Lazy Sunday

I got up at 0700 this morning, took my time getting ready and getting unpacked (been traveling the last few days, more on that in a bit), wandered in to work around 0830, cleaned my rifle, took my time at chow and meandered over to the wifi hotspot.  Half my unit is here.  At 1500 we're playing softball against the Chair Force.  It's hot but dry and breezy.  Like a summer Sunday back home. 

The past few days (Friday and Saturday, local), I was out and about in beautiful southern Afghanistan.  Actually all I did was jump on a bird, fly to another (smaller) base, spend two days getting the lay of the land from a security perspective, and fly back.  There was absolutely nothing out there, just flatness, dust and tents.  We trekked around some, at first with all our battle rattle and later, thankfully, without it, making contact with the various wing units and detachments and such.  Unfortunately, the only pictures I took were work-related and not appropriate for posting here.  I'll do better next time, I promise. 


Most of the Marines out there love it - they're on their own and far away from the melodrama of higher HQ.  I see their point, though if I had to spend a deployment out there, a hundred miles and a thousand years from the world, I'd probably go nuts.  But it's quiet, except for the incessant humming of generators, and while they have very few hard structures (mostly tents), they do have A/C, a spotty wifi spot, and a really nice morale tent with a big screen TV, lots of seating and a bunch of movies.  They also have some amazing chow halls.  One had a main bar, a curry bar, an Italian bar, a sandwich bar, an impressive salad bar, a dessert bar, and probably some other bars I'm forgetting.  They had steak.  And G-d saw the steak, and He said, it is good.  Also tender.  Pass the A-1.  So Gunny and I fell on that food like we hadn't eaten in days.  Actually all we'd missed was breakfast.

That was Friday.  We got back last night and naturally headed straight for the pizza hut truck.  I polished off a "large" in under 5 minutes and chatted with some Brits.  Two were heading back home (one infantry and one armorer), while their friend, a female (I don't post names here just to be safe) still has 6 more months out here doing EOD (bomb squad).  Took a picture of a very cute British couple - he's headed home and she just got here - as they gazed at each other over milkshakes.   Was too stuffed by then to seek out the source of the milkshakes. 

That's all I've got, really.  The Yanks are 12-5, the Giants seem to have improved their defense in the draft, and I had an actual conversation with a female who is not a Marine (the EOD tech).  Life is good.  1 month down.

Maybe next year...