Where I Work

Here are a few pics of where I work. I am located in the bottom brown shipping container (the door is on the other side). You can see the dirt on the door. Bottled water is everywhere and free for the taking. We have a fridge inside, so we move it from a pallet in the sun, to that table there, to the floor inside then into the fridge. So there are packs of water everywhere in different stages of cooling. (Quick side note: I have a serious jones for a fountain soda over ice. There is no ice around here. I mean, we can turn down the fridge and freeze bottled water, but there are no ice machines that I have seen. In the dining halls, the drinks are either in a large refrigerator or in one of those drink machines. Neither can really keep up, so most drinks are cool at best. My kingdom for crushed ice!) There are three of us that work in this office, which is rather tight. Most spaces this size house two folks. I guess I'm just lucky!

Not much else to report. Kind of like that movie Groundhogs Day; each day seems just like the one before. I've adopted a saying over here. When somebody asks how I'm doing, I reply "better than yesterday, but not as good as tomorrow!" It's good for a smile.

Stay safe and keep in touch!

Later,

-Dave

More Pictures

As always, its was hectic day. High today was 111; tomorrow is supposed to hit 115. Just anither day in paradise! Oh, and I swear the smell increases with the heat. But, oddly, you start getting used to it. So, we press on and do our jobs. More pictures below.



This is what is called an MRAP, which is what the Army guys use for their patrols. Notice the Transformers emblem. It's a young Army!



Another MRAP with Transformer emblem. These things are beasts!




This is a picture of the hockey rink taken from a distance. It is built in the middle of the Boardwalk. It is used mostly in the morning (games start as early as 0530) and after sunset. Candians use it the most, but I've seen teams from various countires playing there.

So another day done, another day closer to coming home. Missing all those Eagles games is going ot be tough, but I'll find a way to keep up with them. (Of course you know this will be the best season ever!)

Later!

-Dave

Pics from Kandahar

Not much to add to earlier posts. Still hot, still dusty, still stinky. But, hey, it pays well!



Air Force FET - Kandahar. L to R: SMS Dan Sund, Maj Chris Thomason, me, CMS Larry Alt, Maj Peter Keegan, Maj Todd Hirneisen (Lt DeJuan Saunders not available for picture)



The Boardwalk. Notice Tim Horton's on right. A Canadian version of Dunkin Donuts.



And, finally, where I sleep. Doesn't it look comfy!

More pics to come when I get a chance. Thanks for all the kind e-mails and well wishes.

Until next time...

-Dave

Kandahar, finally

Well, Followers, I am here. I arrived in Kandahar on July 19. Let’s start with the flight in. As you may remember my numerous diatribes regarding battle rattle, this was another fine opportunity to test our mettle. Me and one other person from my team were lucky enough to get seats on a C-130 aircraft with approximately 65 of our Army brethren. I know many of you have never flown on a military aircraft, let alone a C-130. Let me set the scene. There are no seats, per se; they call them jump seats. Similar in comfort to a lawn chair; stretched cloth seat with a webbing back. They set them up along the outer walls and back-to-back down the center of the plane, essentially two rows facing each other. The distance from the front of one seat to the front of another is, I’d say, about 24”. It is very difficult to sit right across from one another; you sort of have to interlock knees. A C-130 will carry about 40 people relatively comfortably – you can get up and move around. We had just under 70 and we were wearing our gear. I had my computer back-pack as a carry on. Most of the Army guys had their rucksack (think back-pack on steroids). It was tight. All I could do was stand up and twist by body to stretch. We were like that for three hours. The approach/landing into Kandahar was quite the ride also. They do a “tactical approach”, which is the closest thing a C-130 can do to dive-bombing. We went into a hard left downward spiral. Thank God for Dramamine! ‘Cause I surely would have lost it.

