Butterflies

I miss the glory days. Problem is, I never got to participate in them. I was standing around the truck today with five other NCOs from my platoon while we were observing the Afghan National Police and their Dutch mentors conduct a traffic control point and somehow we started discussing past wars. The topic of Normandy came up and we all agreed how mind blowing the casualties numbers from that operation were. Then it moved onto Vietnam and how the lifespan of a 2nd or 1st Lieutenant landing on a hot LZ was anywhere between 5 and 15 minutes. Knowing my fondness for all things indirect fire and close air support and making it look like the right hand of God just made an appearance, one of the other NCO's looked at me and said, with a smile, "You would have a really good time there." Unlike Afghanistan now, the Rules of Engagement were a tad looser when it came to dropping artillery rounds and bombs.

I started to think about that statement and how I somewhat missed the boat on being able to bring all sorts of weaponary down from the heavens. I mean, its on my mind all the time. My answer to whenever we are posed the question "what would you do if you saw a vehicle coming your way at a high rate of speed?" is always and will forever be "hope that air is on station and put a 500 lb bomb right through the windshield." I thought about all the books I read during AIT and Airborne school about the early phases of the war in Afghanistan when Special Operations forces broke the back of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in several major engagements due to their ability to call in precision air support. I wish I could have done that, but alas, the time has passed. See, I'm not much of a close up engagement guy. I'll let the infantry guys have all that fun. Don't get me wrong; I'll stand and fight like a bunch of pissed off hornets but my preferred method of engagement is sitting on a mountain or rooftop with a map, a TACSAT radio, and a Vector laser rangefinder and watching things go BOOM.

While that may be my dream (and it may still happen), our mission is not one of watching millions of taxpayers dollars cause destruction. Instead it is working in our district to ensure that police are doing their job and getting the materials necessary to build themselves up. While it is the not ideal job for a platoon of skilled paratroopers, it is what we have been tasked with. We all may gripe about the ROE and how we have to present a kindler and friendlier image, deep down I think we all know that in the end, it will result in a higher chance of us coming back in one piece.

So far, things are going good. I've finally got all my "toys" that I have been asking for from my company command. Is it more stuff to back in the truck? You bet, but it also allows me to be a lot more accurate in my targeting (if and/or when the time calls for it) and make sure that the right people go away if they decide to come and fight us. Radios will still give me a fit of rage every now and then, but its nothing that 15 seconds of cursing won't fix. I've actually gotten pretty good at diagnosing what may or may not be the issue. I'm quite proud of myself on that one.

I've also noticed something here that gives me a nice moment of peace everytime I see them. Butterflies. When my sister Mallory died when I was 4, I was sitting next to my Mom when we buried her. According to my Dad and Aunt Lynne, I noticed several butterflies flying around and remarked to my Mom, "Look, there goes Mallory!". I heard that story for the first time this summer from Lynne while I was on leave, and upon returning to North Carolina, I found a celtic butterfly design and took it to my tattoo artist to have two butterflies(My Mom and Mallory) tattooed on my upper right arm (a design so intricate, he commented, that he will never do it again but he thanked me for the business, lol). Now, it seems, everytime we are out and are making a halt, I see a butterfly flying around, like my own little personal protection right behind the 35 lbs of body armor and the 19 tons of armor on the truck. I'm sure I haven't seen one everytime, but when I do, I know that I'm covered. Its a pretty nice feeling.

Oh yes, by the way, I am located right next door to the Dutch base where I spent three weeks at on my last deployment. We go over there every week to meet with them and observe the training of an ANP class. Needless to say that once they saw my name tape, I was an instant celebrity. Apparently the Dutch like seeing one of their own represented among the American forces. I always like going over there because it makes for good conversation and telling them about how Pella (my birthplace in Iowa) is more Dutch than the Dutch themselves. Plus, they have really really good coffee.

Reaper 94, out.

Dining under Moonlight

So, we were out on patrol and did an overnight stay at one of our checkpoints. I was happy to stop because that ment grabbing some chow and a bedding down until I had to pull my guard shift in the morning. I just figured on munching on an MRE would be my dinner and after that, I would set up the medical stretcher and crash out on there. Not the case. I was called over to a small grassy area adorned with rugs that earlier I had seen being used as a meeting area for our platoon leadership, Afghan National Police leaders, and elders from a nearby village. I already had an idea what was coming but it was simply confirmed when a large plate of bread, rice, and chicken appeared before me. Good thing, too, because I was starving.

Now, the meal wasn't anything spectacular. I've had better, I've had worse. It was more the setting that gave me pause for a moment. Here I am, three years and some change removed from college sitting in a remote part of Afghanistan, eating a local meal under the moonlight, and learning a little bit of Pashto, all while being able to see millions of stars. It was just kind of surreal. Dr. Suess' book "Oh, The Places You'll Go" popped into my head. The places I have gone indeed.

The next morning we just did a presence patrol into the town. It was really just about getting to know some of the merchants in the town and getting their opinion on what they like and what could be done better. My job was just to monitor our platoon radio frequency and pass any info along to our LT and pull security to make sure nothing happened. Pulling security can be pretty boring because its hot and you are bored, but I just had to suck it up. Eventually, some of the boys that ran around in the village let their curiousity get the best of them and started to come up to me. Now, granted, there is a pretty significant language barrier between us but there is the universal language of making faces at each other. That game went on for about 20 minutes until we graduated to the high five game. It didn't last too long, but one of the boys started pointing to some of the gear I was carrying and signalled that he wanted to see it. Knowing that Afghani kids have sticky fingers, I didn't hand anything over but I just showed them what it was. They were all fascinated with my watch for some reason. It was cool to interact with the local kids, even though I couldn't understand what they were saying, I was able to pick up a few words. One down note, though, I did make one little kid cry. I looked, smiled, and waved, and he wasn't having it, although with all my gear on, I can understand how I would look scary to him.

Not much else has been going on. I'm doing my best to stay in shape but our schedule can throw that off a bit. I did a ruck march around the base last week (17 laps) with my NVGs on and that was pretty cool. The world just seems a bit different through that green glow. I'm fighting what I think is the flu right now. I was pretty much racked out from 1230 yesterday afternoon to 730 this morning, so I'm still a little groggy as I write this. Baseball season is over for me, but my football teams continue to sport an unblemished record. Ahh, waking up at 530 on sunday mornings over here to catch the scores is much nicer when they are victories.

94, out.