iraqistan

It’s the slower days that breed the interesting conversation, I find. One of my favorite people to talk to around here is the same captain that I was swapping poorly-tasting jokes with while there was some sort of battle in the streets of our city (reference entry on March 23 or thereabouts, for those who haven’t been paying attention). Being a medic in a semi-permissive environment, he usually has a lot of time on his hands to come up with witty commentary.

For example, I hate to run. No surprise, really, with a recovering torn hamstring and a passionate distaste for most things “sporty” as it were. Anyway, in a conversation with him and a few miscellaneous (but valued nonetheless) brits, he happened to mention a quote I will use for the rest of my military career: Running Breeds Cowardice. He pointed out that if you can’t run fast, you have to stay and fight… our other captain said, appalled, “Obviously you guys don’t know the reason for the two-mile run on the PT test.” So I asked him to please, enlighten me, because I haven’t met a soul who runs two miles to get away from danger. His response: “Damn. I have no idea either. I was hoping you guys knew.” So we decided not to do it anymore. My team leader, for some reason, disagrees with me, though I did have two captains to back me up with logical arguments…

And they aren’t the only ones with gems recently (note: a New Zealand officer said “gem” when referring to one of our friendly neighborhood warlords today. I thought, “truly outrageous.” Let’s see who from the 80’s can understand THAT reference). I was only a few minutes ago enlightened with these words of wisdom from one of our special forces guys: Light a man a fire and he will be warm for a day. Light a man ON fire and he will be warm the rest of his life.

The things you learn on slow days…

Today was entertaining, I suppose. I am having a lot of trouble discerning sheep from goats from big dogs occasionally from small cars, I think, but it does keep life interesting. Everything seems furry…

We did see some greenery today for a bit. We took a drive up through some mountains up towards the north. It was nice to see grass, though it looked unnatural. I decided that someone must have stocked up green spray paint and was just going out every night and painting the dust. We couldn’t get close enough to confirm or deny it, so it may have been a mirage altogether.

So we went northwards, and eventually the country does end. I did take a rock from what was the Turkmenistan Or Bust gate (since I can’t read the signs, I just make assumptions about what they say… the one on the way out of Afghanistan along the main road reads “So long, sukkas!” to me, and I stick by it). Apparently the actual border is a touch farther, but it was close enough. Walking further seemed like an awful lot of effort. So I put my foot across the gate line and consider it my Escape to Turkmenistan.

So in the past year I have put a foot in eleven states and six countries. I have spent at least one night in seven states and four countries. Travel? I suppose I can’t argue with that… see the more scenic areas of the world, to say the least… because really, who doesn’t want a vacation in beautiful Afghanistan?

16 confirmed kills. Like a ninja I am, though with a rolled newspaper instead of nunchucks, but with just as much skill. I creep up and with one fell swoop my foe is twitching on the floor… no matter how big they are, they are no match for me and my skill…

And so wages my war against the flies… several battles have gone in my favor, but I make no mistake that the war is not yet over… They will all rue the day they entered our office… and each and every one will pay for this mistake…

Sure, we have better things to do with our time. Goodness knows every day there is something else that needs looking into. I think one government official ran over another government official’s dog or something recently, because they just get more and more in a tizzy about this and that… we are up to four separate incidents that may have (or may not have, depending on who you ask) started all the hooplah around here, and at least ten people will back up any story. A bird in the sky becomes ten…

And the Non-Government Organizations, those crazy folk who wander around with no weapons making friends and building things for these people, I think they have been taking math lessons from the locals. The work that they do is wonderful for the country, of course, and they encourage development and such, but numbers increase exponentially when they tell a story… and goodness knows you don’t want to hear something third or fourth hand, because by the time word gets to you there will be a fleet of alien spacecraft heading directly towards the city with lasers and vaporizors and x-ray vision and they all know where you live… they are a bit more sophisticated in what they imagine and pass along, but the concept is the same.

