Another Year?

Sorry, I have not had much time to write as of late. I went home for my 3 weeks of R&R (Rest and Relaxation) then back here to Kandahar. My site continues to grow and I am looking at doubling in size in the next couple of weeks, both in personnel and jobs! So it will get stupid busy in the near future!

I finally broke down and told my family about the attacks, etc at this place. After Kandahar Air Field (KAF) was attacked by the bad guys in late May (about four days before I flew home) I knew it would hit the news and it did. So I finally decided to explain this place. I had hoped to keep it quiet from my family, but the best laid plans of mice and men...

We take daily (sometimes three to four times a day) rocket attacks. There is not much you can do, because normally you hear the "boom" and THEN the siren goes off! Pretty much if you hear the siren, you are still alive. It happens so often that I no longer think about it. I expect all my people to report in that they are still alive, and I either roll back over and go to sleep, or go back to work depending on the time of the day when the attack happened.

The ground attack was interesting. They hit the north side of the base and you could hear the small arms fire and rockets etc. I waited until my employees had all reported in, and then (after the gunships and A-10s took off) went back to bed. I had to be at work the next day after all! The good thing: no good guys were killed and some bad guys were. Fair trade for missing a few hours of sleep I guess.

My boss was here late May (I have seen him a grand total of seven days in the 9 months I have worked for him.) I spoke with my him before I headed home to look at career options. He asked me to "turn and burn" and do another year. Most of my team was pushing for the same thing. I told him (and them) I would decide after I spoke with my family face to face.

I flew out of KAF into Dubai and then 14 1/12 hour to Atalanta then Detroit. Yeah, the flight sucked hard. I did have some adjustments to make when I got home.

Driving: after going 20km (12 miles) and hour for seven months, going 50 seemed like I was flying!

The first week or so was settling back into a stateside lifestyle, which I found hard to do. I had not seen a tv in over seven months (and lived to tell about it!,) so it was hard to get excited when somebody asked me had I seen "whatever." Super Bowl? I can not remember who even played or who won since that was the day I woke up to about 4 feet of water everywhere on the base, toilets tipped over, my doors on my buildings ripped off because of the wind etc.

My mind continued to drift back to work and my life at KAF. As I listened to those around discuss their lives, many complaining about this or that, I thought of all the sh*t my crew and I put up with, the real sh*t the soldiers put up with as they head out on patrol, and thought, wtf, you people don't have a clue how truly tough it can be. But I tried not to say anything, just smiled and listened to them complain.

I did get a chance to meet with some old friends, and many just shook their heads when I explained about a second year in one breath, while describing the rocket attacks, land mines that still litter this base, tent living, etc in the next breath.

So I agreed to one more year here in glorious KAF. Why, you might ask? The money is good, the job is fun, the people I work with are great (well, most are, some are a pain in the a*s) and I hope the job is making some sort of difference. Probably not, because this country is a friggin' basket case, but hey, you gotta try.

Anyway, it beats working for a living...