29 Days and Counting

Well it has been awhile since I have updated this. Joan got on me this week to get it done so to make my wife happy I will update it one more time before my long journey home. We are supposed to leave out of here on the 19th of July, but I am not holding my breath because this is the military. Anyway I cannot wait although I am sure this last month will drag. We already have 2 of our replacements here. Not sure why so early, but they are here. It is 3 Army personnel and 7 civilians replacing us. The Air Force unit that was supposed to replace us is getting shipped to another base near here that is growing fast and needs help. The Air Force people are from my base also as will be the following how ever many teams needed until this place calms down. Yes that probably means I will be back here somewhere in about 3 years if it is still a hot spot.

The day after my last post we had a car bombing at the front gate of our base. Yes right where I was standing the day before. This time I was about 75 yards away, but inside the base. The cowards pulled into the parking lot where the locals who work on the base park before entering the base and blew themselves up. There were lots of causalities of unarmed locals just trying to make a living. I have to say it kind of hit me hard. Not only the blast which I felt and saw from very close, but the fact that some of the casualties worked for us and were good people. These people live a rough life and no wonder their life expectancy is not long. Our heavy equipment supervisor has recently been getting phone calls from the Taliban saying he has 3 chances to stop working for the U.S. or he and his family will be killed. So everyday he has to take a different route to work, come in at different times or take a taxi. I could not imagine living like that everyday. Trying to make a living to feed my family and having a group telling me to stop or they will kill my family. Crazy world. Other than that we still have our occasional rockets that luckily the idiots cannot shoot, hit around the base.

The project that I was in charge of in building a new safer parking area for the locals is complete. The locals love it because it provides some protection for them instead of being out in the wide open for the idiots to take advantage of. I am now working on making the way into the base safer for the locals and our soldiers that man the front gate. It is in front of the base between where our Afghany soldiers tower is and the main entrance where our soldiers tower is. Yes I am outside the wire quite a bit and yes I still sometimes do not have my body armor on. I kind of feel bad wearing it because our front line of defense is the Afghany soldiers who themselves do not have any body armor. They do not have boots to wear so I feel like I am rubbing it in their face when I am out there. Yes Tom I get told every time I come back in that I am supposed to have my body armor on. I am stubborn, just ask Joan.

I am tired of the food for sure. Tonight is our weekly steak and seafood night which you would think would be a great night to eat, but it is the worst night to eat. They start cooking the steaks at 7am in the morning and so Friday night has become my brat night. Every day is a new experience which helps pass the time. I have many projects and a few that I need to get designed before I leave here. I am also taking a class online that is keeping me busy writing a paper each week. I love it though. You work at your own pace and the class is done in 8 weeks. Still looking for new jobs because after making money like this it is going to be hard to go back to work for half the price.

This will probably be my last post as I am busy with work and my class. I want to thank everyone for everything sent or said. I have learned quite a bit in my 6 months over here. I think it has changed me to be a better father and husband. To see what these people do not have and the struggles they have over here is an eye opener. No one in the states should complain about not having anything. We are a lucky country, nation, society.

Happy Fathers Day to all the fathers. Happy Fathers Day DAD.

In 29 days a flight over the ocean paid by the government. A one night stay in a hotel room on the coast paid by the government. Another flight to Saint Louis paid by the government. A kiss from my wife and a hug from my son PRICELESS.

Miss you all and see you in about a month.

Love you Joan and Drew

Crazy Day

Hello All, One of those days. Makes time go by a little quicker I think, but some would call me crazy. This article below is from my base and the town is about 10 minutes away. We also had a rocket take out one of water bladders today. 5000 gallons of water flowing down the road. Its warming up and the Taliban idiots are coming out like the Lizards of Salerno. Ive been trying to get good pics of these lizards, but they are quick. As soon as they see you they take off and hide under the connex's. Ive heard we have a 6 foot one on base somewhere. I have seen a few that are at least 3 to 4 feet long. Going to catch one before I leave. The snakes are coming out too. Some pretty venomous ones around here so I'll leave them alone. Our locals who run the heavy equipment on base brought us in a 6" centipede that looked like something out of a Indiana Jones movie. I let it go on our porch outside our office and we later looked it up on the web. Found out it was poisonous, 3 people have died from bites from it. So yes, it now lives under our wood porch in front of our office. Ive been told there are some big spiders here. I have not seen any (knock on wood) and I really hope I dont see any. If you know me, you know thats my favorite thing in the world.

