November in Kandahar

So I promised to keep my post updated; guess I broke that again. I have no excuses.
I have been here in Kandahar for four months now and we are now over half way through. We had our "over the hump" party yesterday consisting of BBQ steak, pig roast, sport activities and music. Everyone seemed to be having a great time blowing off steam and relaxing and some even danced. I threw the softball around for a long while and my arm is paying for it today.

A few things have changed since my last blog. I was promoted to Leading Petty Officer (LPO) for Delta Company, giving me even more responsibility as supervisor to 20 some Seabees. It has been quite the learning experience but has given me more confidence in myself and has challenged my leadership skills as well as improved them. We have been busy building SWAHUTS (Southwest Asian Huts) that are basically regular wood buildings to house our administrative department, Commanding Officer and the rest of the upper leadership. Our current construction project is a two story SWAHUT. I have been the lead electrician on both of those projects and it has been quite a challenge as I am once again the only electrician recruiting the plumbers and cross training them for help. It has been a lot of fun seeing the progression of our projects and the satisfaction of the finished product is worth all of the hard work. I don’t get the opportunity to work as much in the actual building portion due to having to supervise, but everyone has put their sweat into it in one way or another.

Things here on this base have been fairly quiet lately. We have had only one rocket attack alarm in the past month. I was told we did receive an incoming rocket a few days before that but the alarm was never triggered.

I was telling a friend of mine the other day as we were walking down the dusty road that I was finally starting to get used to this place. I guess after a while you don’t notice the smell, the dust and the same roads as much. I told her that it will seem odd to not be trapped behind a fence where on the other side you dare not cross without fear of death or injury. It is such a foreign land. If the enemy does not get you, the terrain and barren landscape will. A land without clean, fresh water; land mines from past wars; small arms fire coming at you from deep within the rocky hills. I complain at times of how I hate this place but it is this place that is keeping me from all of the above. I am as close as I can be to the front lines without actually being on them and I am contented and happy for that.

I have seen the faces of those that have been out there, those who have feared for their lives, who have wondered if they would ever get back to this place. Most are very young, fresh out of high school and they look so tired and they are quiet, no doubt reliving those terrifying moments over in their minds, forever scared at such a young age. Our doctor, Cpt. Bittner, has been working at the trauma center here on base where they bring the wounded straight from the field. I have seen a change in him over the past months. He said he is burned out from having to see so many young soldiers come in with such horrible injuries. He says they are the worst trauma injuries he has ever seen and it is starting to get to him a bit. I can only imagine. He has showed me photos and told me stories. Those alone are disturbing and sad. To read the list of the fallen, the ages and the amount, is sickening. Flags fly at half-mast almost every day here. I stopped noticing and only notice now when the flag is flying at full mast.

For me here it is like an everyday job but with more drama and politics. I will not be scared from this war; just understand it a bit better and what the soldiers and sailors are going through. We have a group from our battalion going out to build a combat outpost (COP) from the ground up. That is where the real danger and action is. I had to help decide who we were going to send out there from Delta company. We didn’t want to send anyone but we didn’t have a choice. One of my guys told me the other day that he is scared. I told him that he would be just fine. He asked me in a joking way "why are you sending me out there to be killed?" He says he was joking and I am sure he was but then it gave me cause to think. If something did happen, God forbid, how horrible it would make me feel. So I pray for him and for everyone out there every day.

So I am more than ready to get home, to take some time off to relax and just enjoy my family and loved ones. To see the ocean and trees and mountains and crystal clear streams and lakes and enjoy the smell of fresh cut grass, driving over 20 mph. We are all ready, we are all tired but we keep pushing on and work as hard as ever because we know that our job here is still not complete until we board that C-17 and wheels go up. How excited will I be? Beyond excited!

Read all about it!!

