Hello Again

Ladies and Gents,

Hello again. It has been much too long since my last entry. Over a month. A million reasons why I have not written. But here I am again. I just want to say hi to Natalie, Michael, and Anti and I hope you are having fun in NY.

What's going on here? Well, the Afghan presidential election will occur on 8/20. There are three candidates. Obviously Karzi is one. Abdullah Abdullah is another, and Ghanzi is the third. When I ask the Afghans we see who will be the winner they all think Karzi but they do not know if that is best for the country. None of the military even cares who wins but we would like to see it executed safely and changes instituted to curb the rampant corruption. Its incredible.

The average Afghan is a pawn. He makes about $100 (us) monthly and rent is typically 400-500 (us) dollars. So, multiple generations live together in small house in Kabul. I suspect it is much worse in the countryside. Probably living in tents.

The average lifespan is @ 42 for men and 40 for women. Childbirth hemmorhage is the leading cuase of female death 265/1000 live births. Infant mortality (children that die before the age of 5) is the highest outside of Africa. Malnutrition and access to clean water are some of the worst in the world. There is been no effort in upgrading infrastructure since the early 70's because there has been continued fighting since that time. Pretty depressing if you think about it.

Anyway, 8/17 marks my 2 month mark here. After that only 4 months remain. The days go by slow but the weeks fast.

I want to thank you all for keeping in touch and sending the many emails and letter. Keep it up. I miss Natalie and the kids more each passing day and look forward to getting home.

Love and best,

Fran

Kabul

Hello again,

I have been in Kabul for a week at this point and have had some interaction with the locals. Some of the Dari language is similiar to arabic. The greetings and religious things. That makes sense because the Arabs ruled over Afghanistan from around 900 AD to just before the period of European colonization around 1700's. That is a long stretch. Parts of Northern Afghanistan along the border of the other "Stans" was controlled by the ottoman turks. After that, the Russians. They just obtained independance after the Soviet union collapsed.

So, what is Kabul like? It is a city of about 4-5 million people that has a river (the Kabul) running through the center in a valley at an elevation of about 6000 feet surrounded by mountains that rise up to a least twice that. The city had a population of about 2.5 million 10 years ago but given the violence and lack of opportunity the people have moved to the cities in search of work.

I would say that Afghanistan is a "fourth world" country. It is poor. It has little to no infrastructure. The illiteracy rate is aound 80 percent. Illiteracy is also prevalent amongst many of the leadership. They all survived the Russian, the Taliban , and us and are basically warlords that are trying to leverage their position to get rich. Nepotism, corruption, tribalism is rempant.

The central government is quite weak as loyalty is shown first to family, tribe, ethnic group, than country. Much different than what we are used to. Little faith is put in the system it will be a multigenerational path to change.

Anyway, glad I had a chance to post this. Must run to work. More to follow. Miss you all.

Love,

Fran

The Rest of The Trip

I last left off bringing everyone up to date regarding my travels and left off in Kuwait. While there we participated in some additional training which consisted of going to the pistol range and performing convoy operations in preparation for the mission in Afghanistan. I have pictures to post in the next blog entry.

From there the group I had been through all the training in South Carolina with began being sectioned off. Some went to the Horn of Africa, others to Iraq, Bahrain, other locations in Kuwait, and about a third to support military operations in Afghanistan.

Every group that was being pushed forward departed in the middle of the night. Maybe the average Kuwaiti does not like to think that there are thousands of armed and well trained American combatants in there country. I can say I can't blame them but we did save them from being subjugated to rule by Saddam in the early 90's.

We were bussed to the Kuwait Internation Airport, military area and boarded a military cargo plane called a C-17. An impressive piece of American ingenuity. We were packed in with our gear and after 4 hours of flight landed in Bagram Air Base in Northern Afghanistan. It is a sprawling compound in the mountains. Located at an elevation of about 8000 feet. The Soviets built it and the UN or coalition forces call it home now. There are forces from many countries as diverse as the Koreans to Macedonians, to Peruvians. The Egyptians runs a hospital for local Afghani's and the other Muslim nations include Turkey.

There is absolutely no chance that base will ever engage with the enemy. The biggest threat we have is to ourselves or maybe getting run over by a vehicle. Not exactly what the Marines are facing down in the South. I believe the ratio of actual trigger pullers to support personell is 1:10. That's incedible.

We berthed in a 100 man tent with many other transients coming and going. After three days we were on a convoy in armored vehicle from Bagram to Kabul, Camp Eggers.

I met me relief (the guy I am replacing) last night and met other members of the team. He explained the job to me and remains very upbeat about his time in Kabul. More to follow on this topic.

All in all it has been quite a trip. I am finally here and look forward to settling into a routine and getting home. Miss you all especially Nat and the boys.....

Love to all....

Fran

Longest Day Part II

I'm back.....

We boarded the plan with a sense of gratitude and thinking we were really appreciated. That euphoria ended abruptly as the flight plans were announced. We would stop in Canada, Iceland, Germany, and land in Kuwait at 1:30 in the morning local time.

After a quick calculation in my head the math did not make sense. It should be 1:30 in the afternoon. I raised my hand,"Don't you mean PM?" She promptly and with great zeal exclaimed, "No." What was I thinking?...It was a classic rookie mistake. As looked down in a dissapointed embarrassment I saw that I was wearing a military uniform. What was I doing asking sensible questions? The other officers snickered at me and wondered if I was a reservist. I could read their thoughts, "Go to sleep huckleberry and don't let us catch you crying for your Momma!"

