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."