Neglect, neglect, neglect...this time Ive neglected my blog even longer! Every time I sit down to write I seem to get distracted or my mind is too tired. So now I force myself to sit here and type, its good for me and relaxing anyway.
So I have been here three months now and time has gone by fast but not fast at the same time. It is like ground hogs day here as every day is pretty much the same, trapped on this base wanting to have the opportunity to walk out but you wouldnt dare do it as what is on the other side is 10 times worse than here on KAF. I guess I am just not used to fighting for freedom but having limited freedom at the same time. I wouldnt want outside of the wire anyway, at least not on foot or by vehicle. We use helicopters to jump from FOB to FOB, the safest way to travel around these parts, even more safe than driving here on base.
So about a month ago the CO put out an email that we might leave in October due to funding and every one's morale went through the roof. After weeks of no official word and morale dropping like flies we finally got word that the request for extension got approved and we would be staying for the duration of our deployment. The hardest part about the whole thing was the rumors and not knowing so once everyone found out we were staying things got a lot better, a lot of disappointment but the suspense of not knowing is what seemed to get everyone upset and anxious. So it is business as usual here now; almost nightly rocket attacks, hot days, constant dust and filth. At least the water has been working lately and showers are not an issue here any longer.
They keep me busy here as lead electrician, assistant leading petty officer, 3M coordinator for the company. We had an awards nominations meeting the other day and my chief nominated me for a Navy Achievement Medal. It would be my first and it adds a point or two onto the advancement exams so I wont turn it down, that is if I get it.
yesterday a bunch of us went to the bazaar where they let the locals in to sell their goods consisting of rugs, throws, bad quality bootleg movies, Iraq and Afghan money, gems, and all kinds of useless souvenirs. I picked up a blue rock, a couple bracelets I bought off a 6 year old salesman and two Zippo lighters to send to friends and family. I think I only spent 25 bucks for all of it. Going there is almost as bad as walking onto a used car lot. Commander Garvin and I had fun talking down prices, almost down to nothing if you walk away.
Today is Sunday, our weekly day off. It gets boring, nothing much to do unless you want to go shop at the Post Exchange or walk laps around the board walk. My room mate and i were able to get a ride today to the PX but I failed to tell the driver how to avoid driving by the poo pond. I think I could taste what everyone had for dinner last week. There is no covering that smell and good thing we were not going to eat because it made me sick to my stomach. We drove a bit faster past it on the way back. I roamed around the PX with my hand basket not knowing what to buy, ended up with two Monster Coffee drinks, chips and salsa, packing tape and blank CDs. Yeah it was a big shopping day. Now its back in my room listening to my room mates computer as she plays the Family Guy. For some reason I am finding it extra funny tonight. Lots of laughs coming from room 8 tonight. My head is hurting today so may pound a few Motrin and step outside for some semi fresh air, sit and shoot the shit with friends and watch the fighter jets roar by fully loaded for combat. I just hope they dont push the launch button prematurely!!
I picked up clean laundry yesterday and its already covered in dust. It never ends but you tend to get used to it. I hear that when the rains come it is just lovely; 18 inches of standing water and mud. I hope our rooms are anchored in or I might just float to work. Im thinking of getting some water wings to keep my head above the water. We are in the Navy so we should at least know how to deal with a puddle or two.
So that is the cut down update. More to come and more frequent, this time I promise. Fouts...over and out!!

life on planet Kandahar

Well it has been a while since my last blog as usual. It is actually kind of hard to think of what to write about, all of the days seem pretty much the same and they meld into one. I work 6 days a week, 11 hour days but the work I do is not hard but can be tiring. Right now there is not a lot of electrical work to do so I keep busy helping the builders and utilities men (plumbers). My main duties have consisted of keeping the a/c units maintained (very important in this heat) keeping the generators running (with out those, no a/c) and when I am not doing that I am the mail rep for Delta company. Mail is the most physical demanding part of my job due to the volume of packages flowing in on a daily basis. We are talking over a hundred a day if not more. It is great to see the love flowing in as it boost the morale so much getting a little love from home.
On my one day off a week which is Sunday I get to sleep in a little bit before heading to work to turn on the generator and then off to breakfast and back to my room where I try to decide what to do for the day. Sometimes I may do nothing, I may take a trip to the PX for goodies or supplies, I may go to the boardwalk for a smoothie or watch the Canadians play roller hockey. Now that we have a new general in charge maybe we will get back the fast food choices and shops that McCrystal took away. Mostly I like to send emails home now that I have Internet hooked up in my room. I was finally able to post some photos on my smugmug page so check it out when you have time. www.dfouts.sugmug.com and click on "deployment 2010" for all of the latest and greatest.
I suppose I am getting used to being here now. The first few weeks were the toughest, getting acclimatized to the heat, dust and work schedule. Now that my work schedule is pretty much set I can plan my evenings a little easier be it Skyping or hanging, making phone calls back home and so on. We do have days that go a little bit longer due to needing to finish up a project or extra training. The days here are HOT and average between 100 to 108 degrees. When it gets down into the low 80s at night we tend to get a little chilly. The forecast is calling for lows in the mid to upper 60s next week. I will have to dig out my sweatshirt!! We are all looking forward to cooler weather and would even like to see a rain drop or two. Maybe that will knock down the dust a bit but i doubt it. I experienced my first dust storm a couple of weeks ago. It was like a dark wall coming at you and all of a sudden the winds kick up and swirl and you cant see the sky or across the street. Its pretty nasty and gets in every nook and cranny due to how fine it is, finer than baby powder. Other than that nusense there are the rocket attack alarms that go off. They usually go off at night but if you are Lucky they are before you are asleep. It was quiet for over a week but then the bad guys decided they wanted to try and get inside the front gate and when they couldnt they drove a suicide bomber into the front gate and a couple rockets over onto the flight line. No good guys were killed but a couple injured including one from our battalion who was working on the other side of the base during the attack. He is okay and back to work but it really hits home when it is someone you know.
Well its been just about two months now and I am ready to get home, ready to see trees and grass and lakes and river and all the beauty you tend to take for granite. Being here has really given me a new prospective on a few things, mainly how good I have it back home and how poor these locals here are. I couldnt even come close to imagining it all but from what I have seen I am a millionaire!!

