1 Year In The Books....almost

1 year in the books…almost. Sitting here today I am just 3 weeks shy of my one year mark. Hard to believe it has been this long, the year has mostly flown by. I bet my wife would have a different perspective in the time though. I can’t say it enough, she has the harder part in this chapter of our lives. It might be long hours, and rough conditions over here, but at least I only have to worry about myself. Whenever this is all said and done I owe that woman one hell of a vacation!!

This rotation has absolutely flown by, I can’t believe it has been 3 months already and I am heading home in a few days for R&R. it’s probably since I am leaving on my 95^th day instead of last time on day 132. Add the fact that things are busier than ever for me here and days turn into weeks, sometimes quite literally. I guess it’s better than the alternative, I couldn’t imagine having a boring job out here,  I’d go out of my mind if I had the time to think about it. 

I’ll be heading back up to Boston to start of this R&R, meeting Jolie and the boys up there. We will spend about 5 days seeing family, and of course hitting all our favorite places in Boston…including Fenway park! Should be a great trip. We’ll head home to North Carolina for the rest of the time, I plan on planting my butt on the beach and for once be happy that I am covered in sand. Can’t wait to show off this raging farmer’s tan that I got going on, it’s a great look…might have to fight off the ladies. I’ll have to lather up good, and by the looks of my belly, I might need to use more than normal. Hard to believe that even though I have been running somewhat regularly in the gym, I feel like I have actually put on weight, just goes to show that the food here is aimed towards marines who are training and working out all day, not those of us who use keyboards for a living. A skill I might add that I think I have improved on far too much, some days I wish I could stay out in the field all day and make lots of noise and dust and swear all day. Then I walk outside and the sweat begins to bead off my forehead before I even get to the truck and I realize that it is better to stay inside in the AC and swear under my breathe.

1 of 3 tanks

Business is good, my biggest project is moving along well at this point. Building 3 massive fuel tanks that will hold 1 million gallons of jet fuel in the middle of Afghanistan was certainly never on my career radar, but man it has been pretty cool. The amount of organization both from the office and in the field has been enormous, and at times it has seemed as if we have been spinning our wheels. But now the project has hit its stride and it seems each week we are hitting milestones.  We have nearly 100 workers per day in the project, plus a night crew as we are working 24/7 right now, and let’s just say that English is not the primary language for the majority….challenging to say the least. It’s great to go down there and climb to the top of the tanks and look around, they are the tallest structure on the base, but don’t go up there in the middle of the day. We have been getting temperature readings on the roof of over 180 degrees. Pour water on the steel and it doesn’t even make it to the edge to drip off. Have I mentioned it is hot here? I have added a photo gallery on the left (click here) with more pictures of the project for those that are interested in seeing how real men work for a living.

The average temperature lately has been right around 120 degrees. I have a thermometer on my desk that has an outside probe on it, in the shade it has been around 114, I laid it on the ground the other day and within a minute it shot up to almost 140….its brutal. Walking outside is like walking into a wall of heat, it honestly feels like the sun is about to land on the earth out here. It’s about the only time that I am thankful for spending so much time at my desk…in the AC. When I get back from R&R it will most likely be pushing 130.

So just after my last blog….a long time ago I know (people can stop sending me emails through the blog complaining now)…well we had the first real attack here at Camp Leatherneck that has happened in quite a long time. About 7am we had a total of 5 rockets come in. 3 landed on the British side in Camp Bastion and the other 2 landed on the Leatherneck side. At the same time they had a handful of suicide bombers trying to get close to the base. Thankfully none ever did. We learned later that they found another 5 rockets out a ways already loaded onto the home made launching rails that they use. To be honest it felt kinda like my days in Kandahar, minus the poo pond! We all lost count around 16 at the amount of those kick ass rockets that we have shooting out over us and towards the mountains. How crazy that I just sat at my desk looking out the window as they all shot right over us. I always wanted an office with a view but this is not what I had in mind.

It was a bit of a reality check here as this place is generally thought of as being safe…at least as safe as can be when you are located in a portion of Afghanistan that is referred to as the “Desert of Death”. One good thing that I am sure has come out of it is that I guarantee they have pushed the patrols out even further than before to be sure that no one slips through again. We all thought that it might be the start of something here, but ever since then it has been pretty quiet. 

So I am sure that you have all heard about the big announcement of us starting to withdraw troops from here. Well I couldn’t be happier about that, for all those troops do, it’s great to think that soon some will be heading home. Well now before you think that might mean that I am out of a job, the work out here has no end in sight. My company in the past few weeks has been awarded contracts worth nearly $6 Billion (yes with a “B) over the next 6 years. 1 contract is for work in over 20 countries though nearly 70% of it is here and in Iraq. Another one that we bid on and have a good chance at winning is to build 5 more cafeterias here at Leatherneck, another one is for additional troop housing.…..so that should tell you something. To be honest, they could remove at least a few thousand just from Leatherneck with no impact to the actual war. I see no reason why you need 10 marines working at each cafeteria checking ID’s and making sure that you sign in, or working in the post office, or just wandering around like zombies. It has always been pretty clear to me that there are two levels of troops here, the ones that fight and the ones that don’t fight. I say get all the non fighters out of here.

