(Originally emailed 11/14/2011) I couldn’t believe it – the short time Melody and I spent in DC getting ready for the deployment/processing site was coming to an end. Something else was almost as unbelievable – Sister Mary Danger was deploying to Afghanistan again as a contractor at the same time! Unfortunately, we wouldn’t work together or even on the same base. She was going to the south and I was headed to Kabul, but we’d see each other in DC before individually leaving f

Last Names Update We’ve departed Afghanistan and are making our way home. Along the way I saw a few more noteworthy names, some which made me laugh some which made me cringe. Two guys in particular had funny names when you say them after their rank. Major Comfort and Major Biggie are officers I saw during the last few weeks of the deployment. Funny ain’t it? I wonder how long they’ll remain at that rank before making Lieutenant Colonel. I hope its forever. There were mo

Oil changes & contracting rules I know we’re losing the war on common sense – one civilian contract at a time. Get this, I use and am responsible for two civilian vehicles – an armored pickup truck and a regular pickup truck. One of them is dispatched and serviced by local civilian contractors (now FLUOR). The other technically belongs to an organization based in Kabul. We rent it from them or something like that. I never looked into the nebulous contractual relationship

Friends, A few of you have asked me why my tour extension was denied. Believe me, I 've asked. I mean, who wouldn't want a Soldier with 20 yrs experience in the intelligence field staying to help get things up and running quickly? I certainly would. No one will/can say at what level the decision was made. It could've been our Battalion Cdr - who doesn't like undue attention (remember the Mouse that Roared update?), it could've been the incoming Battalion Cdr - who might

Hey y’alls, I apologize to all who received SPAM email from my account. Seems some program hacked into my system, hijacked my address book and sent a notification for cialis and viagra. I changed my password and it shouldn't happen again. There are a few things I've been meaning to write about but work and other things have prevented timely email updates. Here's something that you might enjoy and it's a relatively recent occurrence here. Expect another update soon - I'm al

Yet another one... told you I had alot of stuff composed, just needed some finess. This topic has been on my mind forever, and should've been sent earlier... I'm certain some of you can relate to it.. in your individual way. The concept of time It’s been a more than a couple months since we’ve been in country and yet it seems like no time at all AND time immemorial. The concept of time has become so foreign to me that I often must look at the calendar to see what day/date i

Friends, It's been forever since I wrote last - and there are a couple reasons. First and foremost, work had gotten the better of me. After constant 14-18 hr days, I'd just not had the energy or inspiration to write. I really put alot of thought and energy into what I write. I want to give you a taste of life here from a "sane" mind. Which leads me to my second reason for not writing. The constant work / no down time / ridiculous changing expectations / ever increasing

Finally! I've been meaning to get this to you for a long time. Sorr for the delay. Enjoy Chow Hall characters In addition to the funny names I’ve seen in the chow hall, there have been some constants, and by that I’m referring to the characters we watch on a regular basis. We try not to be viscous with the nicknames, but sometimes ya can’t help it. Take Cube for instance – this guy is as tall as he is wide and I’m not kidding. Cube is probably 5’4” tall, has a 44” waist a

Everyone, I apologize in advance and give fair warning about the length of this update. It took me longer than expected to compose a fair and decent assessment of my team mates. Through this email I hope to give you an idea of my immediate group and the personalities which compose it. Enjoy! My Peeps Every army unit is composed of a group of individuals that together, make up the collective success or failure of the team based on their strengths, weaknesses, age, experience