Kandahar: Into the Combat Zone

It had been a long night getting ready for our flight out of Kuwait to Kandahar, Afghanistan. We were told our flight was leaving at 4:30 a.m. but we had to get our bags loaded onto the trucks by midnight and be put in lock-down once again at 1:00 a.m. We all decided to hang out in the MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation center) and use the computers and phones until it was time to load up.

After some time spent shooting the breeze and emailing our loved ones, a loud voice echoed throughout the building, telling us to move out as our flight had been changed and was leaving early. We were bussed to the airfield where a gigantic C-17 Globemaster awaited us and our gear. I had never been on a military plane quite like this one before so I was nervous but excited at the same time. We were required to wear our armored vest and helmets during the three and a half hour flight into Kandahar.

Once on the plane I realized that this was not going to be a comfortable flight. There were 180 seats and the flight was full! If you have been on a commercial flight sitting in coach class it would be like first class compared to this. Not only did our bulky gear keep us restricted in our seats but you couldn’t even move your legs and were packed in like sardines. I was so tired from being up for over 24 hours I just tried to sleep most of the way and not think about how uncomfortable I was. There are no windows and all of the wires and mechanics are exposed on the inside of the plane. As we got closer the pilot came over the intercom informing us that we were now over a combat zone and to prepare for landing. That was kind of sobering. We landed safely at the Kandahar Air Field and I was relieved to feel that it was not quite as hot as Kuwait; still plenty hot though.

We were bussed once again to our new digs. They’re not bad really, small but with A/C and one roommate instead of nine. Once settled in our rooms we were given a few hours to rest or take a nap before we had to muster up at 6:00 p.m. We were briefed on what to expect the next couple of days; MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle) rollover training in a simulator and IED (Improvised Explosive Device) training. The MRAPs are so top heavy that they’re prone to rollovers so everyone has to know what to do to avoid injury.

After that we were released for the evening. After dinner Scholz and I decided to hit the showers and then call it a night. We had been briefed on what to do when the rocket attack alarms go off; hit the deck for two minutes and then find the nearest bunker until the "all clear". Earlier in the day Scholz had asked one of our chiefs, "what do we do if we are in the shower when the alarm goes off?" Chief responded, "that would be a time when there is no modesty."

She must have jinxed us because sure enough as I was rinsing the final bit of soap out of my hair I hear the alarm. I say to Scholz, "Shit, I knew that was going to happen!" So as we were trained to do, we got down on the deck, which is hard to do in such a small shower. After about thirty seconds I thought, “screw this” and crawled out of the shower on my stomach, snatched my towel and started to dry off and get dressed. You can do a lot in two minutes. All the while we are laughing so hard it was making it even more difficult. Eventually we made it out to the bunker dressed, not naked. There was time for modesty after all! Anyway since then we have had plenty more rocket attacks on base but so far I have avoided being in the shower at the time the alarms go off.

