Afghanistan My Last Tour

"ER" is nursed back to health - and to a new name "5K-1"

Today’s mission was to travel to Camp Phoenix and retrieve “ER,” one of our MRAPs.  Despite being the ambulance model, we do not use it as such, so the boss doesn’t want me to refer to it as ER anymore.  Instead, it has been relabeled 5K-1 (5^th Kandak, vehicle 1).

AF A1C preparing for mission.

It was another cool morning and my ETT team readied the vehicles for the mission.  Our MRAPs are undergoing maintenance, so we used our fleet of armored HMMVWs for this mission.  Meanwhile, I was busy loading lumber on a contractor’s truck so it can be pushed out to another FOB down south.  The lumber will be used to build a tent floor for our ANA brothers.  Recently an insurgent rocket

Security in the capital city.

destroyed one of our sister Kandak b-huts (tragically killed 2 ANA soldiers) and another one accidentally burned down resulting in the death of another ANA comrade.  So now they are scrambling for living quarters and have occupied the living quarters we were planning to move our Kandak soldiers into.  Meanwhile our Kandak soldiers are stuck living in a tent and sleeping on the ground.  The plan is to build a wood floor to help elevate them and install some heating systems to keep them warm until permanent quarters can be acquired.

Transporting tires with a bicycle.

While traveling today I took a picture of a man transporting tires with his bicycle.  He had 15 vehicle tires strapped to his bicycle.  Although unheard of in the United States, this is a normal sighting here.  Often carts, wagons, and vehicles will be overloaded with items.

Prior to arriving at our destination we slowed down the convoy to

Truck plowed into a building.

analyze a gathering of people.  My gunner quickly determined it to be an accident.  A transport truck left the road and crashed into a nearby building.  It didn’t appear that anyone was hurt and we continued on with our mission.

While at Camp Phoenix we had our 50-cal. machine gun repaired and retrieved 5K-1.  We took advantage of the PX and were able to get some cash from the finance center.  Our FOB is too small and they do not visit here.    Camp personnel here have to wait until they visit larger camps like Phoenix and Bagram that have finance offices and ATM machines to get money.  It’s rather surprising because the mail person visits here at least every two weeks so we can send out packages and they are from the same camp as the finance center.

Horse taxi.

We traveled back through the city and the traffic was pretty light.  I took pictures of the typical horse taxi and one of the many security towers guarding the city.  When we returned the Captain smashed his finger while repositioning the 50-cal machine gun.  I gave him a Band-Aid and told him to “suck it up”.  The Band-Aid reference is a running joke internal to our team.  Every time someone gets hurt, we just tell them “Put a Band-Aid on it and suck it up.”

Filed under: Missions Tagged: | Afghan National Army, Afghanistan, Bargam, Camp Phoenix, Deployment, ETT, MRAP, photography, war