Ups & Downs

This past week has been a real bummer. I’d been so tired and stressed and I couldn’t really figure out why. Then we had a nice little rocket attack on Christmas Day after we had finished flying for the day, it killed one of our guys. Then the following day we had another rocket attack that nailed the laundry pretty good. Then last night we had another rocket attack that almost took out most of our senior leadership and interrupted me as I was taking a tough test for my engine rebuilding class at the end of an 18 hour day with about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. It was freezing in that maintenance shop!

My Christmas Day mission out to the mountains

I told my boss I was going to sleep in today though so he covered for me out on the flightline. A little extra sleep went a long way.

And now it is 2107 local time in Kandahar on New Year’s Eve 2010. Looking back on the past year I can only agree with the Grateful Dead on ‘what a long, strange trip it’s been.’

Holding a crashed airplane in my palm during the freezing dawn

The past 12 months have been quite a rush of new experiences. I have been so scared at times that I thought I’d digest my shorts backwards due to the pucker factor, I’ve laughed until my head ached or I blew a snot-bubble (I had a cold), I’ve mourned and cried for those who have been called home early, I’ve stressed and screamed and thrown rocks at camels, and I’ve secretly fallen in love with probably 100 beautiful girls that I’ve seen in line at the DFAC or the PX that I'll never get the chance to talk to or see again. In spite of the idiots and evil in the world and in light of all that is wonderful and beautiful, from hot girls with pretty smiles to cute kittens to rugged mountain ranges and gnarly stormy weather, I have to say that it is most definitely a wonderful time to be alive and experiencing life.

Gnarly weather in Kandahar

Looking back on everything this past year, I can’t help but be overwhelmed with gratitude for the impeccable wisdom and benevolence of my Father in Heaven. There is no way I can take credit for the opportunities for growth and learning that have been presented to me. Its one thing to have a lucky break or two, it’s quite another to lead a seemingly charmed life filled with the ongoing fulfillment of prophetic blessings received by way of the Priesthood. I don’t know why it is that some folks with so much more faithful than me have to stumble through life struggling with uncertainty and doubt as to what they should be doing while I seem to be bowling with bumpers in life. It’s not that I know where I’m heading but my pathway seems pretty well defined because even with all of the mistakes and stupid decisions that I make, I still seem to be taken care of.

This thought is both comforting and a bit disconcerting when I consider the old adage that God watches out for drunks and fools. I’m no drunk. 2011 for me will be the year of discovery. My goals for the year are not the usual token resolutions to go to the gym or finally take over the world. This year I’m going to try as hard as I can to develop and exercise my self control, to be as obedient and faithful as I can be, and to put to the test the irrevocable law that every blessing received is a result of some measure of obedience. If it turns out I’ve been enjoying a fool’s protection, well I remember what happened when my parents took the training wheels off of my bike here in mortality. I wonder what the spiritual equivalent of road rash and getting hit by lots of cars is haha. I’m both frightened and eager to see what kind of blessings that a faithful Pete will warrant.

So, for 2010, if I offended you, hurt your feelings, ignored you, punched you, yelled at you, threw a rock at you, dropped angry notes out the window as I flew over your village, didn’t say hello to you, or forgot about you, I’m sorry. My conscience has always been extraordinarily strong; my Jiminy Cricket is hopped up on steroids and energy drinks 24/7 and has the memory worthy of a Jeopardy champion. I will do better this year!

To my friends, my family, my coworkers, and the odd strangers that read this and write me, thank you for your support. Oftentimes when I come back after a stressful day, it’s so nice to see a note in my inbox from someone who just wanted to say hello and remind me that I’m remembered. In a mushy kinda way, that stuff really makes my day.

Goodbye 2010, you’ve been wonderful to me and I will miss you.

Pete's favorite classy tunes

Now this is music...I want to be this dude when I grow up.

I am very glad, because I'm finally returning back home (Trololo) @ Yahoo! Video

My best Christmas memories were the ones when I was a little kid with my siblings and my parents would get dinner all set up and then we'd get all dressed up in our cold weather gear and head outside for some hardcore playtime because we'd have all of each of the playgrounds in my village to ourselves. There's just something so satisfying about running around and playing so hard that you can hardly breathe, especially on a crisp winter night.

I've gotta say I'm not the biggest Christmas fan. I appreciate a few pretty lights when I go for a walk outside, the idea of a thoughtful gift for a true friend, and most of all, a quiet evening nap on the couch or carpet with the flames from the fireplace casting flickering shadows throughout the dark room. That's my idea of a perfect Christmas.

On the topic of Christmas I read an article in the Stars & Stripes by the Catholic bishop Utah urging some serious restraint on the "holiday spirit". Couldn't agree more:

Here's the link to the original article



In other news, we're due for a brown Christmas this year here in Kandahar. One of those lumbering dust storms brewed up over in Iran and rolled across western Afghanistan last night and today and is expected to shut us down for a few days due to poor visibility. It sucks from an operational standpoint but will be a welcome break from the busy routine of flying. A few hours of sleeping in is definitely in order!

Reality rocks

The military is huge on education for its people, soldiers and civilians, even in a war zone and a number of schools specialize in bringing the classroom to the field. Central Texas College and the University of Maryland are a few. Recently just for kicks I signed up for a class on rebuilding engines. Cars have always been an interesting hobby for me but having spent most of my childhood running barefoot through the forest instead of under a hood, there is a lot I still have to learn. The class is held in a creaky old workshop, a ramshackle building made from 2x4’s with corrugated steel walls and ceilings full of shrapnel holes. It is stuffed with loads of odd mechanical pieces long forgotten by the military who used the building as a maintenance facility. Picture a war-time version of an old barn full of junk. Awesome.

