Odd Time To Do Regular Things

Heres a little story for you all to enjoy. While we were at the firebase we went on a few dismounted patrols around the area. This story takes place during the first one my squad went on. Our mission was to follow a group of ANP (Afghan National Police) to a "busy" road about 4 kilometers south of our base, there they would set up a traffic check point to try and catch some of the taliban thought to be moving through the area. So we set off walking right as the sun is going down and things seem to be going great. The only hick up is that the ANP doesn't have night vision goggles and they rely on talking to each other as they walk to know where each other are. So of course, about 3 kilometers out we walk over a ridge and realize when we get over it that most of the ANP are no where to be found. So there we were, in the middle of the desert overlooking a small village with only two ANP still with us and no idea where to go. We check our map and figure out a better route and better place to set up the TCP so we begin to move out. The terrain gets pretty rough after a while, and moving around gets really annoying. On our way there we walk through a lot of wheat fields and I get pretty used to walking in them. Then all of a sudden we see a light about 500 meters to our right, so we halt and put together a team to go check it out. The team starts moving up to the light and all of a sudden I start hearing a lot of yelling. Apparently it was just an old man and he was almost scared to death when four heavily armed and well armored troops come walking out of the darkness. The fact that he didn't see them until they were about 5 feet away from him made me laugh. We got the signal and we all moved up there so my squad leader could figure out what this guy was up too. We automatically set up 360 security and I quickly realized that I was standing in a field with water that reached up to my knees. We found out that the village he lived in had a schedule for when certain people got to use the local stream and apparently it was the old mans turn to use it... thats a pretty crappy time to clean your clothes if you ask me. So now, the combo of wet feet, cold weather and having to walk 5 kilometers back made for a pretty miserable time, but thats what I get for being infantry I guess. All in all a pretty uneventful patrol but makes for a good memory. So there it is, the glory of the infantry :P

-Allen-

Good News For People Who Love Bad News

Alright, so here it is, the mother of all blog entries. It's going to be a long one since i have about 2 months worth of incidents to fill you all in on. Last post I posted I said I was going to a platoon size firebase, which i did. We went out there not really knowing how long it would be until we would be coming back here to Warrior, but we invited the notion with open arms and pushed on. The firebase was an old veterinarian clinic and it was one of the only compounds with "hard" buildings in the district, meaning the buildings were made out of something other then mud. When we first got there we just spent a lot of time repairing and cleaning the compound up a bit. The previous occupants didn't exactly take good care of the place to say the least. The first week or two we spent repairing vehicles and building guard towers. Finally when the place started looking presentable we began our movement around the district . We were in the biggest district with the smallest force... ya, figure that one out. Most of our early missions were just HA missions, or Humanitarian Aid if you will. In other words we drove to the nearby villages and handed out food and medical supplies, and even some soccer balls. The people loved us of course since we were handing out free stuff, who wouldn't love that? The bad thing about doing this is that there is usually an appointed leader in all the villages, and sometimes the people choosing didn't exactly make a great choice so there's a lot of missing food and medicine. it really is sad when the wrong people get their hands on what the people need the most. On a little side note, I decided to make this my random subject post and instead write a bunch of smaller posts about certain incidents. There are a lot of good people here but most of them are to scared of the Taliban to speak up. Hopefully we can change that.