My base.....

Inside the Rooms

The second building is our Home

The Chow Hall

The Tent I work in

The compound that our tent is in

Drinking Chi w/ the old team and the ANA XO

Bathroom

Showers

Bathroom / Showers

INTERNET

Pictures from town......

This is a few pictures from our convoy from the other day.

Gobble, Gobble......

While I did spend much of my Thanksgiving rehearsing for our upcoming mission, I was able to have a nice dinner with my extended family.  I am thankful for each one of them, because they are the ones who bust their butts everyday to ensure that we are all trained and prepared to fight the fight and safe return home.  I'm also thankful for my wife who is holding down the fort and raising our children by herself.

Semper Gumby.........

One of many motto's for the Marine Corps, Always flexible has always been my favorite.  The mission that I am currently suppose to be on has been postponed by a few day due to lack of planning on the part of the supported unit.  Long story short, my team is going to support another team during their mission, but didn't really plan the part that we are involved in.  Because of this, some of my Marines were going to be put in a situation that I had a hard time excepting..Yesterday, I got into a heated debate with a Major (three ranks above mine) about why it was a bad idea to leave two of my guy, unprotected, on an ANA only base with our supply and fuel truck. Marines are badass, but 2 vs. 100 is hard odds to overcome.  After about three changes in our teams involvement, we finally all agreed on the safest and most effective use of our teams forces.  This is, of course, after we convinced the Major that attacking a medium sized village that is a known Taliban stronghold with only a platoon sized element was a suicide mission.  I did take quite the butt chewing throughout this, but I refuse to accept a plan that places my Marines in a bad situation if it can be avoided.

Celebrate with steak....

While our last mission didn't go the greatest, that isn't slowing our operational tempo.  It was good to get some of the bugs worked out on a one day mission because we now have and extended mission that will take us into December.  I can't really say when or where I am going, but what I can say is that I will be out on a Patrol Base on Thanksgiving with another ETT team, and they have said that they will provide steaks and we will have a BBQ to celebrate.  Our mission is fairly complex, which means over the last several day I have been locked in the Combat Operations Center writing and revising our teams portion of the Op Order.  In addition, every month we are responsible for submitting a lengthy report on our assessment of the Kandak.  Sadly for me, the means alot of time behind the computer putting all of the pieces together so that our team can continue to function and be ready to operate on a moments notice.  This will probably be the last post I make before I get back, so I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

Bad to good in a matter of a box.....

Today was the day of our convoy and not much went in our favor.  The day started early and we actually left our base on time.  However, about half way to our first location all of my communication equipment in my truck stopped working and my vehicle started losing power and getting error light.  Luckly, we were able to make it to our first stop where, the captain and I attending a intel briefing.  When we got back out to our truck, our truck crews had fix most of the problems and so we decided to continue to our final destination.  The problem however, was that just as we had left the second base and turned onto the main road, my truck completely turned off.  That left me sitting on one of the busier roads in the country with no power.  After some troubleshooting, we got it started and running enough to pull our entire convoy off of the road and into an open field next to a cemetary to further diagnos the problem.  This was not one of the funner times as these locations are typically were you find IED's.  Lucky our vics made in fine and once stopped I assisted in removing our mine roller from the front of my truck so that we could tow it back to base.  While I was doing that, one of our mechs worked some magic and restored power to my truck.  After the mineroller was off my truck we hooked it back up to another truck, rearrange our convoy order so I was no longer the lead vehicle, and I decided it was best to to head back to our home base vice chancing going to our planned destination.  On the way home, I lost all comm again, but that was really the only problem.  The good news started after the trucks and weapons were cleaned and I got back to my room.  There I found 4 boxes on and near my bed.  The first and second boxes I opened where ones that I was expecting.  First was a guitar that I ordered from Amazon, and the second was a add on course to the one I am using to learn to play.  I then had a box from my step-mom and from my mother-in-law.  I decided to open my step-mom's box first in hopes that there might be some more peanut brittle.....there wasn't :-(  AFter sifting through that box of goodies, I moved onto my mother-in-laws box.  It was light weight and didn't have much movement when shaked, but what I found inside was wonderful. As I opened the box I was hit with a wave of christmas delight.  Something she makes every Christmas is homemade camel corn that I obsolutly love.  That was followed quickly by the smell of the homemade chocolate chip cookies found underneith the popcorn.  I was soon able to forgive all the heartache from earlier in the day.  I again appriciate all the package that all of you send, but getting the ones I got today made the world of diffence in the overall outcome of my day.  Thanks

Here ya go....

Alot of you have been asking for things that I want over here.  While I apprieciate all the food (so does my team as I share everything), I could use a little entertainment.  To make things easier, I have attached a link to my amazon wishlist which contains books that I would like to read at some point, along with some guitar music books for the guitar I had sent here.  I will add other stuff as I think of it

http://amzn.com/w/H29HORRI4K9F

For the record.......

