After 3 and a half weeks of living in the corner of the transient shipping container, I finally made it to Herat. The big man left about 3 days earlier for Khandahar...he was pretty sure he'd lose about 27 pounds in the first 27 hours and 13 seconds in that somewhat warmer climate. Some of us are blessed with more subcutaneous insulation that other folks...and we tend to perspire a little more in these warmer climes.
So they loaded me on a Afghan An-32, a left over Russian transport, with all my junk and a bunch of Afghans going on....vacation? It made a lot of scary noises but we landed in one piece and at the right place!
The best part of arriving at the right time and place was the two guys that told me to hurry up, we were leaving on a convoy. WHAAAT?!?! So much for my goal of NO as in zero convoys in Afghanistan! But at least it was on one of these monsters.
Owned by the USN and driven by Indiana National Guard. It was only a seven and half minute drive anyway.
I showed up in the morning, stayed up until 11:30 planning for a last minute flight the next day. We got up at 3:30 in the morning to help the Afghans load ammo on the helicopters we were flying down to Farah in support of Afghan troops. The sun came up as we were loading...
This is the one we drove...a little newer, had kevlar floor mats and some armor around the cockpit, and a gunsight for rockets, when do we get those?!?!
It was really hot so I ditched my helmet for this smooth headset...well I left my helmet in Kabul because I'm a moron...just kidding, I traded my helmet to an Afghan for 3 chickens, a camel and nice David Clark headset. But I'm really just joking, I borrowed an Afghan helmet, with no chin strap, a mike that I'm really not sure where it had been and it was about two sizes two small, but we made it work! And the dent in my forehead will pop out eventually.
The view from the rear view mirror
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