Frank, Fernando and Farah

Our best Spanish friends left for home the other day so we went out to eat at the Italian joint. We live under some stupid rule about not being able to drink beer. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND GOES TO WAR WITHOUT BOOZE?!!?. Oh yeah, only the United States. This sign on the way to the Spanish/Italian tactical operations center sums it up nicely...

The Spanish guys felt sorry for us for being here for a year, so they took care of us and shared lots of food sent from home. Frank, Fernando and the Italian guy were good dudes. The Italian guy is still here and he still comes over to our office. 

Frank and Fernando handed out the pay to the Spanish troops. They have a copy machine in the back of their office for printing Euros. It's cool. And they always had a good time.

They really liked our pet giant, he spoke Spanish, Gman is what everyone called him. Well, the Spanish guys called him Estaben. He just left today, our translator is gone, we're screwed. Please send help...por favor!

This is Fernando with our Mascot, Laura Croft. She's famous all over our base...we get all kinds of help and goods from the Spanish and Italians if we promise them they can have their picture taken with Laura Croft.  Fernando made this his screen saver. 

We could tell you her real job over here, but then she'd kill you, and not because she actually had too, just because she could.

We had a going away party, Stretch here is indulging in the second worst beverage I've had the misfortune of sampling here in Afghanistan. This is 3 Horse Non Alcoholic Malt Beverage...made in some silly, not allowed to drink real alcohol, country. It was as bad as it sounds...but the waif-ish one here liked it. I am compiling a list of things he has eaten over here that should not be eaten by anyone. I'll put peechures up soon...

They left us with this guy. He doesn't even speak real English. We have to remind him to use his big words when he talks to grown ups. Yes those are real bullets, but don't worry, we took away his guns. We told him he can use the guns he's pointing here in the picture.

This goes under the list of things you 'probably' shouldn't do...give your Afghan crew members your guns to pose with for a picture. It looks like a horribly wrong Charlie's Angles pose...This looks worse that it really was, okay not really, it really was as bad as it looks. Nobody shot each other and we made it all the way home without getting lost or crashing, it was a successful day! Too bad all we had to celebrate with was 3 Horse N/A Malt horse spit. (the author was intending to make a horse urine reference but did not want offend)

This picture speaks for itself.

This was from a mission to Chesta Shareef, our crews went into town and took my camera. Our interpreter actually took 3 pictures that didn't turn out blurry, this is one of them, the other two were of a goat. The other 63 weren't so good. Afghans love having their pictures taken...even though most won't smile...they love it.

We flew to Farah on a pretty good mission, we moved a lot of different people and a lot of different stuff. We two American pilots usually fly in seperate aircraft with an Afghan pilot. But this time we flew in one aircraft aircraft and took turns. The Stick Figure flew first, so I sat in the back and took pictures. I got to fly home. After we landed in Farah and got tricked into shutting down the aircraft. This wasn't planned...they said 'we eat breakfast!'...then they said...'we're going into town to go shopping!'  We said 'whaaaat?!?'. Then they said, 'uh, we mean we need to go into town to talk with the intelligence people'...this is code for shopping for paying customers to take back to Herat. We're a little slow but we're cathing on!

Oh yeah, the reason I flew second, it was really the Lean One's turn to fly the whole time, but the Afghan pilot told him that he has more experience than me (he's been here for 10 months) and I needed the experience. So we compromised and split the fight time...our pilot explained that I needed more experience because the Wiry One is 'more powerful'. He reminds me of this everyday. 

In the states we like to fly low level down the beach to look for girls in bikinis...it's the same everywhere. In Afghanistan they cruise low level hoping to see an ankle or a wrist peeking out from under a burkha.

Our gunner...he's awake, and that's how we like them to be!

We took this picture so our mommies could put it on their refrigerators...and so our friends could use it as a screen saver on their computers, and I know some that already have...who wouldn't want to look at this picture everyday?!