My Afghanistan Update

The following was sent on Thursday from Josh. Enjoy!!

"We have been high-speed busy and when we are not busy, I just want to sleep for a long time, and I have not been able to properly update people and then I forget who I told what to, and then my mind begins to wander.

"I think since we have moved into our perm party housing over a month ago, I have spent a total of five nights there. I am working on two in a row now. WOOHOO! What is going on with you all?

"Well, let me tell you this war on terror gig definitely keeps me gainfully employed over here. Somebody is always wanting to do something to someone which means I have to go drive somebody to where something is to do something about it. It gets to the point where you want to say - stop, enough, just get along (it's not that hard), so I can go to bed.

"I have done a fair amount of traveling around this month, and have seen quite a lot, including an armadillo making a home in an abandoned soviet mig fighter jet in the desert, jingle trucks packed with cars stacked three high, burqua covered women laying in the middle of the road (literally, as in that looks like someone dropped their shawl in the road, oh no it is a person followed by a quick jerking motion of the wheel), and nothing was more painful than sitting in a blazing hot humvee while you watch through your window as the LT. shares a COKE of all things with the local police... I had a few words about that.

"As many of you know I am not a big fan of Canada (all in good fun). I have always felt that it was America Lite (haha). Unfortunately, I have to completely reverse my opinion of the Canadians. I have no choice. They were VERY helpful to us. They can get annoying to talk to on the radio though, everything is did you get the freq eh?, what is that call sign again, eh? I am not kidding. Always thought the "eh" thing was a little played up stereotype, definitely not. There are a lot of French here as well. I thought our berets were a little silly looking, but theirs look ridiculous, they are satellite dishes. Seriously, some of them are larger than Sputnik. They are massive. The Finns, Swedes, and Danes all look like they came out of a box from IKEA and were put together with alan wrenches-very stiff, stoic people. The Germans are extremely efficient and can park a tank in swift quick movements that make me look like I am drunk when I park a humvee. The British are all trying to look like Prince Harry and the other one...what's his name. I joke but everyone is here working hard and doing good job. Everyone is ready to help everybody else.

"The weather here is well...HOT and dusty. I turned on the A/C today and it blew dust for a good fifteen seconds. I love it. My winter driving in NY has come in very handy as well, due to dust out conditions that rival white out conditions.

"Oh my gosh...I completely forgot today is an amazing day in Kabul. The first traffic light intersection is up and running in downtown Kabul, complete with crosswalks, crosswalk signals, and a timer on the traffic light that lets you know how many seconds of green is left, and get this traffic actually stopped and followed the lights. Now, that could have something to do with armed police officers on each corner of the intersection, but hey lets not knock 21st Century progress. Our convoy stopped and we radioed up to ask why we were stopped and they radioed back, we have the red light. haha. Now, we could blow through the light, I mean we weigh over five tons and have sirens but we are trying to set an example. We were quite stunned though by the sight of it.

"Like I said, I am always tired and dirty. I have dirt that will not come off my hands. When you go to the chow hall, there are sinks and you MUST wash your hands (it gets ugly if you forget, not that I know-but lets just say there is a chow nazi-seriously there is one soldier who stands in the chow hall all day and her only jobs are to keep a count, make sure your sunglasses aren't on your head and make sure you wash your hands-seriously every job is important), and everytime I leave the sink and the soap black, the people on either side of me give me that look, you know it, and you just want to be like look I did not spend all day in an office. You just want to be like this is a dirty country.

"That is pretty much my Afghanistan update. Please feel free to forward this onto to anyone that is not on this list-don't have e-mails for everyone. Crista and Abby feel free to forward it to anyone at school. Put in a good word for me with the new boss. haha.Thank you to everyone who has sent packages and letters. Again, I am sorry that I have not written more to each of you, but I appreciate all your support. Hope to see you all soon."

Task Force Phoenix VII

I was on YouTube tonight and found this video that was just added of the 27th BCT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZEv4J8iAKM&feature=related

If you click on More Info in the gray box to the right of the video, there is a pretty detailed description of the video and Task Force Phoenix.

As noted in the above mentioned description, there are weekly updates on the NY Army National Guard site. (*Note: the link provided here is correct.)

The Task Force Phoenix site has also been updated to reflect the deployment of the NY National Guard.

