Camp Cupcake

This week was like no other so far.  Monday the new boss to over and the old boss left, also we found out that we had slides due that evening.  Unfortunatly we didn’t have a ton of guidance but we managed to pull together a somewhat reasonable set well after the deadline to get them in for the first pre brief passed.  Most of the rest of the week has been playing catch up with these slides and modifying them to better suit the presentation they were created for.  Overall the op tempo in the office has been pretty dang high, which im not complaining about, so the week just flew by.  It has been somewhat frustrating at times but overall it has gone rather well.  Also I’ve been able to be more vocal about things that are going on, mostly due to better understanding of the problems of the day.  So I felt like I’ve contributed a lot more which is a nice feeling, even if im still stuck doing powerpoints….  On Monday morning before the crazyness broke loose I had a really good discussion with my new boss about my role and the kind of things I wanted to get out of my time here, he was rather supportive so I think once things calm down a little I’ll be able to push that some more.  I have a few other ideas that I want to run by him too so I’m thinking if he gets on board with those the next few months will be very interesting and I’ll be able to get a lot of good stuff done.

It’s strange, I’ve only been here about 40 days and yet most of the people I’ve met have already left, not to say I don’t know any body as im still meeting new people all the time.  Just doing some simple math in my head I’d guess roughly 10% of the people here leave every month.  Which makes for a strange work dynamic, I’m sure the military folks are more used to it but for me it is pretty strange.  Still for the most part everyone is very welcoming to new people and you get drawn into activities fairly quickly.  Also it’s amazing how much the atmosphere of the office has changed since I got here, not bad just different.  We used to have a huge crew that all went to lunch/dinner together, it was a nice social activity that helped break up the day, now that is mostly gone since people have left. But such is the ebb and flow of life at Camp Cupcake.

The finished some of the construction they were working on here.  That project had been going on since I got here.  Well they took down the fence and it really opened up the place a lot, plus we got a ton of new picnic tables so the court yard area is much larger and more of an L shape now.  While I like the openness the fence had that green windbreaker on it that you see at tennis courts and with it down the amount of green one sees while walking across the courtyard is significantly reduced.  I kind of miss it.

They also “fixed” the internet this week.  Not that it was broken, well it wasn’t before they fixed it anyway.  But it’s back now, I guess it was down for 4 or 5 days but I’ve been staying busy with work and going to the gym or reading at night so it was a minor inconvenience but nothing major.  Plus I’m in Kabul so you can only expect so much.  Going to the gym has other side benefits other than the obvious ones too.  It’s almost like a cult, if people see you in the gym you somehow gain creditability or cool points.  Silly yes but something interesting I noticed even just going there to ride the bike.

It’s really windy tonight but otherwise the weather here has been awesome summer weather.  Warm and dry with a breeze.  Rather nice climate.

Thursday night is salsa night in one of the tents on base, they do lessons before the actual start time, something to do. I haven’t been yet, but I can hear the music.

Not much else going on at the moment, but it’s the start of the “weekend” so that is nice.  I consider the weekend Thursday night through Sunday since I get to sleep in Friday and Sunday.  Also I’m looking forward to surf and turf night as I do every week, which is closely followed by ice cream night.  I had a scoop of cookies and cream and a scoop of mint chocolate chip last Sunday but really the mint chocolate chip isn’t on the same level as the cookies and cream. They just don’t go together well so I’ll probably double up on the cookies and cream this time around.  Yup in a war zone and I’m talking about ice cream flavors, it is called Camp Cupcake for a reason ladies and gentlemen.

Change

Well this has been a rather eventful week, ok not really the whole week mostly the last few days.  I can honestly say that most of the days this week went by pretty quick and the week as a whole has really zipped by.  My new boss finally arrived so that has been the major cause of everything going on.  Lots of showing him around and in processing and other general administrative things needing to be done.  It will be a somewhat significant change in the office so we’ll see how that goes.  Overall I think it will be different maybe better maybe worse but different.  Also I think I’m going to get to do more of the engineering types of things that I wanted to come over here to do so that is pretty exciting for me, of course we’ll see if that actually pans out or not but for now I’m excited about it.

