Last night after band practice we hit the chow hall …while I was eating the captain from another unit here on the FOB joined us and told us about his adventures for the day…they rolled out to J-Bad and along the way they came across two jingle trucks carrying US military cargo—one had two shipping containers, the other had a 5 ton cargo truck…both trucks had been set on fire and were burnt to the ground …literally sitting on the rims because the tires had been burned also…he said there was absolutely nothing left but bare metal…the containers had been looted and the 5 ton truck was also destroyed…they made it to J-Bad and reported what they saw…after a little discussion he was told it was in his AOR(Area Of Responsibility) and he had to go get the truck and do the report…so he went back to the site, called a crane and another trailer to meet them at the burned up trucks…they lifted the truck from the wreckage and got it on the new trailer and then had to push both burned trucks off the road…I guess they were still on the roadway blocking one lane of traffic…the unofficial story is that bad guys either stopped the trucks or came up after the trucks were stopped and made the drivers leave while they took everything out of the containers and then set the stuff on fire to destroy it…we all talked about if it were us driving those trucks—we would have left the stuff too…these guys probably only get about $50 to do a two-day trip from Bagram to Jalalabad and that $50 isn’t worth trying to save the stuff you are hauling…the general theory is that the bad guys came up and said “give us the stuff or we kill you.”  I would have started walking my ass home at that point too…the drivers are not armed or anything—they have no protection or support to get themselves out of a sticky situation like that…so we don’t blame them for abandoning their trucks and saving themselves…anyhoo…also found out that I was rolling on the trip to J-Bad again to get my ID card fixed…so, I set my alarm, made sure my clock was set for the right time—10pm—and hit the sack….well, about two hours later I was still wide awake…I woke up at noon so I wasn’t at all tired…got up and watched some movies and did nothing…our time to roll out for J-Bad was early in the AM so I would have been getting up around 0530 anyway… I decided to just stay up all night and make the trip—we also got word that it was gonna be an ALL DAY trip …the commander had a meeting that was supposed to last till about 1700 hrs…so, I thought to myself, I can go there, get my ID done, sleep in the truck all day and be good for the trip back…so around 0530 I went out to get my ammo and loaded up the big LMTV…got the big gun –MK19—and loaded that into the truck too…that thing is the biggest pain in the ass—the gun weighs about 90lbs. and to get in this truck I have to climb up a ladder just to get in the cab, then stand on the middle seat and maneuver this gun thru a turret hole up to the top of the truck…and getting the gun positioned on the mount is a pain in the ass too…so after my “morning workout” of getting this thing up there, I was breaking a sweat—even tho it was only about 40 degrees outside…did a functions check on the weapon and got the rest of my gear loaded up on top of the truck, ready to roll…we pulled the truck around to the staging area and got our convoy brief—bad guys here and there, look out for suicide bombers, chain of command, truck order, who’s on first, all that stuff…went back out to the trucks did commo checks and last minute whatever…we hit the road and headed to J-Bad…it was cold and foggy and misty and just plain shitty…well, riding up in the gun turret was shitty—I’m sure the guys inside the trucks were happy campers with their heaters and comfy seats …not only is the LMTV a bitch to load, it is the bumpiest ride ever…especially up in the turret…I had to hold the gun and basically press myself against the backside of the turret to keep from smacking my face into the gun…that was only for the first part of the ride, until we got from the FOB to the paved road …once on the hardball it was smooth sailing …we went thru town like normal, plowing thru and not slowing down for anyone, moving people out of our way…in the LMTV we usually don’t have a problem with that—when people see that truck coming they move…it was early in the AM so there weren’t many people out on the streets…a few people here and there but it was pretty quiet…we got thru town out into the open and put the pedal to the floor—well, almost…at first we were rolling at a moderate pace and the commander got on the radio to the lead truck and told them to pick it up…we got moving pretty fast—comparatively speaking, of course…we got up to about 55mph…that’s fast on these roads, and riding in tactical military vehicles… so, everything was just another road trip, like any other…we finally made the turn onto Highway 1—the main road from Kabul to J-Bad and just after we made the turn we saw the two burned up trucks that the captain told us about last night…they were BURNT…there was absolutely