Well, I started out last night thinking that I would be spending a few days away from the FOB…I was scheduled for a trip to Jalalabad and the plan was for me to stay for a few days…the trip was to swap out some more older trucks for brand new ones…so, after packing up some socks and underoos for an extended trip, along with my cold weather gear and sleeping bag, I hit the sack early last night—around 11pm—and tried to get some sleep…kinda tossed and turned all night because I am usually on a night work schedule so my body clock wasn’t ready for sleep …I was told I could be there anywhere from 2-10 days—depending on either when they could make another trip to get me, or if I could catch a helicopter flight back here to the FOB… anyhoo…got up around 0545 to get dressed so I could go out to the armory when it opened at 0600—or so I thought…I went out there and waited and did nothing and waited some more and finally they came out around 0645 to open it up…I got my weapon—M249 machine gun…basically it’s an M16 on steroids…it’s the same thing but fully automatic…nice and lightweight so I could throw it up on top of the truck pretty easily…which is good because I was gunning on top of the LMTV—it’s a big cargo/troop carrier truck…you have to climb a few steps just to get into the cab and then maneuver through the truck to get up to the turret…so, a light weapon is preferred if you have to mount it yourself…got the weapon and ammo loaded in the truck and got a shower and dressed for the trip…loaded up my ruck and sleeping bag and waited for the trip to begin…of course, we weren’t the only people on the trip…we had a few people from the MPs and the other groups on the FOB…the whole convoy was about 12 trucks…that’s a large group to be rolling down the road at once… we usually don’t roll with that many people at one time…anyway, as usual we were late with the departure because there were problems with the comm. equipment and other minor issues…some people were going on leave—they can fly out of J-bad to Bagram a little easier than trying to fly out of here—and we were picking up some people that had returned from leave…there were bags loaded to hilt in every truck…so, we headed out …it was a little chilly, but I thought the helmet, body armor, and headphones would keep me ok—I was wrong…it was cold as hell…it wasn’t really cold as far as air temp goes, but when you are up about 15 feet in the air and cruising at 40mph, it gets to be freakin freezing…the trip was pretty uneventful—which is a good thing…of course, the streets were filled with kids going to school, caravans of goats and sheep, camels and donkeys loaded down with bags of whatever, you know, the normal stuff you see on the road when traveling in an armored convoy in a war-torn country…and there were the ever-present little kids running to the side of the road—either from an open field, or out of a mudhut, or an alleyway, or rooftop, or wherever they hang out when not saying hi to us—and yelling and smiling and giving us the “thumbs up”

 

…and, of course, there were the occasional  slow downs and oblivious drivers that decide to try pulling out in front of us or pass other cars while we are heading towards them…we just lay on the horns and wave our weapons and yell the best we can to get people to move…the local traffic cops stop people for us the best they can…and some of our drivers take it upon themselves to steer the up-armored, weapon laden hummers straight at the oncoming traffic to get the message across—move out of our way now!!  Sometimes I think it may be a little overboard, but we are taught to clear the path any way we can so we avoid suicide car bombs and other obstacles that may cause us to be in a dangerous situation…so, with snot flying out of my nose, my fingers freezing, my ears in pain from the cold, I held on to my weapons and kept my head on a swivel and looked for anything suspicious or unusual or dangerous or whatever…it was a long trip… but it was nice along the river and the mountainside…it really is turning to winter around here…all the trees are dying and there is snow on the mountain tops…it is starting to look a little more bleak and gray and colorless…the trip took about an hour and a half…mostly open fields and riverside roads, but in the actual city of Jalalabad, it is very congested and has the feel of a bustling metropolis—J-bad is the eighth largest city in Afghanistan—but it is really about the same size a small town in the US…the population is around 170,000…the city has some of the modern style buildings and there are billboards with adverts for cell phones and washing machines, but there are also shops made of sticks and stones, and butcher shops with raw meat hanging on hooks outside in the heat and there are still people with donkey-led carts full of manure clopping thru the intersections…there are fields/parks filled with people playing soccer and sitting on blankets having tea, streetside vendors selling anything from hand made Persian(or Afghan) rugs to shiny chrome rims to Pepsi and Pringles…so we get to the base where this truck swap is taking place…we drive around to the main part of the base to drop off people leaving and let other people go get haircuts, cash checks, shop at the “big BX”—not very much more in there than what we have here, go to the Green Bean coffee shop to get either the mochafrappacarmellattehalfcaffaccino or a mango-banana smoothie and whatever else needs to be accomplished—things we can’t do/get at our FOB…of course, me being the mechanic and supposedly in charge of this vehicle swap thing, I had to roll to the other side of the base to take care of the main mission…a lot of the infantry guys and our commo guys went over there to help out with this operation too…we have to take our old trucks over, get the new trucks and change over all the radios and antennae and our electronic counter-warfare(ECW) equipment—it’s a lot of little nuts and bolts and cables and wires and tedious work…not to mention cleaning out all the basic load items—jack, jumper