Training Officially Begins...

Today we got up early and did PT. Then we drew weapons (M4 with PEQ-2 an CCO and an M9) and then sat in a classroom all day. The classroom training was more or less informative... depending on who you talk to. I though it was good stuff. Mostly it was all about cultural awareness. We had a couple of native Afghanis come to talk to us. They were naturalized Americans and they answered any questions we had. One was a Pushtu and another was an Uzbek. Both have been interpreters, (terps) and both seemed like cool guys. We had a great guest speaker, Lester W. Grau. He gave a cautiously optimistic overview of the situation over there. He said our mission will make a difference for the people of Afghanistan. He's an Afghanistan expert and the author of several books. We received two of them. one was called the Bear Went over the mountain and I can't remember the other one. I'm not able to look and see what the other one is right now because Doc and I had to run off post (Doc has his POV that's a Personally Owned Vehicle) in order to use the internet at a bookstore in Manhattan. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep getting out here to update. Till next time, JP

Recycling, Army SF Style

It's all about Afghanistan... FIREBASE MAHOLIC, Afghanistan (AP) - Osama bin Laden built it. Taliban leader Mullah Omar lived in it. But today it's the Green Berets who call it home. Firebase Maholic, a sprawling and spacious compound on the outskirts of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, is plush living by typical U.S. Special Forces standards...... The Green Berets can relax in front of a doublewide fireplace in the cafeteria, admire the three catfish in the nearby two-tier fountain or take a dip in the swimming pool _ a rarity in Afghanistan... Read the whole story here... I stole this from Banter in Atlanter so a H/T to the Doctor.

Details the Media Will Not Mention

I just got this e-mail forwarded from my buddy JMPMSTR. It's great stuff. Hi everyone. I'm still alive but freezing my tail off. We got 8 inches of snow last week and it reached 5 degrees below zero that night. That's not why I'm e-mailing though. You may have heard about a suicide car bomb attack in Kabul last Thursday. It was at one of our FOB's about 27 miles from here. But the real story is why no one was killed. We employ several thousand Afghans on our various bases. Not to mention the economy that is fed by the money these locals are making. Some are laborers and builders, but some are skilled workers.We even have one Afghan that just became OSHA qualified, the first ever. Some are skilled HVAC workers. Anyway, there is this one Afghan that we call Rambo. We have actually given him a couple of sets of the new ACU uniforms (the new Army digital camouflage) with the name tag RAMBO on it. His entire family was killed by the Taliban and his home was where our base currently resides. So this guy really had nowhere else to go. He has reached such a level of trust with US Forces that his job is to stand at the front gate and basically be the first security screening. Since he can't have a weapon, he found a big red pipe. So he stands there at the front gate in his US Army ACU uniform with his red pipe. If a vehicle approaches the gate too fast or fails to stop, he slams his pipe down on their hood. Then once the gate is lifted the vehicle moves on the 2nd gate where the US Army MP's are. So he's like the first line of defense. Last Thursday at 0930 hrs a Toyota Corolla packed with explosives and some Jack Ass that thinks he has 72 Virgins waiting for him approached the gate. When he saw Rambo, he must have recognized him and known the gig was up. But he needed to get to that 2nd gate to detonate and take American lives. So he slams his foot on the gas which almost causes the metal gate to go up but mostly catches on the now broken windshield. Rambo fearlessly ran to the vehicle, reached thru the window and jerked the suicide bomber out of the vehicle before he could detonate and commenced to putting some red pipe to his heathen ass. He detained the guy until the MP got there. The vehicle only exploded when they tried to push it off base with a robot but know one was hurt. I'm still waiting for someone to give this guy a medal or something. Nothing less than instant US citizenship or something. A hat was passed around and a lot of money was given to him in thanks by both soldiers and civilians that are working over here. I guess that I just wanted to share this because I want people to know that it's working over here. They have tasted freedom. This makes it worth it to me. And there you have it... there's something good.