We are still actively working humanitarian assistance out here.  While I was gone to Kwal-E-Now and Bala Moghrab the team did a couple of HA projects and from all accounts, they went well.  Will do my best to get some pics from that posted later.  Remember, we need your help to make this happen.  Email me for more info or post a note on this blog and I will get back to you as soon as possible—barring any more 15 day excursions.  I will be going on leave soon and can hardly wait for that to happen, although it does come with a price.  The travel involved is borderline insane and then there is the saying goodbye again, which I can hardly stand the thought of, let alone the actual experience.  I honestly hate it.  I love my wife and kids and the separation just straight up sucks.  I would classify January 22, 2007 as one of the top 5 hardest days in my life.  That was when I got out of our van at Fort Riley and said goodbye to my awesome wife and three equally awesome kids.  To remember that just moves me, and I don’t like the idea of having to do it again in August.  Speaking of them, Have I mentioned how great they are?   You know my wife has been super about taking everything and getting it done, as well as doing even more to add to the kids’ life.  She also makes sure that I get a package on a routine basis, which itself is really cool.  It will be great to be home soon, even if only to return later and wrap this thing up.  After this is over, I don’t know what next, but I hope it has us staying in the community we are in right now.  Family and friends there have been great, and appreciation for a few close ones (Doug, Randy and others) is at an all time high, let me tell you.  Of course, after being here, I definitely have a slew of new buddies.  Some are guys that I may not have hung out with before, but we are all we have, so a bond does develop.  When I was in Farah, I gained some friends that I am happy to say that I will see again, one of them will be moving in to the town I live in now, so we will be neighbors.  Crazy.  Down here in Adraskan, I have some cool cats to work with too, and definitely call them fiends as well.

Well…great to be back after being gone for awhile!  Had a post ready to go up and then got sent out for 5 to 7 days.  That turned into 15 days.  Got back to my fire base last night, and was glad to do so.  The post that was going to go up seems a little dated now, so I will pull some stuff from that and add to it.  Are you ready to read for awhile???  Before going on, I truly wish that I would have started this out when I first got the orders to come over here.  I think that it would be amazing to see the transformation in my thinking and the evolution of emotions.  More on all of that later, when I am sure to go off on a rant of some kind, such has been the last month or so.  For some sort of flow though, lets go back about 3 or so weeks…

 Our team has been doing some humanitarian assistance stuff.  One of the sides of that is working with local villages, on a limited scale, to improve some of their facilities, like the medical clinic in Adraskan.  Hey, guess what?  Afghanistan has the same kind of “well-heeled”, glory-seeking, bureaucratic morons that we do.  As a matter of fact, I got to meet one a couple of weeks ago, and let me tell you what my first thought was after he opened is mouth:  “Boy, I would like to cave this guy’s forehead in.”  Let me tell you why.  The US ETTs  in Adraskan were working with the village get some improvements to their medical facility (like a TB ward, a larger childrens and womens ward, etc.).  We came back with some additional medical personnel to get an even better look at some stuff and this, this bonehead just shows up from Herat, talking about how we need to go through them to do whatever and that they have a master plan for this and that.  Uh, yeah, whatever.  Master plan in Afghanistan??  I am sure there is no such animal.  Why?  Because planning is not even close to being a strong point for anyone in this country, and I am including all the foreign forces here in that (at least it sure seems.)  This jerk was just trying to get into the mix and move us to other places to improve what he wanted so that he got some credit or whatever.  You can see through the act a mile away, through cultures.  He was wanting us to go to some meetings in Herat, blah, blah, blah.  Shut it.  We had some possible access to some funds to get this done and on a very short timeline.   Then this guy comes out of the woodwork.   Where were you 2 weeks ago, Shleprock?  What about where have you been the last two years???   While projects in Herat continue to get done and the fat cats (Afghan contractors, politicians, etc) get fatter, the outer reaches are ignored, unless there is something in it for someone. This guy symbolized all that disgusts me with dirtbags that are supposed to be helping people.  Yeah, some may say that I should tone it down, but this was how I felt, and I will not apologize for it.  It wouldn’t have mattered what country he was from either.  I get the same nauseating feeling in my stomach and a twitch of raw, destructive anger coming up my back and into my shoulders when I deal with jerks like him in the States.  Of course I didn’t assault the man.  That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have liked to and then enjoyed it.  It ticks me off that there are so many of these clowns running around.  The military isn’t exempt.  They just conceal their movements differently until they get to a position where they can get away with their way being more observable.  Keep reading this and you are almost sure to get an example provided by me.  Maybe not now, but down the road.