Letter Three

Hi everyone,

I know that is has been a while since I have talked to a lot of you. They have been keeping us really busy here. I have been all over the map doing missions. I have been leading most of them but our platoon officially took over just a few days ago. I feel like a gypsy running from place to place living out of a bag, and then when we finally do get back to our home base we have a day or two to work on our equipment and vehicles and then we are gone again. I finally got some time to call last night but the military is in a blackout so I couldn't use the phones. A blackout is when they shut off all communication to the states because somebody has died and they want to be the first to inform the family, not an email or phone call. So that is kind of sad to think that at that moment a family was probably being informed of their loss. Anyway, I will call as soon as the lines open up again.

The first time outside the base running missions was a sensory overload. It is kind of hard to descibe what I saw, felt, and thought. The easiest was to describe the country I think is to compare it to the old "Jesus of Nazarith" movies. People living in mud huts, small villages, cart pulled donkeys, people hearding sheep and goats on foot with sticks in their hand. It is very primative the only thing modern here is a few vehicles and 2 way radios. Suprisingly, volleyball is a super popular sport. I have seen more locals playing that than soccer. The main roads between bigger cities are usually paved but everything else is dirt roads or rocky, mountain passes. Once you get into the mountains the valleys are beautiful with plush green vegetation and flowing streams, but as you head up the mountain everything dies. Most of the roads we take are in the valleys so we do a lot of stream/river crossings in our vehicles.

There are a ton of carpets and genie bottles for sale here but I have yet to see a carpet that flies or a bottle that actually produces a genie. I have no hard evidence but I believe the Taliban probably rounded up all the Genies and magic and put them in a concentration camp somewhere. It still has not stopped me from hopping onto the carpets though to try and woo the local women by singing "I can show you the world" from Disneys "Aladin". It just doesn't have the same effect when the carpet doesn't actually fly.
The people seem to be used to Americans and know how to react when they see our convoys coming through, which is nice. A lot just stare at us and watch us like TV. Some give us thumbs up and wave (mostly little children). And some kids give us thumbs down and throw rocks but I think that is mostly cause they don't know what they are doing and are bored, there is no hostile intent involved. The animals and women around here do a ton of work with little respect. You will see a woman carrying a whole sack of crop or a huge rock with a man walking right in front of her with empty hands. It is a little crazy. Once the girls here get in their teens they start to wear the burka that covers their face and they turn away from us as we pass. The animals all look like they are starved, and we have had a few jump in front of our vehicles as if they just wanted to get this life over with. The older people here look like they are a Gabillion years old, just wrinkled and beaten down by the hands of father time. I have been taking quite a few pictures that I will start sending sometime when I figure out what the policy is on sending certain pictures. Talk to you soon.

Love,
Todd

Disclaimer: I have never tried to woo an Afghan woman. That would probably get me in trouble because it is way against their traditions and it would piss someone off. We can't even look at the women or talk to them because of their culture. Besides, these women don't have anything on Diana.

Letter Two

Hey everyone,

Everything is going good here. The unit we are taking over for is giving us some good training and setting us up for success once we leave the wire and start doing missions. It is pretty beautiful here with nice green grass and trees growing in the valley around us and mountains surrounding us in the distance. The FOB itself seems ok to me but the people who have been to Iraq say it is crap compared to how they lived there. Here we are living in tents and plywood buildings. In Iraq they had more permanent structures along with fast food restaurants and nice gyms and everything else. Maybe it will get better here because there is a whole brigade moving in so they will probably expand and build onto the FOB (Forward Operating Base). We are getting ready to head out on a mission sometime soon with the unit we are taking over for so that they can show us the land and how they execute, and then they will ride around with us as we execute and give us pointers. After that we will completely take over and it will be on me to lead the guys and run all missions. The roads we are clearing can vary from nice paved highway type roads to crazy single mountain roads that have a 200 ft cliff on one side and a 200 ft drop off on the other and your tire on the outside hangs halfway off the cliff. So it will be interesting. I'm kind of excited to get out there and see what it is like. Take care of yourselves and I will talk to you soon.

Love,
Todd

Letter One

Hey guys,

I have been flying non-stop until about right now, and I still am not at my final destination. I've managed to hit 6 countries in 3 days or however many it has been. I'm not even sure what day it is now, or time for that matter. We don't go by day or night here we go by hit times and where we need to be when. The good thing is that almost everything is open 24 hours. So we left Topeka and flew to Germany, from there we went to Turkey, then to Kazerkistan (or something like that), then we got on a military plane to fly to Afghanistan but the weather was bad there so we over shot that and went to Kuwait. After a 5 hour wait in Kuwait we tried to fly back to Afghanistan and made it this time. Now I am at one airbase waiting to fly to our final destination in Afghanistan. So it has been crazy. I think that we are maybe 12 hours different than you guys, if I go by local time? My ass hurts from sitting so much but other than that everything is going good. We should get in tomorrow sometime (the 10th), and start to get settled. I think that we will have to go through about a day or so of briefs, and then we will start working with the other unit to get everything transferred. I'll write you guys again when I get a chance and let you know what my living situation is like and whether or not I have phone and internet access. Someone was saying that if you lived by a military base I could call them and they would put me thru for free to you guys since it is a local call. So I might try that with offutt. We'll see. Talk to you guys soon hopefully.

Love,
Todd