I finally got a real (permanent) room too this week.  Ok well truthfully apparently I had a real room oh 2-3 weeks ago and just neglected to go pick up the key so it was given away to someone else.  Anyway it resulted in having a real room in one of the hardstands instead of being located in one of the RLBs for the entire time I’m here so aside from the short scolding I took from the billeting NCO I figure I can out ahead in the deal.   Apparently the “building” that im in currently is going to be torn down soon so I’ll probably start the move out process this weekend. We’ll see I rather like my roommate. (the “building” im in now isn’t really any more than a organized stack of conex boxes with sequential door numbers.)  I  should go introduce myself to my new roommates later this evening, just thinking out loud. 

Right now Im actually in the DFAC (cafeteria) sitting typing, apparently the J6 is having a function thing here (they brought in pizza from somewhere, yeah to get pizza here requires suiting up in full battle rattle and going to get it, little different than NJ).  They were playing cool dashboard cam videos from what looked to be the drive team so I was watching that just because it was interesting.  Also there is a group of guys playing Catan, they had four already but it surprised me to see it, stood around and watched for a bit, hard not to comment to much.  Most nights there are people in here playing cards/poker too.

Just a testament to how busy I’ve been this week is I think this is the first time since last weekend that I’ve gotten on the computer after work, between going to the gym and having to stay late for random meetings or all sorts of other stuff by the time I get back to the room I generally just take a shower and read in bed for a hour or so.  The dry summer air here is great after a workout, get done riding the bike and by the time I get done walking a lap around the perimeter (about 1.1 km) I’ve stopped sweating and am mostly if not totally dried off.  The exercise bikes they have here are really swank too which is cool.(well two are and two are really old school but ehh they all work)  Some of the new guys have been talking about the difference in air here even when compared to bagram (we’re about 1000ft higher than bagram here) but apparently the 6 weeks I did back on the east coast wasn’t enough to reset my blood because I have noticed any trouble breathing since I got here. (Los Alamos is ~7300 ft which is about 1500ft higher than here.  Good planning on my part….)

Oh and apparently they just released a telework policy for Picatinny so for all my peeps back home please figure that out before I get back, sounds like something worthwhile.  I mean with my extra long commute and all.

Alright I guess that’s all for now, not sure how I’ll spend the rest of the evening.  Hope everyone is doing well!

Memorial Day, Work, and Bagram

Well this week work really started to pickup, hopefully the trend continues as it really makes a huge difference in both the appearance of the passage of time and general morale.  It had been surprisingly slow for a while which was really starting to grind on me but now it has picked up and I’m able to get involved in more things that are going on so that feels good.  The new Major(replaced the LTC who left) in the office is really friendly and helpful, we’ve been talking a lot and I’m learning all sorts of good info on how the army works.  I think he is going to be able to help me out a whole lot in making the most of my time here so I’m rather excited about that. 

  Memorial Day was Monday, not that we got the day off or anything but they did have a ceremony out by the flag poles in the courtyard which was pretty nice.  I found it funny that it took longer to get everyone out there and in formation (~15 min) than the actual ceremony took (~10 min) but it was still rather nice.  For Memorial Day the DFAC cooked up steamship round for dinner.  If you’ve never had steamship round it’s basically the entire rear leg of a cow, well at least from the knee up.  They had it cooking out on the grills all day and the whole place smelled good for a change.  It was rather tasty but really meat over an open fire, it’s pretty hard to go wrong.  (I hear the boys back home smoked up some killer meat on the smoker too.)  And tomorrow is steak and shrimp night so something to look forward to there.(maybe a scoop of cookies and cream too, we’ll see.)

I went to the gym this week, it’s a really nice facility tons of free weights, machines, cardio stuff etc.  Really fancy stuff to, just need to remember to take headphones next time so I can listen to tv instead of just watch it.  I had to get the correct ID holder to be able to go to the gym since going in uniform isn’t really an option, they’ve been out of them at the store here for a while but I was able to get one from a friend that had a spare so I’ll probably start doing that with some regularity.  I imagine it will cut down on my emails and such simply because I only have so much free time in the evening.  But I don’t see it messing with this blog as doing this is something I rather enjoy oddly enough.