As I mentioned in some e-mails to folks, Kandahar airfield (KAF) is hot and dusty. Every day since I’ve arrived has been over 100 degrees. It hit 110 the other day. I sweat just standing still. Luckily our office spaces are air conditioned. It is also very dry. With all the vehicles driving around, the dirt is crushed into a powder the consistency of talcum powder. And it gets everywhere. My boots look white, not the nice suede tan. But by far the worst thing here is the smell. The “poop pond” – waste water treatment plant evaporation lagoon - is rather close to the modular housing. Now everybody has smelled poop before, but imagine the stench from over 15,000 people. The plant was originally designed for about 9,000 people, so it is overburdened. At times, depending on the wind and time of day, it’s nauseating. There is a new water treatment plant in the works, but it won’t be on line while I am here.

Our office space is fabricated from some steel shipping containers stacked together. Each has a door and window cut into it and a split a/c unit installed. They are comfortable, but small, so we’re cozy. We’ve been starting at 0730 and go until you’ve had enough, which for the most part has been after 2100 (9:00 pm). There is really nothing else to do. There are gyms and a “boardwalk” which has shops and such - Pizza Hut, Tommy Horton’s, Burger King, and Subway along with some trinket shops. They offer some distractions, but we’re staying busy trying to keep up with the projects around here. I’ll go into that in a future post. I should also have some pictures to post soon. So until next time, take care!

-Dave

Tired After Traveling for 20+ Hours

Hey there. We're at the Manas airfield in Bishkek(?) Kyrgyzstan for the time being. We are 10 hours ahead of the east coast. It's 2314 (11:14 pm) here and I am bushed. We traveled for roughly 24 hours, about 16 of that was in the air. Baltimore to Germany to Turkey to Kyrgyzstan. Same plane, but three different flight crews. Tired just doesn't explain how I feel right now; I'm beyond that. My head feels fuzzy and I'm having a hard time reading my own writing. This is as far east as I have ever travelled, so the jet lag is going to be rough for a few days. I should be leaving for Khandahar - my final destination - sometime tomorrow. Everybody is safe and well. Too tired to write any more, so I'll talk to y'all later. Time to go pass out in my bunk.

Take care,

-Dave

Hello friends,

Well, the hard part is over! Today (Friday) was our last official training day. Tomorrow we reconstitute – clean up and turn in equipment we borrowed, get stuff we need to take with us, clean up the barracks, etc. Everybody was motivated today because the light at the end of the tunnel was very bright.

Yesterday we did dry runs through various convoy situations: driving through a friendly village, driving through a hostile village, returning fire, identifying IEDs, quick recovery of a damaged vehicle, combat life saver on injured personnel, establishing a Medivac landing zone, and other tasks. It was the crawl/walk phase. Today was the walk/run phase. We ran the convoy on a live range, so we used real ammunition and fired at pop-up targets. Now don’t get worried; all the targets were down-range. We were not firing across one another. It was a very controlled training environment and overall good training. It’s almost too bad I’ll never use it, since I will never be on a convoy. But, I can live with that.

Now for some full disclosure. I have a beautiful wife and son that I love dearly and who love me. I have great family support and wonderful friends who I appreciate very much. But today, my favorite person on the planet is the man/woman who decided to put air conditioning in an up-armored HUMVEE. Those vehicles are beasts. They have inches thick armor and bulletproof glass. I’m glad they are available for our troops and I’m sure that if you are being shot at, they are worth every penny. But they are an oven inside. A “black box” for all you engineers. And that air conditioner made it tolerable. It was in the mid-eighties and sunny again. When we did have to get out of the vehicle, we would sweat just standing in place. If you had a task to perform, it was even worse. At one point I could feel the sweat running down the back of my knees (I was on the landing zone marking team). Just miserable for us Air Force folks. But that HUMVEE became a haven (even heaven?) and we couldn't wait to get back inside.

So, as I mentioned, the hard part of Ft McCoy is over. We leave on Monday for Baltimore. Craig and Karen are stopping in for the short time I am there. Then its the long haul; six months in Afghanistan. This may be my last post from state-side and I will try to update it periodically from over there. Thanks again for all the warm wishes. Please keep in touch and I'll be talking to you soon!

