namely pay-per-view showings of the executions. Not sure if I, personally, would pay for it, but a nice public hanging of a child rapist or mass murderer, I'd be down for that. I say screw the ACLU. Screw no cruel and unusual punishment. Some people DESERVE cruel and unusual punishment. Anyone who does bad things to kids, for example. They SHOULD be tortured. They have EARNED the right to cruel and unusual punishment dreamed up by the parents of the kids they hurt.

Naturally, cruel and unusual punishment should be reserved for the truly heinous among us, but I think it should be an option for those truly depraved fucks. But maybe that's just me. I say kill everyone on death row. They made it there for a reason. And why do we need drugs? Has no one in the criminal justice system ever heard of an air embolism? It's amazing what a little air in a syringe can do. And the cool thing? You don't need a new needle for the next guy. Dead people shouldn't care about cross-contamination. And if the first air embolus doesn't do it, there more air. SO it may cause a little pain. I'm alright with that.

I am looking forward to nursing school ... did I tell you that yet? :)

Preparing for Christmas, Howz-e style

So it's almost Christmas. I am in a gods forsaken hell hole of a country, but I am surrounded by ridiculously awesome people, so it really isn't all that bad. A couple of the guys got a bunch of Christmas decoration-filled boxes from their various loved ones, so we went a little crazy. Because we are the only ones who decorated in our are of the camp, it kind of looks like Christmas came and threw up all over the fire station. It's kind of awesome.

Nate got a box filled with both wall and head decorating things. It started with a little tree, and went down hill from there.







It is possible that some of the pictures may require an explanation, but, meh. Make up your own, it probably won't be too far from what really happened.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Blessed Yule, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah ... whatever you celebrate, or even if you don't ... tell someone you love them and your world is better for them being in it. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, do it with love and for the love of all that's holy, HAVE FUN!

The Repeal of DADT and other bits of ignorance/stupid shit

Huzzah! A milestone for human rights in America! The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of the US military has been repealed. Once in effect, gays may serve openly in the US Armed Forces, without fear of being booted out, because of their sexuality. I read the comments posted by Yahoo! News readers, after reading the article today and was astounded by the ridiculousness spouted by the pajama people.

One person said something about the repeal of DADT giving "special rights" to gays. Um, excuse me? The desire and ability to serve one's country in the Armed Forces, to potentially give their life in defense of their country, to want to protect one's way of life, is a "special" right? I think that one had "special" confused with "equal". Medical or physical limitations keeping people out of the military I can understand. But sexual orientation? That's just silly.

Then there are the people wondering what the effect on the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) will be. Homosexual acts are allegedly against the law of the UCMJ (I say allegedly, because I have not read the full UCMJ ... I am taking this info from others). Ok, homosexual acts and being homosexual are NOT the same thing. Why do people insist on thinking that every gay man wants to sleep with every man in the world? Sure there are whorey gay men. There are whorey straight men too. What is the difference? Whorey gay men hit on anyone and make them feel uncomfortable. Whorey straight men hit on anyone and make them feel uncomfortable. The same feelings of discomfort exist when one is being hit on by someone that one does not want to be hit on by, regardless of gender. There's a guy on base that has a little crush on me that I find creepy. I'm a straight girl, he's a straight guy. It's still uncomfortable.

I had a former Marine tell me that gay troops in a combat unit are bad for morale and unit cohesion, because people that have "feelings" for other members of their unit are dangerous. Another example of people assuming that just because one is gay, one sees everyone of the same sex as a sexual object, with the endgame being to "tap that". Of course, there is the whole confusing sex with love thing, but that's a whole different subject. The former Marine suggested that gay people could not effectively back up straight people in life-or-death situations, because of the gay people's "feelings" for the straight people. I looked at him with incredulity in my eyes, and said "I've had gay people back me up in life-or-death situations, and it worked out just fine". He looked at me, puzzled. I went on explain that I had worked with lesbians in the fire department. Fighting fire inside a building is a life-or-death situation. I asked him about law enforcement officers. Is what they do any less life-or-death than what troops do?