I started a new project today outside the base. We are securing the parking lot where the Local Nationals park. These are all the workers who risk their lives to work on the base everyday. So I am in charge of a contractor who is putting up some walls around the parking area to help reduce the damage from blasts. Of course it is getting hot so I was outside the base without my armor for 2 hours. Maybe not the smartest thing especially on a day like today, but Im writing tonight. What else is going on you ask. I played in a volleyball tournament with my heavy equipment guys. Me and 5 Afghanies in their man jamys and either slippers or no shoes at all. It is supposed to be sand, but over here it is like concrete. These are the guys you have seen in other pics that I'm eating lunch with. The final four teams were mine, 2 other Afghany teams, and a mix of guys from countries around here. I was the last military person playing and we took 3rd which turned into 1st because the top 2 teams got mad and quit. We got certificates that I will be proudly framing when I get home. Needless to say volleyball is their sport over here.

A little over 2 months left. My work load has increased double because my Senior Master Seargent had to go home on emergency leave. Dave Wilde's mom passed away early Monday morning. He left on Friday and made it home late Saturday night to see her. Keep him and his family in your prayers. He is supposed to be coming back by the end of the month. Not so sure I would be heading back after that with so little time left.

When this new Army group came in they changed the way we carry our weapons around. We were just keeping our ammo on us but not in the weapon. Now we carry the ammo in our gun ready to take off safe and fire. I dont agree with this, but I am not in charge. If need be, I can get my ammo from one side of body to my gun and loaded in about 3 seconds. If I need it any quicker I am dead anyway. Where this is going is that a few nights ago 2 young soldiers were horse playing and one got shot. He is going to live, but probably will be paralyzed since there is a bullet lodged right by his spine.

On a good note, one of my Lt. Col's got some corn and cucumbers growing. I took my brothers advice and helped fertilize his crops. Kidding. We are all ready to head home and I miss you all. Not too much longer Joan and Drew. I love and miss you.
KABUL – Eleven Taliban suicide bombers attacked government buildings in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, sparking running gunbattles that killed at least 20 people and wounded three U.S. troops, officials said.

The assault began around 10 a.m. when a suicide bomber in a burqa attacked the governor's compound in Khost, an eastern city on the border with Pakistan that houses a major American base. That blast was followed soon after by a suicide car bomb explosion, said Wazir Pacha, the spokesman for the provincial police chief.

U.S. forces attending a nearby meeting responded to the attacks and killed an unknown number of militants, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a U.S. military spokeswoman.

Khost residents hid from booming explosions and running street clashes that lasted until 5 p.m. At least eleven insurgents and nine others — including police and civilians — died, the Defense Ministry said.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed that 30 suicide bombers had attacked the government buildings. A U.S. spokesman summed up the chaos in the midst of battle: "A lot of stuff is going on right now."

Militants in recent months have carried out an increasing number of complex attacks that involved several assailants. Military analysts have said the increasing sophistication of attacks in Afghanistan is a result of training by Pakistani militants and al-Qaida fighters.

The Khost attack came as President Obama sought to put his stamp on the war, appointing a former three-star general as the country's ambassador and replacing the top American military commander in Afghanistan. Karl Eikenberry presented his credentials to President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday.

The attack began with several suicide attacks on the Khost governor's compound, which drew small arms fire from nearby U.S. troops, said U.S. military spokesman Chief Brian Naranjo.

Then a team of six suicide bombers tried to attack the nearby police headquarters, but were rebuffed by security forces and entered the neighboring municipality building, Pacha said.