Well I better get back to it, 2 more wake ups and I start my long journey home, still too much to do before I go, but that never changes. I promise when I get back I will keep up with the blog better, I have really slacked on it the past few months. The day I return back here will be my wedding anniversary, and will be 1 day shy of my 1 year anniversary of arriving here. If you see my wife on the 18^th give her a hug for me please, she deserves it.

In a towel watching CNN....where were you?

So I have gotten numerous emails and skypes today for obvious reasons. I guess one would assume that on the day that Osama Bin Laden is killed that the middle of Afghanistan would quite the exciting place to be, either for the reaction of the troops, or the reaction of the Taliban. Well I ain’t got nothing for ya. It has actually been an extremely quiet day, heck the firing range next door has even been quiet! I must admit though, when I got out of the shower this morning and turned on CNN as I was getting dressed, I had the same thought as many of you did….”sweet”….”uh oh”. This can only lead to more action around here one would think. But the spring is historically the most active season here anyways so things have already started to increase the alert levels. The poppy harvest is over and it’s back to trying to kill the infidels for a while again. The base has been on high alert for the past week or so, even before today’s news. Random car checks, badge checks, getting the metal detector wand run over you on the way into the cafeteria. For those of you that complain about the airport security wanting to pat you down and check your pockets….try having that with an M16 thrown into the mix. Gotta tell ya though, I am all for it. I think that many people are here on these bases feeling like we are untouchable, especially on this one. Did you hear about the prison break in Kandahar last week where hundreds of Taliban escaped? Guess where they just found about a dozen or so of them? Yup…here on this base working for contractors. Needless to say I have a hiring freeze on locals. We have a large project going on here right now that we just flew in about 60 workers from Pakistan for, they are living here on our camp with us for the next few months, an interesting dynamic considering today’s events.
I'm the first to tell you that I am glad that they got him. Absolutely, 100%. Dude had it coming for sure. I am fascinated for the details of how it all went down. But I gotta say I am not really sure how I feel about seeing the pictures of people celebrating like they just won the Superbowl. It's weird to me. There was a news clip of people in front of the White House, and they had this one woman up on a guy's shoulders, and I was half expecting to see her take her top off like she was at a concert or something. I get the celebration, I get the emotion, I don't get the hip hip hooray though. We wonder sometimes why half the world hates us. Just check out the news and you can see why...people singing "We are the champions" on the front of the White House.....really? 
Rant over.

It’s been a strange few weeks; I’ve been in and out of a funk for sure. The coolness of being over here is starting wear off.  It is the true sense of ground hog day. Last week my boss and I couldn’t figure out what day it was, literally….

My boss:  “was that meeting yesterday?”

Me: “not sure…what day is today?”

My boss: “not sure”

This continued for at least a minute before I had to check my emails to see that it was Friday. It’s like I’ve lost my mind at times. All sense of time of day and day of the week are out the window, don’t even get me started about remembering what freaking month it is. 

Easter was 103 degrees, and it has been keeping right there ever since. Even the Easter Bunny was smart enough to stay away. There was no spring time here. One day it was in the 70’s, the next it was over 100. It might be the only time of year that I am thankful to be chained to my desk all day, I don’t know how those guys work all day out in the heat. I do have a fantastic farmer’s tan already though. Should be a good look when I am home this summer and sitting my butt on the beach…farmer’s tan and raccoon eyes from my sunglasses.

Just another day at the office

Kaboom

Last week there were 2 massive explosions from just outside the base, usually we get these on a smaller level and they make you jump a bit but nothing more, well these puppies were the largest since I have been here. They must have been blowing something up out there. The usual mushroom cloud of dust quickly gave way to a fire red/orange glow that as I sat at my desk and looked up out the window, seemed to cover the sky. By the time I took this picture it was a good 10 minutes later and the mushroom clouds were still climbing. I would guess that they were maybe around a mile and a half from the office. We had the maintenance guys go around and check windows…and I checked my underwear.

Reality check #378.

I was on a bid walk last week over by the hospital as a Chinook helicopter came in low and fast. These helicopters are like massive flying elephants, so when they are coming in as low as this one was towards the hospital you know it’s not good. I’ve seen this countless times before though, they drop out of the sky as the ambulance speeds towards the landing pad, sometimes you see someone limp pout the back, sometimes they are carried out but you don’t get the full view. Well this time was different; they came in right over us and were so low that it blew peoples notebooks out of their hands. The dust whipped around us and as I held my breath and closed my eyes as tightly as I could, I couldn’t help but wonder about my career choices. The sirens of the ambulance could barely be heard because of how loud the rotary blades are on that thing. We all stood there and after the dust settled enough could only watch. The Helicopter landed about 50 yards from where we were and immediately when the tires touched down four men ran out carrying a stretcher as another knelt over the injured soldier doing chest compressions. Dangling off the side of the stretcher was half an arm. I thought that I was going to through up. After everything that I have seen here in the nearly 10 months, that is the one that has hit me in the gut the most. I refused to look at the flags on the hospital for the next few days because I didn’t want to see them at half staff. 

On a brighter note I have help coming soon, We've hired a new project manager to come on board and hopefully take some of my workload off of me. I can't wait, I swear I can't get anything done here during the day between trying to do my regular job and dealing with everything else that comes with running this place, I and spread so thin that I might tear soon. Somehow most (not all) gets done though. I guess that has lead to probably the best "review" by a boss that I have ever gotten. Must be doing something right I guess. Funny to be thriving in a war zone.......