Incoming - 17 March 2009 - 1945

So do I start with the exciting/scary part or go in order of events for the last couple days. Let’s leave it for the exciting climax to my story. So the equipment that we have been waiting for in KAF finally showed up. We spent all morning over at our Battalion area learning how to set it up and operate it. Now that we have it we need just a little to get a little bit more info on it and we will be good to go. Sounds like, with the exception of 2 of us, the rest of us will be heading to Bastian on Sunday…ish. Figure in the cancelled flight that I’m sure we will have and maybe Tuesday/Wednesday, we’ll see. After our lesson this morning I pretty much spent the rest of the afternoon working on my Microsoft Paint photo. I’ve been working on one picture for 3 days now and I think it will take a couple more to finish. I tried it a different way this time. I’ll post it when I’m done with it. My wife is in Florida with her mother right now for spring break. Since she has been gone I haven’t really been able to speak with her much. Even though I put most everything that is going on over here in my blog, there are things that I can only share with her so I decided to write a gigantic blog-like email to her. I find that writing is a really good way to keep me mellow, and since I can’t sit down and talk with her face to face, the email will have to do. So this evening Chief, SGT Martin and I walked down to the computer lab before chow. While there we ran into SPC Taylor. We waited for everyone to get done and then walked to the Niagara chow hall for dinner. There are currently 3 chow halls open on post; The Niagara (the American/Canadian style food), the Far East (the oriental food) and the Luxemburg (I think that one is Australian… haha German). The best one is the, I think, is the Niagara, go figure. It’s about a mile from our tent but it’s a degree better than the Far East, which is horrible, but only about a half mile from the tent. So we all ate our wonderful food and went our separate ways. My nightly ritual is to go to the Boardwalk for coffee and a donut and watch some hockey. So that’s what I did while the other 3 went to the PX for some “must haves.” Watching the game I was small talking with a guy from what I would assume would be eastern Europe. I’d seen him down there a couple times before. I recognize him because he looks like a bigger George Costanza. I’ll try and get a picture of him all covert like. Anyway, I’d only been there a short while when I heard a noise. I looked around and no one else seemed to hear it. I didn’t think much of it and asked Ole’ Georgie Boy, “What the hell was that?” kind of half jokingly. It sounded like a laser beam off of a movie or whirring sound like incoming in a war movie. A couple seconds later the bases missile alert siren started to blare. Everyone dropped to the ground where they were. People dove under tables and along side walls or anywhere they could find shelter. The guys in the hockey rink all just laid down where they were. The protocol is to find shelter and wait for the “All Clear” siren to sound. About a minute after the alarm, we were yet to hear an explosion, so people started to beat feet out of there, I followed suit. I got about a quarter of the way back when a second income alarm sounded. I was by the gym which is surrounded by concrete barricades so I jumped in behind them. Off in the distance I could hear several small explosions which sounded like mortars. I waited a while there until I saw several other people running off and I continued on my way back to home base. Most of the way back there are concrete barriers on both sides of the road, so I stayed up next to them. When I finally got back to the tent I found no one inside. I figured that the other guys would have been back by then so I check in the surrounding shelters around the tent. No one was around. I hung out in one of them for about 5 min when the “All Clear” alarm sounded. I went back inside and waited for the rest of the guys to show up. When they did they said they had still been in the PX and that they had kicked them out when the siren went off and herded them all into the blast shelters. After the all clear they hoofed it back. So what started out as a good night, turned into a waste. Whatever the first one that I heard was it must have been a dud. The Taliban use a bunch of old junk munitions left over from past wars with Russia. One good thing that I forgot to mention was that Tim Horton’s ran out of game cups, so now instead of having to wait in excess of 30 minutes for coffee, the waits are no more than 10 minutes at any given time and usually more like less than 5, it’s glorious. So I have heard though the grapevine that there is concern over my mental/emotional state over here. Here is what I have going on in a nutshell (this is not an attack BTW). I’m in a desert, 10,000 miles away from my wife and family for a year, getting bombed on occasion, having to deal with potentially doing a job that is outside of what I joined the Army to do. Food sucks but the coffee shop is great, health is decent with better than average living conditions for the region (and getting better). I have constructive hobbies, albeit odd hobbies, and a way to vent. You guys just so happen to be on the end of my venting so you get all the crap of it. I promise everyone that despite my sometimes bleak outlook on BlogSpot, I am actually in pretty good spirits. I consider myself lucky that I am one of the few who got left back in KAF and am grateful for the break I caught. So hopefully that squashes any concern that may be out there. Besides, I’ve had so many Suicide Prevention briefings that they almost make me want to kill myself. KIDDING! Great, now someone is going to read that and I’ll have to go talk to the Chaplain. Oh well. I hear that I’m getting packages showing up in Bastian already for me. Thanks to everyone who is sending care packages. Consider this my Thank You note because, as I’m sure my mother knows from high school graduation, and my wife knows from our wedding, I have what I like to refer to as an inability to write an actual Thank You. It’s a disease, look it up. I can’t help it. I’m sick. Sorry! But seriously thank you and hope everyone back home is doing great.