Well one good thing about this easter is i hope this is the last one i ever spend in Afghanastan, and away from my family.
Its a rough time now knowing how close home is now, yet we still got lots to do, and you cant let your mind wander to far, hodgie dont take no holidays and is always out there waiting for us. little stinky bastards. they really are a smelly bunch of people :)
Its starting to get hot here, again, which i guess is a good thing really it means well be going home soon, though im not really looking forward to 120 degree heat uughhhhh :(
it got cold here but never really got as cold as i thought it would, dont get me wrong it got cold but i just kept waiting for it to get allot colder, your skin would burn from the wind and cold but it never stuck to the metal, i thought it would i thought my skin would get so cold it would stick to the metal but it never got that cold.
I really would like to share some things that i've seen and done, but i think its best that i wait till im out of here, befor i start telling storys and shit talking you know what i mean hehehe.
I guess really though its a weird place.
It is really sort of like going back in time, its extreem poverty, in a way that people that know what poverty is, wouldnt understand what this is like, its dirty and rotten, its corrupt and its violent, its the land of extrem islam, its the land of masha allah, its lots of things, most of them in my oppinion not so good, if you look you can find those small things that make you smile or laugh but deep down the darkenss here overshadows the light, a small childs smile is always wonderful thing, big shinning bright eyes peeering through a little dust coverd face, happy and inocent, she is oblivious to the fact that she will be a victim of this society soon, theres that knowing that understanding inside me, that by the age of 14 this small child will have two kids and be some forty year old mans 4th wife, if she even lives that long, makes that smile fade in my mind, you smile back and you walk on past, thankfull your daughters will never know this kind of life.
Its Mad Max and a Bible story all rolled in one, people ride across the desert on donkys with there wifes in full burkas, with there caravans of camals and there goat herds tended by small boys, crossing the desert, nomads, and colorful tents, crazy villagies that pop up in the night, and then dissapere in a day, people everywhere digging for water, the life of the desert, more precious than most anything i suppose here exept guns or explosives, theres the whole crazy islamic militants, war lords, the religious elders and the mujahadin, afganie, pakistani, chechins, and uzbecks, and all the extremists with ther guns and explosives, private security forces, black water and spec opps solders, nato forces and the afgan army,border patoles, highway cops all stoned, all corrupt to some extent, and just pure crazynes, markets full of everything imaginable animal carcases hanging in the street, carts of rotting fruit and vegtibles, spices and strange plants, fabrics and beads, tin pots, and shit you dont even whant to know, all broiling in the hot thick smoke filled air, garbage and flys, the smell of piss and raw sewage, burnt garbage, packs of wild dogs and livestock that looks like the walking dead, people eveywhere filthy and smelly in there man dresses, sounds of trucks and buzz of motorcybles, the mosques calleing people to prayer five times a day, now and then the sound of small arms fire in the distance, its a weird place to be, a place where you see a man smile and dont know if he is happy to see you or happy cause he knows hes about to watch you die. Its a weird weird place to find yourself..
one of the things i guess i notice about me personaly is things that should scare the shit out of you, just become so normal, your perspective on whats normal becomes very skewd in a place like this.. things that would make most people petrified with fear become normal, you become aclimatized to shit you shouldnt really i guess.
But for the most part its not that bad, 95% of the time its compleet bordome, and the other 5% of the time is sheer terror heheeh, but i find it sort of sad and sort of sick i like the terror part the most, its an amazing adrinilin rush hehehe, i love hunting bad guys, but really we dont get to do much of that, mostly were bord watching sheep hearders or corrupt cops from a distance, spying, observing, reporting, documenting, searching, looking, driveing, sleeping staring off into space doing reconacence, wich isnt always doing cool shit..
we look for ieds allot thats pretty stupid heheheh there not like little fireworks there huge thigns that go boom really really big, when we accidently or purpously set them off whole sections of road dissapere, 25 feet long, 15 feet wide and 6 feet deep sections of road just pooof and gone heheheh rocks and shit flying everywhere, i like to stand there and watch and feel the concusion rock the vehicle and feel it on yoru skin as shit rains down, i like watching stuff blow up thats one fun thing we do LOL
Ther all sorts of ieds some are preasure plates and some are remote control and some are comand wire detonated, usually those ones are then followed by fuckers shooting at you. they can be made to blow up and disinigrate whole vehicles to little ones just big enough to blow your feet off, some are made of home made exploseives like ammonium nitrate/ fertilize imported/smugled from pakistan and some are old chinnese rockets or russian land mines, some are filled with nuts and bolts, its all sort of random and depends on who the target is. Ive seen ones so big that armord vehicles have been obliterated, and seen ones that hit little cars full of woman and children, ive seen them hit ABP trucks where the whole truck is gone but the people walked away, but not always allot of times they get trashed bad, those idiots hit them allot god there stupid people. lots of times they set them so a vehicle hits one then the vehicles that go to help will hit one or two, or the people that get out to help will step on them, then they jump out and shot rpg's and shot at you with small arms fire like ak-47s..
Sometimes sheep and dogs step on them thats pretty funny,, some times people step on them thats pretty bad, pretty really bad, and someitmes the fucks set them off while trying to implace them or tranport them or make them, thats really good stuff, especially when they dont die and then they want us to help them cause there all fucked up, jack asses :)
