Afghanistan My Last Tour

I’ve been on multiple missions these past few days and have fallen behind with my writing and pictures.  My Internet connection has been spotty and today the server went down.  Friday for the most part we had off and I spent most of my time cleaning and organizing my room, doing laundry, and resting.  These missions can really drain your energy and my room looked like a hurricane came through it.  But now I have managed to restore order to my space and my Internet connectivity is cooperating a little bit better.

Yesterday after mentoring our ANA counterparts, we spent the afternoon inspecting our MRAPs.  We went over each vehicle with a fine tooth comb and identified all of the minor and major deficiencies we could locate.  The Marines were not gentle with these vehicles and they have some problems that need to be fixed.  I suppose in the areas where they traveled, a speedometer was not required.  But personally I like to monitor my speed when traveling on the highways.  I also wouldn’t mind if the horn was functional and reattached.

Preying Mantis on teammate's ear.

After inspecting the MRAPs, we also inspected our armored HMMVWs and prepared them for tomorrow’s mission.  We are supposed to go visit a remote guard tower and if our teammate can’t get on the helicopter, we will drive him to the airport.  While inspecting the vehicles, one of my teammate’s found a Praying Mantis and it crawled up his arm and attached itself to his ear.  I also took a picture of one of the mountain peaks overlooking our FOB.

Mountain overlooking our FOB.