Afghanistan Journal

Today is the 12th of October. I have now been in Afghanistan 3 days or so. I am now at Baghram. I am 1 of 3 on here on the ground trying to figure out things. We left Iraq knowing we all had to end up in Ghazni Afghanistan eventually. I planned and coordinated the movement of our equipment from Iraq which was surprisingly quite easy. We have mentioned quite a few times how everything is easier in war. Back home if I requested a plane to move some equipment it would have to be requested 6 months in advance and all sorts of deals would have to be cut and then at the last minute the misson would get canceled. The planning I did here was to easy and I always kept looking for what the problem would be. It was or has been pretty damn easy realtivley speaking.
I left Tallil Iraq, wondering and hoping that this would be my last time I ever had to visit this country. It seemed somewhat fitting that I should be leaving through the place that I came through on my in to Camp Echo. Even more fitting was the backdrop of the base itself. There is a very old temple that was built there. Supposdely it is older than the Pyramids. I don’t know for sure but it makes sense since we are in the middle of the cradle of civilization, LOL one would think that if this was the cradle they would be ahead of everyone else but this is irony at its finest.
Afghanistan sure is different in every way. It’s a different war with different people and even though I haven’t left the confines of the air base I can tell things are already different. The biggest contrast is the landscape and weather. I am totally surrounded by mountains and the high today was 79 degrees. Tomorrow it is suppose to rain. If it rains it will be the first time I have seen rain in over a month. Even then is was just a couple of sporadic drops. It has been since April since I have seen any thing approaching a significant rain.
The other big thing that I have noticed here is the lack of T-walls and bunkers. The threat of indirect fire here is almost nonexistent. Many of the force protection standards that exist in Iraq seem to be missing here, I hope it’s because they are not needed. I’m sure of that for the most part since I have been following the intelligence since I have found out we were coming here. With winter fast approaching even the the stuff that was going on earlier this year will stop pretty soon.
I have had some time here the past 3 days and began watching an HBO mini series called generation kill. It is about some marines and their trek through Oraq during the first 20 days or so. I had heard it was done very well and pretty accurate. I have to say it was extremely accurate and should be added to anyones must see list, it can get graphic and quite violent but if you can stomach it, it is worth watching. While I was watching the series there would be many times I would have to stop it because of the sounds of the airfield bleeding over my headphones. The F-15s and F-16s taking off in real time sometimes fit right in while I wastching the show. I sometimes had a tough time figuring out what was real and what was playing over the headphones as I watched. It just seems weird, I don’t know if that is irony so to say but whatever it is it was just weird.
So today I am thinking aboutu what lies in front of me and what other things I will be missing while I am over here. Ashtyn just had her Birthday and Micca will soon have hers. Drake will have his as well while I am gone but Drakes Birthday marks the home stretch fro me. You see Drake’s Birthday is the 17th of February and my Deployment date started on the 18th of March. So in seeing this major events pass it saddens me but at the same time keeps me hopeful and plodding along doing whatever it is that must be done for the day. I also have an anniversary in there which is my Micca and I’s first. Today had me thinking that now I have less than 60 days before I can take leave, and once I return I will only have about 60 days left in country. So even though I’m just barely past the half way point in this deployment I fell like things should start to rapidly come to a close. With Leave comes Christmas and if every thing lines up just right I should make it home in time for Christmas and new years so at least I will be around for that.
As usual I am all over the board in thought and what not. I will have Micca post this to my blog as I will not be able to access it my self since my civilian internet access is sporadic if not non existant. Funny thing is that if you post a comment it comes to my army email and lets me see it. The army cant stop everything 
Later for now
Brent