” I’m making notes for a book.  It’s to be a chronicle of our adventures on the island … “   Professor Roy Hinkley

       Hello all, and it’s good to chat with you again. I’ve been here for a just shy of fifty days now, and due to staying quite busy the time is ticking away relatively quickly.

       In this post I thought I would show everyone where I work and live, as I am all sure you are curious about our accommodations. We live in buildings which are referred to as B-huts, and they are basically rectangle building constructed out of plywood. Thankfully all the buildings here are air conditioned, or this place could suck more than it already does. The B-hut I live in has been separated into four separate rooms, so I have a pretty good sized room to myself. It certainly isn’t the Hilton, but it’s not all bad. I do have my own room, which is mostly private; the walls do not go all the way up to the ceiling. The only downside to our accommodations is the wood used to construct them is from Pakistan, and they used some crazy chemicals to preserve the wood. I have been told they use everything from formaldehyde to kerosene. I am not sure what it is they use, but on occasion, especially during the heat of the day, the B-hut become quite noxious, almost to the point where you can’t stay in them for long periods of time. I think sometimes that was the Army’s plan all along, as the smell would preclude people from going to their huts for the much needed afternoon nap time. Another minor issue with the B-Huts is someone discovered that the ballasts in the fluorescent lights overheat and catch fire. Not a huge matter on its own, but when you live in formaldehyde soaked huts, I’m thinking … huge problem.

       Now I don’t want everyone at home thinking I’m living in some poison infested tinderbox, although it kind of is, but after time the smell goes away. It’s just that our B-huts are brand new, and could use some airing out time. They are actually quite nice and relatively safe to live in. We even have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers within arms length if something does happen, so please don’t worry. As you can see form the picture above I have dressed mine up quite a bit, and made it as homey as possible.

       The picture above is our office and this where all the business of the day takes place. The guy in the picture is SGT Schissel my workmate and friend, and he is by far the best non-signal signal guy I have ever had. Some days we spend a lot of time in the office fixing computers and radios, on other days we are out and about doing stuff on the road, and I think about missing my air conditioned office. Speaking of working out some cool computer problems, this one is for my computer geek friends and colleagues. The other day I came across several machines that had been ghosted with an obsolete image and no on knew what the password was. Well; so I tried to ghost them with a new image, and the image didn’t have all the right drivers, so it failed miserably. Now I have quite the predicament on my hands, and I think to myself, what do I do now? I know I’ll merely re-ghost them with the old image, and simply crack the password. Sounded simple to me at first inception, but truly no easy task, and then after a few of days of exhaustive research and practice I finally did it …. That’s right friends; the war zone has made me a hacker. I’m not proud of it, but I can’t wait to get home and demonstrate my new skills.

       Some good news coming your way. The other day a bunch of soldiers from our camp, and other areas, went to a nearby village to do what’s called a MEDCAP. It’s were we get our hands on every medical professional in the area, and go to a nearby village to treat as many people as possible. I didn’t get to go on this mission, but it’s certainly something that I would like to do in the future. The soldiers that did go say that it’s a great mission helping the people Afghanistan, but they say it’s also an exhaustive day. Doesn’t seem at times that we have enough people and time to treat all the people that show up. This MEDCAP there were over three hundred people treated, and the last one that was done treated over five hundred people. I think that’s fantastic, and it part of winning the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan. I will certainly make sure I am on the next medical mission, it’s one of the reasons I was excited about coming to here, as I knew the opportunity for humanitarian missions would present itself.

       Now it’s not all work and no play here in Afghanistan, as you can see from the pictures below we try to have some fun too. Our old commander’s wife worked at a country club, and sent the camp here a bunch of golfing equipment. Clubs, tees, balls, and even hats with ball markers. The one major issue is of course; where in Afghanistan does one go golfing, especially since the one we are building isn’t complete yet? Well … right on the protective barrier walls, of course, that’s the perfect place to get some golf balls off into the atmosphere. And so that’s what we did. We got all the golfing stuff, climbed up the barrier walls and spent some time in the afternoon launching golf balls into the desert. It was a brilliant time, although I noticed that my swing is a little rusty. Don’t think of it as work.

       I want to take a few lines to thank all of you that volunteered to send school supplies, as the children here need and will love to have anything you send. It’s great that people want to help. I also want to take time to thank all of the people who have sent stuff to make life bearable. There are a couple of groups out there that have been sending us all kinds of goodies, and I want to let you know that the stuff is greatly appreciated.

Until Next Time,
Mark