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I have done a lot of missions with my man Face. He and I have spent many a days together cramped in a HUMVEE with just us and maybe a terp or two. Because of that I have a lot of pictures of him. He is a guy that constantly cracks us up with his funny faces and anecdotes.
I decided to make a video of all the different faces of Face. The music is from “Kids of Whidney High” which is a group featured in the movie, The Ringer. The song title is “I see Pretty Girls”. This is one of our favorite movies in the team and one that we quote many times. Plus the song just sticks in your head once you hear it.
This is actually an edited version of the original video I made. The first one is for the team only and anyone that Face wants to share it with. This one is a little cleaner and appropriate for all ages.
Also, let me clarify that the last picture you see in this video is not Face, it is BJ. Who loves to mess with face and allowed this picture to be taken on Face’s fur rug while he was gone on leave.
A lot of people have asked me what it is like working with the ANP (Afghan National Police) now versus the ANA. Well rather than write out a big, long blog about it I think this news story here can give you a good picture of the caliber of people I am mentoring now.
Granted these particular ANP are not the ones I mentor, but these are not far off or much different.
The other night our terps threw a party in honor of us before we leave. This is somewhat of a tradition that they do in Afghanistan for their guests, of which they consider us. This is the first of several feasts that we will have here before leaving. Our ANA will be having one for us also soon.
In their honor Prohpet, Puss and myself dressed in our local garb of man-jammies, slippers, and our Pashto hats. Of course we added some accessories including the folding stock AKs that each of us has and Puss wore my bandoleer. Prophet and I also wore our vests. We knew the terps would love this and of course they did. They had a ball with it. It is a great honor for them to respect their culture and religion, so dressing up as Afghans tickled them pink. Afterwards the three of us talked about dressing up like this again on our flights home from our demobilization site. I told them I doubt we would get free upgrades to first class like we typically get while traveling in uniform. We joked about the weird looks we would get as people watched up walk on the plane.
Anyway, as with any Afghan party there was cranked up music and dancing. Afghans love to dance and they love their music cranked up very loud. There was no way we could resist the dancing and before I knew it the only open space in their B-hut was filled with US soldiers dressed as Afghans and Afghan terps dancing away. Even Big-D and Bob the Builder got in on the dancing. I have some great video of the dancing and will be putting that video up soon.
The boys went all out with bottles of ZAM ZAM placed throughout the table, along with bananas, oranges, fresh Nan bread, great Afghan rice, afghan fries, spicy potatoes, and of course freshly made goat kabobs wrapped in hot Nan bread. They also had real Pepsi and water on the table for us. They had more food then we could ever imagine eating. After the dancing was over we all sat down and had some good fellowship.
We ate, laughed, joked, shared stories from the last year and ate more. Froblem, the recon LT that I have talked about before and conducted a lot of missions with was the cook and he did a great job. We had the Kandak Commander there and Niem, our house mouse. It was a great time to relax and enjoy some Afghan hospitality, which they pride themselves on. It was a night to honor all of us, their friendship with us and to reminisce about the good and bad times we have had over the last year. We talked about the first time we met, about ETTs that have since left, we talked about funny things that happened and times when we lost people in combat. Overall it was a good night.
There is not much I will miss from this place, but I will miss these guys. They have spent almost as much time with me as my fellow team-mates and friendships were bonded during that time. All I can hope for them is that none get killed after I leave and that either this country does 180 degree turn-around or they find a way to get out of here and go somewhere better.
I have posted a video of pictures from Operation Mountain Fury last year. Many of these pictures are already on the site, but like usual there are a few that are new and never seen before. Most of these pictures were taken by the combat cameraman that was with us. In fact there is one picture of him in the video holding a cup of chai tea.
I participated in several different operations during OP MTN Fury, and these are all from the 2nd phase of it, while I was teamed up with Devil Company (D Co.) of 2/4th INF, 10th MTN DIV. The leadership and men of Devil Company are some of the best I have worked with over here from the regular army. They were all true professionals that have seen more than their fair share of combat while serving in Afghanistan. Several of the leadership were on their 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th combat tours while they were here. I consider it a true honor and privilege to have known them and fought along side of them while they were here.
