Same Old Stuff

I'm still at the same FOB doing training. The way things are going it looks like all I'll be doing this deployment is training. I guess it could be worse.

The weather is getting hotter here, it's probably topped out around 100 degrees. Still not as hot as Iraq, but it's getting there. I'm sitting here in the MWR (moral, welfare, and recreation), which if you don't know is the place you go to use the phone, computer, or watch TV. It pisses me off because everything is run by satellite, so there's really a limit on bandwidth. But, of course, you have these guys that want to video chat, Skype and other programs that suck up the bandwidth. All I want to do is go on Gmail and it takes like 10 minutes to load the page. And you only have 30 minutes at a time...

I'm going to start doing a spanish word of the day so I can start learning a little faster... today it is alquilar, which is to rent or hire, as in a car.

The Green Bean

I just wanted to give a shout out to the Green Bean. For anyone that doesn't know, it's like a Starbucks for the military. They pretty much have every coffee drink that you would want, except maybe for the more exotic stuff. In Manas, Kyrgyzstan, they even had wireless internet. Green Beans seem to be in more locations than they were since my last deployment. On Camp Stryker Iraq, they just built one like three quarters into my deployment there. Now they have them on small FOBs, like the one I'm at now.

Fighting the Global War on Terror, one latte at a time...

Sharana, Afghanistan

I arrived here not too long ago for additional training. It's a pretty large FOB somewhere in Afghanistan. I don't even know where because I haven't seen a map of the country in a long time.

We have some pretty nice rooms. They're kind of like dorm rooms at college, except a little more primitive. The base itself is kind of like Baghram in the way that it is kind of thrown together. If anyone one has played Fallout, it kind of reminds me of some of the towns on that game. It's the kind of the place I imagine a town would look like after huge disaster or something.

Once I get the pictures off my camera, I'll have some pictures of Baghram and stuff.

Baghram, Afghanistan

I finally made it here, after that crazy long flight halfway across the world. Baghram I believe is one of the biggest bases in Afghanistan. I can't believe how run-down this place looks. Connexes, buildings, and tents are just put together in random areas; it looks a lot like some of the border towns in Mexico. I never thought I'd say this, but the bases in Iraq were much, much nicer and more organized.

When we got here, they just stuck us in the transient tents in the some corner of this base. I guess they're getting a lot of people here, but we really have to live in a tent with cots and a swamp cooler?? The recession must have hit hard here. I hope the FOB that we'll actually be living on is better.

The weather is not too bad, it's probably in the high 90's. There's mountains surrounding us and it kind of looks like the Sandias in New Mexico. Too bad the base itself is so bad, otherwise this place could have some potential.

That's it for now, hopefully my next post will be at our FOB we'll be living in for the rest of the tour.

Kyrgyzstan

Just got to Kyrgyzstan, on the way to Afghanistan. It's like when you go to Kuwait on the way to Iraq. It seems a little nicer though, Kuwait was crazy crowded last time. Too bad we're transients and can't really go anywhere.

I got a picture of the sign at least.

Leaving on a jet plane

Well it's finally here. We're leaving out to head to Afghanistan. The training felt like it went by quick, but it didn't. We've been at it for almost three months. In my opinion it has been mostly a waste of time, and could have done it much quicker. It was disorganized and chaotic, with no one knowing where to be or at what time.

I have found out a lot about the people I'm going with, and for the most part feel pretty confident. We've had quite a few people drop out for various reasons. Let's just say it's a good thing they are going, I think we'll all be a little safer.

Anyway, it looks like we'll have a pretty good internet connection, so hopefully I'll be able to update this a lot more. It's kinda funny that I'll have more access to internet in Afghanistan than I do in Wisconsin. Hopefully this is the last time I ever come to this base. Why couldn't we have MOB'd in Hawaii??

Still on Pass

Well, here I am sitting at a hotel relaxing. I'll try and do a summary of the past month that I spent at Ft. McCoy.

We started the training off by doing another SRP. Surprisingly, it went very quickly. The SRP I did at Ft. Lewis took forever; almost three days and everyone was angry. The Ft. McCoy one took about half a day and was much more organized. We then started training that was pretty much the same as Sante Fe. There was a few days of convoy ops, about an hour of MOUT training, and a day of detainee ops. Most of it was a waste of time. I really couldn't believe that this was our Mob training. We had better training in Sante Fe.

Most of the instructors just wanted us to get through the training, we were just an obstacle to their weekend. Not saying all of them were, but there was many.

About a week into the Mob, they sent us to a COL, which is contigency operatign location. I guess they don't call them a FOB anymore. So we ended up staying in a tent for like 19 days.

Why are they going to make us even more unconfortable before we leave for Afghanistan? At least they had showers, but chow was horrible. We could have just stayed on the barracks at Ft. McCoy, and been shuttled to our training locations.

Pass

Well we've finally finished our moblization training. Unfortunately, there was very little internet accesss because they had us in the field for most of the training. Who knows why they did that, did we really need to practice sleeping in a tent?

Anyway, I'm on a pass now, so hopefully in the next few days I will be able to update this blog and write about what has happened in the past month or so.

Strangely enoughk, I can't wait till I get to Afghanistan.