Three bombers detonated their explosives, the Interior Ministry said, while other militants took 20 city employees hostage, Pacha said.

A second U.S. team was sent from the nearby American base, Camp Salerno. But those troops were fired on en route, Naranjo said. A U.S. soldier and an Afghan policeman were wounded and taken to Camp Salerno for treatment where they were in stable condition, he said. A number of militants were killed, he said.

After the militants entered the municipal building, a number of explosions reverberated from within, as U.S. and Afghan forces surrounded the area, an Associated Press stringer said from within the police chief's compound.

U.S. and Afghan forces later stormed the building, freed 20 hostages and killed three insurgents, Pacha said.

Taliban and other insurgent fighters have increased their attacks the last three years and now control wide swaths of territory, and Obama is seeking to reverse their momentum.

To that end, the Pentagon fired Gen. David McKiernan as the top U.S. commander in the country and replaced him Monday with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a former leader of special forces.

Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, Afghanistan's Defense Ministry spokesman, listed three priorities that McChrystal should focus on when taking over the command.

"Prevent civilian casualties, strengthen the quality and quantity of Afghan forces, and focus more on coordinating the military operations with Afghan forces," Azimi said.

McKiernan's exit comes as more than 21,000 additional U.S. forces begin to arrive in Afghanistan — dispatched by Obama to confront the Taliban more forcefully. A record 38,000 U.S. troops are already in the country.

Im Still Alive

Its been awhile since I have been on here. There hasn't been much going on here lately as far as the enemy is concerned. It has actually been pretty quiet. I guess we had some RPG's come in last night, but when I sleep I do not hear anything. Everyone else heard it but not me.

Want to thank everyone for all the goodies you have sent. Our office is now the snack center for the FOB. We have people that stop by just for snacks. They say they are there for business, but we know better. One of the pictures is the shelf where all our snacks are placed. Everyone on the team is trying to lose some weight so we try to get the locals to eat as much of the "bad" stuff as possible. Rockman loves cookies so he may end up being the first overweight Afghan's ever.

I tried to grow some tomatoes and hot peppers outside our office in some wooden flower beds, but the soil here is horrible. I could not go down to the local Home Depot or Lowes and get some fertilizer either. I had Nick one of our local engineers bring in some seeds, but as you can see by the picture which I just took today we are not going to get any tomatoes. I dug up where I put the seeds and there is nothing there. Lt Col Crouch is trying to grow some sweet corn behind the office so we will see if he has better luck.

We are under 100 days now. In fact I think we are under 3 months from when we will be leaving here. That's a big if with the military. Not sure how my brother and sister did 12 months because this 3 months seems like it has been a year. I may be going to another base for a week or 2. Again this is the military so that may be a month or 2. It is a smaller base that is starting to grow and they do not have an engineering team there so me and Major James may be going to get it started. I will be the surveyor and CAD operator and he will be the master planner. This is the 3rd time I have been going to another base and the other 2 did not come through, so we will see. I don't really want to go, but a change of scenery may make time pass a little faster.

I think I have said this before, but I love my job over here. If anyone has an opening for a project manager/CAD operator let me know. Since I have been here I have had about 4 to 5 jobs spread out, but this week it jumped up to 6 all at one time. I design the job to be done which is done on AutoCAD with drawings. I then have to format a reason the FOB needs this construction to be signed off by the commander of the base and then sent up to higher ups at the big base in Afghanistan to be approved. In this packet I have to have my drawings, my reason for the construction, a cost estimate, a timeline for construction, and a statement of work explaining how to do everything on the job. This all goes up, after the commander signs off, to get approved for funding which can take up to a month or more depending on the size of the job. 5 of mine hit this week so needless to say I will be busy trying to get my contractors badged and writing memos to get equipment on the FOB along with managing their production. Plus this means many more tea breaks a day because it is disrespectful not to drink tea with your contractor when asked. I think I got a dose of Montazubas revenge from some parking lot tea so I backed off for a few days. It didn't take long though to get back to drinking parking lot tea. Of course I have had more meals in the parking lot and I try to make it to the "Godfathers" bakery once a week for a meal.