I wanted to write some about my semi recent trip to Bagram too.  Basically it was about a 48 hour trip to check out the progress on a project that I’m working on as well as doing a meet and greet with some of the players down there that I’m working with.  The flight down was at night which was neat to see Kabul lit up, with the occasional neon sign or lit up hotel/building that looked straight out of the 70’s (which a lot of them probably are since they have more or less been at was ever since then)  BAF is crowded, dirty, dusty, and loud just like the last time I was there.  The guys we were visiting were able to put us up in what are called wet chu’s. Very nice compared to here. Basically it’s a container with two single beds and it has it’s own toilet, shower, and sink which makes it pretty swank atleast for my current standards.  We ended up driving pretty much all over the base there, it is a huge base, so I got to see a lot of neat stuff.  If it wasn’t so dusty/hazy all the time you would have some great views of the mountains since Bagram is in a bowl surrounded on three sides by mountains.  And they have uncleared minefields on base, there are signs and warnings and they are fenced off so you don’t go wandering through them.  Still not something I expected to see inside a base.  But I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised this country has been at war so long that mine fields (marked and unmarked) are a major problem.  Another thing that surprised me about Bagram is the sheer number of people there (~30,000) and it seems like the majority of them aren’t even soldiers.  There are tons of contractors there.  Lots of non-US foreigners too (military and civilian), basically a giant melting pot  for contractors from all over the world.  This leads to some interesting things, for instance the stores there (which are US govt owned and operated) sell things (booze) that Americans aren’t allowed to buy. (well contractors might be able to I don’t know how general order #1 applies to them if at all)  It was explained to me as if they don’t sell it someone else will so might as well make some money off it, who said the gov’t wasn’t capitalist… The way back was interesting, we ended up at the Kabul Airport and had to get ride back to the compound but instead of going the most direct route we had to take an alternate route which ended up being a tour of downtown Kabul.  It was a very interesting experience and while I wasn’t able to get any pictures it was neat to get to see what the city outside the walls of the compound looks like.  They have some massive potholes here!  But overall it looks like a rather poor urban area.  The lack of women is noticeable which makes it kind of strange too.  The traffic rules on the other hand are more or less non-existent other than driving on the “normal” side of the road and stuff.  Also they love traffic circles which is actually pretty nice since it feels better to be moving than just sitting in traffic.  The guys that work the drive team were pretty cool to and they do a darn good job at it.

Ok bedtime, but at least I get to sleep in some tomorrow!

Pictures

Here are some pictures I took during my recent trip.  The first two are looking out through the fence at the base I was visiting as we were driving around just to give a idea of what the surrounding area looks like from the ground there.

The next three are from the air (obviously), this is what rural Afghanistan looks like, well at least the area near me. This is a semi arid climate at ~5000-6000 ft.  I don’t know for sure but I imagine the farms are for fruit or nut trees with the pastures for goats.  All the compounds are mud/adobe with tall perimeter walls like I was talking about before.  The haze you seen in the second picture is probably just dust, the air gets pretty dusty here since it is so windy, in the cities it is less dusty but more polluted. 

This picture is a traffic circle (which they have tons of here, British influence I guess?) but it’s out in the middle of nowhere.  Super nice, landscaped etc no where near anything, it probably has some significance but I thought it was pretty funny.  Heck even two(the “north” and “east” roads) of the roads don’t go anywhere, they just dead end a few hundred yards down.  It’s an interesting country.

The final two pictures are the outskirts (?suburbs?) and then a shot of more of the “downtown” area of Kabul.  Some of the buildings have survived the past 30-40 years of war pretty decently and some haven’t it results in a strange mix.

I’ll probably write about the rest of this trip some other time, right now I just wanted to post some pictures.  These pictures are from about the first half hour of a trip ended up taking about seven more hours than it should have, but I got back on the day I was supposed to and we didn’t have any trouble just a lot more waiting than expected. No biggie.  Plus while I ended up missing dinner I was able to eat at a Turkish restaurant for lunch which had real (ie not stale) bread so I may have actually come out ahead in the deal.

The Compound

The base I’m stationed at has to be one of the nicest bases in a war zone that ever existed. 

