It has been a busy week. Anecdotes and timelines are jumbled around in my head. I’ve been struggling with maintaining a proper sequence of events — old thoughts are pushed out quickly as new thoughts and experiences are formed. It always amazed me how writers of memoirs and diaries are able to recount their thoughts — at every point on the trajectory of their story — so completely.
I’ve begun to settle into life on my little FOB. The first few days were madness — especially Thanksgiving, when rockets, IEDs, and belt-fed weaponry popped off with enough regularity to make me wonder if I’d last a week, much less a year. We recovered some of the shrapnel from a rocket attack — melon-sized pieces of twisted steel that grimly sailed the length of three football fields in every direction.
The ballistic interruptions notwithstanding, Thanksgiving dinner was a wonderfully prepared meal. No processed turkey here — everything was more-or-less fresh. Turkey and ham and stuffing and mac-n-cheese and beans and salad and this and that — all the traditional players represented.
Our chow hall has its own kitchen where food is prepared daily (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and served, buffet-style, by coffee-skinned Afghans, Pakistanis, Indians, and Asiatics vetted and employed by a transnational food contractor. (The irony of the scheme is hard to dismiss: millions of American dollars spent on foodstuffs from the UAE (it ALL comes from the UAE), packaged by Arab hands, shipped to Afghanistan on foreign boats and in foreign trucks, prepared by foreign workers, and served to American soldiers fighting to protect the American national interest. Then we shit the food out into latrines serviced by local Afghan shit-suckers driving German shit-sucking trucks. On both ends the American remains the consumer.)
I won’t go into much detail here, obviously, but here is what I can tell you: Our FOB is laid out much like a mining camp. Long, rocky dirt avenues separate the various “buildings” and shelters and tents and roughly divide the FOB into working and living areas. When it’s sunny clouds of choking dust follow the dozens of Humvees, MRAPs, and shit-sucker trucks that lumber around. When it rains, the avenues turn to thick gray mud that slops and splatters about.
The FOB is surrounded by the blisteringly high snowbound peaks of the Hindu Kush. These ranges are in their tectonic adolescence — their jagged, fresh beauty makes our poor Rockies look tired and worn. If only we could venture out and enjoy them without worrying about the Taliban kidnapping us and cutting off our heads on YouTube.
We stay in large insulated tents divided with pine boards into small rooms called “hooches” (or, more colloquially, “spank-shacks”). They are heated, lit, and “furnished” with an extra-long twin bed/mattress
combo that has probably seen more spilled seed than I care to imagine. The raw pine lends a warm, rustic scent that — combined with glowing laptop screens and camouflage — creates the feeling of a postmodern
hunting lodge.
Many hooches, like mine, are spartan. Others are adolescent paradises of the very first order: Xboxes, flat-screen TVs, stereos, carpets, bean-bag chairs and christmas lights abound. So long as it does not
interfere with the physical integrity of the overall structure, you are given free reign to modify and improve your hooch as you see fit. Wood and tools are readily available for projects of any size. A friend of mine is assisting me with my first project: sealing off my current door and cutting out a new one to more easily facilitate a private entrance/exit. Others have built desks, wardrobes, and, in one case, a vaulted ceiling complete with joists.
Where does one acquire large, expensive objects of creature-comfort? I’m still in the process of determining that. From what I can tell it’s a prison economy, where goods change hands surreptitiously between friends in the dark of the night. If you need, say, a box of screws and a Skil saw, then you must go find the box-of-screws-and-a-skil-saw guy. There’s a guy for everything.
Local Afghan people are also permitted — after significant vetting — to open up small shops on our FOB, clustered together in a little “shopping district.” Afghan merchants have held a legendary reputation through the ages and no pitiful modern war keeps them from their slippery duties.
Old Abe’s General Convenience Store is my favorite. Old Abe is probably in his mid-twenties, but with an average male life expectancy of 45, he’s old enough. Along with “all kind of electronics devices” he peddles every trinket and piece-of-junk imaginable. Pirated Chinese DVD box-sets are a hot seller — the complete Star Trek: TNG in Chinese with German subtitles! — and if you’re feeling extra-fancy he’ll even tailor you an extra-fancy zoot suit from fine imported silks. Next door you can get a “masaje” and an Angelina Jolie haircut.