Fortunately, he had the good sense to say, "I never looked at it like that before". This is probably what kept him from having a fat lip from me punching him in his mouth.

One of the statements in the article kind of annoys me. The article states: "Repeal would mean that, for the first time in American history, gays would be openly accepted by the armed forces and could acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being kicked out." (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101219/ap_on_go_co/us_gays_in_military) It's the "openly accepted" part that bothers me. The "...could acknowledge their sexual orientation without fear of being kicked out." part is AWESOME ... but the "openly accepted" part is just ignorance of the part of the author. I *wish* all gays would be openly accepted in the Military, and everywhere else, for that matter, but let's be realistic. Not everyone thinks like I do. Realistically, there will still be backlash if someone in a very "masculine" unit comes out. It may not happen in all units, but it will happen in some. There may be some transfers that need to occur.

It's when people start expecting special treatment that things get stupid. If someone comes out, and demands that others accept his orientation, and forces opinions upon others, then he should get his ass kicked. Not for being gay, for being an asshole. Several years back there was a big court case to allow a girl into an all boys military academy. Virginia Military Academy, maybe? She fought and fought, finally got in, and then pussed out because they were picking on her. As a girl, that pissed me off. I have absolutely no problem with all-male schools. There are all-female schools. What the eff is the difference? I understand it was a prestigious military academy and she wanted to pursue that life/career, but if you fought such a battle to get in, why would you let ANYTHING get in your way of reaching your goal? Sexual assault and things of that nature, are, naturally, unacceptable in any circumstances, but beyond that ... so the boys are mean to you. You fought a battle that disrupted a billion years of attitudes. You have to expect a little backlash. If you don't, that's just naive.

Gay marriage. Is that a "special" right? Shit no. That's a special kind of torture! No, I'm kidding. It is a right that should be granted to those who wish to commit their lives to one another and want to partake of the benefits that come with being married. Hell, gay marriage could possibly be the best kind of marriage. The whole "toilet seat up, toilet seat down" thing is no longer an issue. If one partner doesn't want kids, there's no way the other partner could make it happen without being devious, and then you have good grounds for divorce! Who has the right to say two men, or two women, can't love each other as much, if not more, than a man and a woman? I have two very good Friends, who are both female, who love each other very much. I desperately hope I find the sort of love they share one day. If same-sex marriages are ever legalize in Florida, I really hope they let me officiate their ceremony!! That would ROCK!!!! (I'm a Notary Public in Florida ... )

And then we move on to more localized stupid shit. Ah the double standard. How I love it. If an American man gawked/leered/glared/stared at an Afghani woman, it would be an international incident. The man would be beaten, well, probably the woman too, and the world would never recover. Here at our little piece of heaven in the Kandahar Province, we have a small Afghan National Army camp. We walk past their cooking area on the way to our d-fac. (Incidentally, the town crier just started ... apparently it is prayer time. I love the just-before-0600 prayer the most.) Anywho, the Afghan men openly gawk at the American women. All the effing time. I was told by a Lieutenant Colonel that I was not allowed to punch anyone in the face for staring, but if anyone laid a hand on me, I could knife them. I like him! But yeah, it's ok for Afghan men to leer at American women, but should an American man even glance at an Afghan woman, all hell would break loose. As I said, stupid shit.

Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike ignorance? Stupidity I can generally laugh at and get over. It annoys me, but I'll get over it. Ignorance just pisses me off. Educate yourself, for the love of all that is holy. If you don't understand something, learn about it. If your world view is so narrow that it is limited to your tiny mind with your tiny, ignorant opinions, and you refuse to accept anything but what your narrow-minded group of friends tell you, then you need to be put out of our misery. I'm alright with people believing what they want to believe, but people need to accept that other people have opinions that may diverge from their own.