cables, ammo, weapons, and all kinds of other stuff we take in the trucks to ensure mission accomplishment all the time…these trucks are loaded down with A LOT of stuff…and it’s just stuff—most of the time it sits in the back of the trucks and gets covered with dust and dirt and is never utilized, but we have to have it just in case…also, I changed out a couple of big brush guard push bumper type things, and one of the older trucks had a big exhaust pipe sticking out the side that I had to remove so the will fit in the container for shipment to Bagram—it was fully rusted, so the bolts seemed to be part of the pipe and the metal bracket holding it to the truck…of course, all this is accomplished out in the dirt and rocks—mostly soft, powder sand…so I rolled around in the dirt for most of the day…while I was out there I talked to the Chief Warrant Officer running the show and asked him if it was absolutely necessary for someone to stay with the old trucks until they were loaded up for the trip to Bagram—this is the reason I thought I might have to stay for a few days—he said if I wanted to leave the trucks there and let someone else load them and then send me the signed hand receipt for taking custody of the trucks, then I could leave as soon as we were ready with the new trucks…well, I made that command decision in about 2 seconds—I was not staying….also, there was another truck sitting at the main gate waiting for us—this is a replacement truck for the one that was destroyed by the IED on June 1st…so I had to roll over to the other side of the base again and get the paperwork for the truck and driver, go to the main gate and escort the driver back to our area to download the truck—it was on a big trailer…well, the truck was locked—there are combat locks on the trucks that are locked from the inside and you can’t open the doors…there are ways to do it, but it involves disassembling part of the door…there was a padlock on the rear passenger door…one of the guys that came back from leave was supposed to have the key, but he lost it…so we asked the guys out there for some bolt cutters—no go…so we tried to use a big pry bar and that succeeded in breaking the door handle itself and didn’t even put a scratch on the lock…anyway we backed it off the trailer and had to install the radio/ECW equipment…I never made it to the chow hall or to get a haircut or check out the extensive selection of beef jerky and cigarettes in the BX—I didn’t even get to buy myself a pineapple/mango/strawberry smoothie…dammit… whatever, it was time to roll out…everyone fueled up the trucks and we met back at our rally point…I talked to one of the commo guys and he said he wanted to ride as a gunner up on the LMTV—not a problem, it was getting dark and I knew it would be cold and shitty up there…I rode in the back seat of one of the new trucks…it was nice and chill…on the way back it was the same stuff, but it was a little more congested thru the city—rush hour…of course, we honked and waved and moved people out of our way so we got thru pretty quickly… I was in the last truck in the convoy this time and our gunner, facing backward, said there were people falling in behind us and using our path to get thru the traffic as well—it’s kinda like when someone will follow a fire truck or ambulance thru major traffic…can’t say I blame them, I would do the same thing in the traffic around here…a couple of times the gunner pulled out his M9 pistol with a red laser and had to point it at cars that were getting a little too close to us—he also has a 50 cal machine gun mounted up there, but to use that on a target less than 100 meters away would completely destroy everything in it’s path—the car, buildings, people, animals, the street, and it causes too much collateral damage to use as a warning—it’s used for complete and utter destruction of enemy vehicles or buildings or fortresses(according to the US Law Of Armed Conflict it cannot be used against persons)…we have a big sign on the back of the truck that says stay back 100 meters…they normally don’t stay that far back and we decide what’s ok and what’s not, and a lot of them probably can’t read, but it’s a big red sign with pictures and it’s pretty easy to understand—it’s written in Pashtu and Dhari and I still know exactly what it means…anyhoo, they got a little too close a couple of times and he had to shine a little red dot into their face…if you don’t understand a sign with pictures and two local languages, you will, without a doubt, understand the little red dot and a weapon pointing in your face…he also had to throw on his night vision about half way thru the trip…nothing exciting happened on the trip back either—again, a good thing…we got back here to the FOB around 6pm and I was beat…all I had all day were smokes and water…I unloaded my crap from the truck and headed straight to the chow hall—still completely covered with dirt…I got three chicken sandwiches, a baked potato, a salad, a piece of cake, and three cartons of milk…it was all devoured in about 6.3 minutes…I guess I was a little hungry…after I stuffed my belly I laid down in my bed and watched some tv(dvd)…of course I passed out after about 5 minutes of lying there…and now it’s 0500 Friday and I am wide awake…well, that was my adventure for the day…it was nice to get out and do something different today…maybe I will try to get on a few more trips—it makes the time go by faster and all there is to think about is “look out for the bad guy”…there is no thinking about missing family and friends, or wondering what is going on back home, or looking at your watch or counting the days…it’s just mission and concentration of getting the job done, getting to your destination safely, securing the area, and getting back safely…and then when you finally get home, you just think about food and sleep…it might sound strange to people, but to me, it seems to make everything easier…well, I guess that’s about all for now…tell everyone I said Hi and I love them and miss them and all that good stuff…I will talk to you all later
OOL
B