The Razorbacks south of Shindand on the way to Farah

The Wasteland south-east of Shindand near Delaram

What a busy month February was, and the first part of March. The whole month was a blur of 15 hour days, drama at work, endless flying, and lots of crazy weather. We finally started getting lots of rain, I was worried that this year was going to be exceptionally dry but it has turned out to be the opposite. In spite of everyone’s best efforts, the base has flooded out several times already. I lost track of the number of cars, trucks, forklifts, even bulldozers that have fallen off the side of the road into the surging drainage ditches.

I also got a new camera, my own Sony A55. Some photography magazine named it their camera of the year for 2010 and my sister recommended it to me because it was a lot cheaper than the rest of the DSLR’s out there. I love it. I’ve had it for about 2 weeks and the picture count is already up over 1,700. Of course most of them get deleted as I take multiple shots of every cool thing I see, but I’ve already gotten some amazing shots and the camera also takes HD video with quality that rivals any of the consumer-grade dedicated video cameras that I’ve seen. Now I just need to invest in a quality video editing program so I can show people at home all of the gnarliness that they’re missing.

Kandahar Airfield just before sunrise

Kandahar Airfield just at sunrise

About 20 miles northwest of Qalat on the way to Shinkay/Sweeny

And yet another change this month, I’ll probably be spending the rest of March out here in a place called Shindand. It’s a rapidly growing airbase out in the western part of Afghanistan, probably about 30-40 miles from the Iranian border. I’m working on my 8^th year out here but it still boggles my mind that I’m here. Growing up this was probably the last place I ever would have dreamed that I would’ve spent my 20’s. I’m working on the UH-1’s that we fly out of here, it’s a nice change of pace from our Russian workhorses. Instead of trying to manage 20 passengers and 3000 lbs of cargo on 7 or 8 flights a day, I’ll be working 3 or 4 pax and maybe 200 lbs of cargo. This is like a vacation, one that I needed. I’ve been getting really burned out back in the south with everything that’s going on.

The base out here is a lot like Kandahar used to be; relatively small but with a lot of good people. The best part is that it is a black-out base meaning that there are no lights allowed at night so I get an awesome view of the stars. The last time I had seen stars like this was a few days before I came back to Afghanistan September from R&R. I drove my truck out into the mountains and slept on my huge inflatable mattress in the truck-bed under the stars.

Just last week I was flying out to a small base near the Pakistani border called Spin Buldak and I was watching the Bedouin goat-herders with their flocks working their way across the plains. They have these large circular corrals that they have built out of mud brick and they evidently herd the goats and sheep into them at night. Dusk was approaching so they were on their way to the corrals as we were flying by. We flew over them and up valleys and down canyons that had no name on the map and weren’t inhabited except by the odd mountain goat or wild camel and over the tiny little hamlets that are seemingly cut off from the rest of the world. I felt a strange sort of longing for that kind of simplicity. I think I was having a bad day but for that moment I was envious of the man I saw below with his goats. His workday would end as he penned his animals up in the enclosure, then he would walk the 2 or 3 miles back to his nice warm house where his woman would be there waiting for him. He could spend the night under the stars if he wanted with no reports to write, no phone calls to answer, no mission planning for the next day, nada.

There is definitely something to what the old folks are always saying about how we have too much happening in our lives; too much technology, too much connectivity, too much hustle & bustle. I’m going to take these 3 weeks and enjoy the hell outta them. I might still be in Afghanistan, I might still be flying all the time, but I’ve got nothing else to do but this so that means lots of spare time compared to what I’m used to. I’m going to read a few good books, catch up on my sleep, write some old friends, sleep some more, and get some killer workouts done.

Like I envied the goat-herder for a day, everyone should now envy me.