Well for the moment it's rising, which means I've got a little of what Pink Floyd was singing about to spend giving you a proper update on my life the past few weeks.
As you know from earlier blather, we left Miramar on the evening of 22 March. We flew through Bangor, Maine and Shannon, Ireland. We then had a several day layover in a certain central Asian country that's been in the news lately. I took some pictures there but they're slow to upload so here's just one for now:
The Hindu Kush, from the north Then we flew into Afghanistan in a USAF C-17.
On the C-17. Pax in front, cargo in the rear I took some pictures out the tiny porthole as we began initial descent.
The Afghan mountains from above, initial descent Then we landed. Here's a pic of me a few days after we got here:
Moi, dans "le merde"Here are some plusses(sessesses?) and minusses to life in Afghanistan:
Plus: It's a dry heat.
Minus: It's a very dry heat.
Minus: No beer.
Minus: It's the moon.
On the plane ride over: I've left home. If you know me you know I grew up all over, and there's no one place that is unambiguously my home town. Home, to me, is a place where the people you care about, and who care about you, are at most a plane ride away. You may not see them as often as you like, but the potential is there. It's like what my friends who are based in Hawaii say about living there: just knowing that you don't have the option to get in the car and drive somewhere else makes you a little nuts. No options for us out here for a while.
On leaving Maine: goodbye, America.
On leaving Ireland: goodbye, free world.
I'm also scared. As part of my job I have to know what the threats are. I get the reports. I get glimpses of what the enemy is planning. Anyone reading the paper knows what he's trying to do and how he's going to try it - I just get little additional fragments of evidence to confirm that yes, he's really trying to do it, to carry out an attack of some kind, somewhere. I know what is within my power to do to make an attack more difficult to carry out, less likely to succeed. But there's only so much you can do in a day, only so fast you can make a machine, even the Marine Corps, move, only so much money. So I'm racing to get as much done in as many places with as few assets as possible, before the enemy strikes somewhere in some way that I hadn't gotten around to mitigating yet. If he does, despite knowing that I did all I could, I'll have to live with that for the rest of my life. Since I'm here for a year, that eventuality seems likely. So that scares me.
I'm not working alone of course. I'm not the only one assigned this task, I don't want anyone to get that impression. But there aren't that many of us (how many I can't say of course). I spoke to another one today who was working on one particular issue having to do with TCNs - Third Country Nationals. I could hear in her voice how she was strenuously trying to accomplish her goal on that issue. You can only do so much and move so fast, but you find yourself staying just an hour later or getting to work just an hour earlier, grabbing a sandwich to go instead of sitting at the chow hall, etc. - not because you think an hour will make a difference, but just because you feel a twinge of guilt whenever you're not at your computer or walking the wire or brainstorming with a counterpart or in some other way working the problem.
Luckily, we can handle it. Personally, I'm blessed with an optimistic outlook - nothing gets me down for long - and of course we've all had some truly exceptional training and trainers. I just say that so that close friends and family reading this don't worry. I'm describing it in great detail for you but it's not all that bad - we work long days on stressful problems but other than that we lead fairly normal, if dust-covered, lives.
You may be wondering (or not) why I've rambled on so much on some fairly personal feelings. I think it must be because I'm sitting in a chapel after having attended Shabbat services, albeit just me and the Rabbi (I know I said at the top it was sunrise, I started this post earlier today). Despite the low turnout it was great to hear and sing those familiar manginot (melodies). Also I'm using my own computer, on which I finally got wifi today, and that in itself is a religious experience after a month of virtually no Internet.
Well I've run out of stuff to ramble about. My guess is that most people are more interested in what it's like here in this country, in this war, with these people, than in my whining about the stresses of my job. So I'll try to give some more concrete descriptions and, where possible, pictures, in future posts. For now, good night.
Me on the left, saluting the colorsduring the MEF RIP/TOA ceremony
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