At Home on the Range

I won't go into the details, but the week after getting back from the last trip was a bit stressful. I was getting increasingly irritable and short-tempered, readily snarling at people for things that would've usually earned them a good-humored ribbing from me. Clearly, it was time for me to find some sort of therapy.

Fortunately, treatment for such an affliction in Afghanistan is readily available in the form of ammunition. Better still, my good friend (and driver) Greg is very adept at finding ammunition for us to take to the firing range and he jumps at every opportunity to go out and shoot things. After the week I'd had I couldn't appreciate him more.

Here's the lot of us from the Regional Outreach office on the range:


The bulk of the office got together along with a couple of Marines who are new in theater and went to the range. We got there with our personal rifles and pistols, many thousand rounds of ammunition, and a variety of junk that would show adequately satisfying battle damage when it was hit. Ostensibly we were there to make sure that our weapons were still properly calibrated so I started out with carefully aimed shooting:


It took me ten rounds to feel confident that my sights were aiming where the bullets were landing. At 30meters I was able to put six of those rounds through a target about the size of a quarter. I wasn't shooting great, but I wasn't doing too bad either. After my ten carefully aimed rounds to zero my sights, the rest of the day was spent just shooting for fun.

I only put about 600 rounds through my M16:


That was okay though, because then I got to melt through a full ammo box on the C9, the Canadian version of our 5.56mm, belt-fed machine gun (called a Squad Automatic Weapon or SAW for short):

I was all over the place with this thing. I fired it prone and kneeling and standing and from the hip. I'd be amazed if two out of five rounds landed anywhere near where I was aiming. Still, I'm pretty confident that if there was someone on the other end of the range headed my way with ill intent, at least a handful of the 220 rounds I fired in the first four minutes probably would've hit him.

After the SAW, I used up a quick 180 or so rounds with my 9mm pistol. I'm a fan of the pistol too. I need to get me one of those.

Someone also left a piece of laminated "bullet-resistant" glass out on the range, so we decided to test it out. Here's Greg dumping a few rounds into it (the glass is the light-colored area at the base of the glass powder cloud):

He was very proud of himself:


When we were done, the glass had not fared well:

In defense of the properties of this piece of "bulletproof" glass, we did manage to put well over 500 rounds into it and less than six managed to penetrate all the way through.

Anyway, as is his way Major Brinkman had to pose for pictures everywhere we went. So here's a shot of him looking tough in front of a mountain while wearing his ninja turtle costume:


Major Brinkman also decided he needed a shot of himself in front of a bunch of old bombed-out buildings and shattered Soviet Tanks. He kept talking about how the perfect caption for these pics would be "the Brink of Destruction." Okay...


Since the basic concept wasn't silly enough already, I decided to take one of these pics a step further and turn him into Andrew Brinkman, Infantryman of the Apocalypse:


Goofy as all of that was, I couldn't resist the urge to get a similar shot of myself:


It was a good day and did manage to lift my spirits a bit. Of course, anything beats sitting around in the office and waiting for something unpleasant to do.

Stay tuned, more shenanigans already scheduled...

Frau Thorsson Has Her Orders. Finally.

After much ado, Ana has finally gotten the word on her next duty station and whenever I get back to the states we'll end up living in the sunny LA/Long Beach area of Southern California:


I say we'll "end up" there because this will be after we spend a week or so honeymooning along the Gulf Coast, a month or so honeymooning in Washington D.C. (with occasional trips into the outlying area and beyond), another month or so honeymooning in transit/househunting/sailing down the CA coastline/etc., and then finally moving into whatever house we buy. With a little luck, the honeymoon won't be over by then, because I will be blogging every juicy little intimate detail about the entire thing.*

In short: this summer's adventures are going to be pretty interesting once I get done with my escapades in Afghanistan. Be sure to read along. There will be pictures too.**

*No I won't.
**And there won't be any of those pictures. Pervs.

Joyous Equinox to All

I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone of the true meaning of Easter. A powerful story that changed the way that people thought for thousands of years to follow. While many religious scholars will argue over the exact dates, the general facts have long since been written. A long time ago* a child was born to a virgin mother married to a carpenter. His birth was attended by three wise men who brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. He was worshipped as the savior of mankind, working miracles, restoring sight, casting out devils, and even raising the dead. He was baptized, killed, buried, and three days later he was resurrected. He was also prophesized to battle evil forces in a second coming.