I dedicate this video to every one of them…soldiers, men and brothers-in-arms.
The music put to this video is American Soldier, and it fits perfect. I hope you enjoy it.
Over our time here, we have come up with lots of catch-phrases and sayings that have stuck with the team. Some are particular to a person, some come from movies, and some come from events. Regardless of their origin, meaning or anything else when we hear them we are usually laughing. Whenever any one of us hears these sayings, we will always know what they mean. Until this posting, only those on the team knew about these and these will be things we will laugh about for years to come.
“I’m not going to make itâ€- Prophet
“Tashakoor, Bananasâ€- Big D
“Skin them pantsâ€- Face
“Believe Datâ€- Big D
“Top, Guess how many ______ I haveâ€- Prophet (in the voice of Glen from the movie, The Ringer)
“I F@#*&ing Quit†– Loon
“Shinebox†– Face
“Disruptum†– Big D
“Avoid the rush, Hate em now†– Loon
“Glom†– Puss
“Tapping Outâ€- Everyone
“Forget About it†– Puss
“EMF†– Top
“What are they going to do, send me to Afghanistan†– Everyone
“Were all equal†– Top, Face
“Tired of fighting ‘emâ€- Big D
“Do what you want to, your going to anyway†– Face
“Silky Smooth†– Face
“Tell Dooley, he’ll fix it†– Face
“Saw rack†– Face
“Sucking up bandwidth†– Face
“Chow sucks†– Everyone
“That’s Hot†– Face
“Hooorseshit†– Top
“Schooo Schweet†– Face
“Heshco Firewall†– Prophet
“Shutup Shtupid†– Face
“Captain Insane-O†– Mouse
“Two Shot†– Puss, Prophet
“Chika Paw†– Loon (means whats up in Dari)
“So you like it here?†– Face
“Suck starting a 9mm†– Top
“Kick Starting a shotgun†– Prophet
“I heard the internet is on computers†– Puss
“Toooooooop, fix my puter†– Big D
“F#$% this place, F#$% this mission, and F#$% you†– Puss
“C Khubas†– The ANA (It means good, as in like him because he is good) talking about Puss
“Spanky Khubness†– The ANA (it means bad, or we don’t like) talking about Prophet
“Quiet Killer†– The ANA (speaking about Loon)
“We don’t know where we are going, but we’ll stop when we get there†– The ANA
“My soldiers have a high-tolerance for Hash†– ANA Kandak Intel officer
“Fuggedaboutit†– Puss
“Sure, they’re a two†– Everyone (talking about the ANA and where they need to be on a 1-5 scale to do missions with us), usually said every time they screw up
“Retards†– Everyone
“Dirt Monkeys†– Everyone
“A week and a half out of the stone age†– Puss (talking about Afghanistan)
“Instagatum†– BJ
“Going Jose Conseco on his a$$†– Prophet(talking about how the ANA beat people with their AK-47 rifles
“I wrote a song about it, wanna hear it?†– Puss
“You gotta lot hate up in ya†– Face
“Release the Poison†– Face
“Worry about cha†– Face
“The Sheep must die†– Top
“Plant a tree, not an IED†– Puss
“We will dance around the fire like pagan warriors of old, drinking camel’s blood†– Face
It was an early morning mission, which is something I had not done in a while. Heck, I haven’t even been on a true mission in a long time. Since they gutted the ETT teams to create the Police mentoring teams (which I am on now) the staffing of all the teams has been so thin that we could not effectively and safely run combat missions at the optempo that we were used to. To solve that this time, we joined the ANA and ANP together on this mission, and of course the US advisors of both. This gave us a very strong force of both Afghans and US personnel.