Another interesting and unrelated fact: several blocks away is Federal Express. Yes, the same company, same logo, everything. If something comes (and we all know everyone FedExs to Afghanistan… I mean, really, who doesn’t), the packages are loaded up and transported accordingly… by donkey. I have every intention before I leave to get a picture of the FedEx donkey…

Ah… a sniper… he just landed on my leg, thinking I won’t notice… how little you know, my precious… there is a war going on, and there is about to be one more casualty…

Well, that’s the last time I open my smart mouth. Sunday was going along well, for the slowest day of my life. I believe time may have actually stopped between breakfast and lunch, so as I finished my lunch I said, “Well, only five more hours until dinner…” Didn’t get to eat another real meal until breakfast two days later. Between standing on a roof looking for bad guys with guns (while swapping poorly tasted jokes with the medic, of course), trying to sort out the mess of what had actually happened and what was happening at the correct time, getting yelled at by I believe final count was three separate chains of command who were way across the country and none of whom actually had any authority over me (my chain of command was most happy to point that out to them and to yell at them in return), wander back up to watch tank fire in the distance and tracers overhead (best transmission of the evening, courtesy of my team leader: “***, this is ***, we have… OH SHIT”), assist in the “relocation” (“evacuation” makes people nervous) of foreign civilians who wanted to get out of the city, and just generally try to sort out the mess that the city had become, I didn’t have much time to eat.

Now, naturally I can’t say the details of what happened, but needless to say the news back home didn’t report too much. Of course, the Israelis decided that the following morning was a good time to kill a guy in a wheelchair with three missiles. Drama queens… stole our thunder. And not only that, but the news that was sent back may not have necessarily been accurate, though that isn’t necessarily their fault. Let me explain the concept of Afghan Math, for those who don’t know. It could be a graduate level college course. If you are told that ten people have been killed, it is one person with a paper cut. If a goat blows up in the middle of nowhere (but if no one is around to see it, did it make a sound?), suddenly there are mines all over the main roads and in the cities of the province. Let me also explain Afghan Politics, which is PhD level. Think third grade my friend hates you therefore so do I. Now, when someone gets riled up like they did here recently, everyone in a major position in the vicinity regresses to first grade or so, and everyone starts throwing sand into each others’ eyes and saying nasty things about each others’ mother. So with these two concepts in mind, it gets a little challenging to figure out what happened and what is indeed happening outside your front gate. And of course, we sat in the middle with sand and mothers occasionally passing overhead.

And at some point in the protests and demonstrations yesterday, a few people decided it was the Americans’ fault. Those people were not in the visible majority, however, and were quieted reasonably quickly by other forces, mostly because we have backup that they don’t want called into the area… for a people that don’t see planes very often, seeing the occasional bomber and gunship sends the message that you can blame us all you want, but don’t get us involved or your mud hut may need a patch in the roof. It ain’t raining that much to make enough mud… so we continue on with our cynicism, albeit a little more cautiously…

Another $2.11 an hour. That, mind you, doesn’t include deployment pay, because I haven’t gotten bored enough yet. Key word is yet… give it a few more days.

Two days from now, local time, it will be one month since we left. That’s local time, because I’m in the future compared to back in the States… tomorrow’s Afghanistan today! Fantastic. A new slogan. It’s the little things… regardless, one month down, two to thirteen to go. Being home by mid-September would be nice, so I can celebrate the one year anniversary with the husband. One year married, six weeks together. At least we aren’t sick of each other yet…

More adventures into the city are in my future, i foresee. Though I must use the term “city” loosely, since it is more like mud huts covered in plaster especially towards the outskirts. Don’t get OSHA certified and go to Afghanistan. Don’t get a logistics degree and join the Army, either, but who’s counting. The city is fun, though, especially driving. The three-year-olds at least have the presence of mind to hold the hands of the two-year-olds to cross the main streets… Think Manhatten, shorten the buildings to maximum three flights (and those are the new buildings), replace most of the side streets with dirt, take away the few driving rules they have, and you pretty much have our city. It’s an adventure every time…

We did go to an old Soviet range the other day for weapons practice and also practiced reaction drills. Next time you are in the passenger seat of an SUV with an M16 and body armor, try jumping out the driver’s side quickly while someone is yelling “bang bang” at you. A little bruised, but really quite enjoyable.