The prices are all hilariously inflated, apparently based only on Old Abe’s perception of how much money you have currently in your pocket. Fortunately prices are very fluid things in this country and items can be had reasonably after significant negotiation.
The internet guy is harder to find. I still don’t have internet in my hooch and thus I can’t upload any of the photos I have taken. The day is drawing near, however, and rest assured my readers will be the first to know.
Unfortunately I cannot discuss the specifics of most job-related endeavors. I am quickly becoming more familiar with our AO (area of operations) and look forward to having my finger on the pulse of the Taliban. I have already been assigned my first mission “outside the wire” and look forward (kinda) to seeing this country as it exists outside a military base.
Fwomp. Fwomp.
“Everyone to the bunkers out back. Now!”
I lunged for my IOTV (Improved Outer Tactical Vest, or body armor), skated down the pine-floored hallway of our little building, and dove into the sandbag-covered concrete shelter. Taliban rockets are notoriously inaccurate but I wasn’t taking any chances. The more experienced soldiers around me didn’t seem as worried, laughing and lighting up cigarettes. But the blood in my own veins had turned to ice. At any moment I was expecting shrapnel to come tearing through the concrete and into my brain. Shock waves boomed overhead as our own artillery returned fire. “Our guns is bigger!” one soldier cried into the frigid black night.
Welcome to the Suck, friends! I’ve only been here 12 hours and already a slamming door puts me on edge.
I apologize for the lack of updates. I’m still in the honeymoon phase and haven’t had a chance to settle in, unpack, and get myself wired in. Internet is available but I’ve not yet been able to upload pictures, of which I have dozens. Theoretically I should be able to have internet in my hooch (room), on my own computer, but it may be a few days until I can set that up.
I’ve left Bagram for my unit’s much smaller FOB (Forward Operating Base.) For obvious reasons I can’t reveal its location or mission, but I will be able to share carefully composed pictures.
We traveled here on Chinook helicopters and I was lucky enough to sit near the rear of the aircraft, completely open to the world below. It was abominably cold but the prospect of interesting photos kept me lucid. What beautiful country, this. A scene from Apocalypse Now (or was it Platoon?) flashed through my head — one soldier asks the other why he’s sitting on his helmet. The experienced soldier says something to the effect of “I don’t want to get my balls shot off!”
I tucked my groin-piece carefully between my legs.
More updates soon!
Dear readers, I apologize for failing to update you sooner. Unfortunately it may be a few days before I can offer anything more than some quick anecdotes — the public internet here is a little flaky and I’ll be leaving too soon to justify establishing a satellite hookup.
I’ve made it to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan — the main hub for operations in and around the theater. I’ll explain more when I have some time, but I’m absolutely enchanted with this beautiful, wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Where else can you wake up, eat breakfast with a French Foreign Legion platoon, take a hot shower, pick up your laundry, get a massage (plus mani and pedi), kill some Taliban, hit a few IEDs, come back, buy a freakin’ tuxedo, go back to your room, have a pizza delivered, then climb into your fart-sack and fall asleep to Project Runway? And this is just one more stop on my way further into the hinterland.
After all my searching I’ve finally found the Wild Fucking West — in all its teeth-gnashing, slop-throwing, shit-bucketing, piss-stinking, smoke-belching, bullet-spewing glory.
Send cigars.
We’re continuing our journey soon. I thought I would leave you for the day with an amusing picture.
An enormous, empty parking lot — with one reserved space:
And my route so far:
My wife Brianna is very interested in cuisine and I would be remiss if I did not periodically update her on what I was eating.
At this juncture in my travels, my unit is a guest of the Air Force — a branch of the service that prides itself in being barely military. If the Marine Corps. is a double shot espresso, and the Army is a dark Italian Roast, then the Air Force is a non-fat soy latte. Among other things — like being fat and not shaving — they are known for their superior food.