Tooting the Maintenance Horn

After hitting the "check e-mail" button on my hotmail account roughly 374 times this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to see an e-mail actually appear from Josh this afternoon. I had not heard from him via e-mail since Friday, so I assumed they were "out and about," but at those times, you do wonder about . . . A LOT. Here is an excerpt from the e-mail that I received from Josh today . . .

"I put roughly a thousand miles on the truck and did not have one problem. Excellent maintenance, if I do say so myself. The truck's life expectancy is only 15,000 miles and we reached well beyond that on this trip, but I am not holding my breath for a new truck. Plus, I have put so much new stuff on this truck, I don't want to give it up. haha. . . . I am really tired-just getting my laundry turned in today was a huge chore. haha. Tomorrow is another early day. . . Look in the Syracuse paper for the column on us - there will be a picture of guys from my platoon holding an American flag."

Can you tell who is in charge of the truck maintenance?

I discovered a couple of weeks ago that Josh passes his time by looking at new vehicles. I somewhat knew that he was looking at them, but didn't really know how serious he was about it until one day a package of brochures arrived in the mailbox (surprise!), which I then sent to him and he received in a package on Tuesday night . . . "I really like it more and more. It looks even more sporty and less grocery getter than I thought. Plus, all the people in the brochure look like me, which means I picked an age appropriate automobile. I can't wait to drive something smaller. haha." Age appropriate automobile!

It was interesting . . . the way he wrote his e-mail, I could tell that he was tired, without him even needing to write that he was tired. A lot of short quick sentences and things seemed to jump around a bit. I will keep my eyes on the look out for the picture and will post the link once it is up.

Welcome to the world, Takoda!

Josh's sister, Natasha, gave birth to a healthy baby boy Tuesday, May 20 at 3:36 a.m. Takoda Isaac came into the world weighing 6 pounds, 14 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long. Takoda was given Uncle Josh's middle name. Mom and baby are both doing well and have been home for a few days now. The diaper cake was a gift from Uncle Josh and Aunt Darci.

Hodge Podge of an Update

This post has been in the works for about a week. Sorry for not posting sooner. The good news is that the title remained the same; I just kept adding more stuff to it.

Messages from Josh . . . Everyone enjoys hearing "Josh's voice" through the posts, so I try to copy and paste excerpts from our e-mails. Here is one comment that I found highly entertaining... "It keeps getting hotter, and the hotter it gets, the more flies there are. The flies are my new thermometer . . . a little flies - cool or windy . . . the air thick with flies - hot." Sounds similar to the one bump small town comment! He said that it is about 90 degrees there. Add in a uniform and body armor and anything else that they are carrying around and it adds up to uncomfortable!

Josh helped to explain what some of the terms mean in regards to people as well.

Foreign Nationals - Afghanis or any other group
Coalition Forces - Any non-American military group
Host Nation - Afghanistan

As Josh said, "It is so funny it makes it sound like they are hosting a sleepover we were invited to . . ."

Here are some pictures that I can share. The descriptions were written by Josh. Enjoy!

Out and about...
Just me...
Twenty-two point turn, with twenty-two backseat drivers...

Still turning...

Almost there... like watching someone's vacation photos... I know...


Not a very good pic, but this is a small jingle truck - the jingles are on the bottom of the truck...




Home again, home again, jiggety-jig...



Out and about...

A curious guy - checking out the humvee before we left... (I love this picture!)

Here are some pictures of Josh's 8 x 8 piece of heaven.

My "hooch" - back wall...

My "hooch" - side wall...

My "hooch" - other wall...

Yesterday was the 19th, so we made it through another month since they left on January 19th. There are days when the four months feels like it has flown by, but truth be told, most of the time, it feels as though time passes very slowly.

Tidbits of Information

Not sure what could top the last posting, so I decided that I won't even try. I know that many people enjoyed reading Josh's e-mail and hearing "his voice" on the blog. He does have internet access in his hut now, so he is able to send more e-mails. I will post/share as much as I can whenever he writes. We have only e-mailed or IMed this week, and for once, it has been an opportunity for us to just chat, vent, or laugh with each other.

To pass the time, some keep busy with video games... "Well not much to report here other than that everyone is continuing to work hard to master all levels of Guitar Hero 3 and Madden's Baseball."

He said that it is light there by 4:00 a.m. and gets dark around 6:30 or 7:00 p.m.

Josh is very excited that tomorrow starts the "double digits of May!"

A BIG POSTING . . .