Not too long ago as I was sitting in the class listening to the cold winter wind whistle through the holes and the wood creaking overhead, my day kind of flashed through my mind. It started with a 0400 wakeup soon followed by a 2.5 hour flight in our rugged old MI-8 choppers across the fabled Registan desert (otherwise known as the “red desert”) and continued with the 2 hour struggle with some Sri Lankans to try to get our choppers fueled. An emergency medical evacuation, blowing dust storms, an angry idiot or two, then the long flight back home where we arrived just in time for the briefing for the following day’s mission. All of this was accomplished to a diverse soundtrack of excellent flying music. Then it was off to the famous Kandahar Boardwalk that I helped build years ago, for some pizza because we missed lunch. Then it was a race back to my compound to grab my books and tools and head off to class. The instructor has a loaded weapon on his thigh, there are weapons and grenade launchers lying all over the place, we’re tearing apart engines. Then we took a break for dinner and I walked over and signed my name to a sheet of paper and walked in for a free meal of rice and curry and orange juice. I sat down next to and talked to some really nice girls with guns (female soldiers actually, girls nonetheless) and then it was back to engines. How lucky am I??? Guns, cars, helicopters, girls, amazing scenery, and ridiculous money for a single guy. Life is just plain awesome sometimes.

Haha tomorrow I’ll probably be back to being Mr. Grumpus dreaming of a normal life. That’s the thing I’ve realized about extraordinary circumstance, it isn’t supposed to be permanent. Ordinary is the only way to go in the long run. So as much as I love all of this, someday I’m gonna have to move on.

*sigh*

True story...

Sometimes I wonder about myself when I find certain things amusing. I wonder if I am becoming too jaded or callous towards others. I am not the kind of guy who delights in the misery of others nor have I ever had the desire to deliberately hurt anyone's feelings. My offenses towards the sensitivities of others (and unfortunately there have been many) are usually a result of my own clumsy sense of timing, the unique ability to say just the wrong word at the right time. Sometimes I simply laugh at the wrong moments.

For example, during today's mission something happened that no doubt was an experience that one man would rather forget but we couldn't help but laugh about it and the more we shared it, the funnier it seemed to get. At work, our helicopters always operate in pairs so in the event that one aircraft gets shot down or whatever, the other bird is immediately available to attempt self-rescue. So I was in charge of one aircraft and one of my newer guys, Scott, was in the other. About midway through the day we landed at a site that seems to be populated largely by idiots. We picked up about 10 idiots and headed on to the next site, a place I've always enjoyed flying into called Wolverine. Scott told me later that as we were making our final approach into the LZ, one of his passengers came up to him and said he really had to go to the bathroom. While anywhere else this would be a perfectly reasonable request, on a screaming helicopter crowded full of other people and bulky cargo, it doesn't seem so reasonable.

Scott gave the stock answer..."NO! Now sit down, shut up, and hold it until we get back to Kandahar!"

This passenger was desperate and kept asking and asking so finally Scott relented and as soon as they touched down (they landed first), over the sound of screaming engines and beating rotors Scott directed him over to one of the nearby Hescoe barrier walls to take care of his business. You never want your passengers off wandering around because like with anything aviation oriented, passengers leave their common sense at home. More than once we've had idiots wander off the aircraft in a chaotic situation and get left behind with us never noticing the discrepancy in the manifest until we were back at the base already. The explanation is usually something along the lines of, "Well they never stopped me from wandering off..."

So after Scott made it clear that this guy was to hurry and wasn't to wander away, the guy hustled off but instead of stopping where he was directed, he appeared to be headed off to parts unknown. Poor Scott was trying to manage the rest of his monkeys (passengers) and their gear and yelled at the top of his lungs for the guy to stop right there and go to the bathroom. The guy kinda looked at him as if to say, "are you sure?" but got a very angry look and some hurry-the-hell-up gestures from a frantically busy Scott. So he drops his pants right there in the LZ and takes a crap. I imagine if pressed for an explanation, it would have gone something along the lines of, "Well he never asked me if I had to go #1 or #2..."

All of this is happening over the roar of turbine engines and rotors and there were people running around carry boxes and bags. Our landings are always reminiscent of some sort of redneck/Indian/Pakistani refugee movie that has never been made. I had just finished loading and unloading all of my cargo and pax and I was walking over to see how Scott was doing. I came over and kinda said, "Hey so how're...." and he turned around with a look that said he wanted to kill something. It was just as he was turning around that I noticed what appeared to be but just couldn't be a guy crapping out there in the wind. I stopped and with a quick "....Well, Scott, you're looking alright here....*turns around*....lemme get going back to my bird." I was off.

Of course when we arrived Scott related the whole story for the benefit of everyone in our little terminal. We relived the moment again during the long drive home and once again in our evening briefing with the whole aviation department. Everyone laughed it up. I couldn't help but feel just a little bit guilty though. Was it so wrong to laugh at this guy? I'm somewhat torn between sympathy for the guy and a sense of professional loathing. I used to see the same thing when I worked at the airlines. People would wait upstairs for hours in a lounge with nice, comfy, spacious bathrooms but would wait until they got their asses on a little bitty plane full of people and then they'd all suddenly have to go to the bathroom. The same goes for this guy. He had been out at his LZ for an hour waiting for his ride and there are even porta-John's at the LZ. I think in this matter my sympathy is outweighed by my prejudice towards people of the non-thinking persuasion.

And so passed the 2nd day of the 12th month of the year 2010 in the world of Peter.

Pete from the sky!

My world in 2d



So here I am. 5,000 feet over a crazy little town called Lashkar Gah in an old Russian helicopter. Today was kind of a chaotic day and everyone’s planning went to hell so I find myself all alone in the back of the chopper with no pax or cargo. I love flights like this. I open up all the windows and throw paper airplanes out of them and I hang out the doors and windows catching that 150 mph wind and get a taste of the rush that dogs must feel when they stick their heads out the window of a car. After I used up all my paper and got all winded out, I remembered that I had my laptop with me today. So here I am, watching the sunset over the Helmand river valley in Afghanistan. Life is great.

In other news, the fun-filled adventuresome highway of bachelorhood just got a bit less crowded with the announcement this month by two of my friends that they are getting engaged...to different girls, not each other. The parallel track for bachelorettes also took a significant and unexpected hit with one of my friends who has always been something of a cynic when it comes to marriage and relationships. She met a good man who has worked hard to impress her and her outlook on life has changed completely and I have little doubt that wedding bells will soon be tolling for her as well. It seems that good things come in bunches; kittens, chocolates, flowers, and friends selling out haha.

