Wednesday was a great day...non-explosive too!

First I want to talk about an email I received. The email itself is of no consequence, but it was carrying a very interesting quote.  

"If I had a pencil since the age of seven instead of a weapon,  my life would be much different"
     -- Col, Haji Toor Jan 

This is what Col Haji Toor Jan told a Private in the Army when she was working a backpack program for the children of Afghanistan.


For me personally, this quote made me reevaluate who the Afghan people are.  How do we expect them to just integrate into a normal society with a background like that.  They've had a hard life I wouldn't wish on anyone.  It's still hard and dangerous today. They wash clothes by hand at the river with bar soap as well as take their bath...not all do this, but the majority are this poor. They do not have continuous power for refrigeration or TV and have to use a generator to produce it when they want it, which means they must buy fuel.  They are always concerned about attacks from the Taliban; hopefully they are not afraid we'll attack them, but we have had accidents on occasion.

This morning for our 5:30am run it was beautiful.

Here I am with my running partner...I'm wearing their PT gear to spur interest.  I want them to be proud of their uniform and the fact that they're in the Afghan Nat'l Army.

Today I met with the ANA Colonel for the logistics depot. Now that the fence is nearly finished, we needed to see what was in the containers.  Of course, none of my team thought he'd let us into them because he was hiding private stashes of weapons or something he wasn't supposed to have.  I did think we'd find some strange things and was just hoping not to find any bodies or anything too crazy.  The Colonel and I discussed it and he danced around the issue for a while. He wanted to do some of the containers and not all of them, because he said he didn't own all of them. I asked him to call the people that owned them and tell them that we needed them to come over and open the containers so we could see what was in them or we'd cut the locks off.  He made the calls and to my surprise, we had guys showing up in 5 minutes.  He was also telling me that one of his guys that had the keys was on vacation and we'd have to wait to open those containers for a couple weeks...I said I have bolt cutters and replacement locks...so he thought about it.  While he was thinking, I told the Colonel that we do them all today and all at once or we don't do them at all...don't waste my time or yours with a partial look.  He thought it would take forever, but we did all 72 containers in 2 hours and only had to cut 9 locks...only when they said they couldn't find the key.


The strangest thing I found were boxes of live mortars and Rocket-propelled-grenades (RPG). I didn't expect to find them in these containers.  Really don't like finding these things.  Look at how worn they are...what kind of condition are they in?  Looks like someone used them for a hammer.

At least these are new and stored safely in a box. Still not touching them.

82mm mortars like the one we found yesterday.  Didn't want to open the box, but they were full.

There were plenty of them too!

Some old AK-47 and in the next box in the back, some other old weapons.

More old Russian weapons.

Again, more old Russian weapons.

Bayonets for the Russian weapons.

Here was a special one I picked out just for you all to see.  I couldn't pass up a pic of this jingled AK-47.

Here is some fun waiting to happen!!! RPG launchers in brand new condition!

Okay, that's all for today. Now here are the old pics from the 1960s.

Tuesday...Interestingly Non-Explosive

Had to look at the calendar to see what day it was, since we don't have Saturday and Sunday off it messes with your head.

First thing this morning, I drove my overloaded truck to the logistics depot so they could get started on the fence.  I pulled up to the depot and for the first time since I've been here, the ANA Colonel met me at my vehicle to ask me to take the concertina wire out to the work site...he really wants this fence done.  I didn't realize how exciting it could be to install a fence...see later.  We had an unskilled forklift driver trying to get the bundles of wire out of the bed of the truck...dangerous, so watch out!  I thought for sure he was going to tear the tailgate right off the truck.  He managed to get'em offloaded with very little damage to the truck...I was surprised!

Here's a pic of the offload and the precarious nature of the forklift driver.  The guy sitting on the truck doesn't seem to be bothered!  Don't know how they can sit like that without their knees hurting?

Once it was unloaded they used a pair of what they translated to me as scissors, which is too funny, to cut the large wire holding the bundle together.  This guy was so excited to use the bolt cutters, he could barely hold still.

Everything was going well with the wire.  We provided direction and they caught on fairly quick with a few minor corrections.

