THANKSGIVING

THANKSGIVING
It’s hard enough being away from family, but holidays are even tougher. The guys who cook for us every day from Supreme did a great job and prepared a great meal. We had a fantastic feast, too much food actually, then a big fire with our military friends from Camp Phoenix.

Christmas

DECEMBER 2010

Christmas was probably the toughest to be away from the family. We tried to make the best of it and the kitchen guys again did a great job with the Christmas dinner.
We had started doing a movie night, couple times a week, (helped make the time go faster). We tried to locate the appropriate movie for the holiday and came up with Die Hard (#1). You know, holiday theme………..”come out to the coast, have a few laughs”. Good flick.

Taliban Cave

One day while at the range, one of the guys showed us this old cave. Story goes that it was a Taliban cave until the ANA reclaimed the area and made it their base. When you think of a cave, you probably picture a small hole in the wall. Nope, this was huge. No doubt, you could fit numerous tanks in there. It was so big that we drove in behind one of our other trucks and lost sight of him.

Still no sign of Bin Laden.

Range

DECEMBER 2010

So, after being assigned the logistics guy for a while, I was asked if I wanted to go back to the range, but working the TTP side, (tactical training program). Of course I said yes and was again teamed up with Jason. Our job was to take the class that had, the week before, just qualified and teach them movement and turning while shooting. No easy feat considering the week before, most of them just learned how to shoot. Now they had four days to learn how to shoot on the move. Got to play around a little too. all in all, not a bad place to work, with the view and the opportunity to be around guns, which is always fun.

Guard Duty

DECEMBER 2009

We had a new class start up the other day and the Advisors were assigned different duties to help in process the several hundred or so Afghans who wanted to be Police. My pal Jason and I got the same shift which consisted of keeping order at the front gate. As usual we made a good time out of it. Due to our being so friggin intimidating, there were no problems. HA

Goats

NOVEMBER 2009

We decided we wanted to have a bar-b-q, so we bought a couple of goats on the local economy and picked two of our guys to do the job. They were given a quick lesson a larger than normal kukri’s and it was decided that one goat would be prepared the Nepalese way and the other would be cooked over an open fire. Jason, our resident Gurkha General, would go first. True to form for an honorary Gurkha, he did it in one stroke. Telly O went a little later and felt the pressure of going second, what if he didn’t get it in one hit? It went well and he got it in one swipe like Jason. A few guys took care of the bar-b-q while the Gurkha’s prepared the other one. Then it was dinner, beers, (non alcohol) and cigars by the fire. It was a good time.

NOTICE

Hello all.

First, my apologies for leaving you all hanging. There was too much interest in the blog from guys coming into the country. The company frowns on putting out to much information and I didn’t think it was worth my job. Although, I’ve heard from a lot of guys coming here that it put things in a positive light and answered a lot of questions that weren’t being answered anywhere else. Guess it was kind of like a Hitchhikers guide to Afghanistan. So without any further adue, the rest of the story.

I will be adding a lot more in the next few days.

Read on from where I left, if you want. (which was October 21, 2009)

CTC Cigar Club

So life here is good at CTC. Turns out, quite a few guys enjoy a cigar now and then, so the CTC Cigar Club was formed. We tried to make it like a real club, (for something to do). We had a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and a Sgt at Arms (me). We had members and prospects, dues and club activities. Sending flowers to members families, raising money for a local LA’s sick mother, ect... Every four conex’s, (living quarters) has a deck. So outside of our rooms, we made a club. In the fall, the wind was pretty strong and could get cold in the evening, so we had a wall built to keep the breeze from coming in. We decorated it and added an outdoor light and power outlet for a IPod docking station and every evening we had a little crowd enjoying some fine smokes, tunes and good conversation. Occasionally, it was packed with up 14 guys. When winter arrived, the wall kept the cold in and made the club a walk in freezer. After that we started building fires in a homemade fire pit.

I guess being married to an artist, you can't help but pick up some tips. We had some Adirondack chairs made. I took some maps that I had acquired and applied them to one of the chairs using a process called decoupage. It took a while, but I liked the results.