But as exciting as these events are, more to them than to me haha, they serve to remind me of both my age and the depressing passage of time in a place like this. I absolutely love the adventure here, the excitement, even the fact that almost all the girls are armed! But at the same time I am kind of getting that itch to go home and hang out with normal people that aren’t carrying automatic weapons. I miss my own bed, my own shower, and being able to get in my car or truck and just go!

Ah but listen to me, prattling on like I’ve got a ticking womb or a withering ring finger. I’ll be home soon enough but I know that this beautifully rugged country has left an indelible impression on my heart and soul. I’ve spent so much time here I daresay that in a way, I’ve learned to love this place. But it’s not where I belong in the long-term. So now I just need to go to Sweden and find a pretty blonde named Josephine, or a beautiful brunette from Germany named Nadine, or a pretty Texan named Melanie, or a...whatever. Then I’ll just kick back and get old.

On a final note, I have this feeling that something big is on the horizon for me. I’m not sure what it is but I do have a few things I’ve been working on so if anyone has a couple of spare fingers, keep them crossed for me. Oooh the anticipation! And I’m also planning my next R&R. I’m not really interested in doing the whole 13 months straight here thing again so I’m shooting for January or February. This time it’s gonna be all about good times. Snow camping, snowboarding, road trips...oooh the anticipation again!

Gloomy weather fanatic on life, vacation, and good women

Just before the dust storms and bad weather begins...

There is a chill in the air and I love it! Finally after a seemingly endless summer, the tingling sharpness of fall weather has arrived and I could not be happier about it. After a few chilly mornings marked by a biting east wind, today was the first real bit of autumn weather of the season and I have been beside myself with excitement all day. I woke up around 0300 to start my day and immediately felt the difference in the air as I stepped outside and walked through the rocks to the shower. And then as the dawn began creeping over the horizon I could see the dark, grey, gloomy clouds covering the whole sky and I got goosebumps and butterflies all at once.

The first flight of the day was pretty exciting for me, it was so awesome to be up skimming just below the clouds over the famous "Red Desert" that makes up the western portion of the Kandahar province. We landed at our destination and shut down for little while. I even got to talk to a pretty girl with a gun for a bit before we headed back. As we took off and headed back, the wind had kicked up so in addition to the low and ominous (but perfectly beautiful to my eyes) cloud ceiling there were thick clouds of dust rolling off of the landscape and turning the mountains into islands. The pilots opted to go low-level to keep the ground in sight and we skimmed along buzzing fields, camels, and little mud-hut villages until we got to back to our base. What a great morning!

We were delayed for a few hours due to the deteriorating weather but continued on with the day's work after the visibility climbed back up above minimums. What a great day all around.

I am also extremely happy to have my roommate back from his R&R. At the moment he is the only member of our original team besides myself still here. Everyone has quit or finished their contracts and gone home. Ever since I stepped off the plane from R&R I have been running a million MPH trying to manage training all of the new guys, ordering new equipment, flying every single mission every single day on top of all of the normal administrative tasks that I've taken on myself to accomplish for the shop. But now that my roommate is back I'll actually be able to stay on the ground for a day, perhaps even sleep in for a few hours someday, maybe even make it to Church! It's good to have a familiar face around and know that I can depend on someone without any worries.

So far October has seemingly gone by in the blink of an eye but at the same time my recent R&R feel like it was years ago.

I spent a wonderful month at home during September and I got to see my family and old friends, and even made a few new ones. All the blind-dates were interesting, especially where one girl proclaimed in an odd tone that if I were ever lucky enough to spend the night at her apartment, that I would wake up to her farting on my head. I have absolutely no idea what kind of vibe I was giving this girl that would inspire her to tempt me with such an offer but it most definitely was not intentional. During this R&R the lesson was reinforced in my mind that truly good girls are hard to find. I've been lucky enough to know a number of them over the past few years but dumb enough to let them all get away. Getting older and wiser is both harsh and fun.





My roommate Kendall and I killing time while on weather hold. Just sitting around drives me crazy sometimes.

Well my vacation is finally coming to a close. As good as it has been to be “home”, meaning with my folks, here in Denver, I find myself missing the place that I consider to be more of a home to me than anyplace else, Germany. I was going through a bunch of old pictures and just noting all of the small background details in the pictures started making me homesick. Things like blue autobahn signs, the unique little postkasten on my house, the architecture, pretty much everything.




Then I went down in Colorado Springs with my dad and we stopped at a little place that is extremely popular with my family called Weimburgers. Colorado Springs is a huge military community and of course military men collect wives from all over the planet so it has a sizable German population. In the 1970’s someone started a German-style grocery store there. They import all German items and have it decorated and arranged just like a traditional small-town Lebensmittelgeschäft. It’s complete with lots of old German ladies working behind the deli counter who gossip and carry on like the hens of the old country. Even the music helps to give it a very German atmosphere. As far as Colorado goes, it is probably as authentic a German experience as can be had. And after spending 13 months straight in Afghanistan and Iraq this time around, just being around the language and a few familiar articles brought back some pretty strong feelings.

At first I just walked over to one of the corners and stood for a few minutes and watched everyone bustling about. It was interesting to note the change in people’s demeanor as soon as they walked through the door; I could tell that I wasn’t the only one deriving a strange comfort from the familiar surroundings. As stupid as it sounds, I didn’t want to leave this little grocery store! Buuuut I was an hour away from home and I had a date with the girl working in my dentist’s office (whole ‘nuther story) and my dad had a date with my mom so I bought half a pound of pepper salami and a bag full of brotchens and my dad and I stuffed our faces all the way home.

Then last week I found a long-forgotten about Flickr account of mine, it had some pictures that I had completely forgotten about and others that I had simply been looking for. These are some of the things that I miss about Europe!

The scenery!



There are wonderful girls all over the world but in Europe they seemed to be just a bit more friendly and have fewer issues than most





I miss the weather. Fog and rain, rain and thunder, snow and ice, it all seemed better over there...


...ditto...


I miss the traditions



I miss being able to just walk out my front door and within minutes be fully involved in some new and exciting adventure.



I'll be back!

There are few things in life that make me feel more content than sleeping out under the stars. Been lucky a couple of times so far on my vacation!

Then I saw this article, it totally made me want to do more of it. Check it outhere.

Oh what a beautiful morning...