The layover in Canada was brief but it felt longer because they would not let us out of the plane. As I attempted to get the crick out of my neck I looked out the window and much to my surprise there was snow on the ground. This might be the last snow for a while!

2 movies later we landed in Iceland. I read somewhere they had gone bankrupt. But they let us out anyway. This time of year the sun never sets there.

Here are three bottles of "Viking Beer" that some of the sailors drank. Not me Mom!

We boarded the plane and three movies later we landed in Germany. I am not allowed to say the name of the town but it definitely had a Eastern European feel. I was spooked when we were loaded into busses and made to walk single file into a holding area by tired appearing woman in a gray uniform. The woman handed blue passes and passed instructions to the group. Unfortunately for us the directions were in German. The guy standing next to me and I look at eachother and swallowed hard. Wasn't Aushwitz in Poland?"After all it was the "Longest Day." Maybe they held a grudge?

I've been known to exaggerate. Just ask Natalie. It makes her crazy. But, my philosophy is this: don't let a white lie get in the way of a good story......am I right?.....looking for some validation. Elizabeth and Regina...do you feel me? Plus, on the random chance you get in a conversation with a sailor; if he begins the story by saying,"Hey, this is a no shitter..." just go with it. Its your contribution to the war effort.

But right after the woman yelled into the loud speaker two middle aged German men dressed in drab eastern european clothing came out pushing a vendor's cart laden with bratwurst, sourkraut, and beans. I could believe it! Thank goodness there would be no smoking on the last leg of the flight to Kuwait because that's a volitile meal.

But, it gets better. The lay over in this airport was 15 hours!!! 15 fricken hours!!!

The woman that gave us the tickets then approached a doorway and opened it with a key. Inside were the beds you see above. We ate and slept only occassionally awakened by the symphony of noises our German hosts had provided for us with the previous meal.

As I lay down to sleep I realized my long day had come to an end. I lay with a full belly on a comfortable bed provided by a country we had been in an all out war with only 65 years earlier. Amazing. Something in me doubts that in 65 years Afghanistan will be a place a US service member could be resting comfortably. I'll let you know.

Love and enjoy

Fran

The Longest Day...Part I

It is often spoken that the soldiers and sailors that landed on the Beaches of Normandy on Jun 6th, 1944 were the bravest of all Americans. The cemetaries on the shores of France atest to the sacrifices they made. It is said that Roosevelt and Ike wept when the order was given. As I am sure many of the family members wept at home. For that reason its been called the "Longest Day."

Well, 65 years later another US service member boarded a plane to serve his country in a distant land. Let me tell you....at the end there was plenty of weeping. 06 Jun 2009 was also the longest day!

It started at Fort Jackson with these forboding clouds seen above. Quickly lightening and thunder followed. Our flight could not land and our bags which lay prepared uncovered in a stake truck were soaked. We assembled at midnight just to be told to go to sleep. Our barracks had been emptied of linens but we dutifully laid down and slept fitfully on mattresses worthy of death row inmates at Sing-Sing dodging water drops from the leaking roof trying avoid getting the "crabs."

We woke up and rode out to a hanger at the airport in Columbia, SC and were surprised to be greated by USO and VFW folks wishing a safe travels. That was truly a heart felt surprise. One guy drove all the may from Kentucky just to wish 120 stangers safe travels and Godspeed!

They formed a tunnel and we shook every last persons hand! You can see above! These folks went above and beyond! In fact one older woman was dressed in a red, white, and blue outfit and gave every last one of us a kiss. Wow..........maybe she was the woman in the Times Square post card with the sailor after VJ day!!! Now we know "whatever happen to her?"

The other picture is the group assembling to get flight instruction from the crew.

Let me publish this post and add more pictures to the next.

Fran

Travels

Hello,

It has been a while since I have logged in. This is because I am currently in Kuwait and the blog directions are written in Arabic. Took some help figuring it out. I did not expect to be able to post so this one will be short.

Much has happened since the last post and I have also have pictures to share. So, hang in there and I will do it tonight!!!

Otherwise, I am well and look forward to sharing my adventures with you!

Love,

Fran

Packing the seabag

Seabag: noun, a cylindrical drawstring bag used by sailors to hold their clothing and other gear

That definition is for the non-sailors in the group. Pictures will help. Alas, I am treating you all like civilians. In the military we say cilivilians. Pronounced silly-vilians. I think everyone gets the picture. We have all seen the movies with airport, bus, or train terminal scene. There is always a sailor with a seabag in the background. Most often he gets killed as collateral damage.

So yes, the seabag carries a our clothing and other items and no, it is not the most efficient means of transporting equipment. But, there is the right way, wrong way, and the Navy way.

A seabag is much more than a bag with a more crap in it. It is a transition. Packing one's seabag means it is time to go. And the places that seabags are taken do not include your family. No one packs their seabag to go to "The Cape", a weekend getaway to Santa Barbara, or to meet up with some "high school buddies" in Vegas. It is the Navy's version of a business trip. A trip in which we usually visit distant countries that are very hot, loaded with natural resources, and populated by little people with brown eyes and dark hair. Bit of gallows humor.

For me packing the seabag is therapeutic. It means putting everything you know and care about you behind, getting your mind focused around the task that lies in front of you, and getting on with it.

My seabags are packed. My mind is focused. I am ready. Let's get it on!

Love to all......

Fran