Last night Steven and I trudged out to the Air Force DFAC (Dining FACility) to sample the fare. The temperature hovered in the 30s. Along the way, we passed the Air Force Chapel. A sign hung on the door said “WORSHIP IN PROGRESS” — apparently worship includes a live rock band. We passed a Colonel and his aide and smartly saluted. “Wassssup, dudes?” he replied, casually waving his hand more-or-less near his face. It became clear that saluting and uniformity are not things the Air Force takes very seriously. Junior airmen jive-stepped past Steven and I (both officers), too concerned with their iPods to bother with military courtesy.
I wasn’t permitted to bring my camera into the DFAC, so this snapshot of the decorative door will have to do:
Inside we found a war-zone paradise: coolers overflowing with sodas, energy drinks, juices and desserts. Instead of tattooed work-release inmates slopping you a chicken-fried steak, we were greeted by lovely young Kyrgyz women (Kyrgyz allegedly means “forty girls”) offering us traditional food. I had some Grftryzxgh with a side of Yyklkkickle, all over a bed of fresh Rvcvklqa and Dvabvrtd. Everything tasted like something between goat and beef (even the vegetables), but it was all fresh and better than the fried chicken-stuffed-chicken I’ll get when I continue on to my Army base.
Thoroughly satisfied, we left to check on our friend Eli. He picked up a nasty bug before we left Savannah and was continuing to regress. For the first day or two, he was given (instead of medicine) a protective mask. Now he’s in an isolation tent and may be quarantined for a week or so — Air Force rules. The Army would only put you in quarantine if your eyeballs were falling out of your ass.
We’re waiting on our flight into the next ‘Stan now. It may be a few days. It’s a beautiful fresh chilly morning — the air smells like woodfires and evergreen. Things to do today: hang out at the coffee shop/internet cafe and feign interest in going to the gym.
Where I hang my hat:
We’ve arrived in Kyrgyzstan, a country steeped in ancient Mongol culture and hatred for vowels. My internal clock has had its hands spun so many times, in so many directions, I’m still unsure of the correct date and time. They have this thing called “Local Time”, but it’s meaningless. It was another eight hours from Germany, I believe, and we landed in blinding daylight.
The airport is beautifully post-Soviet, set against a background of dramatic, jagged peaks in stunning relief. This area is a major staging point for operations in the region, used by dozens of nations. Moon-faced Kyrgzstani(?) soldiers in embellished Warsaw Pact uniforms greeted us on the tarmac.
My friend, Eli — a Black Hawk pilot — expressing enthusiasm:
Local customs include riding horses, falconry, looking like Tamerlane, and fighter jets:
After deplaning we shuffled through a series of agonizing briefings, duffels and rucks and body-armor and weapons all in tow. Our luggage is only tenuously marked and, curiously, all of our bags look and feel exactly alike. Naturally we are required to find our bags, abandon them, and then find them again several times over before being permitted to find and abandon other belongings scattered across the airbase.
Finally we saunter into our temporary home: a 700-bed übertent dripping with the hot, fetid stench of feet. I plopped myself down on my bunk and was promptly engulfed in a cloud of the last guy’s perma-farts.
At least the view was pretty:
I left Savannah for Afghanistan at approximately 5 AM. Bri had escorted me to the tarmac several hours earlier, where we unloaded my bags and spent a few quiet moments together, our last until I am able to come home again.
Several hundred other soldiers and their families mingled around us in various stages and interpretations of grief and anxiety. Unaccompanied soldiers stood awkwardly with the families of friends and colleagues — in many cases they were left to consider their departure alone.
I think my lady and I managed ourselves very well, all things considered.
The romance was quickly shattered as we were nonchalantly whisked away into a large waiting hall where a final poke and prod took place.
Then we boarded a chartered commercial jet and left.
(But not after stuffing our pockets with these.)
