A day in the Lash...

Somehow, it’s the middle of February and already 1/12th of this deployment is over. Put that way, 6 months doesn’t seem that long, does it?

I’ve more or less settled into a routine here so I guess I’ll start there. I wake up around 7:30 each morning and don’t get up right away. When I do I hit the gym – currently I’m alternating one day resistance, one day cardio but as I get my strength and endurance back up (I hardly worked out at all for probably six weeks before deploying) I’ll start to work myself harder. I read a study somewhere that workouts before breakfast were found to be more effective than after, at least for fat-burning which is one of my goals. I avoid the subject all together by skipping breakfast. I know that’s supposed to be a big no-no but I find I feel great on two meals a day plus snacks.

After working out I take a shower. The British showers are one of the things I love about this place. They are hot – really hot – and actually have adequate water pressure. There’s a knob you push and you get about 15-20 seconds of water, then you have to push it again. The idea I assume is to conserve water. It works, but not because you have to push the knob. It’s because, unlike at US bases, the actual bathroom is properly heated. On Leatherneck the bathrooms are ice-boxes in the winter, so the incentive is to keep the water – even the lukewarm-at-best water – running rather than suds yourself up in the freezing cold air. Probably no one who hasn’t dealt with this directly gives a crap about it but I just had to share my philosophy on bathroom heating and associated phenomena. Moving on.

Back at my tent I go through my post-shower ritual – dry feet (shower shoes are a must), apply moisturizer to shins (they itch something unbearable from wearing boot socks all day every day, to the point that I’ve started wearing ankle socks in my boots some days to give my shins a break), don uniform, strap pistol, climb into body armor. In full flak and sapi plates I then mosey over to work, where I promptly remove said body armor and forget all about it (it’s there for emergencies).

I work in the JOC – Joint Operations Center. It’s the “nerve center” of the real-time war, at least that part being fought by the British in their AO (Area of Operations). Imagine a small room with lots of flat screen TVs and laptops showing UAV feeds, maps and Cricket games, and that’s my office. Everything being classified and such (including, apparently, the rules of Cricket) I unfortunately can’t take a picture to show you.

My piece of the puzzle is simply monitoring a series of chat windows and phones through which various requests for close air support come in from British units. Working with my British counterpart, I help manage the air over those ground units, getting them the air assets they need and integrating them with other forms of fire support such as artillery, mortars and grandiloquent British put-downs.

The British AO, known as Task Force Helmand, is a very kinetic area, so things can get fairly busy in the JOC though once the weather warms the current pace of operations will seem like a vacation by comparison. Fortunately, most of the recent ops seem to have been offensive in nature, with remarkably few medevacs in TFH in recent days (I hope I’m not jinxing it). We did have one Op Minimize a few days ago, the UK version of River City, so unfortunately we haven’t been entirely casualty free.

I leave work for a quick lunch at the chow hall, and ditto for dinner. The chow hall is for the most part tasty but not healthy. An overwhelming amount of the food is fried, and lots of it, maybe a third or more, also contains pork. Still, I have managed to find something good to eat almost every day while still limiting my fried foods. The actual French fries they serve here (with every meal!) remind me of my mother’s so that can be difficult to resist. Also dessert.

After work – I work an 8-9 hour shift – I trundle home to deposit my flak, then turn around and head to the NAAFI – PX – to see if they have anything good. They never do. I mean there’s junk food, which is useless to me, and there’s a lamp with bulbs that don’t fit it so I still live in the dark in my ten, and there are boxers but being the expert planner that I am I already brought some with me, and there is fabric softener of the kind I once described here, but there is no do-it-yourself laundry so that one remains a mystery to me as well. A few things they don’t have that I think maybe they should consider just maybe:

• Moisturizer, for Jesus Christ’s sake and mine. Are we living in the same Afghanistan?
• Q-tips
• Chapstick that doesn’t taste like sheep doodoo
• UK-to-US power adapters
• Hanging hooks of any kind (they do have hangars but who has a closet??)
• Drink mix
• Baby wipes

Here are a few more things they do carry, thankfully:

• Connect Four
• Large pillows
• Small pillow-cases
• Chocolate eggs
• Chapstick that does taste like sheep doodoo
• Car polish rags
• Greeting cards – not a few, but a whole display of them
• And of course: non-alcoholic beer. Not. Going. To Happen.

After a little NAAFI window shopping, I go across the dirt to the computer cans, where I check e-mail, respond to fan mail, and think up new things to ask my dad to send me.

Then it’s off to bed, or rather off to cot. I live in an eight-man tent that houses – you guessed it – six men, not that I’m complaining. I managed to snag one of the extra spots when we moved a few days ago, so now in addition to a bedroom I’ve got a living room, dining room and reflection pool.

…and, ironically, a sort of closet…

Once home I usually turn on a movie on my laptop, read a book, or as is the case tonight, do some writing. I’m tapping this out with a towel over my hands so I don’t annoy my neighbors with my typing, but I’ll (hopefully) post it tomorrow along with a few pictures. Till then…g’night!

The walls in this place are as thin as a sheet.

ps Next day: rainy, so I'll take more pictures on a nicer day.  Meantime, my first Conway Daily Sun column was published!