I lose my patient once a week with stupidity here, but I am trying to work on it Joan. As she always tells me, you cant fix stupid, but I am trying day by day.

We have a couple things coming up here on FOB Salerno so it gives us something to look forward to. First Toby Keith is coming by for a little concert here sometime soon. I'm not the biggest country fan, but it should be good. Second, next week is the anniversary of the Taliban taking over Afghanistan so I'm sure those idiots will be up to no good more than usual.

That is all for now. Hope everyone is doing good. I will try to post more often because my sister said I should. You all just don't know how hard it is for me to get this many words out. I am drained for about a week after I write these things.

Also I don't know who thought I was a "Best Team in Baseball" fan of the ST LOUIS CARDINALS, but I think I have received a magazine from everyone now. Thank you.

Love and Miss you Joan and Drew

Howitzer

 

This ones for you Dad. Four of us got to shoot the Howitzer today. Me, Senior Wilde, Major Harrold and Lt. Col Crouch. I'm sure its a little more sophisticated than the ones you shot. We shot 3 hotels which are the charges that send the mortar farther. It can have up to 5 hotels. The 3 sent the mortar about 10 miles out maybe further. You can see the small cloud of smoke on the mountain in some of the pics. This particular Howitzer can send a mortar a little more than 35 miles away. It is rather loud. Much louder when you stand away from it. Not so bad when you are actually pulling the rope. Another thing checked off my list and it was fun. You have to wear your body armor and helmet because if not it will shake your insides and damage them more than they already are. The ground shakes and it feels like little rocks hitting your legs after it goes off. There is a little wood shed about 20 feet from the gun that they have to fix or replace every so often because the power of the gun destroys it.

In other news we have had a few rockets hit nowhere on base. Not sure if these Taliban people could hit the broad side of a barn. They did hit about a 100 yards away from our local heavy equipment operators. There hangout is on the outer part of the base. I guess they were diving under dump trucks. Since none of them were hurt I had to laugh at the thought of them running and diving in there baggy outfits. I also asked them if any of them peed there pants, but no one confessed.

The Afghan new year was this past Thursday so many of the locals had a 3 or 4 day weekend. It was pretty quiet around here and boring when they are not around too. The new year is 1389 here. Of course 90% of the population just wanted to have parties and celebrate, but then you have the coward Taliban had to blow up a bus that day. And then yesterday they blew another bus full of women and children about 10 miles from here. Some of the injured were brought to our base for medical attention. The Taliban are such cowards. They are pathetic people or scum is what I call them. They don't deserve to even be called people.

Well that all for now. I miss everyone. Hope all is well wherever you are.

Joan and Drew I Love and Miss you.

Patience

Hello all. It has now been 3 months since I left. Major James just informed me its been 2 months. Time flies when your having fun. Haha! Sorry posts have been few and far between. We have been quit busy from day one and are dealing with a change in command as I speak. The 101st is going home after being here for 15 months and to be honest I am not sure who is taking there spot. What I do know is that everything is changing from the old group to the new group. The way you do memos to the projects we were working on that the new group no longer wants. You would think there would be some sort of communication between the old group and the new one coming in, but no, not at all. I am hoping the new group can help me control my patience and temper. I have lost it a couple times with the way stuff was run previously. Not with any from my group, but with a certain office that we have to deal with daily. Common sense does not apply to some people.

Anyway, since my last real post I have been on my first convoy to a base near by. Most the pictures I post this time will be from this trip. I had to take a excavator, some concrete and a concrete bucket over to this base so they could finish up a project. You could probably throw a rock and hit the other base from my base, not really, but its close. It was about a 15 minute drive there. It was a bit of a adrenialin rush being my first convoy trip. All traffic has to stop and pull off to the side of the road as the convoy passes. We passed probably 20 cars and trucks on the way there and the same on the way back. In the back of your head your wondering which car you pass is going to hit the button to make a nice explosion. I can see why many people come home with combat stress after that trip. We actually passed by where the idiot did set off his vehicle bomb a month ago taking the lives of 2 soldiers. Lets just say it wasnt hard to miss with the hole it left in the side of the road.

