The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.             Ivy Baker Priest

       A hearty and happy Thanksgiving day to everyone. I hope that everyone is having a pleasant holiday season with family and friends, and simply enjoying the time to get together. We had our big T-day celebration here, the Colonel bought some real turkeys, instead of the usual processed stuff we get, and deep fat fried them for the troops. It was a good meal, and I actually took some time to sit down and watch some football, something I haven’t really done yet this year. Hope the Bengals are doing well, last I checked they were doing pretty good. Although I have yet to see them play this season, I hope to catch a game of theirs soon. As time markers go; Thanksgiving is a good one to place on the milestone list because it is the Holiday that marks one hundred and ninety-nine days to go. Sweet; as we are finally under the two hundred day mark. Alrighty then; let’s get on to the updating.

       Well; I have made the move to my new home now. It was cool because some of my Iowa buddies were the ones that made the convoy down to come get me. It was good to see those guys, as it has been some time since I have seen some of the members of the Iowa team. My new home is a staggering four thousand more feet up into the mountains than I was before. At Khowst the elevation is about four thousand feet, and now at my new residence, we are an incredible eight thousand feet in the air. This makes the air much thinner, and I find myself trying to catch my breath all the time. The guys here say it takes a couple of months to get used to the high altitude, and that I shouldn’t try and rush my acclimation. I take that as I should not have to worry about doing PT for a while, as I don’t want to rush things, but I get the feeling my new boss won’t see things the same way. The moderate temperatures that I have grown accustomed to will no longer exist here, in fact it is just plain cold, and the other night we had snow falling from the sky. I know I shouldn’t complain, I am from Iowa after all and I should be used to this, but I didn’t expect the weather to be like this on my vacation. Of course there is always the plus side; the scenery here is stunning, as you can see from the pictures. We are surrounded by huge mountains, and there is already snow capping of the tops. It is absolutely picturesque, and every morning I have been here so far I take a few minutes to just stare at the mountains, make sure I engrain the scenery into my memory. I doubt there are many places like this on earth. Although my new home is pretty cool, no pun intended, I sure am going to miss Khowst. We did a lot of good work there, and I made a lot of fine friends, especially my commo NCO SGT Schissel.

       The last thing I am going to miss about my last residence is being able to go the shops. I was pretty able to get anything I wanted from those guys. I would just tell them what I need, and they would usually have it for me in a day or to. That was very convenient. My new habitat doesn’t have a row of stores out front, so getting things I may need is going to be a little trickier. Of course there is always a good side to everything. On the ANA side of my new home there is a little shop. It doesn’t have all the cool stuff of my old shops, but what it does have is a little tiny restaurant inside, and there they make these fresh French fries. They are an awesome treat, and really hit the spot about mid morning. The come out a really golden brown color, and when I say golden, I mean an oddly golden color. Must mean they are deep fried in some sort of interesting oil, probably used motor oil. It’s just better not to ask what they use, and enjoy the snack. The other morning we had some fries right out of the oil, and we washed it down with a Chinese imitation of Red Bull. Yummy. As the old beer commercial used to go … “It just doesn’t get any better than this.”

       The few days I have been here have been great thus far, and I have met my new Afghan National Army counterpart. He is a very pleasant, calm, and focused fellow who seems genuinely interested in the success of his signal section. Unlike my last counterpart, who also was focused on the success of his signal section, but he went about business in the exact opposite manner. He was a very animated, humorous, and sometimes just a crazy guy, and I never knew what to expect from him on a day to day basis. I am really going to miss him though, probably because he was more like me; we both have a kind of unorthodox management style. We got along pretty well, and I wish him nothing but continued success as he progresses towards the future. I will also enjoy my new counterpart, and I think he will be a nice and welcomed change that I look forward too. I have also spent some time meeting all my new counterparts’ staff, and just like my guys in Khowst, they are sad to hear that their mentor is leaving them. It’s nice to know that they liked the last mentor, but also presents me with challenge of filling his shoes, and making sure that I give them the same tools for success as my predecessor did. The signal staffs, and for the most part all the ANA soldiers I have met thus far, are all pretty hard working guys who really believe in what they are doing. They all want to see a safe and free Afghanistan, but I think it is going to take time. As always; I hope that I am part of bringing that change about.

      On the second day here since my arrival there was a brand new hospital opening. The new hospital can hold up to one hundred patients, and is chocked full of state of the art diagnosis equipment. The hospital has regular care, a trauma center, and even includes dental and eye clinics, pretty much unheard of here in Afghanistan. It is an impressive facility to care for soldiers, police, their families, and also local Afghans from the surrounding communities. This hospital is only the second of its kind here in Afghanistan, but it is a step in the right direction to providing health care for all the peoples of Afghanistan. The hospital opening drew all kinds of attention too; there were all kinds of political and religious dignitaries from the Capital city of Kabul and the local cities here. It was really cool to see all these people out in support of the hospital.

       During the opening ceremony there was the traditional ribbon cutting, a ton of speeches from the VIPs, and the always popular cow slaughtering. I wasn’t quite ready to witness the slaughtering of a cow, so I decided to hide in the VIP room while this occurred. Of course after the ceremony I had to check out the pictures, just to get an idea of how the ceremony was carried out. The idea behind the slaughtering of the cow was not really to make the hospital and its ground sacred, which is what I thought at first. The idea is that the sacrificed blood of the cow is drained into the earth and covered, taking it with it all the bad things that could occur at the hospital. With the bad things buried nothing but good will happen above ground where the building of the hospital is. At least this is what I gathered from my new interpreter, so hopefully I understood him okay. He is a pretty cool guy, but as with all the interpreters I have worked with, it takes time to fully understand how they interpret. It was either that, or he was trying to tell me that this is their idea of the steak night … could go either way on that one. They did however fully butcher the cow right there on the spot, and I am pretty sure was eaten soon after that. I was going to post a pic or two of the ceremony for you guys, but I though I’d better not, I remembered that there are kids out there reading this too. After the whole ceremony we had lunch with all the attendees, and the first thing I asked was what we were eating, much to my relief we were not eating the freshly sacrificed animal. Somehow that made it easier to enjoy the lunch, and it was quite the spread, a lot of new foods that I have never tried before and a couple a will never try again. My experiences with Afghan cuisine have always been pretty good so far, but they all can’t be winners, there were a couple of the dishes that I do not wish to try again. All in all; it was a pretty sweet day, especially for the people of Afghanistan.

       For my next adventure I am off to the Capital city of Kabul, where I will be attending a conference for all of the signal officers here in Afghanistan. It is actually for the ANA, but we are going to tag along to see what going on in Afghan Army communications, as it will help us help them move in the right direction. It should prove to be an interesting time. I am excited about going to the big city; I haven’t been there since we arrived in country. When I get back here; I’ll make sure to tell you all about it. Once again I hope you all are having a nice Thanksgiving, and I’ll talk to you all soon.

Until Next Time,
Mark