Currently I’m living in temporary housing which in this case is an RLB or re-locatable building.  No it’s not a trailer or RV or Double wide.  It’s a shipping container, well really a bunch of shipping containers arranged to look like a building.  My room, which is one of the shipping containers, is about what you might expect from a connex box turned into a room. (I think it’s 8’x20’)  Lights, AC, power outlets, two bunk beds, window and a door.  I only have one roommate thankfully and he is pretty cool and we get along well which is nice.  The rooms have two bunk beds but no real storage area so with any more than 2 people it would be a huge mess.  In theory I’ll get a real room (with 2 roommates) in one of the real buildings at some point but for now I’m fairly content.  I think they are going to try and kick me out of my current room and move me to a different RLB so they can rip down the one I’m currently in, I’d like to avoid that but we’ll see.  The temp showers (also in a connex box) leave a bit to be desired but the shower tent on the other hand is rather nice so once I found out about that quality of life improved a little.

The food here is good, well for cafeteria food anyway.  When you add in that you don’t have to pay for it, cook it, or clean up afterwards it’s darn good.  Plus there is a plethora of desserts and even baskin robbins ice cream you can get.  It’s all as much as you want and you can drop in and grab snacks and drinks all day long too. (they do 4 meals a day so if you’re really dedicated, or work the night shift, you can eat at a real meal at midnight)  Mix that with the over abundance of candy and junk food from care packages that is spread around the office and paying attention to how much you eat becomes important.  Good thing they have a nice gym here, now I just need to start using it, details details. 

The office, which I share with a LTC and my boss (a COL) is probably about the same size as my room.  It’s in one of the real building here and it really does feel more or less like an office.  Lots of phones and computers.  Not really anything else exciting about that, it’s an office.  Well we do have a nice calendar.

The little store they have here is a trailer from an 18 wheeler, but they actually have a rather large variety of stuff which is nice, pretty much everything you need to get by even if it isn’t your favorite brand or color, etc.  Plus you can order stuff online and get it in a week or three so anything you really really need you can get.

My current favorite spot is what I call the courtyard; it’s in the middle of the complex by the flag pole.  It’s right outside the USO tent so lots of people hang out there for the wifi (myself included).  There are a number of picnic tables and round café type tables and chairs.  I think it really has a bit of café feel to it which I find really strange considering we’re in the middle of the capital of a country that has been at war for how long? 

They have a laundry service here too which while not the highest quality is free and pretty quick.  Plus they fold your clothes for you.  I have good AC in my room (but it’s not even that hot, plus its dry so even 85-90 is pretty decent), I don’t have to cook, clean, or do my laundry.  So far this is a pretty decent place.

Other than that there is a bazaar on Sundays which I’ll talk about later, it’s pretty cool.  Work is going decently, the long days and constant go really hasn’t been much of an issue yet so hopefully it won’t be. And the army is still the army, I can deal with that.

7000+ Miles

I got to Kabul early Monday morning, (boy was I glad to finally get here but more on that later).  They had arranged for me to get here by helicopter so that was really cool.  It is a rather short flight from Bagram to Kabul and the first window seat I had in the journey over.  Afghanistan (at least the part between Bagram and Kabul) is a very pretty country from a few hundred feet up.  Lush green fields with small villages and random houses scattered here and there.  All the houses are more like compounds in that they all have a walled in area around the house and yard.  The walls are maybe 6-8 ft high and are made out of mud/adobe just like the houses.  If the good fences make good neighbors saying really is true Afghans are probably the best neighbors.  I hope I get at least one more helicopter trip while I’m here, it really is an awesome way to fly.

Getting here was a bit of a journey but from what I’ve been told I had it rather well.  The flights from the US to Germany and Germany to Kuwait actually went really well.  I got to sit in “first class” so that was fun.  Ok it isn’t really first class the seats are the same as the rest of the plane but it was where the first class cabin would normally be.  The plane wasn’t full either so everyone either had an isle seat or an open seat next to them so that made the trip much more enjoyable too.  Airline food wasn’t as bad as I remember it being or maybe the food at CRC just lowered my standards.  The stop in Germany was nice since it was long enough to get out and walk around but we didn’t really have to sit and wait or anything.

