Here it is

It's getting much colder here at night. I still need to post a picture of that last hailstorm we had, it was pretty amazing. The other day some paratroopers jumped near our FOB, that was pretty cool to watch. I guess they were practicing, if you're on jump status you need to do so many jumps a year to stay current.

I've been investing more into some mutual funds, hopefully the stock market keeps going up. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll have enough money saved that I can just retire and live on a beach after I get back... haha.

I'm trying to get our translator to find a cheap motorcycle for me to buy. A lot of the hadjis here have one and I'd think it would be pretty easy to get one. I'd like to just take it a part and put it back together again, since our maintainance is right here and have all the tools I'd ever need. Maybe I could lower it and put a giant aluminum spoiler on it too, just so I'd have the coolest motorcycle in the Paktika province. We'll see...

Address

Not much new to report; we had a huge hailstorm the other day. I'll post a picture of it later. Some people wanted my address in Afghanistan, so here it is:

My name (hopefully you know what it is)
920th EN CO
FOB Orgun-E
APO AE 09311

That's all there is to it. I don't want to post my whole name on here for security reasons, but I have full confidence that you can fill in the blank.

Getting Cold

The weather here has been getting more rainy and a little more cold lately. There's been some pretty good storms here.
I helped put a dozer on a jingle truck today. The guy driving it on the jingle almost destroyed the truck. I guess he couldn't find the brake on the dozer and flew up the ramp onto the flatbed and just smashed the entire dozer down. The hadji eyes were huge when he saw that happen. After he inspected it though, he gave us the 'no problem mister, good good'. So I guess we didn't damage it too much. Not much else new besides that.

I heard that NASA sent up a treadmill names after Stephen Colbert. That's pretty interesting.

Vehicles

Pretty much these vehicles have completely replaced Humvees. It's weird, only like three years ago all there was in Iraq were Humvees. Now, you can't even go outside the wire with one.

Anway these are called MRAPs, and they weigh a ton. They are specially built to withstand pretty much any IED. They were actually invented in South Africa, where they needed a vehicle to take kids to school that could withstand a mine going off. So some guy down there decided that if you put armor and make the bottom a V shape, it can withstand a mine.

And now you know...

Afghanistan Transportation

Here's a video of our primary transportation, the chinook. Most of the bases are pretty high up, so there aren't too many helicopters that can fly at such a high altitude. Riding in a chinook is like riding in a really long rollercoaster.

I prefer my chinooks to look like this:

Ramadan

The elections are over and I'm still not sure who was elected. Not that it really effects us here. We started the month of Ramadan for all the Muslims here. I don't really know too much about the holiday other than they work even less than usual and they can't eat during the day. Apparently they're supposed to be fasting in order to feel like starving people, but they just eat a lot of food at night.

Still the same here, only 5 more months until I go to Australia. I found out today that the Army split the time we've been in Iraq into campaigns. When I was there I was apparently involved in two campaigns, so I get to put on two campaign stars on my Iraq ribbon. They really don't matter except for promotion points. Which really doesn't matter to me because I'm not reenlisting. I'm not even sure why I put this in, other than I don't have much else to say.

Grim

I want to devote this blog entry to the unsung hero of Afghanistan, Grim. It is said that his father was a the Gengis Khan's dog and his mother was Alexander the Great's dog. Why couldn't the British occupy Afghanistan? Grim. Why did the Russians leave Afghanistan? Grim.

I have personally seen Grim run off cats and hadjis alike. During mortar attacks, while all the humans run to the bunkers, Grim stays outside the headquarters and defends it from intruders. A mortar landed not 20 feet from him, and he didn't flinch. In fact, some witnesses said the mortar was actually headed for Grim, but got scared at the last minute and veered off course. When rockets come, he simply yawns and waits patiently, for rockets are just a source of iron for his diet.

There is talk that the Army is hoping of cloning this legendary creature. Unfortunately, attempts to extract his DNA have failed, because the needles break upon impact of his skin. For now, everyone here at Orgun-E simply hope he stays on our side...