Later,

-Dave

P.S. Somebody gave me the pictures below. One of the barracks (that's me in the Eagles cut-off shorts), and one of me firing the crew serve .50 caliber machine gun.

And Even More Army Training

Hey folks!

I haven't posted in a while because we've been pretty busy. Monday was short range marksmanship. We worked with our M4 rifles firing at targets within 20 meters. There were good guy and bad guy pop-ups - one of each per lane. They were just poster sized photos mounted on cardboard. They do not have an infinite supply, so they re-use the posters. Since the scoring is by hand, they put little squares of tape over the old holes. As you can imagine, the "good guy" posters are immaculate; the "bad guy" posters are covered in these litte white squares. Makes differentiating them a little easier! We shot from several different firing positions (straight ahead, turning to the left/right, walking forward, walking then kneeling, walking to the left/right). Each course of fire did a walk-through first, going through each firing position and literally saying "BANG! BANG!" if the bad guy popped up and "CLEAR!" if the good guy popped up. A very motivated female Army sergeant would announce each position. For example, "Shooters, assume a good and aggressive combat stance for the RIGHT TURN SHOOT!" And we had to echo "RIGHT TURN SHOOT!" She'd then say "SHOOTERS READY!", we'd echo "READY" and the target would pop-up. At the bad guys, we had to fire "controlled pairs", which most people recognize as the proverbial "double tap". So, as I said, each course of fire did a walk through then the live fire. There were five courses of fire, so we heard that wonderful Army sergeant shout out those commands ten times for each position. It got a little monotonous. Those who were not firing were running house clearing drills and troop movement drills. All within earshot of the range. I swear I heard that ladies voice in my sleep! And it was hysterical to watch us Air Force people try to perform a troop movement through a simulated urban environment - moving from building to building. Lots to think about and be aware of - look for cover, who's covering what sector, watch out for doors, duck under windows, etc. We looked like the Keystone Cops out there! Running into each other and walking right by windows/doors. I think the Army guys make us do it just for the entertainment value. So that was Monday.

Tuesday was brutal. We were at the FOB location all day. It was intensely sunny and hot in that battle rattle (temp was in mid 80s). We were outsde for most of the day. We got to the FOB at 7:30. The first few hours was death by PowerPoint in an old maintenance tent. There were 100 of us in a tent roughy 25' x 40'. Luckily we were allowed to remove the heavy stuff and leave it outside, but the inside of the tent got hotter and hotter as the sun got higher and higher. The Army really hammers their trainees. So after sweating in ther for 2+ hours, we were back outside in all our gear walking from station to station for hands-on training. This went on until 4:00. One girl got sick from dehydration; we all got sunburn on those minimal portions of skin exposed - mostly noses, ears and lips. I drank two full Camelbacks, whcih had to be in excess of 1.5 gallons total. When we got back to the barracks, I was soaked through. And as they promised when we first got started wearing the gear, my chest smelled like my feet. Just miserable, and Thursday and Friday look to be the same deal.

Today (Wednesday) was better. We live fired those crew serve weapons I mentioned a few posts ago. We fired the .50 caliber M2, the M240B and the MK19. I've mentioned the 50 cal and the M240B before, so I won't rehash that except to say that firing a real machine gun is prety cool. Th MK19 is essentially a machine gun grenade launcher. It fires 40mm explosive rounds. We fired them from the gunners spot on the HUMVEE. We would load 5 of us in a vehicle and rotate around after each person fired an ammo can of rounds. For the MK19, that was 32 rounds. From inside the front seat positions, you could actually see the rounds go down range. (The tarets were between 400 and 800 meters away.) Then you'd see a little spot of light and a small explosion. The rounds we fired were like flash-bangs, not real fragmentation rounds. Still pretty cool. So we got a chance to take out some agression today. Still a lot of hurry up and wait, though. It took over four hours to get 50 people through.