Then it happened.  Just when I was comfortable and not really paying attention!!! There was a live 82mm Mortar Round laying in the dirt about 10 feet from me.  I was a little concerned, I guess you could say.  It was right behind the ANA soldiers, so I told my interpreter to tell them to move away and not to touch it.  This was a mistake on my part.  As we, interpreter and myself, moved quickly to a safe distance, when one of the ANA soldiers COMES AROUND THE CORNER CARRYING THE FREAKING THING!!!!  WHAT THE HECK IS HE THINKING???  I yelled to my interpreter to tell him to put it down and leave the area...he finally relented and did it.  I called my munitions Master Sgt and asked him to call EOD, which he did immediately.  I tried to keep everyone out of the blast range while we waited.  I then just sent them to the other end to work on the fence, because I couldn't trust them not to play catch with the freaking thing.  Next thing I know, the ANA munitions officer with three fingers shows up; he's crazy and missing fingers for a reason.  He pulled his truck next to the mortar, picked it up and put it in the back of the truck.  THEN HE DROVE OVER TO SHOW ME HOW THERE WASN'T A FUSE IN IT.  I told my interpreter to tell him I didn't want or need to see it, but he kept coming.  I was in the vehicle, so I put it in reverse and started moving backwards away from him.  He finally stopped walking and and started laughing.  I really like him, but he's crazy!!!  We don't know if it was launched and was just laying there for days, weeks, or years, or if someone just dropped it there.  It's all funny now, but at the time, it was not. :)  Here's a pic of it...does it look stable to you? doesn't to me.  These guys are going to kill me yet.

Okay, so they didn't exactly finish the fence today, but tomorrow they will for sure...I just know it.  Here is what it should look like with a few minor adjustments.  They don't do trash pickup for the most part, so the ground is the trash can.  It's a little annoying, but I can't change that.  I could tell them to put it in a trash can, but they don't have one.

I was driving out to review the convoy and these guys were taking their bath and doing laundry in the river. You can see the splash in the water...it was guy who ran and jumped in for fun.  Good to see them having fun.

Last of today's current pics is a puppy I saw when we went to visit a contractor at his compound.  Cute pup.

Here are the 40 year old pics of the day:

Making bread...called 'nan'

Some type of dye process.

This is a market place in Kandahar City.

 

One more Ammo day...These guys make me nervous

Real quick US Air Force Note:  We were talking with a US Marine Colonel today and discussing our deployment tempo and he wasn't aware that the US Air Force deployed so often.  The US Air Force has loads of vehicle operators that deliver goods by convoy all over Afghanistan and Logistics Officers that are spread out all over filling various US Army positions; they both deploy as frequently as 6 months deployed and then 6 months at home and then 6 months deployed...and on and on and then there are quite a few 365 day deployments these folks complete.  I'm lucky with a 179 day deployment, but almost everyone is required to attend a 2.5 month combat skills training at a site that is not your home station.  When it's all said and done, a 6 month deployment turns into a 8.5 month and 12 month turns into a 14.5 month with the training involved.  Of course the training is not counted as the time deployed, even though you're away from your family...not happy about that part...it should all count.

On to today's events:

No rockets/mortars as of yet today...well, except the ones below.

I hadn't planned on going back out to the ammo site today, but I had a visitor that would benefit from the experience.  Let me preface this by telling you it was 106F, so it was hot.  I know it will hit upwards of  around 130F here when it gets hot, but 106F feels pretty hot for now.

As we do our walk around, the first storage container we opened was a little startling.  These are loose mortar rounds just piled into a container in temps of 106F...a little scary.  I told them to please not slam the door, but they just smile.

The next one we looked in was a little better, but still a little unsettling.  Apparently this is a Chinese mortar or something like that.  You can see the stack behind him.  He was very happy to show them off. He turned it upside down and the internal piece slid to the other end and made a bang...wish they wouldn't do that.

Here is some type of high explosive munition.  Again, I asked them to please not pick it up and that was the first thing they did.  This is one heck of a munition that could cause someone a really bad day.  Of course, he's fearless.

He wasn't done yet.  When I asked what was in the crates (I should never do that!) of this container, he jumped up on top of the crates and tore the lid off the top and man-handled this munition shell to show us.  I don't know what it was, but he started taking it apart and dug his hand into some type of grease looking substance, which I can only assume is explosive...not sure, but was not feeling comfortable.  He had a smile on his face the entire time. 

