The journey home...

I am finally on my way home from Afghanistan. I have discovered that I appreciate the little things more so now, like not having to wear a gun everywhere I go; not having to work all night; not having to go to the bunker everytime the siren goes off or hit the floor for two minutes while the incoming rockets, fired by the Taliban, explode somewhere on base; not having to breath dust and foul smelling air 24 hours a day...my list could go on, but you get the idea.

In the first picture is a view from on top of the bunker. Directly across you can see another bunker and several of the MODS. In the distance you can see some of the mountains. The second photo shows the mountains a little better. I have heard of this referred to as 3 mile mountain, I guess it's about 3 miles from the base? Who knows?

So, our last night on base, we decided to get a group of us together and go eat pizza on the boardwalk. Mama Mia's is npw the only pizza place on the boardwalk, so we decided to go there.

Afterwards, we decided to walk around the boardwalk for a while, not really for sentimental reasons but because there was nothing else to do. We watched a couple minutes of some guys practicing hockey and then headed back to our rooms to pack. It was then that we were told that our pallet did not get sealed by customs and as a result, they would have to come look at it again at 1:00AM. We all went back, put on our uniforms and went to work. Once we got to work, we got another peice of info that threw a kink in our plan...the first Chalk out got moved up to a 0330 show time at the Passenger terminal. So, while Coty and Rob worked on the pallet issue, I went and rounded up all the ops personnel on Chalk 1 to let them know that the time had been changed.

Me on the boardwalk on my last night on Kandahar Airfield.
With a 0100 pallet inspection and a 0330 show at the passenger terminal, that left very little time to sleep, so I just stayed up. Little did I know that this would end up being a 42 hour marathon of no sleep. So, Chalk 1 shows up at 0330 and we go through the passenger terminal...much like you would process through at a airport, you put your bag on the scanner and they x-ray it. Once we were through that they put us in a holding yard for several hours. Yes, it was outdoors and yes it was hot...they did give us some sandwiches and some water but no cable tv or workout time, so it was a little worse than prison but when you know that it's your ticket out of there, you don't complain one bit.

This is more of the holding yard...the wooden structure in the background is US Customs. We had to go in groups of 20-25 and dump the contents of our carryon bags so that the inspectors could go through and look for illegal items.


This is a photo of the Ops crew on Chalk 1

From left to right: Boba, Doc Otis, Jazz, Me, Papa, Squirrel, Hurricane, HBK, and Housecat

Squirrel, Papa, and HBK chillin in the holding yard.

Me and Jerry "Goomba" Goines. We joined the ANG at the same time and went to basic and tech training together. After I looked at the photo, I realized we were sitting on the Amnesty Box which is where you deposit illegal items that you want to leave in Afghanistan. We have been a lot of places together, one of these days I'll post some old pictures of he and I when we were in Tech School together.

Our C-17 finally arrived around 0815 and we were bussed to the other side of the base to board. The loadmaster and crew loaded our baggage pallets and we were ready to take off. Thankfully, we didn't have to wear our bullet proof vest and helmet on the way out.

On the C-17 ready to get out of Afghanistan!

Me on the C-17

View out the side door of the C-17

We arrived in Manas a couple hours later and inprocessed then went and found places to sleep. I got a 4 man room again, only this time, I had the place all to myself the first night.

We all met at Pete's place for a celebration drink and a game of poker. Air Force personnel are allowed two beers every 20 hours so some were taking advantage of that, others were just hanging out for something to do.

My living accomodations at Manas.

The second night I wasn't lucky enought to get the room to myself and at 0345 three guys came busting in the room. All three are civilian contractors and had just arrived. One guy is the postmaster at Kandahar and is trying to get back to finish out his tour. The other two guys work for Bell Helicopter and are trying to get home after 7 months in Afghanistan with the Marines.

Night two at Manas at Pete's Place.

Pictured left to right: Rob Dawg, Boba, Coty, HBK, Casper, Doc Otis

An interesting fact about Pete's Place is that it is named after the highest ranking fire official in NYC on Sept 11th, 2001. His last name escapes me right now, but he was buried in the rubble of the first tower that collapsed. Pete dug himself out and continued to rescue people until the second tower fell and he was killed.

More of night two's poker game...I lost my chips early in the game and decided to stick to taking photos instead.

On night two in Manas, we were also treated to a band, funny thing is, they don't speak a single word of English but they can sing all the rock n roll tunes perfect. The lead singer even changes his voice to sound like the artist. He did several Billy Joel songs and it was surprisingly good.

So, now I am still waiting in Manas for the rest of our folks to get here, they should have been here a couple days ago but keep getting pushed back. Hopefully they will be here tomorrow and then we will be ready to get out of here.

So Close to going home...I can't wait!

~Mike~