The trip over.......

We flew out of Topeka, KS at O dark thirty on 20 Oct. I must confess that I was a little inebriated, as were many of my fellow travelers. General Order # 1 prohibits alcohol use in theater (and they wonder why service members go a little overboard when they return...) so it was the last bit of celebrating we "knew" we could do.

Several hours later we landed in Leipzig, Germany. It was mid-morning there. Basically this was a refueling/crew change stop. We were able to deplane and take a bus to the terminal. All I wanted to do was get on the internet and let folks know where I was. Ended up paying $5 for an hour of internet access but only used about 20 minutes. Some of my more enterprising traveling companions, however, found a place to buy some beers (or should I say "biers"?). They optimistically purchased more than they could consume in the available time. Many of you know that I'll do most anything to help someone out, so I "helped" them consume the extras when the announcement came that we had to go. Becks is a fairly full-bodied pilsner that one would normally savor but these were not normal circumstances. From the Becks website, "Becks is brewed to be responsibly enjoyed by adults". Well, I've never claimed to be an adult, or responsible for that matter, so.......two bottles of bier and three minutes later, we were boarding the buses to return to the plane.The new flight crew was more fun than the first. They had a sense of humor and we were entertained by their antics.

The next leg of our trip took us to Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan near Bishkek, the capital. We arrived just before midnight on the 20th. This was to be our home for the next three days. The fortunate high-ranking few and the females actually got rooms here. The rest of us got to "camp out" in the huge tents. Here's a pic. It only shows half the tent taken from on top of a locker at one end. See my rack? Yeah, it's the one on the right..... and there's one of my fellow Chiefs heading somewhere.

While the sleeping arrangements may have left something to be desired, Manas wasn't that bad. Internet access was free and we could buy two beers a day, and when they say day, they mean 24 hours! No kidding, if you bought your first beer at 9 pm, you couldn't buy your first one the next night until 9:01 pm. They scan ID cards to keep track of everyone's beer purchases. The food was pretty good too.

The base was named after Peter J. Ganci Jr., a FDNY Fire Chief killed in the 9/11 attacks, until someone discovered there is an Air Force Instruction prohibiting overseas bases from being named after U.S. citizens. So they named it Manas for the int'l airport nearby and it is unofficially known as Ganci Air Base. The club (if you can call it that) is named "Pete's Place" in his honor. Pete's is where we found the beer. It also has three pool tables and a projection screen for movies, games, etc. They have bingo and karaoke nights for fun.

We couldn't leave the base (like folks who were actually stationed there) so I can't tell you much about the surrounding area but there were some pretty mountains when we could see them. This is the best picture I could get as they were obscured by overcast most of the time we were there.

We flew out of Manas at O dark thirty on the 24th and landed at Kabul Int'l Airport shortly after dawn. This flight was on a C-17 Globemaster III military aircraft and was the only part of our journey that wasn't on a civilian chartered aircraft. This plane is huge, the only one we have bigger is the C-5A/B Galaxy. Here is a picture of the inside looking forward from my seat.

Then another looking back, see our luggage back there? The tail is open since they were still loading when this was taken. It's a monster, isn't it? This is the largest military aircraft I've flown in. It's only been C-9s and C-130s before. Maybe I'll get to catch a ride in a C-5 before my career is over.

Here's a picture of our plane on the tarmac at Kabul Int'l. Note the background scenery.





Lastly, here is yours truly on the flight in. Do I look tired?

Yes, I know that this all happened two months ago and I'm still behind on the blog. More to come, I promise. 'Til then, take care and I hope all is well with you.

Marte

Why 'Hi-Tech Redneck'?

I expect that question is bound to come up sooner or later so I'll be proactive and address it now.....early in my Navy career I was an instructor on the AN/SPS-49(V)8 Air Search Radar. One of my fellow instructors and still very good friend, Lacy Pack, and I were on the night shift together and he took to calling me "Hi-Tech" (the Redneck part was implied). He was from Texas and his neck was a little red too so it wasn't like an insult or anything.

Well, out of the various monikers that friends (and so called friends) have hung on me in my life this is one of the least offensive and requires the least explanation. Plus, I kind of like it. The work I do is high tech and, being from Oklahoma, I've got a little redneck in me so there ya go.

I'd like to think I'm the original HTR, but George Jones released an album and song of the same name in 1993. Lacy and I met in 1996. I don't quite fit the description as depicted in the song, that guy sounds like a geek!

So I'm not the first HTR and I probably won't be the last but I am original and, try as the others may, none of them will be a Hi-Tech Redneck like I'm a High-Tech Redneck. You can be sure of that!


Two posts in two days....wow! I just might be getting the hang of this. More on the trip over next time.....

HTR

It all started here.......

....when we landed at the Manhattan Regional Airport in Manhattan KS on 26 July 08. On the bus to Ft. Riley, the driver was playing war songs from the Vietnam era. He probably thought it was funny. I thought it was eerie, to say the least, and that was my first impression of the place.

We stayed up on Custer Hill the first week for various briefings, gear issue and acclimation to the KS weather before we started training in earnest. Then we moved down to Camp Funston (aka FOB Army Strong) where we moved into 40 man open bay barracks.

• This was taken inside our barracks, that's Clint Dawson in his IBA (Invidual Body Armor). We were getting ready to head out for some training ops.

We spent a couple of months being trained on counter-insurgency ops, Afghani languages and culture, mounted combat patrols, other combat tactics and various weapon qualifications. About 90% of which I hope I never have occasion to put into actual practice.

The weapons qualification/familiarization was my favorite part of the training. I had no problem qualifying with the M9 pistol or the M4 rifle or the many foreign weapons we fired including the AK-47 and a Chinese sniper rifle. Bottom line here is I'm very likely to hit what I aim at. So if it comes down to them or me, I intend to make sure it's them.

Now the crew-served automatic weapons were another story, I couldn't hit anything to save my soul with them. Now it WAS my first time to fire any of them, they weren't zeroed correctly and there were other issues but I was thinking "how hard can this be? It's a machine gun, rounds are flying everywhere...surely something has to hit the targets..." Right? Wrong! My various coaches, in an attempt to soothe the bruised ego, told me in so many words, "This is a suppression weapon, it's supposed to keep the enemy's heads down while we get into a position to take them out with our precision weapons the next time they stick their heads up". Small consolation.....my only hope with one of these things is that I'll scare them to death.

My team was under the guidance of the 1st Battalion, 34th Armor, Delta Company. These were a great bunch of guys and they took care of us.

We graduated on 4 Oct and took a 10 day Intermediate Stop and reported back to Riley on 15 Oct to await transportation to Afghanistan. We flew out of Topeka, KS early on 20 Oct..............

That is it for now. Yep, I've been here three weeks now and I'm still waaaayyyy behind on this blogging thing but it's time to hit the rack and it's one more day in the books. Only 340 or so to go...........ouch!

The adventure begins.......or began

I've been here for two weeks now and I haven't blogged a darn thing!

It doesn't seem like I'm getting off on the right foot here in the blogging world but right now it's 10 pm Friday here in Kabul and I was up at 5 am to see off a group of Sailors who were departing for Kuwait and ultimately back to the States since they have completed their tours here. All I talked to said that the time went quickly and that's a small consolation. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be July and time to go home for my daughter's wedding.....

That was a happy bunch of folks, to say the least. I just hope they make it home in time for Thanksgiving.

I know I have some catching up to do on this blog but it'll have to wait for tomorrow. The next post is going to be a doozy so I better get rested up............

Tired in Afghanistan