And so it continues…

Well, I didn’t go on the mission I was supposed to go on, due to meetings back on the ol’ homefront. Or deploymentfront. Whatever. But they were only gone overnight anyway… I don’t go on the next one, either… which isn’t too bad because by the time I do go, it won’t be cold. It has been chilly the past day or two, though by chilly I still mean in the 50’s or so, weather we would be wearing shorts in were it back at Bragg… and if I wore shorts ever… but I digress…

I did get to meet some interesting people this past week, however, including some Brits who are more than happy to share their drinking stories, and I hear theres a scotsman or two somewhere in this town with even better ones. the things we occupy our free time with…

Big things are starting to happen, though… big things… lots of politics and crazy nonsense. We get our job done, and hopefully it will help out and we can get home… we have it good out here, compared to where other people are in this country and certainly compared to what I hear it’s like in Iraq, but it still isn’t home. It will be nice to drink milk that didn’t come from a container you can’t read… we think it’s from cows, but no garauntees have been made on that either.

At least my sister is finding the real news around here, sending news reports on people over in Ghazni having relations with donkeys. I will have to ask the group out there if they ran into anything fun like that… though I wouldn’t be surprised, since all the way out here we believe we saw a kid trying to milk a donkey… for all of you saying “donkeys don’t give milk,” that’s exactly what we said… ah, the joys of another culture… as long as that isn’t the undisclosed milk in the aforementioned unreadable container, we will all be reasonably okay… i think…

First longer range mission was today. Just a little day trip… camels and potholes and minefields, oh my! it was fun… to misquote Bill Murray, “Goats and Sheep… herding together… mass hysteria…” i saw sheep, i saw dogs, i saw camels… and a whole lot of minefields. boy oh boy. you wonder why the country is starving. you try picking carrots in a minefield… tread lightly in the footsteps of the local in front of you… thats a trick of the trade… you dont want to walk a mile in his shoes, because the heels are probably cut off and they are about six sizes too big for him anyway, but you should walk that mile in his footsteps to say the least.

the village we went to was neat. bigger than some of the other ones. a bunch of the kids spoke english, which was fun because of course they want to practice with the crazy americans. i ate sheep. not lamb, sheep. what part of the sheep was it? i thought that part was better left a mystery. oh, and for those of you who dont know, there are green peppers that look like ours only skinnier. yeah. a little spicy. i thought i was going to die. i certainly started sweating, and it was a pretty cool day today. of course, the american i was with thought it was one of the funnier things hed seen all day, because hes been here a few months already. the locals found it humorous too. glad my beet red face and desperate need for liquids brought some amusement to a war-torn people. jerks…

off on some more jaunts this week… wherever the road may take us. can’t sit still too long or we go stir crazy… and no one likes someone who is stir crazy who has two weapons and a few knives…

Debatable. They say we are in a city. Let me explain Afghanistan cities. Lots of people, lots of politics, and really odd clothing detergent… the detergent threw me, especially since it was bought from a random guy selling random objects on the street. I’m just happy I brought mine from home…

We are in touch with reality, however… computers are slow, but occasionally operational, and I heard there might be a phone somewhere, but have yet to see it to verify the rumors. Things are falling into the semi-routine that is not a routine of deployment. Work is being done, and that’s a step, anyway, and that takes up some time. Sleep is a crutch…

Where we live is something of a palace. Flush toilets… a hot commodity in Afghanistan. We can shower daily, too, when the running water works. All in all, there are plenty worse places we could be…

What else can I say that I can put up on here… ah… the villages. The people seem very nice, though everyone does when you don’t speak a word of their language. Actually, I have learned a few words. Hello, thank you, goodbye, go away, and a few other ones. The kids are surprisingly well behaved, too… very shy and are happy just to watch us stand around. We don’t let them get too close, because you don’t let anyone get too close, and they listen to you when you yell at them. Remarkable, since I know a lot of kids that don’t listen at all back home…

So that’s that for now. We’ve only been in our location about a week, but are settling in and having a good time figuring out just what the hell is going on and who likes who this week in the Afghan world… they have the third grade mentality of “my friend doesn’t like you so neither do I” running rampant everywhere in this country… it’s like living in a perpetual elementary school.

Almost forgot. I parallel parked in the city, with a right-hand driver vehicle. I am so awesome it’s almost painful…

Missing home, of course… two and a half to thirteen and a half months…

Finally, we got some word on where we are going. Westward bound… not too bad, really. Should be entertaining and I get to do some of what I was trained to do. Fun times should be had by all, though of course a lot of those tales will have to wait until later… the joys of having my job…
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