After a couple weeks of R&R here at home I decided that it’s about time to start getting onto something of a regular work-type schedule so I’m not all screwed up when I get back to my crazy Afghan life. So at lame ol’ 8:30 pm I was out like a rock and up at 04:00 with tons of energy for my workout.

Right next to my house is the old Rocky Mountain National Arsenal, right now it’s a massive wildlife refuge but back in the day it used to be where they built nukes or something like that. Not too long ago the city built a really nice jogging trail around it and that’s where I headed today just as the light of the day began to creep over the horizon. The altitude still makes running a pretty rough experience but as I got out on the trail, it was all worth it.

Last night there was a huge thunderstorm that came in over the Rockies to the west, most of it passed over the southern part of Denver but it was just stunning to watch the already beautiful Colorado sunset over the mountains framed by these massive dark blue-black thunderclouds. I haven’t seen real rain or lightning in a long time so naturally I was just beside myself with excitement.

The remains of the weather still hung in the sky this morning as I plodded along and then as I turned east on the trail, the sunrise lit up the clouds, so awesome. But then as I sat down on a bench for a few minutes to enjoy the view, I heard a car horn honking. Running past the trail is the road that leads to my part of the suburbs and all of the Denverites were cruising past on their way to their jobs and the honking was from a hot 30-something lady in a Lexus who blew me a kiss out the window. The other chicks driving behind her thought it was hilarious and all started honking along with her. I was just a little embarrassed and got up to start running again, as soon as I took a few steps I immediately regretted it and wished I had asked the lady for a ride instead of running the last mile back to my house.

It was a great way to start the day, now I’ve just got to figure out what to do with the rest of it.

Fettes Brot-Emanuela

So friggin awesome

Reason for unemployment: Facebook rage!

I’ve seen quite a few people break down where I work for a variety of reasons; stress, fear, relationship issues, depression, drugs or alcohol, the list goes on. I recently had the marvelous opportunity to witness the most ridiculous breakdown/freakout session ever! It was over of all things, Facebook withdrawal.

There has been a lot of turnover here as people finish up their contracts and head back so there are tons of new faces wandering around my camp. The housing on the camp consists of several different variations of 20’ conex containers converted into living quarters. It sounds ghetto…ok it is ghetto but after living in a tent for 4 years it’s like a mansion to me. Our rooms are all pre-wired for internet access on the company network but only people with a business justification or someone who has a friend in IT actually has the internet turned on in their room. I’ve got both.

For new guys here who are waiting for their assignments there isn’t a whole lot to do so they tend to gather in bunches outside and the conversations always seem to be about the same things; stupid rumors about the war here, how much better things would go if they were in charge, sex and hookers, and the typical BS war stories that you hear from guys who have never even been shot at, much less even left the wire.

I have zero patience for any of that anymore so I usually just ignore new people or old idiots but as I was walking to a meeting the other evening, I heard the distinctive high-pitched tones of a grown man on the verge of losing it so out of curiosity I walked closer to where a crowd of 5 or 10 people had spontaneously gathered to witness an adult tantrum.

It took me a few seconds to catch up with the guy’s rant but his rage seemed to be primary directed at another guy, probably a supervisor or manager, and he was hollering about how “None of my friends know what I’m doing…I have NO idea what’s going on back home…my LIFE is on Facebook, don’t you understand??? People are gonna be freakin’ out if I’m not on there! Do you know what this is like for me?!?” I kid you not, this was probably a 35-40 year old man doing this.

Then he turned to a couple of the little guys from India who had stopped to watch the big idiot American and he started yelling at them saying, “I BET YOU’VE GOT F**KIN’ INTERNET IN YOUR ROOM! That’s bulls**t!”

Then be addressed his complaints to the crowd in general, alternately lambasting them with the accusation that they all had internet in their room and then attempting to elicit their sympathy with a few “You know what I’m sayin’???” or “Are you with me on this??” comments.

His voice was shrill and he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. After a minute or two I was so disgusted that I just shook my head and walked away. I later heard the guy quit and went home.

I’ve been thinking about this all week. In addition to how stupid it is for a grown man to throw a hissy-fit like that over anything, the fact that it was over Facebook makes it that much worse. I imagine there were a few other contributing factors but for the nail in the coffin of quitting a $100,000 job to be no Facebook in your room is to me a perfect indicator of pathetic excess and shallowness.

I understand the merits of Facebook or Twitter, or even the dinosaur Myspace. Reconnecting with old friends is great and the sites can all be quite entertaining at times but it is real easy to get carried away in. I seldom use it but to me it is beginning to feel like the potential negative aspects outweigh the benefits, that friendships become more superficial as people content themselves with posting short little comments about every inane detail of their day and then neglect the more personal and meaningful acts of communication that build and sustain friendships such as actual personalized letters or emails.

Of all the things to contemplate...Facebook. I need this R&R haha.

Ah well, I’ve got a self-imposed 10 minute time limit on bitch sessions on the computer and my time is up.

I find things and people to idolize in the strangest places




This rat is a new hero to me!

I can barely wait for fall to get here. This summer has been the coolest (temperature-wise) that I’ve ever seen over here, even the locals are saying that they can’t remember the last time they had a summer like this and it’s just made me want the seasons to change that much sooner.

It started off with 3 weeks of dust storms that blotted out the sun from the sky which naturally dropped the temperature about 20 degrees while also covering everything with a thick layer of talcum-like dust. Then we caught the tail end of that awful storm system that’s been smashing neighboring Pakistan and China.
Normally a summer here is like spending a couple of months in an oven full of dust, and the sky is always perfectly clear, endless blue without a cloud in sight. Pretty, but you get sick of it after awhile. So in spite of the misery that this weather is causing elsewhere, I have been loving every minute of it.