The mission had several objectives, with the main one being the assessment of the local police HQ by the ANP mentoring team. Our Police mentoring team needs to asses all of the police stations and district centers in the province so we know where they stand on training, reports, logistics, personnel, etc. The ANA addition gave the ANP team the security they needed to focus on their tasks at hand in the station and not worry about security outside. Since many of us on the ANP team were with the ANA for the last 10 months and knew this battle-space better than most people here, it felt like a flashback. Seeing the same faces we had been used to working with and getting back on the same ground again.
We took the opportunity to talk to all of the people in the bazaar while the police assessment was going on. Face had a group of ANA and ANP and I had a group of ANA and ANP with me. We both took one side of the street and worked our way from one end of town to the other, talking to shop owners and people on the street. There have been several attacks lately in this general area and we wanted to pursue any intel people could have about this. Actually there had been three incidents in the last 14 days and we knew people had to know something. Having ANP working with ANA and US personnel there sends a good message to the general population. They can see that the police, Afghan army and US Army can all work together.
Security was well established with multiple US armored Humvees with us, and plenty of ANA. We cordoned off the entire bazaar area of the village and did not allow any vehicle traffic through. This also allowed us to move freely with little risk of a car bomb hitting us as we moved on the ground. I took my ANA and ANP with me slowly and deliberately to each store front. We went into every place that was open, which represented everything from pharmacies to grocery stores to bike repair shops and everything in between. The store owners were all very receptive to the ANP, ANA and myself coming in. I even bought some phone cards from one vendor for my cell phone, and then later sent my terp back to buy some Zam Zam. Zam Zam is a soda made in Iran that comes in a variety of flavors, with our favorite being orange. Unfortunately Fayez came back with Zam Zam cola but not orange. The orange he came back with was Pebsi, yes with a “bâ€. It was ok, but not as good as Zam Zam, which is our favorite. Fayez also brought us some Nan (footbread) for lunch. So we had that, slim jims and cereal bars for lunch as we waited.
Overall the mission went very well. We talked with all the business owners, many people on the street and kids of course. We did not get much intel, but that is ok because it was a side mission anyway. The police station assessment is what mattered and that went well. We did not think we would get much intel, because we always hear the same thing at every village, every time. “No Taliban hereâ€, “ maybe in this town or that townâ€, “we are peacefulâ€, “we all feel safe†are all the same things we hear. It is amazing that nobody ever has bad guys in their town, but their neighbor towns do. When you go to those towns, they point back to the first one. Which is why we always work the kids for intel and we always, always get it from them. Yes there have been enemy in the area and we now know where and when thanks to the kids.
It was the first real mission we got to do with Rog-O. Rog is a NYer that came with us but was split from us when we showed up in country like much of our original team. As part of the new police training mission, he was able to rejoin us on the FOB and on the team. Everyone has always gotten along well with him and is glad he is back with us. He has a great sense of humor and relaxed attitude on things, so he is fun to be around. We had already made some great memories with him, to include on this mission. He brings a lot of downrange experience to the table to he has a level head and knows the right things to do and not do.
So it had been a while since we conducted a “real†combat mission, if you want to call it that. It was good to get out and do something. None of us are FOBBITs and we don’t want to be. If we did, we would be in Kabul at our Task Force HQ. We are almost all infantrymen and we like it that way. We take the fight to the enemy, and don’t like to wait for them to bring it to us.
Not much more of that to come though…..time is winding down.
For reasons I cannot got into here, and because things seem to constantly be changing I would like to advise anyone reading this who were planning on mailing anything to me to not do it now. Mail Stop is NOW!!
Once the process starts for me to leave this country, I will bounce from FOB to FOB working my way up the chain and may not be here at my normal “home” FOB to get any mail or packages. I appreciate more than you will ever know all the mail and packages I have received from people for my team and I. I also appreciate the thought, time, money and caring that was behind all of those.
However my time is coming to a close here and it is getting close to the time of heading home and trying to have a normal life again.
If there is anyone that had something special they wanted to send to me in particular, feel free to email me and I will send you my home address.
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