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perience things that you otherwise would not for example as one of our coalition partners the royal korean army has a small contingent of forces here this year my friend matt was invited to the korean new years party i being matt s shadow when i stay for periods at a time was also invited the party was interesting held in the church here on base the whole of the korean army gathered to celebrate the new year as we entered the church we were given a sign in sheet and then escorted to our seats although not an intuitive language it was pretty easy to pick up on most of the content of the shows the party was a conglomeration of skits and songs koreans take their karaoke very seriously indeed unbeknownst to me matt had agreed to perform a song having done this not just for himself but for me as well so we get on stage and matt starts jumping around and going all out crazy as u2 s vertigo starts to play we have a good time but in the end we did not win the contest but we did get a participation prize i think that is like the 10th place ribbon following the show we joined the korean colonel for dinner at the korean dfac the feast was fantastic and definitely served as a good break from this army grub that we eat everyday posted by joe at 11 04 pm 1 comments tuesday december 26 2006 christmas in torkham having returned triumphantly from my search for rest and relaxation well as triumphantly as one can when vacationing with the army i set my sights eastbound traveling to torkham is not as easy as it once was and i had to layover in jalalabad fortunately i made some new friends there as well and was not put in the circus tent for my one night stay on my way there i tripped getting off the bus in baf my rifle caught on the steps or something and i twisted my right foot something fierce i honestly thought that i had broken it wouldn t that be embarrassing but had only twisted it i did a good job though my ankle touched the asphalt and had it not been for someone else s rifle in my other hand i would have been on the ground i m not sure they appreciate its usefulness to me i could barely walk on it that night and most of the next morning the next afternoon though i made a point of exercising it so that i didn t look like a moron walking around i hate being so pathetic after an hour long humvee ride i arrived at torkham gate the day was the 23rd and christmas eve was the next day the morning of christmas eve we went out three and a half minutes to the pakistan border crossing we returned to a good surprise to me anyway it seems that the group decided that christmas dinner shall be on christmas eve vice christmas day as a part of the christmas decoration package sent by the army two ice sculpture swans and one ice sculpture eagle adorned the table the food was well prepared by a cook that had just arrived and just found out about the meal being 24 hours early all was good following dinner the guys played a pick up game of basketball in preparation for the next day s tournament christmas day passed with little fanfare i spent most of the day watching movies on my computer and being lazy in general waiting up most of the day i finally called home in time for them to be preparing to go to a friends house for dinner the twelve and a half hour time difference is quite interesting i will be returning in a couple of days to baf and from there head back to salerno where my mail awaits and patiently wait for my relief to show up posted by joe at 4 41 pm 0 comments friday december 22 2006 recharge complete since last i wrote i have been to salerno back to baf and then off to qatar in search of the ever elusive rest and relaxation aka r r in salerno all of my hopes and dreams were crushed by the lack of any mail at all it is not that no mail was available but rather that due to the change of my hq unit any and all mail that said the prior unit s name was returned to sender the week was made better by the departing of many of my friends civilians back home for christmas leave now they are home and enjoying their time with family i hope the decision to go to qatar was made rather quickly and was based on free time due to helicopter schedules i must say that it is unlike any port call that i have ever made enroute to qatar the plane that we were in took us to kuwait i almost dreaded going back there but was pleasantly surprised by the total climate shift since last i was there even during the day the temperature was quite bearable and nice the evening brought on a good chill and even a slight to moderate breeze kuwait was quite the same as i had left it the sleeping arrangements were as cozy as before but this time i had the added benefit of not having to carry a weapon i have been weaponless for almost seven full days and loving every minute of it i turned them in to the armory and offered the guy 25 to give them back to me clean i hope that he took me up on that while in kuwait i met two other navy guys headed to qatar i didn t know them previously but now consider them to be pretty good friends the numerous fliers that were posted around kuwait spoke of various activities that the mwr and uso had to offer for the coming days that included a guest appearance by bill o reilly initially i thought that the flier was to watch the show with everyone but sure enough there in mwr tent 2 was bill o reilly answering questions taking pictures and signing autographs he was accompanied by col ret hunt one of fox news military analysts like all other guys there i attended and got his autograph and a picture with him he signed it with respect that night we flew from kuwait to qatar which is pronounced by most as cutter arriving in the early early morning we quickly found racks inside a building inside a warehouse the enlisted guys were put inside a tent inside a warehouse the architecture of the base as a whole left much to be desired and would be considered only as bland most buildings were the same warehouse construction with wide open spaces inside the next day was a late start though not as late as expected having gone to sleep around 5am i was surprised to have awoken at 11am i then set to orienting myself to the building and base lunch was at chilis the only true sit down restaurant on base and a very welcome sight the next day we went out for a lunch on the beach to include suv ride through the sand dunes the ride was just that a pretty lame attempt to get some very minor cheap thrills but did not really satisfy the true 4 wheeler in anyone it was quite disappointing arriving at the camp on the beach the weather was not quite beach weather even though the water was pretty warm some played volleyball while others just sortof lounged most of that was brought to a grinding halt as the rain started to come down lunch was served kababs hummus and vegetables adorned everyone s plates the real trick though was to run from the serving tent to the eating tent without getting drenched as all finished their meals thoughts quickly turned to getting the duck out of dodge that is all of the military guys were thinking about leaving but the guides thought it best to wait out the rain sadly this is the hardest rain that qatar has received in 40 years so the rain did not let up and we took another disappointing ride through the sand dunes back to the blacktop with the base to follow the roads were certainly not equipped for rain and it is very quickly apparent why most vehicles are 