Which reminds me: the whole Christine O'Donnell -Wicca thing. For fuck's sake, why are people all bent out of shape that an American woman chose to explore a different religious path? Isn't that what America was founded upon? Gods! She should be celebrated as the epitome of what it means to BE American. Yeah, I know that isn't in the media anymore, but I forgot to rant about it when it was.

That's probably enough ranting for now. Grrr. Ignorance makes me mad. Willful ignorance is even worse. Go learn something new. Today I learned what 'meat curtains' are. It's gross, don't even waste your time looking at Urban Dictionary to find the answer. It really is gross, though. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Later!

Toileting in Afghanistan (not for the squeamish)

What do you mean that sounds gross? I had intentions of posting a blog about the unfairness of life, as it related to not being from the US, but decided that could wait, so I could talk about poo.

At KAF (Kandahar Air Field), we had both porta-potties and comfort trailers. Comfort trailers are basically shipping containers with toilets or shower in them. Usually about 5-6 toilets or showers per box. They are all separate stalls, so nothing really weird about it. At KAF, the comfort trailers were in the living areas, and the porta-potties were everywhere else. You usually didn't have to go very far to find a porta-potty. It was actually kind of nice. They almost always had toilet paper and they had hand sanitzer attached to the outsides of them, so you could "wash" your hands.

When we got to Howz-e Madad, they were working on installing the comfort trailers, so it was all porta-potty, all the time. More will be discussed about how other people use toilets later, but suffice to say, they weren't as nice as the ones at KAF, because they didn't always have toilet paper and many times I had to wipe someone else's poo off the seat before I could sit down. I am not a squatter. Squatting or hovering is unhealthy. It doesn't allow your bladder muscles to fully relax and allow all of your urine to leave your body. Hovering causes bladder infections. You shouldn't do it. This is why I requested baby wipes in my care packages. They are great for toilet situations of all sorts.

So they finally got the showers and one toilet unit opened about a week or so ago. I was told, by those in power, that girls were not yet allowed to use the toilets, because it would violate the company "boy and girls aren't supposed to be on the same planet together" rule.

Upon gathering more information, apparently (a) I was either the only girl that was told that, or (b) the other girls don't follow instructions well, because the other night, we got a call over the radio that there was a waterfall coming from underneath the comfort trailers. The exact words of someone who checked out the situation early on, over the radio, were "Holy Shit". Seriously, he said that over the radio. Many people have never heard of radio etiquette around here. But that's a whole other story.

Wait a minute, you say? What does that have to do with being a girl? Ah yes. Turns out there was a clog in the drain pipe. Don't get me wrong, the design of the trailers actually encourages clogs, but that doesn't matter. The culprit causing this clog: yup, a tampon. Know how I know it wasn't mine? BECAUSE I WAS TOLD I WASN'T ALLOWED TO USE THE DAMN TOILETS!

Also found were these thick bath wipe sheets they give us, for when we can't take a shower. They are very often used liked baby wipes and dropped in the porta-potty, or flushed down the toilet (like the label says they absolutely should NOT be). Couple problems there ... (1) not everyone here can read English) and (2) there is no other option for disposing of them discretely. There is a big trashcan in each unit, but, no smaller ones for the stalls. Apparently girls should remove their tampons, place it somewhere until they have wiped appropriately and inserted a new one, and then take it out of the stall and place it in the big trashcan. Really??? Excuse my language, but that's fucking disgusting. I'm a girl and I use tampons and *I* don't want to see that shit.

So my solution? Put little trashcans, or the boxes our bottled water comes in, with trashbags, and you'll eliminate most of your problems.

Here's the funny thing: when the toilet trailer is open, the porta-potties are much nicer. Less poo on the seats, you're more like to find toilet paper in them, and there is less pee on the floor (boys can't aim). So since the clog a couple of nights ago, the porta-potties have become less nice again. It's a never ending battle.

