For the most part all the snow has melted, I can still see
some mountain tops capped with it but other than that it is gone. The past few
days have been sunny and the weather has definitely warmed up. I suppose if I
wasn’t the domesticated bear that I am today and was born and raised right here
in Afghanistan I’d probably be waking up from my hibernation about this time.
It seems that spring has come early this year and no I’m not a fan of Al Gore.
In most parts of the world an early spring would most likely
be excellent news but in war tattered Afghanistan spring translates directly to
an increased amount of death. You see the first inkling of winter is when most
of the Taliban fighters, especially the foreign fighters, take some time off.
Most of them go back to their villages or homelands to be with their families,
kind of like our R&R or mid tour leave. Winter is the ideal time to do this
because the harsh weather makes mountain passes impossible to cross. So, the
fighters return with the departure of winter to wreak havoc on the spring or as
we call it in the Army the fighting season.
Time is a funny thing. I wear a watch here but I’m not sure
why. Monday is no different than Friday. Saturday and Tuesday are exactly the
same. I basically have nothing to look forward to except for maybe my departure
from this place in 7 or so months. My grandma use to tell me that boredom was
all in my head, and at the time I guess I kind of understood what she meant.
However, my grandma never did a tour of duty in a war zone either. Boredom is
real and can drive a man crazy!
Anyway, I’m located in a bowl surrounded by mountains. There
are several small villages around me as well. Looking out in any direction can
really make you feel insignificant. The land here makes keeping track of time
seem kind of silly. The mountains, sky, sun, snow, birds, rocks, animals, and
even the Afghan people do not seem to be concerned with time. I think to myself
that if I could go back a 1,000 years everything my eyes are currently looking
at would look exactly the same, including the people. Their houses are made of
dried mud and their roads of dirt. Electricity and plumbing are nonexistent.
Old men can be seen barefoot, humping large bushels of hay on their backs. I’ve
seen women fully covered riding donkeys carrying over-sized packages, or
children as young as two years old walking shoeless and alone in a puddle of
ice cold water.
These people are hard; I don’t think the average American could
last one week in an Afghan’s shoes or lack thereof. From sun up till sun down
these people seem to be occupied with some type of work.
I often watch the locals eat and this is one part of their culture
that I think highly of. Sure, the food is simple but eating it makes me wonder
if this is what my grandparents felt like when they were growing up. Breakfast
for the local workers consists of a round and sometimes rectangular piece of bread
called Naan. The locals bring several pieces of this bread to work in the
morning wrapped up in an old piece of cloth. Sometimes, they will add honey or
jam to the bread but most of the time they just eat it plain. Every now and
then if they are lucky their boss will bring in a bag of hard boiled eggs.
Watching them eat hard boiled eggs and fresh bread and then wash it all down
with a cup of hot tea makes me envy them in a way. They definitely eat to live
here and not the other way around. While eating they converse and laugh, it is
almost like being together and talking is the priority and eating comes second.
Their food does not come in cans or boxes; it’s not loaded with preservatives
either. For snacks I’ve see them pull small reused bags from their pockets
filled raisins or some type of seeds and their always eager to share.
The guys I work with think that these people live miserable
lives and often make jokes about how backwards they are. A lot of the guys will
call them primitive. I don’t feel the same as most Soldiers feel when it comes
to the people here. Maybe, it has something to do with me being a bear but I’m
not 100% sure these people are miserable. One thing I find extremely
interesting about them is the fact that most of them have no idea how old they
are, they do not have birthdays here. When I first heard this I chuckled but
after thinking about it I realized that not knowing how old you are really
means nothing when you look at the big picture. It goes back to the whole not
keeping track of time thing and actually makes perfect sense to me. The people in the village next to me are
interested in tending to their land and feeding their families. The issues that
these people are concerned with involve life and death and therefore are
meaningful. Children fly kites and throw rocks and spend most of their time
outdoors. I’m not saying that I would want to trade places with these people
but when I think about the state of my country and my people I’m in no position
to say the world, I know, is better.
g/b
There has been a great deal of change in the world since
April 30th of 1975 and a large number of those changes have been a direct
result of the United States Military’s technological superiority. It is amazing
to think that our country has the capability of killing terrorists thousands of
miles away with unmanned drones. Heck, we even have a robot roaming around mars!
However, at the same time the military also likes to do things the old school
way and for the past month of my life I have experienced this first hand. 
The good news is my platoon got pulled off the ECP. We are
now doing what we were trained to do, which is fire infantry mortars. The bad
news is that in order to fire mortars we first had to establish a mortar firing
point and this involved a whole lot of physical labor. For the past 45 days or
so I have been filling sand bags in the blistering Afghan heat and to really
make me feel like a baby boomer, while filling these sand bags the Army would
continuously fly helicopters over our heads. You’d think after all these years’
sandbags and choppers would be something of the past!
Due to our operation tempo this week I don’t really have a
lot of time to write. But, I can tell you that I got to fire my first rounds in
combat this past month. After working the ECP for so long it felt really good
to actually join the fight. I’ve attached several pictures to this posting to
include our living area, bunker, fighting position, and mortar pit. Keep in
mind we started from the ground up on this project so I really feel good about
it. Most units fall in on a position already established we had to build ours
from the ground up. 