4x4 the water level at some roundabouts came up to the upper half of the tires if not a bit higher both of my times outside the base i only ran across two stoplights otherwise the form of traffic management was the roundabout an effective but very dangerous tool some roads were composed mostly of potholes while adorned on either side by everstreching desert or impoverished industrial areas some of the potholes are almost not navigable by anything but an suv in the more suburban to downtown areas the roads were very well maintained and the roadside bustling with businesses upon arrival in qatar we were informed that the asian games were on their waning phase in doha the country s capital and only large city with this we were left with very few options for activities all of which included venues only done outside the city two days later the games ended and were we authorized to go to the mall and go golfing not being very well known for my golf skills while being in practice i thought it best to forego golfing it has been almost six months since i ve been so we went to the mall the mall was three stories of pure shopping madness that is if you are looking for women s clothes and the latest in modern middle eastern wares sadly i was looking for neither so we went to applebees having found no good option for local foods the applebees was a welcome sight one store was quite interesting it was a rug shop that only sold persian rugs i have never seen so many persian rugs silk and wool alike sadly most of them were above my price and also completely superfluous to me i did however go to one of the three starbucks retailers there sadly no ground coffee in sight so i bought a coffee cup that says qatar and a grande americano my coffee of choice it was good very good i must say that coming here i expected certain restrictions being a foreign country in the middle east but was unprepared for just how restrictive they were as i said before when the navy hits a port and has a completely controlled area the rule of thumb is to just not piss off the master at arms with the big sticks however that is not the case with the army it was an experience that i will never forget and could not live anywhere else with the stopover in kuwait having lasted basically two days i am now behind schedule and will have to try to travel a bit faster one of my stops is sure to be cancelled so that i can be back in time to meet my relief that is a very welcome appointment i have but one more stop then it is back to salerno until my relief comes as it happens i will be spending christmas at one of my favorite fobs torkham gate posted by joe at 4 12 pm 0 comments sunday november 26 2006 a warrior thanksgiving so this post as with most of the previous posts does not have any pics but i will try to alleviate that shortly since last i wrote i went to a wonderful place known as fob warrior which is the coolest name for a fob that i have been to as of yet some argue that calling it fob ninja would be better but i don t have a whole lot of say into that in fact they are trying to change the name to fob wild boar which would degrade its status to the worst named fob that i have been to however while i was there it was warrior and that is how it will stay in my memory as with all of my travels there were some irregularities in my getting there it seems that no matter how hard i try i simply cannot travel from point a to point b with no interuptions this time i tried really really hard i got on a chinook in salerno that was supposed to go directly the warrior yeah i could not have done better sadly that direct flight was redirected to baf the blackhole of helicopter travels where one of the chinooks was pronounced doa it had some sort of electrical malfunction the flight was cancelled and i ended up stuck yet again in baf knowing that leaving baf for warrior was going to be a challenge i befriended the helo crew and we made plans to meet again in the morning to attempt to leave baf together we met they left i stayed as we prepared for departure some person that had precedence over me decided that i was not going to make that trip conveniently for me the helo was to do a round trip and go back out so with all of my bags already burried in the bottom of a rather large pile i told the aircrew whom i had befriended to simply leave them on for the round trip it was easy and it even saved time now this was somewhat foolish but i had faith that my bags would make the roundtrip six hours later when the helo returned three hours late from its trip one half of my bags was not there but rather was waiting for me in warrior not bad odds really sadly the trip took three hours longer than scheduled and the next trip was cancelled till yet the next morning the next morning i went back out to the helicopter with the crew that i had befriended and loaded my bag and some equipment as i had the prior day as a thinking man i had talked to the jerk that took me off the flight the day prior and arranged for my ride on this time as we spin up the rotors the other chinook comes up with another problem and i am yet again pulled from the flight this time the pilots hook me up with another bird going my way so i ran across the flightline to the other bird and they convienently had one seat open it was the seat known as shotgun the seat is aft of the pilots slightly facing forward nice and located directly below the forward rotor trnasmission box the best seat in the house except in any sort of accident i got a set of headphones and talked to the crew as the flight made its way south when we arrived in warrior the other bird the one with my bag and equipment had already come and gone the crew which i had befriended put my bag off with the rest but forgot to get the equipment which i had stashed under the cargo seats no problem they were scheduled to make another trip that day as the day went on i waited and waited as i mentioned previously everything sounds like a helicopter when that is what you are waiting for finally the bird arrived and i got my equipment finally i was all there in fob warrior it took another twenty four hours to find my bag from the previous day but it was there and i was happy i spent eleven days in warrior doing various things in that time thanksgiving took place the fob had an interesting meal arrangement they normally serve a brunch and then a dinner due to short staffing the day before thanksgiving they closed down the galley following brunch which meant that the dinner meal was to be everybodies favorite mres yeah on thanksgiving the galley opened at 1130 for dinner the big question on everybodies mind was it worth it aka was an mre for dinner the night before and the really long line worth the meal my answer is most definately yes in fact it was the best meal that i have had in country sadly that night the peace was broken when one of the units out on patrol got into a firefight and lost one soldier while critically wounding another the wounded man survived the wonders of modern battlefield medicine a few days later i returned to baf where i now sit waiting to get back to salerno this month i am going to try to go to quatar for a little bit of down time i am still not sure when though till next time posted by joe at 4 52 pm 0 comments thursday october 26 2006 salerno nights to terwa days i have been out of comms for a few weeks some of this is my fault and some is not the majority of the last three weeks was spent in salerno dur...