 

We went back to the supply depot and this is what we saw.  We had been asking for these things to be moved and they did move them, but the way they move things is sometimes unique.  I guess they wanted to take personnel along to help unload it or they just wanted to get a free ride.  Either way, it's a little funny!

This is a Russian helicopter being used by the Afghan National Air Force...Pretty Interesting!!!

Here are some leftover Russian (I assume) armored personnel carriers, since they are in the trash pile behind the supply depot.  If someone knows they are a different nation's armored personnel carrier, please post a comment with a correction...thanks.

On our trip to get a coffee during lunch, we saw this Jingle truck.  This is an old style one with a little more painting on it.

Today we had another rocket/mortar attack and other various projects

This morning started with a call from our unit in Kabul for accountability of everyone. We thought it was an exercise, but sadly it was implemented because of a suicide car bomber that killed 5 US personnel, 1 Canadian and 12 civilians in Kabul this morning. We don't have any info on them and couldn't share it if we did. For more info, http://news.google.com has the story.

Of course, most of today's projects here in Kandahar were random events, as is usual during deployments. Once people hear that you helped someone, then word spreads, now you're the guy. No one wants to use the system and it seems everyone knows someone with exactly what you need. Sometimes trading/bartering takes place, so you can get the job done. It can be fun!!! Sometimes feels like a M.A.S.H. episode and we're all looking for Radar (at least I think he was the supply person). :)

As soon as I started typing this, the mortar/rocket sirens went off and I heard, I think, two explosions...nowhere near us. The all clear sounded some minutes later.

Here's the team loading Hummers on the back of a flatbed for transport to another base.

On our way back from loading, we noticed some of the Afghan soldiers washing up and doing laundry in the river.

Then we bounced back to the village to see about the second shower house. Our Master Sergeant that was on the bulldozer yesterday was now using a crane to pickup the shower unit and put it in place. He complains a little about doing it, but I can tell he loves playing with the big machinery and getting filthy.

When we moved the old shower unit, there was a black soupy moldy mess underneath. We're going to let it dry and cover it over with soil.

After the shower unit was moved, we took a walk through the dining facility they have. The bucket you see on the floor is full of cooked chicken. I don't know their plan for it, but I'm guessing it will be dinner. No telling how long it has been sitting out. They don't get sick, so they must push it right to the limit or they have a healthy immune system.

As we drove through one Afghan Nat'l Army gate, I saw this old tank from I'm guessing pre-WWI. Maybe someone can identify it for me in the comments. In case you're wondering, it's a chair in front of the tank.

Speaking of tanks, the Russians left hundreds here. Take a look.

Here are two shops we drove by. We occasionally stop and buy candy or souvenirs.

Other than that, we spent the day discussing why we can't bring our up-armored vehicles through one of the Afghan Nat'l Army gates. We walked away with an agreement, but I don't know how much faith I have that it will be upheld. We'll see in the coming days and weeks.

Today we fixed ovens and showers

I'm glad we (most military) learned that providing the Afghans what you think they need may not be what they truly do need. We ask them what they need, where they need it, and when they need it...for the most part. We do our best to meet these needs...otherwise the item or unit may not get utilized.

Today our tangible accomplishment doesn't look like much, but to the Afghans that will be using them they do mean a lot.

Here is the work on the new hospital oven area. It has just started, but we expect it to be done in 3 days. It will be enclosed when finished. The worker is mixing cement for the oven bricks. If you scroll down a few blogs ago, you'll see the current hospital kitchen.

This is our guy leveling the area with a bulldozer (I think he's having fun...he loves to get dirty), so walls can be put up.

The shower rooms they have are not really up to standards. They do function, but just barely. Here's what they looked like before. Luckily for you, you can't see in very well.

Here's what it looks like now. It has lights, hot & cold water, and even A/C. It get's upwards of 130F here in the summer, so they can definitely use the A/C. I have to say, this shower unit is cleaner and nicer than mine. I'm okay with that...they work hard and deserve it.

Here is a picture of our shelters. When the alarm goes off for incoming rockets or mortars, this is available for shelter.

Here's the inside of a fairly nice tent to give you an idea what it would be like to live in for 6 months to a year. The tube running along the top is the inflatable vent for air conditioning and heating. They stay pretty cool when the A/C works right. If the A/C stops, they become an oven.