I’m a total bad weather kinda guy, or if I can't get bad weather I'll just settle for something other than perfect. I get goosebumps when I see dark menacing clouds or hear the rumbling thunder and I get all kinds of excited when I hear the rain on the roof. I’m gonna be pissed if when this is all over, there aren’t any thunderstorms in Heaven.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was out east towards Pakistan at a FOB called Wolverine. It’s situated at the base of some small mountains that in spite of their size always seem to have some kind of weather happening. On this particular day I could actually see some rain clouds at elevation and there was a pretty strong 20 MPH wind gusting down from the mountains, and on the wind was the wonderful sweet scent of rain. That’s almost unheard of during the summer here so I perked up like a bloodhound. The pilots had idled the engines down as we were waiting on some stuff so I climbed up on the hesco wall that serves as the perimeter fence and spent about 5 awesome minutes loving the feeling of the cool, moist air blowing by. I guess that’s the Afghan equivalent of stopping to smell the roses.

Its moments like that that remind me a little bit of what home is like, both Germany and Colorado.

Speaking of home, I am definitely ready for this R&R. I wish I could stay for October as well but September isn’t a bad month at all. Just enough of the warm weather to enjoy myself at the lake and just enough chilly weather to appreciate a good campfire up in the mountains. So far on my agenda I’ve got a genealogy trip with my mom to Minnesota, a visit to one of my sisters and her new house in Provo, and building a new bathroom in my house. Other than that its camping, shooting, eating, sleeping, cooking, random road trips, flying...and getting my wisdom teeth pulled. Bah!

What a day!

I say that on those days that stand out from the blur of all the rest, but it seems that I am saying it more and more often.

The more trivial event of the day but the one that I enjoyed the most was getting to play with a little kitten. Pets are officially forbidden over here on base; dogs and cats are trapped and killed. Sometimes though, certain areas or organizations unofficially adopt a cat or two. I had a cat here several years ago that I inherited from some Air Force guys who saved it from a trap. They named it Shit-head and just like a dog will recognize its own name, Shit-head answered to that name and that name only.

I’m a guy who loves pets and I miss having a little furry something or another around to play with and take care of. Today as I was walking from my van to the laundry facility, I saw a pretty young Army captain seated on the bench outside of the self-serve laundry playing with a little kitten, he was about half grown. I don’t know what it is about Afghan cats but they are amazingly friendly and outgoing and this little guy was no exception. He was playfully batting the girl’s hands as she would sneak in and rub his belly. I had to sit down and steal some of the cat’s attention but the girl didn’t mind and we laughed and talked for a few minutes about the pets we have at home. It was good to have one of those normal human moments.

Another interesting thing happened when I was handed an envelope with about $60,000 in cash and told that someone would meet me when my chopper landed out at some faraway FOB. I just about gave the guy a heart attack when I feigned ignorance as to the whereabouts of his cash, but I didn’t have the heart to carry the joke too far. I remember the first time that happened to me back when I worked for my old company. I had a fairly respectable job title that entailed quite a bit of responsibility so one day as I was flying through Uzbekistan to come back from R&R they grabbed me and gave me $350,000 to carry back into the country. Quite a shock. One moment I was missing my girlfriend (at the time) and savoring the happy memory of a couple of weeks spent sleeping in and cruising around Germany and the next I’m paranoid and suspiciously eyeing everyone around me and checking my pack every 2 minutes to make sure it was still shut. Doesn’t happen too often anywhere else.

And finally, we were down to the final 2 legs of our mission of the day and we landed at a Marine base out in the middle o f nowhere called Delaram. I whipped out my new cell phone and called back to Kandahar to check in and my favorite ops girl told me that we were on hold because Kandahar was under another ground attack. Evidently a bunch of guys decided to kick off Ramadan with a bang and launched some more rockets and then bum-rushed the gate with some suicide bombers.

So we spent a couple of uneventful hours munching on our MRE's and baking in the sun under our birds as we waited for things to get cleaned up . Another thing pretty unique to the area here.

In other news, I’ve been working down my reading list on my Kindle, right now I’m reading The Count of Monte Cristo. I hadn’t read it since I was about 12 or 13, it is sooo good! I really liked the movie but the book has so much more that they just couldn’t put in there. More 2 sentence book reviews coming soon!

Behold by thine eye, for what bounty of laughter doth nature provide?

Give this picture a minute, just absorb it. This is a big damn bear stuck in a Toyota Corolla. I have trouble fitting in a Corolla.

The expression on this bear's face is priceless.




The story is found here found here<<--

Cheese...ugh, PIE PIE PIE

It was a dark and stormy night...actually it was a hot and dusty day, the day I was beaten and left for dead in the back of my helicopter...ok again, another exaggeration. But the other day as I was fooling around in the back of my chopper on the flight home for the day, I had a little accident and got smashed in the mouth with a big chunk of metal. After I got over that nauseating bright-flash feeling and noticed the unique “taste” that a sharp blow to the head brings to my taste buds, I felt all of the bits and pieces of shattered teeth in my mouth. Not cool!

I’ve punched plenty of others and been punched in the face a number of times on account of my being a friendly guy when I was younger, I credit those experiences for why I didn’t immediately act on my first instinct to spit all of the blood and pieces of teeth out on the dirty chopper floor. Instead, using my tongue I worked all of the pieces I could feel until they were tucked between my lip and my bum, and then spent the next 45 minutes or so feeling miserable and spitting blood into a plastic water bottle. I dumped the half-bottle of bloody mess out somewhere over the fabled old toilet of a town called Lashkar Gah.

But the story has a happy ending, one that gives me yet another reason to be grateful for the age that we all live in and my access to quality health care. I headed down to the dental clinic which is located in what outwardly appears to be a pathetic little sagging GP-medium tent. Inside, the young sergeant insisted that I had to be in real pain in order to be treated. After assuring her that I was indeed hurting, she went back and got the doc and within an hour or so, he had cemented all of the pieces together and stuck them back where they belong and I’m as good as new.

Now I’ve just got to get x-rayed once a year to make sure everything is still solid.

I’m a guy who loves to smile and laugh, it was just so weird for the short while that I was banged up to be so self conscious about either smiling or laughing. I guess for the sake of this painful little story having a moral, develop a bad attitude about work so that you won’t smile and expose your teeth so they can get knocked out.

True Story

Radio: Hey homegirl, where are you?

Me: Over here

Radio: Where?

Me: In the dirt

Radio: *click*.........Oh hey, I see you now!

Me: Yup

Radio: So...what're you doing way out there?

Me: Playing

Radio: Say again?

Me: Playing!

Radio: *click*........Well are you having fun?

Me: Lovin' it!

