Well, FOB Shank was a nice trip. Did my first run in awhile, which I posted on FB as 1.5 miles at 7k feet, whereas it turned out to be 2 miles at 7,500 feet! Including the huge hill up to the towers, my assistant and I did it in about 8 minute miles - with a couple minute stop at the top of the hill to get pics. I figure at that altitude I did pretty well - and didn't get sore the next day.
At night it was almost time to hook up with Cheri online when I got into a great conversation with a couple of the officers over cigars. The stars were amazing - literally millions visible, along with a streak of the Milky Way, which I haven't seen in years because of all the light pollution at home. Anyhow, the conversation slimmed down to just one of the officers, who had been hurt by the church in the past. Talking through it with him took me well past my date with Cheri (thank you, dear, for understanding). It was good to be able to encourage a man who is outside the wire almost daily, facing IED's, IDF and SAF from INS all the time (translate: facing IED's, indirect fire, small arms fire from insurgents). And yet he doesn't feel the greatest problems in his life are enemy bullets! You can't overemphasize the quality of people we have here.
Our conversation ended with a mission call around 9:30pm. They asked me to go along, so I jumped aboard an RG-31 (MRAP - mine-resistant, armor protected) and rode into the night, finally outside the wire. Unfortunately, it was so dark that I didn't get to see much. We went to a location where a local had found several mortar rounds wrapped in a burlap sack. Our EOD guys performed a controlled detonation, blowing them up in place. I got to see that, but not much else.
The trip back took us through a winding series of turns in a small town that was tightly packed with qalats. A qalat is the property/compound owned by a family (nuclear or extended) and surrounded completely by walls. You enter via a large set of double doors or plain opening into a courtyard with one or more homes built within. The walls are often 10-15 feet high and can go much higher. They reminded me much of adobe structures in the US southwest. The town was very pretty, from what I could see, with trees and gardens and the narrow, dusty streets. The MRAPs could barely fit between walls at times.
No incidents today, thank God. Remember: Boring is good. We did lose a few soldiers a couple of days ago to an SVBIED, however (suicide vehicle-based IED). How they find so many people willing to die to kill Americans I will never know. Pray for our soldiers. Pray for the leaders on the ground here who willingly go "outside the wire" daily in order to take the fight to the enemy.
In His grip.
At night it was almost time to hook up with Cheri online when I got into a great conversation with a couple of the officers over cigars. The stars were amazing - literally millions visible, along with a streak of the Milky Way, which I haven't seen in years because of all the light pollution at home. Anyhow, the conversation slimmed down to just one of the officers, who had been hurt by the church in the past. Talking through it with him took me well past my date with Cheri (thank you, dear, for understanding). It was good to be able to encourage a man who is outside the wire almost daily, facing IED's, IDF and SAF from INS all the time (translate: facing IED's, indirect fire, small arms fire from insurgents). And yet he doesn't feel the greatest problems in his life are enemy bullets! You can't overemphasize the quality of people we have here.
Our conversation ended with a mission call around 9:30pm. They asked me to go along, so I jumped aboard an RG-31 (MRAP - mine-resistant, armor protected) and rode into the night, finally outside the wire. Unfortunately, it was so dark that I didn't get to see much. We went to a location where a local had found several mortar rounds wrapped in a burlap sack. Our EOD guys performed a controlled detonation, blowing them up in place. I got to see that, but not much else.
The trip back took us through a winding series of turns in a small town that was tightly packed with qalats. A qalat is the property/compound owned by a family (nuclear or extended) and surrounded completely by walls. You enter via a large set of double doors or plain opening into a courtyard with one or more homes built within. The walls are often 10-15 feet high and can go much higher. They reminded me much of adobe structures in the US southwest. The town was very pretty, from what I could see, with trees and gardens and the narrow, dusty streets. The MRAPs could barely fit between walls at times.
No incidents today, thank God. Remember: Boring is good. We did lose a few soldiers a couple of days ago to an SVBIED, however (suicide vehicle-based IED). How they find so many people willing to die to kill Americans I will never know. Pray for our soldiers. Pray for the leaders on the ground here who willingly go "outside the wire" daily in order to take the fight to the enemy.
In His grip.
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