Once we got to Kuwait we were taken to the transient housing facility/air hub and sort of just dropped off with very little in the way of direction.  Which, if you’ve never been in that situation before, is somewhat intimidating.  Once I got a map and found out where I needed to go to check in I was good.  Got billeting for the night and then grabbed some food and a shower, which both greatly improved morale.  Yeah in Kuwait and the best thing I can find to eat is KFC, go figure.  After that I made my way to the pax (passenger) “terminal” to find out about flights.  Pretty much everyone flies standby so if you get on a flight seems to involve a bit of black magic/voodoo/etc.  So you just show up for every flight to your destination and hope they call your name.  I was lucky since the guy I’m replacing put in a reservation for me which can help move you up the list.  I wasn’t really tired and the Derby was on tv so I figured why not stay up and watch it, I always seem to miss it anyway.  I forgot the derby has more pre-coverage than the superbowl. (It is a 2 min long race!!!)  Anyway by the time that was over I was sufficiently tired and went to bed.  Kuwait at night is hot, dry and dusty with nothing to do but wait for your flight, I wanted to spend as few days there as possible.  Luckily in the morning I found out I was going to be on the first flight out so that was great news.  Some people get stuck there for days or even a week.  I hope to never experience that.  Then a C-17 ride to Bagram and I was finally in Afghanistan.  Flying in a C-17 is another interesting experience, strapped in sitting along the wall of the aircraft like you seen in picture of paratroopers waiting to jump.

Bagram is huge and kind of what you might expect a large base in a warzone to look like, crowded, dirty, shipping containers and equipment everywhere.  The guys that I’ll be working with that are located in Bagram picked me up and showed me around a little and took me to get some food.  We worked out plans for the morning but those all got canned when we found out when my flight to Kabul was.  Oh well.  I didn’t sleep much that night, combination of jet lag, excitement, and being a few hundred yards from an active runway with jets taking off/landing 24/7 probably had something to do with it.  I didn’t want to put in my ear plug because I was afraid I would miss my alarm and then my flight.  In the end it all worked out and am getting my sleep pattern back to normal. From Kuwait to Kabul was a bit of an adventure but luckily the guy im replacing did a great job getting things set up and making it less of a hassle.  Still I was very relieved to get here and be done traveling.  Now I just have to get a non-temp room (actually I have the place to myself at the moment so in some regards it's better than the real room I'll move into later).  The temp showers are somewhat lacking but ehh I've had worse.

Overall my first few days here have been pretty good, the compound is pretty nice and so are the guys I work with.  The type of work is totally different than anything I’ve done before so it will take some getting used to but I think I can adjust.  I’ll write more later about the compound itself but now I need to get to bed, another early day tomorrow.

CRC

I've been at CRC for the past week or so. Basically pre-deployment prep, getting all the training done, shots, other medical and admin stuff taken care of.  Basically it has been a whole lot of hurry up and wait, but I'm really happy I was able to get all the online training done before I came as well as getting all the medical stuff taken care of earlier.  I haven't had any real problems, my orders were in the wrong format but that was easily fixed so no big deal.  I got a ton of gear the other day, I doubt I'll even use half of it but that really depends on how adventurous we get, yeah I doubt I'll use half of it.  They gave me three of the big green standard army duffel bags, right now I have pretty much everything except my armor/kevlar and my assault pack with civilian clothes in two of them so hopefully I'll be able to get those items in the third and just carry a small bag on the flights.  Found out it isn't a straight shot flight but rather a series of smaller flights to get over there which is nice, I wasn't looking forward to 16 hours in a plane non-stop. 

The best way to describe CRC to someone is probably something very similar to boy scout camp except you're in buildings not tents and the little store sells beer and cigarettes. I guess it's also similar to prison in that you'll get long stretches with nothing to do and aren't really allowed to go anywhere so everyone just hangs out.  Well at least that is my impression of prison, I'm ok not finding out if I'm wrong.  My roommates are pretty cool and laid back, one of them has deployed three times before so he has been a wealth of knowledge when it comes to how things work and what to expect. The food is cafeteria food, pretty much like how food in college was, not great but at least you don't have to fix the food or clean the kitchen.   Weather has been great, a little chilly in the morning and warm in the afternoon, sunny. 

Also since today is mostly for makeup stuff and getting last minute things taken care of, I was able to tag along with the military guys all morning and do the M9 training and qualification.  I shot Expert, hitting 28 out of 30 targets (you need to hit 26 to shoot expert).  Not bad, especially if you know how often I shoot a pistol. 

Alright I guess that is all I have for now, next update will probably be from somewhere else.