Hit the Ground Running

Hi All,

I'm about six weeks behind with my blog postings, but please bear with me. The enemy does get a vote and it seems he's been keeping me extremely busy. Fortunately, it's Friday during Ramadan and with that comes a bit of peace.

This week's pics are from my barracks room at the ISAF Headquarters in Kabul. I arrived late in the evening, dropped my bags in the room and was called to work. I'm glad I took notes because with the time difference and travel plans, I was foggy headed to say the least. Note to self next year, when new guy/gal comes on board, do not make them come into work at midnight their first night in the country:-)

Fortunately, I replaced a very well organized and energetic officer so the transition went smoothly. If you ever run into COL Marilyn Jenkins at Ft Meade, MD, buy her a beer. She's good people!

Although I was a bit disappointed to be HQ bound instead of out on the line, there is a reason for everything. I work for MG Mike Flynn, an amazing intelligence officer (he just came from DC where he served as the senior intel officer for the Chairman of the Joint Staff, ADM Mullen). He makes it look like I'm standing still...I thought I was the energizer bunny...he is an animal...lives on animal crackers and 4 hours of sleep! If there is any doubt that we are not going to win this war with our Afghan partners, let me introduce you to our team here. Great Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and civilian analysts.

The last stream of pics are from my venture through Kabul the week before the elections. Don't you love the pic of the woman in the baseball cap? Quick story, we head out from the HQ to travel to one of our intel sites which is "only 5 minutes away". Obviously my guide had not been through Kabul, the country's largest city, during the campaign season. Afghan locals don't put signs up in their yard, they attend huge rallies at the soccer stadium. Soooo, instead of 5 minutes dashing through the city, we spent over an hour stuck in traffic. Which, for those of you keeping up in the news, is not a place you want to be if you're a Soldier moving with a convoy. The good news is, it gave me an opportunity to people watch. My family is smiling because they know some part of my retirement will include either sitting at the airport people watching or sitting at the food court:-) I loved watching the citizens of Kabul walk the streets with their families and shouting for their respective presidential candidate. Let's just say you didn't do that under the Taliban regime. It was an amazing experience seeing kids with colored headbands, and women and men with posters departing from the rally. It was for Karzai, which will be another entire posting, hopefully sooner rather than later. My what an election process...still in it.

I hope you're enjoying the stories from Afghanistan. Send me a post and let me know how you're doing. I love to hear from the gang back home. Trust me, even stories about your day at work, kids sports, running errands and the like bring a smile to my face. It's the little pieces of home that you miss the most.

Back to work for me...have an amazing weekend. Carpe Diem!