I am not even sure where to begin or what an appropriate title would be for this whole posting. It has been a crazy 30 hours or so. Josh was able to sign-on to IM on Sunday morning, so we were able to catch up. To sum it up, he was "having a day," which is to be expected. Somehow though, even in his venting, he appears quite entertaining.

And to add to another milestone, Josh left the States one month ago today!! Woohoo - a great reason to celebrate Cinco de Mayo!

The following is an e-mail that Josh sent to the teachers at Barry on Tuesday morning (Afghanistan time) . . .


Greetings from the wild world of Afghanistan! Is it June yet? I can't believe it is already May. I am sure you all feel a little different. I look forward to June too, because it is one more month down.


I continue to drive all over Afghanistan.


I chose to think of the FOB as a college campus. You haveyour P/X similar to a bookstore complete with over priced paraphenalia. There is a gym. A lot of people go to the gym, but just like a lot of gyms, people go to be seen and not really be seen doing anything. I am following several interesting relationships in the gym. I get a little bored and a little nosy. It is a bit like Days of Our Lives in the gym. There is the dining hall just like a college's dining hall. They are both alike in that they serve up some wicked interesting dishes. Although this dining hall is a step up from my college's dining hall. My school in Virginia had a contract with a food service agency whoseonly other client was the Virginia State Correctional Facility System. So, the dining hall at Camp Phoenix is a huge step up for me. Then there is the housing, just like dorms. I once again am sharing a bathroom with lots of people who don't clean up after themselves. hahaha. Darci would probably say the same thing about sharing a bathroom with me. haha


Speaking of housing, this was a big week for me. We finally moved into our perm. party housing. I have an 8x8 cubicle space that is all mine to live in. It honestly is a piece of heaven. After months of living in tents with cots and open bays with bunk beds, it was amazing to walk into a semi-private partitioned space of plywood and know that it was all yours. It even has a make shift towel rack and someone built cubbies that I can store things in. Honestly, everytime I walk into it, the heavens open and light shines down and angels sing AHHHHH! You may think it is silly, but seriously it is the best corner of the world right now.


Of course, it needed a little cleaning before move in. The previous owner thought it was cool to add texture to the wall by blowing and wiping his boogers on the wall. Who am I to judge. I know, gross, but I never said Afghanistan was going to be pretty. However, being the Kindergarten teacher I am, this did not really phase me. I just pretended a five year old did it then I busted out a bottle of windshield washer fluid from the humvee (didn't have anything else) and went to town. A half hour later and some hand sanitizer, I was set. When you take daily malaria pills, you don'treally worry what you might catch from boogers. haha.


Time is going bypretty quickly. Getting out... I wish we got to talk and get to know more of the people here. So many times as we are moving about, we get thumbs up and big toothy grins from the kids. The other day, I did get the finger from a little guy. Well, what are you going to do. You can not make everybody happy, and if the worse I get from him is the finger, well big deal.


I am getting to be a bit of a mechanic... okay that is a lie, but I am getting to know the mechanics really well. A humvee is going for about a 130,000 dollars a pop, and it is the most delicatething I have ever encountered. So far, I have replaced both front and back brakes, a mirror, a ventvalve line (which I though was a brake line and got a real good bellylaugh from the head mechanic when I told him I tore a brake line), three tires, two head lights, one tail light, a turret, a parking brake handle, a leaky A/C, and the thing only has 15,000 miles on it.

I told Darci (I experienced) one of the proudest moments I have ever had in the Army. It was something small, but it just was a great example of joes helping joes.

In the US, I would consider my humvee a big lemon, but it kind of becomes like a pet or a piece of you. I kind of talk to it like Herbie. In a sea of parked humvees, I can find mine immediately, mainly because it needs a new suspension kit and it sags in the back. ha. We go up a lot of steep hills, and narrow streets withmassive drop offs, and just plain craziness. Often times, I tell the truck "Come on, you can do it, stay true." Most of the time I say it my head, but sometimes it comes out. We all wear Britney Spears headsets in the truck, so we can hear each other. I caught myself talking out loud, and everyone else was saying what are you saying.


Another bad habit I have while driving in stressful conditions is humming, but I have pretty much been able to curb that habit with some corrective action. That is the Army's way of saying what we would call re-directing. Only, sometimes corrective action involves a bit of yelling. haha. It is all in good fun though. Our team gets along great, I think. haha.


Well, it is past my bedtime. I hope I haven't bored you all. I am looking forward to seeing you all soon. Take care of each other. -- Josh