"Bring Two Set Of Body Armor....One to Wear, One to Sit On".......wait, what?

Oh the places I get to see. I guess this tour here is all about letting me see the sights and meet the people. Yesterday it was a Forward Operating Base (FOB) located about 30 miles south of Leatherneck in an area called Lashkar Gah. We have been invited to bid on a massive service contract through out Afghanistan and this is one of the locations that it would cover. Friday was a day full of meetings about the contract along with our safety briefing for both the flight and the area surrounding Lashkar Gah. Crazy stuff. We had to shut off phones, no notebooks, etc before the briefing started. We heard pretty much everything that had happened in this part of the country within the last 48 hours. Lots of madness out there for sure. Lots of stories of young Afghan children being used as "runners", as shields, and as signalers when coalition forces came near, and even a story of a donkey at the side of a road that had TNT hidden IN it and a control wire running from it's but. Luckily seen before it was too late. They concluded the briefing by announcing that we should bring an overnight bag, etc in case the helicopter became grounded and we couldn't return...in the words of my lovely wife "oh like a sleepover"....she's a funny one huh? By a show of hands they asked if anyone still wanted to go. Mine was about half way up I would say. Later our security director would suggest to me that I "bring two sets of body armor, one to to wear, one to sit on".....nice.

We would be riding down by helicopter as the FOB is too small to have a runway. The trip would take only about 20 minutes. And what a 20 minutes it was. We rode down on a British Royal Air Force Merlin helicopter. It seats about 15 passengers, has 2 pilots, and 2 gunners- 1 in the front ride behind the pilots and 1 who kneels out the back on the ramp that they leave down. So basically the whole back of the helicopter is wide open. It was crazy. We took off and started hauling ass low and straight out over the desert, after about 5 minutes we climbed up a bit and stayed up high for the majority of the flight until we got within a few minutes of Lashkar Gah. As we approached, we suddenly dove down low and began to snake our way over the houses. We literally could see the faces of the people and the wind from the helicopter was blowing the trees as we flew over. The helicopter was rolling side to side almost in a zig-zag pattern until we hit the perimeter wall of the FOB, then the nose of the helicopter shot almost straight up to the sky, through the tail we were looking straight down at the ground as our speed dropped down enough that we could drop down onto the helipad. Once we touched down they got us off and they were back in the air within minutes. We were still on the perimeter of the helipad when they were already taking back off. I had some pretty obvious questions after that little video game of a landing, and of course I asked. The reasoning for it is pretty simple actually, if you come in high it gives them more time to set up and aim, plus the weapons they use are not good for close range, they need time in the air before exploding. Plus if you come in high, that means you need to hover and lower yourself in a straight line down....easy target. So they figure it is better to come in low and only have small arms fire than up high where they can get you with the rockets. Good idea....I guess. They say that they get small arms fire every once in a while, I can only imagine what that looks like when the gunners unload all that fire power back down on them from just 100 ft up. Yikes!

Grenade Alley

We spent the day out there., nothing too exciting. About 1,000 soldiers are living there in what is a very small and tight space. Lashkar Gah is an old Afghan city that is considered to be the capital of the Helmand Province. It now has a base right smack in the middle of it. The houses quite literally are right up to the perimeter wall. So close in fact that one side of the FOB has a road named "grenade alley". Nice of them to tell us this after we had been walking along it for a good 100 yards. We went through the compound where the explosives technicians are, interesting place I must say, plenty of recovered bombs, rockets, etc. But the thing that caught my eyes was the wall that had single shoes nailed to it. Me and my big mouth of course spoke up...turns out they are shoes from suicide bombers that have tried to attack the base. I need to keep my questions to myself more I think.  Lots of local flair out there, strange to see a few large gardens in the middle of the base. And get this...the food in the cafeteria was also better than at KAF.

My ride coming in for a landing.

At the end of the day we stood out by the helipad and waited for our ride. What a cool sight to watch them coming in from the distance, doing their dodge and weave, and dropping right in just a few feet away. Cameras were not allowed on the first flight, but there were a few soldiers that had theirs out filming as the choppers came in, so I took that as a yes and grabbed mine and was able to film the entire flight home. I spliced together some of it and you can watch it HERE.. Sorry about the audio, the combination of noise and wind did wonders on the microphone. We flew home on a British Royal Navy Sea King. Pretty much the same as the Merlin except it has a side door gunner and not the rear. We took off and immediately buzzed the roof tops and out into the open desert we went. 20 minutes later we were back safe and sound. Do I have the coolest job or what?

I'll admit it, I was nervous. More from the unknown and not from the I'm gonna get shot. I've got pretty good faith these days, even before coming to this place, and I figure that between all these soldiers and the big man, I'm good for a while.

What days like yesterday do is really open my eyes to what happens over here, seeing how these guys operate out in the war zone and not just around the base is a whole different world. Those guys were locked and loaded, and all business. Probably annoyed to have another group of civilians watching them like they are some kind of reality show. I've said it a thousand times, I could never do what they do.

I'm wrapping up my time here in Leatherneck, heading back to KAF tomorrow if I can find room on a military flight. Between my R&R and my time up here I feel like I haven't been there in forever...it's been hard to get to sleep without the rocket attack sirens.

On a great news note: a great friend who I worked with a few years back has accepted a job to come and play in the sand. I've requested he be sent to me at KAF, but in this place you never know. Who knows, maybe he will become my Wilson!!