Radio: *click*........You're an idiot, dude

Kickin back in the dirt capitol of the world

It’s been another interesting week. I’m currently hanging out at a dusty base out in the Helmand called FOB Dwyer. Somebody had to go home on emergency leave and we’re already short from everyone going on R&R so I came down to cover for a few days but I just got word that I’m here for the next week or so. I’m enjoying it though; it reminds me a lot of what Kandahar used to be like before it got all huge. One of the big things is that the base is located out in the absolute middle of nowhere so there is virtually zero light pollution except for a few light carts scattered around the base.

I stepped outside with the sat phone to make some calls at about 0300 this morning and I looked up and saw a million stars tinkling in the sky. It’s been awhile since I’ve been somewhere and been able to see that, it never gets old. I started trying to remember the last time I really saw stars and I think it was on my last R&R in September when I went camping. That got me all excited about my up and coming R&R.

I always get myself all worked up about all the awesome stuff I wanna do but I always end up doing something totally different or going someplace I hadn’t planned on. It’s all fun though but this time I’m gonna embrace that a bit more and not make any plans other than making it to a movie theater a few times (long story) and getting some medical stuff done. And I’m definitely coming up to the lake and spending some quality time on the water, and maybe even climb a tree or two.

As for life here, it goes on. We recently completed an airlift of about 500 guys from mostly India and Kenya. They flew them into one base with a runway and we loaded them up on our choppers from there and hauled them to this base. Talk about a mind-trip for these guys, straight from India to a super busy airbase in Afghanistan, then herded through an assembly-line process with hundreds of other guys, issued flak-jackets and Kevlar helmets, and then tossed on one of the noisiest choppers out there with grumpy ol’ me babysitting.

It was kind of a grueling process; back and forth back and forth back and forth all day long but it did have its highlights. From altitude, blowing dust looks a lot like fog and in the pre-dawn light, the river valley looked absolutely enchanting. Like Arabian Nights meets a Scottish moor...HA! I just made an ethnic pun.

Another moment was my supervisor Larry being his hilariously charming self and mooning me in the chopper as we took off.



Notice the two Russian guys laughing and the huddled mass of confused Indian guys holding onto their luggage to keep it from blowing away as the chopper takes off. With the engines roaring and the rotor-wash blowing stuff everywhere, it's a crazy chaotic environment. I wonder what's going through their heads as they see Larry..."WTF did I just sign up for? What is this white guy doing? Should I be doing that? Is my refrigerator walking?....."

The relevancy of ancient sentiments

...blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land.

The evils of air and wisdom

There are times where I am so grateful to be an American born to intelligent and open-minded parents, raised to believe in reason and human decency, free from silly superstitions and crippling notions of class and identity.

One of the funnier superstitions that still drives me crazy but also makes me laugh is the belief shared by almost all of the guys from the Balkans that strong blowing wind is bad for you, especially if it cools you down. Ride in a car with a Bosnian and roll his window down and watch him squirm and beg for you to roll it up. They swear up and down that it screws up their muscles, that their necks won't work, or that their joints lock up and they get sick because of the air blowing across their skin. These guys would rather ride in a 120 degree sauna of a chopper with no moving air than have to deal with an open window, its friggin ridiculous.

Today I had 4 guys from Macedonia that flew out with us to a place near the Iranian border and we hadn't been in the air for 5 minutes before they were making these awful faces and furiously motioning to each other to try to get me to shut the window. I've been dealing with this all summer so I raised my hand up and indicated that the window would stay open. The guy nearest the window commenced with what we now call the Balkan shuffle. It consists of wildly exaggerated grimacing to indicate their discomfort and then if that doesn't elicit any sympathy they all start pretending to shiver and rub their arms and necks with pained expressions as if their muscles ache and they're freezing to death. All of this is done with them all looking straight at me so that I'll notice how uncomfortable they are. It doesn't matter if it's blazing hot outside and even hotter inside and I just loaded a ton of cargo by myself in 10 minutes and am completely soaked in sweat, all these guys can think about is getting the stupid window shut.

I used to tell the Bosnians and Macedonians that worked for me that I have driven for tens-of-thousands of miles all across both Europe and the U.S. and Iraq with the window down and I have never suffered ANY ill effects of this. They immediately cite an uncle or cousin who was crippled for life because they were foolish enough to try it. It's the same thing when I ask why they don't quit smoking if it's been proven to be bad for you. They all name some uncle or grandfather who lived to be 100 years old and smoked from the cradle to the grave or some similarly stupid lie. The men all swear that without drinking coffee every day that my heart will get weaker and my virility and ability to please a woman will suffer as a result. For some reason I seriously doubt that'll be a problem.

As stupid as it all sounds, these folks are dead serious about it, it's enough to drive me crazy sometimes.

I remember when I was a boy in Germany we used to roam for miles through the forests and countryside barefoot, it was wonderful! Some of the older German folks would take my mom aside and explain to her how neglectful she was being as a mother in letting us do that. Some of the German kids would call us "Ohne Shuhe Ami", it was a cultural thing and none of us understood it. It wasn't until I started reading accounts of how horrible things were for Germany after WWII that I began to understand why the old folks thought the way they did. Another German myth that a lot of folks believed was that you would get sick you drank water and ate an apple at the same time, or that bread hot out of the oven was poisonous.

Another very disturbing idea that I just can't understand is the Indian caste system. There are thousands of Indian subcontract workers here it is incredibly frustrating to have to deal with them and their cultural issues.

One of my friends here is from India, a very pretty and well educated girl who ran away to escape a forced marriage and ended up working for a NATO company here. One quiet evening as we sat and talked I asked her why all of the guys from her country that I see here are so clueless about everything. She started explaining to me about castes and how rigidly the system is enforced socially, basically most of the guys here are from the lower castes and are raised believing that this is what they are and that they will never be anything else. Theirs is a world of shame or even honor killings for attempting to improve one's lot in life beyond what is acceptable for their caste level. The result is a lot of guys who can't and have absolutely no desire to be able to manage anything but the most basic directions, even in their native languages, and who for the most part are hard-working but lack any initiative to do anything except that which is explicitly required of them. Of course there are plenty of brilliant Indians but for every one of them there is probably a thousand poor victims living in a world of enforced ignorance.