His name was Krishna.** Google it. His followers referred to him by a much more interesting title. The word they used meant "pure essence." That word was "jezeus."***

If you don't like that story, there are plenty of other interesting stories that are traditionally celebrated around the Vernal Equinox. Take your pick. This other one seems pretty popular:



*Supposedly around 1200BCE.
**I realize this was misleading. You probably thought I was writing about someone else, right? Like Horus or Mithra.
***Also of note, a common earlier spelling of the name Krishna was "Christna."

A Quick Thank You

The other day I went to get the mail for the office and had to lug a couple of massive boxes back that were addressed to LCDR Vale. Fortunately just before I gave him any grief he opened them. Inside were dozens of boxes of Girl Scout cookies:



So I'd like to give a heartfelt thanks to the young ladies of Girl Scout Troop #1947 and Brownies Troop #3724. It turns out that these girls paid for these cookies with proceeds from their sales this year. Now we'll be in cookies for weeks.

Awesome!

Kapisa, Parwan, Bagram, etc.

When last I posted, I'd just left Bamian Province with a couple of helicopters loaded with VIP's enroute for points west.

Our first stop actually ended up being Kabul, where we dropped off the first of three flag officers and his straphangers. Then we lifted off and flew north to Bagram Air Base in Parwan Province where everyone was shown to their accomodations.

The next day we got a tour of all things Reconstruction and Development located at Bagram Air Base. Most of our time was consumed by Powerpoint presentations for the Admiral. We got a 2-hour brief/discussion at the Regional Headquarters, a 2-hour brief at the Provincial Reconstruction Team, and a 1-hour brief at the headquarters of each of the local task forces. This is specifically why I'd prefer to make my visits to the PRTs with as few people as possible (and ideally, as low-ranking as possible). Instead of getting a chance to walk around with the PRT personnel out on the ground and get a first-hand impression of their operations, all I managed was to sit in the back of the room and read along as they showed us their VIP show.

So I spent my first day there getting bussed around with the Admiral and generally not learning anything. I also found out that there were no plans for the PRT folks to head out and do anything outside the compound while I was there. Bummer.

The one thing I saw that I hadn't seen before was the expansive distribution yard they have for Humainitarian Aid materials. This is a massive stockyard full of shipping containers loaded with everything from basic food staples to girls' cold-weather clothing. All of these items are loaded up on an as-needed basis to be delivered wherever it's needed within Afghanistan.

Our policy is to try every other option to help people before providing directly donated aid items, but when the need comes around we've got plenty to spare. It's hard to get a good photo of the scale of the space, but here's the best I could manage:


Even though the plan is to only provide "in extremis" huminitarian aid distribution, the yard is always a busy place. Given all of the problems across the country, there's always someone somewhere that's desperate for help. When it's too far or too dangerous for some other donor to provide help, that's when these guys load up some trucks with flour and sugar and gloves and hats and plastic tarps and so on and head out to distribute it to the locals.

Nice.

Once the Admiral's tour had ended, it was time to move along on my own. I bundled up all of my gear in the VIP accomodations and got myself a cot over in the transient tents. This was one of over 150 cots in this nearly full tent, so there was no shortage of other servicemen around to keep me company.

At this point it was already dark and raining, so I had little to do but wander over to the MWR (Morale, Welfare, and Recreation) building and watch a few movies. Sometime around dinnertime I got a call from one of the guys back in the office telling me that I should keep an eye out for a Marine lieutenant colonel who was supposed to be coming through Bagram on his way to being assigned to our office.

There are several thousand people working at Bagram Air Base. Meals can be had for free at any one of several dining facilities as well as bought at a number of restaurants on base. The base itself is easily comparable to a medium-sized town. I have no idea how they expected me to find one US Marine in all of this space and among all of these people.

Sure enough, less than an hour later I ran into him.

We ended up grabbing a cup of coffee and chatting a bit about what the office does and what he can expect from his tour in Afghanistan. He'll be in theater for a year, so he's got a lot to look forward to.

The next morning I was aiming to find a way to get out to one of the other PRTs in my region. Sadly the weather was still crap, so when I went over to the rotary wing passenger and cargo terminal to hitch a ride on a helicopter there were none available. According to the Army sergeant at the desk, with the backlog of people and material trying to get out I could've waited there a week before going anywhere.

Since there were no flights coming or going and no planned trips outside for the PRT, I once again had nothing to do but sit in the MWR building and watch movies. The good news was that LCDR Vale was coming up from Kabul to run around Bagram and then head out with me. The bad news was that I had to find him first.

Just after dinnertime, I found him.

We spent the next morning going around and talking with a handful of our contacts at the air base and then managed to catch a fixed-wing flight back to Kabul airport. After one week of living out of my rucksack, I was glad to be back in my little box and done with travel for a bit.

Stay tuned...