nothing left of them except the metal…not even paint on the trucks…it was obviously torched by someone with experience…if you’ve ever seen a beer can that has been in a camp fire all night, you know what I’m talking about…and they were haphazardly just shoved off the road in their final resting places…these will probably now be some sort of marker for us as we travel, as I am sure they will never move again…we rode along the riverside winding road into the fog and mist and kept up the breakneck speed of 55…it was a nice quiet, smooth trip…we got into J-Bad and things started to slow down a lot…it was about the time for everything to open and all the business was being conducted…all the people were out and about…so, again, waving people out of our way, honking the horns, using the sirens, basic operations for intercity driving…we finally made the turn into the FOB and stopped to clear the weapons…as soon as I clear my weapons, this is the time for me to light up and have a smoke—as I am sticking half way out the top of the truck, I am not technically smoking IN a Govt. vehicle…as we made our way from the gate to our rally point, I relaxed and enjoyed my “smokey treat”…we got to our spot and everyone downloaded and hit the port-a-potty, lit up, stretched the legs, and whatever else…myself and a couple other people made our way over to the ID card office…when we got there we were told ID cards or only made from 1000 zulu – 1200 zulu …this is 1400 (2pm) -1600 (4pm) local…well, it was only 0830 when we arrived…also, there were a couple people ahead of us on the appointment list…we had to wait until 3:30pm…yeeeehaaa… we had 7 hours of nothing to do…and there is nothing to do…so, I hit the chow hall for breakfast—they were open till 9…so after being kicked out for cleaning time I just sat outside with everyone else doing nothing…I didn’t want to go back to the truck to get some sleep because I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up in time for my appointment…anyhoo…after a long day of nothing, around 2pm the commander said he was done with his meeting and now everyone was just waiting around for us couple people to get our IDs…we went over to see if we could get in early or something and there was a note on the door saying that the office was closed and those who had appointments would have to reschedule…dammit man…after the commander went over and bitched about it, we found out that the system had gone down and there was no way to get IDs…basically a wasted trip for us ID people…so, we rounded everyone up and loaded the trucks and headed back home…the trip back was normal and quiet—except for one little incident—the commander’s driver hit a donkey and killed it…as the gunner I am kinda the lookout for the driver of my truck—if I see things in the road ahead I just warn the driver, as I have a little better view…so, I looked ahead and said “whoa, we got a dead animal in the road”…we have been told stories of bad guys placing IEDs inside dead animals or in the road beside dead animals—if you swerve around the animal, the IED could be in the road where you are swerving, but the IED could also be inside the dead animal so if you don’t go around it, you run over it and it explodes…pretty good tactic I guess…anyhoo, as soon as we started to go around it, there was a radio transmission –“you killed that donkey”…obviously someone in our convoy hit it and killed it…the lead vehicle asked if we should go back and deal with it…the commander said to press on and the owner could come make a claim at the FOB…so we pressed on…normally, we would stop, try to find out who’s donkey it was, give them a card explaining what to do and they would come in later to be paid for their loss…but, in this case, they will just have to come to the FOB and tell us where and when it happened and we will pay them…also, along the trip I saw a couple of awesome rainbows over the mountains…I got a few good pictures of that …along this trip I took 50 pictures…so, we got back to the FOB, hit the clearing barrels and we were home safe and sound…after unloading the truck—the big gun and ammo and everything else—my afternoon workout, I was done for the day…I had been awake for about 30 hours straight…the donkey killer still had some of the victim’s hair on the front grill of his truck, and the commander took a marker and drew a couple donkey heads on the side of the truck—as this is the third donkey this driver has hit—it’s the only one he killed, but he’s got the record for the FOB…now, don’t think we just go around killing animals on purpose or anything—this isn’t our goal…but there are just a lot of animals out on the roads here and this specific driver goes out just about every day—after that many hours on the road, it’s bound to happen…so, around 5pm I hit the sack…it is now 8am on the 18th and I just got up …so, today will probably be another day of boredom—but at least I am home and can sit in my own room doing nothing…ok … love you and miss you all…talk to you later
OOL
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