A U.S. Army Soldier from 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment pulls security as Soldiers from his battalion search the mountains af Andar province, Afghanistan, for Taliban members and weapons caches June 6. Photo by Staff Sgt. Marcus Quarterman
The pic is just for ambience - it has nothing to do with the post, other than location... larger format here, should you want it.
Our sailor from JFCOM working with NATO in the land-locked nation of Afghanistan continues his tale:
Well the first team is gone, and we are on our own. Not so bad so far, I moved out of the cramped box the two Poles and I were squeezed into, and into a slightly larger box that the last team had been in. (Pictures to follow) The mission is a little bit different than what we expected, but nothing earth shattering. Any time you step into a new job, the reality is going to be a bit different.NATO’s overall mission is to help the Afghan government provide for its people, and either convince the bad guys to get with the program or kill them. We do that until the Afghan Police and Army are trained and equipped enough to do that themselves. Simple right? Like the old proverb, we moved from giving people fish to teaching them to fish and now are trying to help them set up a canning facility and fish fillet distribution center while repairing the roads in between and stopping the guys who think eating fish is a sin because the fish stares back at you.
Not so much going on, Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, is our day off, so I expect to sleep in and visit the bazaar for the best deals in all Afghanistan. I haven’t had much chance to interact with the population yet. Most of the support staff cooking and cleaning are local, and the traders at the bazaar, but I haven’t really been off the compound yet. I helped load a few jeeps with donated shoes for one of the local orphanages, but had to stay behind when they distributed them because of work conflicts.
People have been asking what I need. Not much really, I came pretty well prepared, and to be honest if I say anything I know some of people are going to go nuts. Stuff that’s always welcome are AA batteries (my camera eats them), Swedish fish, we drink a LOT of bottled water here, so any of those single serving crystal light packs are good to break up the monotony. Also fly paper. I’ve always believed that little bit of dirt was healthy for you but here in Afghanistan I’ve changed the “ten second rule” to the “no second rule.”
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