Ah well, enough of my ranting for the day...

Once again it's Sunday and I have been really looking forward to this one. It hasn't been a really bad week, it was just kinda blah. After getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning everyday, it is always a treat to sleep in for that extra hour or two on Sundays.

Sundays are great for sleeping but Church was better. It's exciting to me to see the number of LDS members over here. When I first came to Kandahar in 2004 there were usually about 7 or 8 of us and we met in a bullet-riddled mud brick building with most of the roof blown away. Through 2005, 2006, and 2007, attendance was usually between 10-20 people. I left to Iraq for 18 months or so and now that I'm back, the Servicemen's Group is larger than my singles branch back in Denver.

I've been seeing it for going on 7 years but I always have to marvel at the sight of somebody with a machine gun blessing or passing the sacrament, or the mother of four conducting the music in uniform with a 9mm strapped to her thigh. With often amateurish musical ability accompanied by jet engine afterburners and helicopters buzzing the chapel, and under the leadership of men more accustomed to leading soldiers into battle, sacrament meeting is what has been tearfully described again and again by soldiers and civilians alike in testimonies as one of the most intense spiritual experiences ever. I wish everyone could see it a time or two. It is so unique that you never look at a traditional Sunday service in the same way again. I'm glad I was here, and I'm glad I went to church!

'N stuff

I emptied out my camera today, it had a million pictures on there that I had totally forgotten about. Meet Carlos the Navy SEAL dog, and a rainstorm.


One of those random late spring showers here, I was trying to drive and snap pictures of lightning at the same time.



Carlos, such an awesome dog!

Life is, or I should say, my life, is often thrown off a bit from the path that I want or need to follow, the path that all signs say I should follow. Sometimes it seems that an unseen little organ grinder monkey is doing back-flips on my shoulder as its distracting little monkey screams sow doubt and hampers my confidence....but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Even here in desert there are some beautiful girls, both military and civilian. There are all types from all walks of life and from a million different countries and cultures, this place is an amazing melting pot. But when I see a beautiful girl somewhere, and she notices me, and then a few days later it happens again, and then a few days later AGAIN, the rusty wheels in my mind start to creak and slowly move until all of a sudden it clicks that maybe all of the eye contact made between us from across the chow hall or walking through the PX, it might just mean that she's interested in me.

Then the instincts start coming back. It sounds retarded but stay here long enough and maintain your standards, and you'll discover that one of the acute side effects is that you forget a lot of the normal rules of socializing with the opposite sex, the instincts get rusty and always kick too late thanks to the constant vigil of trying to maintain a professional bearing. Sometimes a girl will ask me why I address her as ma'am when she's amazingly cute and only 21. "Because you're carrying a machine gun, ma'am." Or a few years ago when a beautiful young captain spoke a few words that completely turned me on, I kid you not it went something like "...I need to move 6,000 lbs of C-4 and blasting caps up north, I spoke with your boss and he said that you're mine for the night..." Professional Pete. I hated me the next day, I prepped and moved three tons of plastic explosives on short notice for the hottest Army captain on Kandahar and instead of a phone number or her email address, I got an attaboy from my boss and another coin from some colonel to add to my collection.

But back to this beautiful girl. So Kandahar is a pretty big base, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20K+ folks but there is a lot of turnover as people come and go from all over this part of the country. But it's still a bit like a small town in that you see a lot of the same people around. I noticed this girl in a few different places and then she started noticing me. I saw her in the DFAC a couple of times and caught a hard time from some guys I was eating with for looking at her too much, but she was looking at me just as hard.

And then! I agreed to fly a mission for a sick coworker of mine, and as I'm sitting out at our little pax terminal at 4-something in the morning, I see my little Ms. Fantasy Girl come walking off the bus toting all of her lovely lady luggage. AND THEN! She's slated to fly on my bird!

So what does dumbass Pete do? I did everything BUT look at her the entire flight. I spent 3 hours before she got off talking about stupid sports stuff with one guy, critiquing movies with another, pretending to read a book, looking out the window, and trying to act like I was dozing off behind my sunglasses. So finally we land at her base and everyone is standing up in the chopper and trying to grab their luggage from under the net as the engines and rotors are screaming. As she comes down the stairs, I reached up and helped her with her bags and she looked at me with a slightly confused and disgusted look as over all the noise I stammer, "Hey....um....so have fun and don't work too hard! We'll see you in 4 months when we get you for R&R!" Her eyes were even more beautiful up close!

And it was only then as I see her walking away that I suddenly notice the friggin monkey on my shoulder laughing his furry ass off as it all suddenly hit me what an idiot I am. Let me ignore the pretty girl who's been smiling at me all week, let me try to act all macho doing whatever stupid Pete thing I was doing and just let her sit there and then walk off...sometimes I hate this place and all of the excuses that I make for myself here haha.

I wonder if dogs have any idea how hilarious they are...

Gone shoppin'

My latest spending binge was for $33.44, including shipping, and it was spent on this:




An ergonomic memory foam butt-pad. Oh happy day!

Off all the things to talk about, butts and sore butts is kinda out there but it's the internet so whatever. I had another long flight out west today and I dunno what it is but I just can't get comfortable on these cheap communist bench seats in our choppers anymore. Communist, no kidding, all of our birds pre-date the end of the Cold War. I flew about 8 hours out west and back again and while I got a lot of reading done on my Kindle while flying, after the first 3 or 4 hours I was getting pretty uncomfortable. I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon shifting positions, leaning forward, bracing against the bulkhead; all of my pax probably thought I was one of those twitchy guys who just can't sit still. I can't wait until I get this thing in the mail. It's funny the things that we get excited about as adults, how long will it be before I'm into tapioca pudding and playing bingo?

But the real reason I sat down here was to send my best wishes to one of my dearest friends. To the girl with the perfect body, beautiful smile, and the only person that I've ever seen make food poisoning look graceful; Happy Birthday, Jessi! Ich habe etwas besonderas fur sie, chica!

Random

Sunday's are usually pretty slow around here with no flying being done so I spent most of the morning catching up on my reading, emails, and of course, wasting a bit of time on the net. I was reading an article about a North Korean immigrant was struggling to adjust to life outside of the prison camp that he was born and raised into and I pulled up a Google search on life in North Korea and spent the next few hours reading one heart-breaking story after another.

