Come Fly With Me, Lets Fly, Lets Fly Away...

Coming home from blowin' stuff up.  The view from our perch.

"Oh dang, somebody's gonna get all blowed up!" exclaimed Gunny (Gunnery Sargent). Roaaaaaaaaar for 1 long minute as the afterburners fire up on the first jet as it speeds down the runway and flies a few times overhead.  Then the second one, as I practically go deaf.  Crack-crack-crack-crack as the helios (helicopters) launch upwards.  Then go the turbo props and UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).   Oh yeah, something big is about to go down!

Despite the boredom that comes with being stuck 24/7 on a compound, being on an air force base has its ways of breaking up the motonony.  One bonus of our little nook is a "watchtower" (someone built a wooden platform on top of our metal trailers) that gives a clear sightline to the runway and mountains around us.  Of course, in some senses its torture--kind of like being the doggy in the window of a pet shop.  We get to admire the striking panoramas of the Hindu Kush mountains, covered in snow, and dream about the ski resorts we'd build if only this country got its act together.  We also get to see when major ops (operations) take off.  Of course, we never have any idea where they're going or what they're doing--but when you suddenly see a bunch of different types of aircraft take off in sequence, you know that somebody pissed somebody off!

It takes a few days to get used to sleeping through all the noise,  but I've been well trained by the melodious sonnets of DC's ambulances and police cars, so I think it'd be harder for me to sleep if I DIDN'T hear such a ruckus...

The (Hindu) Kush Life

Welcome to Club Fed.  All you can eat food, 24/7? Depends on which of the 5 dining halls do you feel like tonight.  Gym? Just stroll along the freshly shined concertina wire and take your pick of equipment.  Movies?  Which of the 10,000 on file do you want to watch tonight?  Beauty Salon, Taco Bell, Jewelry shop, University of Maryland classes, massage parlour....check, check, check, and check. Beautiful snow-capped mountains?  360 degree view.

"A" marks the spot.  Yeah, thats me, all itty bitty down there.

Hold on a second before you enlist in this all-inclusive wonderland, as every Yin has a Yang.  First, every second of your life occurs behind barbed wire and blast walls.  No running down the block to pickup a kebab at the corner stand. And these "buildings" I speak of are either tents, trailers, or metal shipping containers that have been converted into living spaces (and not in the posh way that the Crate & Barrell catalog describes "living spaces").  Thats right, Mom and Dad, I've finally worked my way out of the degenerate slums of Orange County, and after two degrees and 10 years of work experience, I'm finally getting my chance to "move on up" and live in a trailer park.

To generate heat in the cold winters, Afghans burn everything, and I mean everything (didn't you know that plastic and nylon make wonderful firewood?); this means that the whole valley is covered in a lingering toxic haze that makes me yearn for the comparatively pristine LA smog of my childhood. And I finally have some sympathy for my lawyer friends, now that my work schedule is 12 hours a day, every day.  Yeah, like I had to change the settings in my Outlook software to show my work week as Monday-Sunday rather than Monday-Friday. That kind of schedule. 

Anyway, week 1 is officially toast.  Here's to the next 23.

Military Airways: The Most Unique Way to Fly...

Military airports are simply off the hook. That's partially because they have a destination list that makes London Heathrow look provincial. Where else does your flight departure board read: Kirkuk, Bagram, Baghdad, Kuwait, Ramstein, Baltimore, Kandahar, Kunduz, Manas...okay, so maybe they're not all places I want to visit (especially B'more), but at least you can chalk up some exotic points. I'm still trying to interpret the blank stare I got from the lady checking boarding passes for my C-17 when I asked if they're part of Star Alliance--I guess its just something I'll have to investigate when I get home. Okay, so the flight itself is kind of uncomfortable (a cloth fold-down chair, turned sideways, with a metal bar "conveniently" placed under your legs), but I did have pallets of bombs and a gi-huge-ic propeller staring at me the entire flight. Not sure why that stuff excites me, especially considering I grew up so far from anything military in the CA burbs, but I guess it's part of being a guy. So in sum, I'm finally on the ground. A few more stops until my destination, but here nonetheless.

My new diet plan

Acai berries for weight loss are, like, so 2010.  Just go overseas and eat in the compound's cafeteria, and you're bound to quickly grab a nasty little bug that'll have you droppin pounds in no time.  I guess it serves me right for being the lazy guy who was looking forward to having all of his food shopping, preparation, and cleaning done for him.  Well, that and I chose to eat Mexican food that was prepared by Indonesians in the Middle East.  Assuming I recover soon, me and my svelte body will be on that plane and (finally) getting to my destination in the next few days....

Kickoff

As a kid, everyone knew that if you dig a hole deep enough, you'd end up in China.  Or at least that's what we said in CA, maybe East Coast kids were told other lies.  As it turns out, I would've ended up off the coast of Madagascar (http://map.talleye.com/bighole.php)....but they don't really teach kids about places like that in 1st grade.  I guess they were trying to get across the point that its really far away.  Kind of like Afghanistan.  No seriously--after you see how far away it is on a map, take a moment to check out its neighbors.  Besides the obvious friendlies like Iran and Pakistan, you've got all of the former Soviet republics that few people could list in a pub trivia quiz (though I'm proud to say that I can).  So apparently I decided that beautiful, bucolic DC wasn't giving me enough action and I needed to go to a faraway place most people are stoked not to think about.  Granted, its only 6 months, which is nothing compared to some of our military forces.  But who knows, maybe I'll fall in love with it's enchantment and stay longer?