On our way there we had a couple vehicles with us that had the Afghany military leading the convoy. We stopped at one point and the Afghany soldiers got out of there truck and pointed there weapons and yelled at someone. As we were sitting there I looked off to my right and a woman and her child were walking up to their house. The front door opened and a bearded man stepped out and with a full swing smacked the woman across the face. She took it like a champ and walked in the house like nothing happened. I was baffled along with my driver. We continued on and right before arriving at the front gate a large explosion went off that made me jump just a little. It was the base's EOD setting off some explosives they had found, but it was perfect timing. The rest of the trip was quiet which isnt always bad in this area. What I did notice along the trip was that every family has many many children. After talking to some locals on the base it is common to have very large families. I have one contractor who has 12 children and another who has 26 children. I tell them that they are crazy and they both agree.

A couple things I have noticed about the locals is that they are very respectful, courteous and they have the most patience of anyone I have ever met. Joan would like me to bring some of this patience home with me, but I dont see it happening. I will try my beautiful wife. I put a memo in for my contractor to bring in some equipment to the base. the office that I do not get along with which makes me lose my patience of course did not get it to the gate like they are supposed to. I felt sorry for the contractor because he wanted to begin work. He was at my office at 8am and stayed out on the porch until I finally told him to go home at 2pm. He would have stayed there for days without complaining. Not me, I was inpatient for him and let the office know. Thus why I am called "Death Blossom" around our office. They are all like that though. Will wait for hours without complaining.

Well hope all is well back home. Sounds almost as dangerous as over here with everyone going crazy about the economy. If anyone needs a job the civilians are making over 100,000 a year here. 80,000 of that is tax free.

Joan and Drew I Love You

TEAM PANTHER
FOB SALERNO, AFGHANISTAN
FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER


FET OFFICE STAFF
Left to right: Hiwad, Azghar Jan, Maj Frank Harrold, TSgt Justus Upperman, Lt Col Tim Crouch, Maj Tim Crosnoe, Lt Col Russ O’Daniell, Maj Aaron James, SMSgt Dave Wilde, Dave White, Eric Gonzales, Nait Hashanti, and Nick Mohammad

It’s hard to believe, but Team Panther (aka Team 2) has been here over a month now (we arrived on 23Jan09). Time really flies when you are having fun. Actually an important part of our team was here before we arrived and will still be here when we depart…the civilian members of our team. We are really lucky to have their help.

There are the three Afghan Engineers on our office (Hiwad, Azghar and Nick). They act as inspectors on the jobsites as well as interpreters. They help us understand the Afghan culture and are a great help when we are dealing with the Local National (Afghan aka LN) contractors.

The three KBR* employees (Dave, Eric and Nait) do drafting and survey work. They are a great help and provide much needed continuity between teams. They are true volunteers. No one told them they had to come here, they signed up to come. They make decent money here. But more importantly they are serving the same cause as the military members, bringing peace and stability to Afghanistan. Plus their pay doesn’t seem as great when you look at it on an hourly basis considering they work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
*KBR, HQed in Houston Texas, is the contractor responsible for most of the maintenance and services on base. They operate the dining facility (DFAC) and laundry, fix everything from air conditioning to roofs, operate the water and sewer facilities…the list goes on and on.

Besides members of the 231 CEF (Frank, Tim, Dave and Russ), we have TSgt Justus Upperman from the 131 CES (almost like a member of the 231st, since his office is adjacent to the 231st in St Louis), Lt Col Tim Crouch from the Iowa ANG and Maj Aaron James from Arizona ANG. Everyone (except Dave) got to know each other while attending Combat Skills Training (CST) in Fort Lewis Washington. Originally we had Chief Orf on the team but he had to drop out from CST due to medical reasons (actually he never got started). Dave Wilde filled in for him. Chief Orf will be on the team to replace us. We have a good mix of skills, aptitudes and attitudes.

