First time to meet with Afghan Army Colonel

Today was a little rough after last night's attacks.  Rumor is we killed all the Taliban or insurgents that attempted to breach the base. Didn't get to sleep until approximately 2:00am, because of the regular sirens and announcements on the giant voice speaker system. One of the people on my team was stuck where they were until this morning, so they were exhausted; but they worked the entire day, because they had things they wanted to get done.  Awesome team here!!!

No rocket or mortars so far tonight!!!

Here are the guys working on removing armor doors to the HMMWV, so it can be used to drive around the yard easily and used as a utility vehicle, at least temporarily.  They needed a vehicle in the yard, so they made it work.  They'll put the doors back on as the rest of the 250 vehicles are repaired and it'll be good as new.

I don't know if you can make ANA out very well, but I saw this blanket hanging in the doorway of the village.  It's identical to our US military issue blankets.  Kind of interesting to see.

This is the mess that was underneath the bathroom unit we removed.  You can use your imagination as to what was all over the ground.  I'd like to think it was just moldy.  Anyway, we were going to let it dry out and cover it with dirt, but the people living there had a different idea.

Here's what they did.  It was so clean, you couldn't tell it was ever dirty.  We didn't know there was concrete under the mess.  It's a nice feeling to see them taking pride in where they live.  Some Americans say the Afghans don't take care of anything, so don't give them anything nice because they'll just destroy it.  It may happen in certain instances, but it's usually because of a lack of training and not a willingness to destroy things.

Here's the team putting the bathroom unit in place.  This is truly thinking outside the box :)

Here's a project to expand their mosque, because it  was so small.  The mosque was also being used by transients, who'd sleep on the concrete floor.

Here I am in a meeting at the Afghan Colonel's office.  Names are not listed for many reasons.

Here is my Afghan Army Colonel.  We will be working very closely together over the next several months.

On the table in front of me is Chai tea and a platter with cashews, almonds, chick peas (I think), and raisins made from white grapes.

The job should be filled with many challenges, which is my favorite thing about deployment jobs.  If it's easy, there's no job satisfaction.