The flight was as uncomfortable as any other transatlantic journey — I was always in a half-baked sweat, my flimsy airline blanket attracting every piece of uniform-velcro that accompanied the fat asses trundling down the aisle to the latrine. Fortunately I had four seats to share with only one other soldier, so space wasn’t an issue and after downing two melatonin pills foisted on me by a friend I was able to sleep for much of the journey.
We landed later that day (night? morning?) in Shannon, Ireland. The poor Irish travelers present were obviously surprised when our innocent-enough looking airliner disgorged three hundred pimply-faced, bleary eyed soldiers into the terminal. Our American instincts quickly took over and everything available for purchase was plundered from the shelves. I overheard one perplexed private try to cajole his Irish cashier into accepting a personal check, which he insisted would not bounce. “Everyone takes checks in America!” he explained.
Our next stop was Leipzieg, Germany. The pragmatic German authorities had designated a terminal “specially prepared” for use by American soldiers. The opposite was in fact the case, of course, as the terminal was “specially prepared” to keep American indiscretion and virulence as far away from German society as possible. Large flat-screen TVs tuned to American channels accompanied an assortment of giftshops peddling Pan-Germanic trinkets (“Hello from Berlin!” was etched on one drinking stein). Everything for sale was marked in American dollars but I did appreciate the Germans’ overall cultural steadfastness — all signs, notices, and descriptions were written only in German.
We snickered at the luxurious items available in the mens’ latrine: Pocket Travel Pussy, anyone? How about a vibrating penis ring to keep the Taliban at bay?
My favorite conversation from our brief stop in Germany:
Private A: “Where are we again? Luftwaffe?”
Private B: “Nah, bro, we’re in Bumfuckenlick.”
My friend: “That’s why they don’t let us into the main terminal.”
After a few hours of immersion in German culture, we were back on our airplane, bound for Central Asia.
So what does a young man bring to the snowy, unconquerable steppes?
Well, they gave me one of these:
Its purpose should be pretty obvious. Along with your m-16 there are other things you’re required to take — mostly pouches of various sizes, all of the same color and camouflage pattern. The camouflage helps defeat the enemy’s ability to detect you. It also helps defeat your ability to find that one pouch you need, among all your other pouches, that has something useful in it:
Part of being in the Army is wearing large, heavy combat boots. Another part of being in the Army is hauling around even larger, heavier rubber boots that go over your large, heavy regular boots. Maybe these will come in handy when I need to wade through shin-deep toxic waste. Actually, they’ll probably just melt:
What would I like to bring? Hmm… how about a few platoons of these?
Bri is helping me finish up my packing. Other than the required items I need for my job, I’m bringing a few books, an iPod (with no music on it), and my laptop. Maybe I should invest in some playing cards. Despite my meager taste in sundries, our hotel room — mid pack — still looks like this, only with more camouflage:
My wife Brianna insisted I establish and maintain a blog to document my upcoming experience so I will begin here. Other than peeking over Bri’s shoulder as she hammered away on her own project, I’m relatively new to this medium. I’ve never kept a journal, so I’m unsure to what extent I’ll be successful here.
Writing isn’t something I find particularly difficult, but more often than not a generous helping of alcohol has made previous undertakings more palatable. Bri has always encouraged my writing — vigorously, even — so it comes as no surprise that the prospect of losing both my malty muse and my actual muse is not the circumstance I would have chosen for my literary debut.
Anyway, a little about me — er, a little more about me, as I’ve already provided a suitably cryptic biography: I’m a 25-year-old Army officer serving with the [REDACTED] on FOB [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED] Province of that cheerful little Central Asian country you’ve all heard so much about. My specialty, of which I have relatively little training and experience, falls somewhere between in-depth analysis of enemy movement and intent, filling out (and then signing) documents, and making coffee. What keeps me going is the cherry the Army places on top of my whipped cream: a [REDACTED], which makes me the coolest guy in the barracks. A former instructor of mine told me the first, and last, thing about my job was to “Always Look Cool.”
In theory, I’m supposed to be this guy, connecting the dots in earth-shattering fashion and leaving women with buckled knees:
Unfortunately, the reality looks something more like the gentleman pointed out here:
I embark on my 12+ month tour tomorrow.