Sometimes it's easy to forget how good I have it in life while at this very same moment as I sit in front of my own computer, with an A/C unit running and a full belly, millions of poor souls a few thousand miles away are desperately eking out a pathetic existence with no concept of the outside world other than what their Glorious Leader wants them to hear. Reading about the country is both tragic and comical at the same time. Ideas and beliefs that even the most naive of Americans, except perhaps a few from the People's Republic of Boulder in Colorado or Berkeley, would dismiss as insane are perceived as absolute truth when put forth by the Government. Eye-opening for sure.

On a related note, I recently received as a birthday present from my mom "The Imperial Cruise" by James Bradley, the same author who wrote "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Flyboys". In his search for what lead up to the events of WWII on Iwo Jima that killed so many Americans and affected his father so greatly, he explores the influence of Teddy Roosevelt (never liked the guy anyway) and his cronies on politics and wars of the 20th century. Could it be possible that in a roundabout way, America shares a significant portion of the burden for the current state of the two Koreas, and with it, the misery of the North? He definitely makes a strong case for it, though that was hardly the point of the book.

As for today, everything that I do; church, reading, talking to friends and family, will be done with the almost subconscious awareness that the freedom by which I act is definitely not a given.

And so I turn back to my music and my new book; some Michelle Branch song and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War on my Kindle. It is most definitely good to be an American.

Below are some good links detailing North Korea's ideas on a few things:

Some interesting thoughts on Reunification


Becoming a "friend of Korea" for only 50 Euros. I considered this just to see what kind of stuff I'd get in the mail but I imagine I might lose my security clearance for something like that.

The best part is that I'd get discounts on hot items like North Korean movies & music.

For another 30 Euros, I was sorely tempted to buy the DVD "A traffic controller on crossroads".

I miss out on all of the good stuff while I waste away over here...

"Boobquake" rocks the world of seismology

In mid-April, senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi issued a warning that recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, and elsewhere were caused by women's loose sex and immodest dress. Immediately, Jennifer McCreight responded on Facebook by urging women worldwide to dress provocatively on April 26 to create "boobquake" and test the cleric's theory, and at least 90,000 women promised they would reveal serious cleavage on that date. On April 26, following a several-day drought of earthquakes, a Richter-scale-measuring 6.5 quake hit just south of Taiwan. (Slight advantage to the ayatollah, since a Purdue University seismologist observed that a 6.5 quake was not uncommon for that region.) [Courier-Mail (Brisbane)-AFP, 4-17-10; Indianapolis Star, 4-28-10]

A change of pace

It's funny how life works sometimes. Last night as a buddy and I were sitting out in our office on the flightline lamenting what a boring day it had been, the rocket attack sirens start blaring followed by a the faint scream of a rocket passing overhead and then the dull unmistakable *whoomp whoomp!* thudding of rocket warheads. We walked out onto our porch to watch the fireworks when the sirens went off again and more rockets hit. We get rocketed fairly regularly but it's usually just ones and twos so this was a bit different already.

Now, on the base here they have what they call the giant voice. It's a system of giant speakers set up on towers scattered throughout the base. An office that coordinates the security of the base has the microphone for the speakers and is crewed primarily by British soldiers. I love the Brits but sometimes it can be tough to understand what they're saying. And the speakers don't make it any easier because they are wired in series and there is a slight delay from one to the next. So when tower A starts saying something, it'll go for a second or two before tower B kicks in, and it goes on down the line until you've got 20 different towers each shouting a different syllable of the same sentence. Throw in what would otherwise be a charming British accent, and the resulting screeching inevitably confuses 24,000 people at once. It's even more amusing when the sirens go off because the delay also affects the sound of that, and then you have 20 different towers all simultaneously blaring a different pitch of the siren. That sound makes the dogs howl.

But yeah, that went on for a bit and then the giant voice began hollering that there was a ground attack in progress from the north. We were just a couple hundred yards from the northwestern perimeter of the base so this was something of a concern and we climbed up on the roof of our building just in case some angry little men came wandering by on the ground level and set out a couple of infrared markers to identify ourselves as friendly to the attack choppers and UAV's orbiting overhead.

We sat and sipped our instant lemonade and munched on MRE crackers for another 20 minutes or so before we started seeing tracer rounds and flares around the perimeter. Suddenly out of dark sky tracers came pouring from an unseen helicopter and ricocheted in all different directions. Then the distinctive *whoosh!* and I could trace the path of the launched missile as it trailed sparks across the sky before it slammed into the ground right next to the fence in a bursting flash of orange streamers, not unlike the fireworks we used to shoot at each other as kids. *whoosh...BOOM!* Another! Some more gunfire rattled off and then the noise faded and all we could hear was the distant droning of aircraft engines overhead and the hum of generators.

A few minutes went by and I was just starting to gnaw the beef jerky strips in my MRE when more automatic weapons opened up outside the nearby fence, quickly followed by more machine gun fire from the choppers. A couple of dull explosions followed and then a helicopter came in real low and must've emptied a whole rocket pod right on the fence. There were a few more scattered bursts of machinegun fire that took out some of the lights on the compound between us and the fence, but it pretty much quieted down as I imagine whatever survivors were left tried to beat it back to the safety of their villages. The base was on lockdown so we just went back in the office and locked the door and went to sleep, me on the floor and my buddy on the desk, and I slept like a log until 0530. Not necessarily dangerous to me, but it was quite an evening.

As I watched the furious pounding of missiles, rockets, and machineguns, I felt immensely grateful that I have all of these assets on my side to protect me. At the same time I felt a tremendous pity for the terror that must have gripped the poor dumb bastards caught in the wire. Imagine some idiot mullah getting you all fired up to go kill yourself some infidels and claim whatever glory awaits a martyr, and your last moments on Earth are spent running through the darkness pursued by some terrifying attack helicopters that you can hear but not see, and knowing that you're gonna die for absolutely nothing more than getting close enough to maybe touch the perimeter fence, and for some big Al Qaida clown to make headlines for a day or two to show how they're really dishing it out to the infidel invaders. What a waste of life.