I will be using the toilet trailer when it opens again though. And I'm still not hovering. And I won't flush anything I'm not allowed to. So if you're sending care packages, the septic tank friendly butt wipes that magically dissolve in water would be great! My butt, and the poo system, thank you.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled, poo-free day.

Cereal

Ah cereal. The lifeblood of breakfast. You may say the breakfast isn't breakfast without bacon, or eggs, or pancakes, or grits, or oatmeal, or sausage, or a McGriddle, or perhaps a horribly disgusting Egg McMuffin, but it is cereal that brings breakfast together.

The fun thing about cereal here at FOB Howz-e Madad, is that you have to be at the chow hall at the right time for it. And that time changes daily. If you miss the first 5 minutes they put new cereal out, you've missed it. And then you have two options: sit and wait until they bring more out, and you don't know how long that is going to be, or just resign yourself to the fact that, once again, you've missed cereal for the day.

But say you are lucky. Say you get cereal, and it is cereal you like (sometimes all they have is non-raisined bran) .... then you have the milk situation.

We had vanilla Silk yesterday, and late in the breakfast period today, but for the last almost 3 weeks, there has only been chocolate, strawberry, and banana milk. Now for the hard decision: which of those goes best with whichever cereal you've chosen? Special K with red berries? Definitely strawberry. Cocoa Crispies? Definitely chocolate. Frosted Flakes? That's a toss up. Low-fat Granola with Raisins? Steal the Silk when you can and hide it outside where it will never get warm (seriously ... it's freaking cold here).

Yeah, so that's the randomness for the day. Enjoy. And count your blessings when you have free access to white milk for your cereal.

A month already?

Holy cripes! It has been a month and a couple of days since my latest adventure began. So far, I have only had to go to a bunker once *knocks on wood*, and it was in Kandahar. I've only had to wear my kevlar and vest once, and that was for a helicopter ride. So this whole war zone thing isn't as bad as I thought. Don't get me wrong, it could all go to shit any moment, but so far, so good. *knocks on wood again*

When we got to Kandahar (KAF), we were all a bit nervous that the rest of our year was going to be spent in similar craptastic conditions. Imagine our surprise when we got to a smaller base, with significantly less everything, and were happier! Here at Howz-e Madad, compared to KAF, it is less dusty, less smelly, less busy, and less full of silliness. There is silliness here, but the right kind of silliness, not the kind of silliness that makes you want to punch people in their faces.

It is odd, but I really find it quite beautiful here. Mostly at night. We don't have a lot of exterior lighting on the base, so on a cloudless night (as most of them are), you can see the entire universe! Orion's Belt comes up over the horizon and I know things aren't as bad as they could be. What does one constellation have to do with anything, you ask? I know where I am, I can see the night sky, and I can wish upon the stars.

Of course, I don't spend a lot of time outside at night, because it is REALLY FRICKIN' COLD! There is a thermometer by the site manager's office that says it was 40 degrees around 8:30pm yesterday, but I am certain that it is a dirty, dirty liar, because it was WAY colder than 40. Dirty lying thermometer. But my tent is nice and warm. SpongeBob keeps me nice and warm at night, as do my military issue sleeping bag(s).

They finally have the shower units up in our little DynCorp area, so it is only 14 steps from my tent porch to the door of the (occasionally) female shower unit. It is absolutely glorious to be able to get up in the morning and take a nice hot shower. I could've taken glorious morning showers with the every other day schedule as well, but then my shower escort would have had to get up early to escort me, and he doesn't like getting up early. My poor little sunshine. (Yes, that's me picking on you, Jason.)

So, a month down ... only 11 more to go. And at least 30 of those days, I'll be out of Afghanistan, so really, only 10 more months of Afghanistan. I am planning to be home toward the end of April, because someone is supposed to be having a baby around the 1st of May. Fingers crossed I get home before the little Sarah/Waylon decides it is time to join the world!

'Til next time ...