Love - Hate

So by a complete fluke I am back at a large base in order to get a few administrative things completed. Of course it takes forever to catch a helicopter flight to wherever you are going in Afghanistan so I am stuck in this land of hot showers, internet, and decent food. As much as I appreciate the amenities, I hate being away from the guys.

I will readily admit that I have a distinct love-hate relationship with my profession at the moment. The job offers unique and indispensable knowledge and situations that you could never get any where else. On a daily basis I am often confronted with a situation that in now way I am trained to handle. For instance, providing housing and protection for over 80 soldiers in a country where building materials and resources are at a minimum. So of course you improvise. Currently my platoon is living in an abandoned school building that we renovated with electrical house wiring and hescoes for added protection. Those are the kind of problems you learn to solve.

But I will tell you the real struggle is dealing with people that really have no connection to a war while being right in the middle of one. For instance, 80% of soldiers really don't leave the wire and most spend an inordinate amount of time at a desk working on PowerPoint or sending emails. The closes thing to a fight they see is when it is displayed on a screen. Unfortunately they don't feel the day in day out misery of dealing with substandard living conditions and the possibility that something terrible could happen at every minute. And to add on this whole scenario is typical for senior leadership. They unfortunately don't see the day-to-day life of a grunt. The only hope is that they trust the guys on the ground enough to give them the space to accomplish their mission.

The long and short is that after 8 months of being in Afghanistan it hasn't gotten better or worse. It is simply a daily hellish situation that soldiers go through. I am sure it is merely the pessimism and fatigue at this point but that is what blogs are for, to disseminate feelings across the world.

But to end on a good note one very interesting situation caught me off guard a few weeks ago. We were moving through one of the hundreds of villages in our Area of Operations and we stopped to talk to a few people. One little kid looked at me kind of funny and asked through the interpreter "Are you not from America, the greatest country in the world?" I simply responded "Yes" and the kid fires right back with "well then why are you so dirty?"

I thought it was so funny simply because this 5 year old afghan kid was able to see something so basic but was so provocative at the same time. I really miss having the simple views of being a kid. Unfortunately this adult world has gotten so caught up in semantics and BS that we forget to see simple things like being dirty.

Short and Sweet

The past month has been a blur. Not only is it physically getting hotter here, but the pace is simply heating up. The Taliban, soldiers girlfriends,disease, most Afghans, my chain of command, the dog have all decided to band together to make life an unending rollercoaster of excuses, lies, and overall chaos.

But then, what other job lets you manage 240,000$ in benefit projects while coordinating the drop of highly lethal and accurate artillery/aircraft fire? HAH take that Dairy Queen.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but I have to point out that humour really is the only release out here. Now for the sake of children and descent people out there I won't dive into the debauchery that is combat infantryman humor, but I really have to express to the world how necessary it crass humor can be. To think of the absurd situations that have presented themselves in anything other than an un-serious context would lead to an unending maze of psychotic behavior.

Back to keeping this thing short. Once again I am only here online for a few minutes so I simply wanted to get the word out about the imbed reporter that has been with us for the past month, Jim Foley, who is a freelance journalist that has written a much more intelligent blog on how my platoon has been operating for the past few weeks. His blog is:

www.aworldoftroubles.com

I highly recommend you read it, not only since it is about my platoon, but also because I feel it is the closest thing that people can read without extra-political-sensitive-whatever crap that comes with all our media outlets these days. His point of view is direct and raw. He sleeps, walks, and jokes with my guys day in and day out, and I think he gives a unique perspective to what real soldiers do in the field. And it is not the usual tripe you hear, it is the dirty foul in your face kind of writing we like out here.

Anyway, check it out for yourself.

Also, DUKE sucks. It had to be said.