Call me a contractor, a mercenary, a war profiteer or call me an action figure. Weird.

The National Anthem...by Jerry Vale

Hello all,

Steve asked me to upload this here for him.

It is a beautiful, patriotic slide show set to my dad singing The National Anthem. A friend of my parent's put it together and it makes me smile.

For those of you that don't know my dad...he is the biggest baseball fanatic and I think his favorite professional accomplishment is probably having his recording of The National Anthem inducted into The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

It's really cool...we actually got to go see it hanging in the museum!

Enjoy!

Afghan Fashion TV

We don’t get a whole bunch of channels here in the “Stan”. AFN, (armed forces network), which bring us sports, a couple movie channels, including HBO, which, over here, has commercials and is censored. CNN, BBC and Fox, which I have grown to really enjoy, a Polish music video station (quirky) and the Fashion TV Channel. Now, I had never seen FTV before and the first time was when I first got here and went to the gym one early morning. There were five of us, five guys on treadmills, all watching the catwalk. It was pretty funny.
So, in honor of fashion, I bring you….

The Fall Line, Afghanistan 2009

In the first shot Steve is sporting the Blackhawk Warrior Wear Desert Ops Boots, Vertx Tactical Pants, Wilderness Tactical belt, Vertx Action Polo, the Suunto Advisor and two handmade parachute cord wrist bands Stevieb.

The next shot features Steve in the Vertx pants, but with the Ultra Club, Cool and Dry Polo, adorned with the logo of and made famous by WPD SWAT. He’s also carrying the Bushmaster M-4 with the Eotech Holographic sights and the Inforce 6V LED light system,(from Inova) using their MIL-STD-1913 mount.

In the last shot, (from an earlier post), Steve’s stylin in the traditional Afghan pakul, perahan tuban and the dastmal. (read as hat, man-jams and blanket). He’s also sporting an AKMS , borrowed from the local Taliban.

Enjoy

Dasara

Last weekend our Nepalese Gurkhas celebrated Dasara, the Indian holiday of the triumph of good over evil. Starting on Friday, we were witness to an animal sacrifice. This is done by means of taking the Gurkha knife (Kukri), and with one stroke, well, you get the picture. Now, it’s said to be bad luck not to do it with one stroke. Not sure if the dude on Friday was new, but it took two to complete the sacrifice. An audible groan could be heard by those present.
Saturday the ceremony was repeated, but none on Sunday. On the last day, Monday, the holiday culminated with a ceremony of putting crushed flowers on the forehead, during which prayers of long life and happiness are spoken by the leader. They let us participate, which was an honor. Then three goats were lined up and three strokes later they were preparing kabobs.

Video available upon request when I get home.