So let me tell you a little about this place. It is a NATO base with about nine other countries’ military stationed here; including Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Bolivia, Germany, USA, Belgium, and a bunch of others that I can’t think of right now. There is a large Army exchange located across the street from the sewer ponds (shit ponds as we call them) and the smell is indescribable!!

There are a lot of foreign and American civilian workers on this base and a lot of local nationals working here as well. This base is ran by NATO and is a third world country in itself; dirty, stinky, trashy and ugly. We are lucky to be on the other side of all of that and its pretty clean here where the Americans live. There is nothing but dust, sand, gravel; yeah that’s about it. On a calm day and when the dust is down you can see the mountains but they are just bare rocks as well.

One day we drove along the wire to the airfield where one of our classes was being held and you could see local farmers picking their crops of watermelon and sunflowers. There was a shepherd leading his goats to the creek for water, a father with his children planting crops AND paid locals searching for land mines in the fields near the mud huts where the local poor people live. It was very interesting.

This place is busy; go, go, go all the time but you learn to keep up. There is so much more to tell but I have to go to work now. I will update this again very soon to let you all know what it is I do here. To be continued....

Getting into the Fight; Journey to Kuwait

The time we had all been waiting for had finally arrived. I don’t know one person who was not ready to get out of Gulfport, Mississippi as most of us had been there for three months and some even longer. We were all ready to head out and start the mission at hand so we could work our way towards getting back home to our seemingly normal lives.

We were herded into the training hall for all of our final preparations. After signing out our M-16s and retrieving our 300-day supply of Malaria pills, we were locked down to the point that if you wanted to go outside to have a cigarette, you had to relinquish your military ID card to the Seabee standing door guard. You can never keep everyone together in one place at one time if you don’t have the darn door guard!

Finally, after sitting in the training hall watching old boring movies, the call came to mount up and move out. We all loaded onto big white school buses for our trip to the National Guard air station where our chariot awaited. It was a gigantic 767 jet plane chartered just for us by the U.S. Government. It was like something out of a movie or what you see on the news; 180 fighting Seabees taking one last look at their homeland before heading up the long ladder steps that led to the entrance of the aircraft.

We were greeted by smiling flight attendants ready and willing to make our flight as comfortable as possible. I found a window seat and settled in next to a young fellow Seabee I had seen around but never actually met. I promised I would not drool on him the first leg of the flight and he promised the same. Well, he didn’t promise he wouldn’t use my shoulder to prop up his overstuffed pillow on, so that is just what he did. Needless to say I did not get much sleep on the first leg of our journey.

It was a four and a half hour flight to Newfoundland, Canada! It was dark when we landed so I didn’t get to see much other than the terminal of the airport; we were let off of the plane while it was being refueled for the long haul to our next fuel stop. I thought for a moment I was back in 1981 with the bright orange leather puffy couch seating and drab paint job. Nonetheless it was fun to explore the gift shop and see the land that the great Newfoundland and Labrador retrievers were named after.

After raiding the gift shop for a fridge magnet and shot glass we boarded back onto our airplane for the flight over the Atlantic Ocean to Germany. I was excited because we were going to land during the day and I had a window seat. This would be my first trip to Europe even if it was just to a small air port. At least now I can say I had been to Germany. Lets just say that I was not very impressed. I expected green lush mountains and ancient castles but instead got flatlands, 95 degree temps and strange looks from the local police. I was told that if we had landed in the former West Germany I might have been able to see those other things. The terminal was hot due to lack of air conditioning and the gift shop reminded me that some countries are just behind the times. I was able to get a pretty flashy fridge magnet though. After spending a half hour roaming the terminal, emailing home and trying to figure out how to flush European toilets, we were back on the plane for our final leg to Kuwait.

We landed in Kuwait a few hours before dawn and all of us were really tired as it had been a very long journey. We unloaded our bags from the belly of the plane and reloaded them into waiting trucks, loaded ourselves onto buses and drove about an hour to the base that we would be staying at for a few days until our flight to Afghanistan. We had to travel with the bus curtains closed but I tried to sneak a peek when I could just to get a look at the city. To my surprise, what I could see of Kuwait City looked a lot like most American cities. As we got further out of town that changed a little bit but not much.