The Facilities Engineering Team (FET) is responsible for managing the construction and maintenance projects on base. We currently are managing 40 construction projects worth $10 million, with another $4 million in projects awaiting funding. Plus 30 projects in design (so the next FET will have something to do when they arrive). All the guys are responsible for putting together project packages (estimates, site plans, need statements, etc.) for approval and funding. Tim Crouch is then responsible for tracking their progress through the various boards, etc. of the approval process. In addition many projects require plans and Statements of Work. Sometimes the hardest part is just figuring out what the customer really wants/needs. This is made more difficult when units rotate in and have different ideas than the units they replaced…so the process starts over again.

The FET also has a heavy equipment crew of Afghans that do many projects around base. Lately their main project is to spread gravel to keep soldiers out of the mud. Dave is primarily in charge of their supervision.
Below is a picture of Justus, Frank and Nick having lunch with Mohammad Ullah, the leader of the heavy equipment crew.
This is a picture of the heavy equipment crew having lunch.
The food they prepare themselves is very good, especially considering they don’t have a kitchen. They prepare the food outside on camp type stoves. A typical meal is meat cooked in a sometimes spicy sauce, bread, rice, vegetables and sometimes fruit. It is followed with green tea. Most of the other LN contractors also have someone on their crew that cooks lunch and makes the tea.

Below is a picture of the inside of Russ’s hooch. It is a “large” hooch at approx. 8’ x 16’. The guys in bay D have slightly smaller quarters (8’ x 10’). Others on base are as small as 8’ x 8’.

Below you see a long line of living quarters (hooches). Each building has 4 bays with up to 8 people per bay. Dave, Tim Crouch and Russ live in bay C (1st door on the right). Tim Crosnoe, Frank, Justus and Aaron live in bay D (second door from the right). Luckily for us the shower and latrine buildings are just across the gravel street you see in front of our hooches. This is especially nice when it’s cold, dark and raining.
There are over fifty of these brick and mortar quarters on base with many more nearing completion. One of our highest priority projects is to get everyone out of tents and into brick and mortars.

Below is a picture of some of our team taking the afternoon off to teach another unit how to play volleyball.
Many places in Afghanistan are still covered in snow, yet we are sweating in the sunshine here. The only snow we’ve seen in Salerno is on the surrounding mountains.

Later editions of the FOB Salerno newsletter will go into more details of the projects we are working on and life in Afghanistan. I hope this newsletter was a good overview of life at FOB Salerno.

Just a quick update

Hello all. Sorry I have not been on here for awhile. This one will be quick because it is bed time. There is a new story every day here. In fact in my next post I will tell you about my trip to another base near by. It was very exciting and I plan on doing more things outside the wire. Anyway, today's story is about our government. It was pretty warm here today. Clear sky and business as usual. About 1115 there was announcement over the big voice saying there was a breach on the FOB(base). So everyone had to either get in a fortified building, bunker, or if outside had to be in your armor. Everything shuts down. The dining facilities, gym and all work. Yes it was lunchtime and I was just getting ready to go get something. Not a happy person. So about 30 minutes goes by and we find out it was a plane that did a touch and go without authorization to be in the area. One of the escorts on base told base defense he saw someone get off the plane and run. We are at war, but not too worried about the Taliban flying planes into our base. The fact though that we are at war and it is protocol to let someone know that you are flying into a base is nice. So this goes on for about an hour and a half. All the soldiers out searching the base for anyone suspicious. We finally get the all clear and find out it was the FBI. They flew in, dropped off an agent and flew back to Bagram before anyone found out what had happened. Needless to say that agent was in a office with an angry Commander soon after. Makes you feel safe, but like I said, we are not too worried about the Taliban flying in anytime soon. Many more stories that I will catch everyone up on later. Time for sleep. Miss everyone and take care.

Love you Joan and Drew