Well, after all the hassle from the other day, I found out that the ANA only delivered 4 truck after all.....the fifth one broke down on the way there.  Our team has been busy over the past couple of day, as we have been getting ready to do our first real mission.  I will be the convoy commander, and thus have been busier than most. What this really means is that I will be tactically in command of the trucks, guns, and Marines going out.  I have an assistant who is also a 2ndLt that will be in charge of all of the administrative aspects of the convoy (i.e. reports, accountability, dispersion etc...).   This mission is to check out some of our other position in the battle space, and to link us some of our new advisers with their ANA counter-parts.  We will be working along side the ANA route clearance Tolai, so that will also be a first for our team.

A bit of culture now...

The Islamic religion really does dictate how our ANA counterparts live on a day to day basis.  Unlike Christian's who have no problem calling themselves so without ever really praying or attending religious services, the ANA play their days and weeks around religious customs.  For instance, they pray three times a day without fail.  At times, this hinders our progress with them, but without our understanding of this culture we would get no work done at all.  They also take Friday's off as well.  This isn't like they take if off if they have no work to do, they just simple stop working and take the day off for prayer and services.  Their Friday is like our Sunday, except here everyone practices their religion.

Yes....No....Yes....No..........

Today was quite a frustrating day, and it always seems to happen when my boss leaves for a few day thus leaving me in charge.  A little back story..... A couple of weeks ago we were asked if our Kandak could provide dump trucks and drivers in order to deliver some gravel to another ANA unit on a different base.  We agreed, and thus began the headache of convincing our ANA leadership to not only do the mission, but the best way to do it.  Based on the amount of gravel that was needed, we determined that our Kandak would need to provide 10 dump truck on one run.  It was important to do this in one run because we also had another Kandak providing the security for the convoy, and yet another providing route clearance.  They wanted to take 4 trucks and after quite a bit of convincing, they decided that they would take 7 truck on Monday.  This was all agreed upon on Sunday.....my boss left Sunday night.  This morning came and no trucks were staged, and after asking them about it, they said they were only going to take 4 truck, but they didn't know where to pick up the gravel.  After ab out 2 hours of hassle, I re-convinced them to take 7 truck, and I personally located the gravel lot for them.  The problem then became that nobody knew if the gravel had been paid for.  A few conversation later, my bosses boss told me we were good to go pick up the gravel so I rode along with them and watched as they loaded 6 trucks. Yes, 1 truck has disappeared from the agreed upon 7.  After loading the truck (which they did an outstanding job at) and telling them how good they had done, I was about ready to leave when I got a call over my radio to stop them from leaving and standby for more word.  Now remember that all this time, I also had an interpreter helping me communicating.  After stop them and telling them that we had to wait a few minutes, my terp had to leave for an appointment thus leaving me with no real way to communicate.  After about 30 mins, the ANA started to get visible upset and at one point I had to stand in front of the trucks to prevent them from moving because while we were waiting I got word that an even higher command was accusing us of stealing the gravel.  At about 50 min, they ANA were quite pissed and I found myself in an uncomfortable positions in which I was surround by about 20 angry ANA that wanted to talk, and I had no way to verbally comunicate with them.  After so heated discussions over the radio, I finally convince my bosses boss to send me another terp.  Once he was there, I explained to them that the mission had to be postponed until the next day.  Just as I had finished saying that, I got another message over the radio saying that they were no cleared to leave.  I then relayed that to the ANA and as we were all about to pull out of the lot, I got yet another message that said no, now they are not cleared to go.  This time, I talked to my bosses boss, and after another heated discussion, got final permission to let them leave.  At that time, I drove to the front gate with some other Marines to check on the progress of another project and so that I could visually watch our dump trucks leave the compound.  After a few minutes, I watch 5 dump trucks loaded with gravel leave the gate and link up with their security element.  So somehow, I went from 4 trucks to 10, then to 7, then back to 4, then back to seven, which turned out to be 6, only to have them leave with 5.  They left the compound late in the afternoon, and they were suppose to leave at 0700.  The bad part is had I not put in the added effort, they would have never even left today, which is why I call today a success since I did see gravel leave our compound and head to the other unit!!!!!

Here is a picture of them loading the trucks

Convoy to the Range.....

A few days ago, I went on my first convoy outside the wire.  Because I am the Operations Officer, it was my job to schedule and plan the conduct of the convoy, who would be going, and who would fill which positions within each truck.  The convoy was a simple movement to a range a few miles from our base to test our crew served weapons (truck mounted machine guns) to ensure that they would work properly during our upcoming and future operations.  Because Officer rarely get the chance to man the gun, that is where I placed myself.....as if you hadn't already guessed that!!  The range went well, except for the gun that I was on.  It is a brand new weapon, and just needs a couple hundred rounds put through it so as all the parts can fit and work well togeather.  Because of this, I experience quite a few jams, but still had a good time.  Below is a few pictures of that day.

The MATV that I rode in

Part of our convoy, the first truck has a mine roller attached

Me in the Turret

Another in the Turret

Looking down the .50 cal

My Corpsman took this from inside the truck looking up into the Turret

This is what the desert of Afghanistan looks like from a truck