After arriving at the air base in Kuwait and retrieving our luggage, we got settled into our "cabins" as I call them; wooden structures with eight bunk beds each. We finally got to lay our tired, in-need-of-a-shower bodies down for a few hours before we needed to be up again for the arrival briefing. By that time we had seen the sun rise three times and set twice in a 24-hour period.

I fully expected Kuwait to be hot but I had no idea that it would feel the way it did. It had been unusually humid there and the temperatures reached 125 and up every day with winds that blew nothing but hellish hot air. It was equivalent to the feeling of a blow dryer being held to your skin on the highest temperature setting. It literally burned the skin. Even the short walk to the dining facility was challenging. All in all though it was a pretty decent base with a lot of amenities and the food was great. We spent about a week there awaiting our flight to Afghanistan and were able to have a little R&R which was very much needed. Next stop...Kandahar Afghanistan...

Bags are packed, Im ready to go....

Well once again I neglected my blog for too long. Things here are moving at lightning speed and this blog is going to be my last blog until I am "over there". Lets just say that I am moving out of my comfy room at the Navy lodge and trading it for a small box in the dessert. I am looking forward to getting out of here but still have reservations about going into the unkown.

I have to make this super short and sweet because my bags are going out the door as we speak. I will catch up with this and all of you in a few days or a week. i love you!!

TTFN!!

Lazy days

Here I sit on a lazy Saturday afternoon in my room with the A/C blasting. It is a hot 93 degrees outside and a thunderstorm is moving in from the southwest. I can hear the thunder rolling but it is still off in the distance a ways. Soon it will move over head and no doubt bring with it the usual torrential downpour. I am getting used to these thunderstorms and actually enjoy them. They put on quite a light show in the evenings and have a life of their own. Good thing I did my grocery shopping early because sometimes you never know if it will ever stop raining.
I am enjoying the last weekend of not having a room mate as the battalion will start to trickle back in from the field training next week. It has been a very nice gentle pace around here with school and not having to attend evening classes at the battalion headquarters three nights a week and even having both Saturday and Sundays off. As times is getting closer to shipping out I wonder what the days will be like in the next few weeks. I graduate from Cable Splicing School on Friday and will return to my battalion and my platoon. I do have one more two week school scheduled though so I won’t be stuck on watches all day and trying to fill my time productively. I am still very thankful for not having to go to the field training exercise. Due to the extreme heat and humidity there have been hundreds of heat casualties ranging from dehydration, heat exhaustion and even a couple close calls with heat stroke including one troop from the Portland unit. I was told that his core body temperature rose to 106 degrees and he had to be air lifted to the hospital. That is such a scary situation but I am glad he is okay. They sent him back here to Gulfport to recover on his own. We will all keep a close eye on him from here on out. There is nothing worse then losing a fellow ship mate but what is worse is losing them before we even hit the war zone!
Someone asked me the other day if I was scared of going to Afghanistan. I guess I never really put too much thought into it in the past but as the time draws more near I find myself thinking about it more often. I told myself that I was not going to think about it too much until I am actually over there. But how can you not think about it? I find myself thinking about it more often now, thinking about how I don’t know what to expect. I know things are heating up a bit over there and where I will be or where I was told I will be is kind of a hot spot right now. I won’t be out on the front lines breaking down doors and hunting terrorists but I will still be in a war zone, on a base that gets mortared and shot at at least every other day. So yea I guess in a sense I am scared. I am scared that I will be in the wrong place at the wrong time, injured to where I can t come home and enjoy the things I enjoy the most like hiking. Scared that I won’t come home at all and that when I said goodbye to my family and loved ones that would be the last time I saw their faces, scared that I may see something that I wish I hadn’t and scared to have to even think about being scared. All of these things are natural thoughts and emotions and even though I tell myself that I am going to be just fine, which I believe and know, I still have that fear deep in the back of my mind. Who wouldn’t? Until then I am just a little bit nervous but I will take advantage of the time I have here like yesterday, the entire class went out bowling and we all had a great time goofing off and just being who we are.
I have one more long four day weekend over the fourth of July and Jon has decided to come visit once more before I head out. I am so happy and grateful for that and I can not wait to spend another wonderful long weekend with him. Just one more thing to look forward to besides actually coming home for good.
Well now the rain is falling so that gives me an excuse to stay in. Maybe I will find a good movie on TV or just take a nap and enjoy the sounds of mother nature. Either way it’s all good.