The Road Trip

FOBbit. In the rear with the gear. FOB rat. These are terms that no long apply to me!!!! I made my first trip off the FOB on Tuesday, July 1, 2007. You have no idea how excited I was to get to experience that. It was still office work in the end, but it was worth it. I rode with some CRAZY Marine Reservists from TX to International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF, I am not typing that out again so remember it) headquarters to pick up the wonderful and coveted NATO Medal. This medal is given to every service member who is here for 30 days or more. I have to go and pick about 1000 of these. I was crammed into a Toyota Landcruiser with three other people and 12 boxes of medals and certificates. It was an easy ride all except for the insane driving. Imagine the bumpiest back road that you know, now go about 50-70 MPH depending on how big the pothole you are approaching. Some of the road was even dirt and sand it did not slow them down. I know we have to go fast to deter the enemy from wasting an IED to blow us up, but it got hairy at times with the speed and people walking out in front of you on a constant basis. Speaking of IED and enemy, I found out I was on the second most deadly road in the country. We had NO issues, but it caused a hightened sense of awareness of what was going on around you. I took a few pictures of the trip and here are what I think are the worthy ones. The one of me is when I was waiting on my ride. Notice the camera case I rigged to my gear so I would have fast and easy access. I also included a picture of the country side I took while flying down road and got lucky on the shot. Notice the tents in the picture. We saw several areas like this and it reminded me of Kuwait and Iraq. The actual city of Kabul reminded me a lot of Iraq also. On the way back they got a call that there was fire fight about 20-30 minutes behind us and they wanted to go to it to make sure no assistance was needed and the Air Force female that was with us got really scared and almost started crying because she did not want to go. They made sure no assistance was needed and we continued on back to Bagram. I got a little excited and hyped up there for a minute just to have to calm back down. Maybe it was good thing.

Well, work is changing again. I am sure you have heard about the Navy female in my office and the.....well.......lets just say I am glad I was not on her shift and irritated I am now. My schedule is changing again on Saturday. I am back to normal work hours for now. I will be working 9am to 630pm for now. I loose a lot days off, but the shorter hours will make it easier for me to keep up with my classes. I am actually behind this week so far and will be spending most of my day reading and studying. The moving of shifts actually made me feel good when I was told why. Due to the high demand put on the awards section, that is me, I am going to work the same shift as my boss to help eleviate a lot of work off of him.

My little secret I have to keep for now is really going great and I hope it stays that way!! I actually got a few emails inquiring about it and let the secret out. Hopefully soon I will be able to divulge the secret and explain why it is kept secret right now.

I am waiting on authorization to post pictures of what my job is all about on here. I have a few picture given to me of the Commanding General pinning a Purple Heart on a wounded soldier in the hospital and what happened to him. Of course I will not give his name, but you will enjoy it. It brought a tear to my eyes when I saw the pictures.

My mom wanted me to elaborate little more on the little things in life that you do not understand we are giving up. I wanted to do a separate blog for that, but I am lazy and never have any time to get on here recently. Hopefully that is going to change with me going back to the other schedule. Tomorrow I want you think about everything you do and wonder if we have the luxuries you do. I will get into this more tomorrow.

Tomorrow expect a special post in regards to what it is and what it means to all of us and should mean to you!!