Time to head out for chow. Army cooking is about as good as high school cafeteria food, which is to say that it is edible and you get used to it, but nothing to get excited about. As I said, tomorrow and Friday look to be rough, so I may not update for a few days. Stay tuned!

Later,

-Dave

Air Force People Playing the Army Game

Hello fans!

Well, no fireworks for me on the fourth, but we did get the day off, so to say. We had a burger burn at a campground on post. Of course, we still had to wear our PT (physical training) clothes. Slept in until 0730, helped set up the picnic, ate a few burgers, hot dogs and macaroni salad and called it a day. Nothing too exciting, which was good.

Today we were up at 0530 and went until 1700 (5:00 pm). Today's exercise was Base Defense, which included entry control points, vehicle searches, defensive fighting positions, guard towers, etc. Everything the Army does at a forward operating post (FOP), but nothing I will EVER do. Decent training, but somewhat wasted on us. If nothing else, it gave us a look into what the Army goes through.

The first half of the day was a walk through of the basic functions mentioned above. The exercise started after lunch. I was assigned to a guard tower, which turned out to be one of the better places to be. The initial "attack" came right in my sector. A man was firing mortars (simulated, of course) from beside a pick-up truck in a field across from us. They used ground burst simulators, so it got pretty loud. So while I was yelling "incoming", my tower partner - Dan Sund - was taking shots (blanks) at the bad guy. After a few shots, the man fell and played dead. Then we had to up-channel all the information. We picked up the "wounded" and waited for the next attack. There was a "village" (Hollywood prop-like buildings) across the road from the base. Due to its location, my tower was in the best position to see everything; I could see right down the main street. So we stayed pretty engaged throughout the day, passing information up and down the line. It helped the time pass by faster. We had to deal with drive-by shootings, civilians poking at the perimiter fence, roadside bombs, etc. The weather was agreeable, which made it somewhat bearable. (80 degrees, sunny and breezy, which by any other standard would be considered a BEAUTIFUL day. Not at Ft McCoy in your battle rattle.) I never got the chance to shoot my weapon, which suited me fine. I let Dan have all the "fun". Of course, now he has to clean his rifle; I don't. (The Lt Colonel is a little savvy!) I'm not sure if anybody took any pictures, but if I find any, I'll post them soon.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another live fire day, but I'm not sure exactly what is involved yet. But stay tuned and I'll give you all the details in time. Until then, take care and keep in touch!

Later,

-Dave

Training Exercise Borings...uh Briefings

Hey gang!

Today was mostly boring. It started off as a gaggle, since we were traveling by HUMVEE all day today. We split the entire class (110 people) between 22 HUMVEES in convoys of four or five vehicles. (The picture below is of Major Peter Keegan from my team.) You'd think nobody ever drove in an organized fashion before! Folks crossing paths all over the parking lot, teams getting out of order. Eventually, everything fell into place and we were on our way. We drove to a training location about 15 minutes away and broke off into small groups for training. We were outside in our "battle rattle" most of the day. The weather held at about 80 degrees and sunny - hot, but not too hot. In the gear, though, it drains you.

The most interesting training was tactical clearing of a room. Now we will never do it, and the trainers know it, so they gave us the Reader's Digest version. How to go in as a group of four, take a position of dominance in the space and crossing sectors of fire. Cool stuff. Now I can critique the SWAT teams on television! The pictures below are of a few fellow airmen perfoming the task in simulated spaces (called a glass houses).

Another interesting class was on defeating IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). IEDs are those roadside bombs that the insurgency uses to attack military convoys. They come in all shapes and sizes. Those guys really know how to hide a bomb. Many of them are detonated by cell phone; just dial the number and BOOM! Luckily, we now have portable jamming devices that mount on a HUMVEE to overpower the cell transmissions used to activate IEDs. There are other technologies we employ, but I can't get into those here. (Nothing real secret squirrel, but you never know who reads these things.)

We also did some radio training, cultural awareness training, and basic convoy tactics. Again, not much that we - as Airmen - will ever use, except the cultural awareness. We will be practicing base defensive tactics on Sunday. Something we'll never do, but the Army wants us to know. The last picture is of me drinking water from my Camelback during an MRE lunch. MMMM..good!

Tomorrow, the 4th of July, is a day off, so to speak. We are going to have a picnic lunch, but are required to wear our PT clothes. No fireworks for me. So please enjoy the holiday and stay safe!

Later,

-Dave

And now...Weapons Qualification

Hello followers! Sorry for not writing for a while, but it's been a busy few days here. Weapons qualification, Army style. Much more interesting than the boring Air Force qualification course. We began on Tuesday with basic marksmanship training for both weapons. This included how to take down (disassemble),reassemble and function check each weapon (M9 and M4) for malfunctions. That afternoon we went to an indoor simulation range similar to the one for the crew served weapons. We shot the M16 from three different position - prone supported, prone unsupported and kneeling - to practice engaging pop-up targets. The prone positions are difficult because of the body armor. It comes up high on the neck, so when you tip your head back, hte helmet hits the neck guard and stops. So you end up looking more out of the top of your eyes. Takes a little preactice. But, given the state of my knees these days, kneeling was the most difficult for me. But, I still hit 34 out of 40 targets. Not bad for an old Air Force guy!
After that, we went to the actual M9 pistol range. There we engaged popup targets from a standing position. The targets ranged from distances of 5 meters to 25 meters. Kind of hard to miss, but I did miss one; I hit 29 of 30. We were also required to fire undder "limited visibility" conditions, which typically translates to night firing. However, since we are Air Force, we just waited until dusk and put on our shaded ballistic goggles. (It was also overcast, which supposedly helped. Please!) The requirement was to hit two out of five pop-ups - all at the 5 meter range. I could have clubbed the dummy over the head, it was so close. Since the grade was simply go/no-go, we did not get actual numbers, but the guy I was firing with missed twice. Glad he's not on my team.
Wednesday, we had to be at breakfast - in all our gear - by 0600. Slop down some bacon and eggs and head to the M16 zero-ing range at 0630. At the zero-ing range we had to - you guessed it - "zero" our weapon. You have to put 5 out of 6 consecutive rounds in a 2 in diameter circle. We fired in three shot volleys, so this requires a tight shot group of 3 rounds each time and making the proper sight adjustments between. It took me a while to get zeroed with the iron sights (open sights). After that we zeroed our optics, which is a device similar to a scope with a red dot sight. This sets the rifle up so that you do not have to use the iron sights, but simply put the red dot on the target. After zeroing, we headed to the qualification range, which consisted of 6 pop-up targets set at 50,100,150,200,250 and 300 meters. They would "pop-up" for a few seconds and then disappear. You had 20 rounds from the prone supported position, 10 rounds from the prone unsupported position and then 10 from the kneeling position. You have to hit 23 out of 40 to qualify; I got 30. Not as good as the simulator, but not too shabby. Then we had to return at dusk for the limited visibility qual. Just like the M9 the day before, we wor our sunglasses at night (ha-ha) and had to hit seven out of 15 targets, all at the 50 m point. We used tracers every third round, which was kind of cool. You actually cannot see them when you are firing (at least at the close targets), but they are easy to see as an observer. Closest thing we will get to fireworks this week! The cool thing about the optics is that you can fire with both eyes open. Again, just place the dot on the target and pull the trigger.
It was a long 2 days, but its one more major training event concluded. We are now gearing up for STX's (situational training exercises) pertaining to urban warfare and base defense. (Like we'll ever do that!) Today was death by PowerPoint. Hopefully tomorrow is a little more exciting. I will keep you posted.
Thanks to everybody for the e-mails and blog comments. Its always good to hear from the folks back home. I apologize for not being able to respond to each one, but our time on these machines is limited to 20 minute increments (It took me three to get through this blog and some e-mails.) So, until nex time, take care and keep checking back!

Later,

-Dave