We’re finally here
Ξ October 10th, 2006 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Middle East |
We finally caught a flight to Bagram, and then a Black Hawk to Kabul. My Leatherman pocketknife actually made on an airplane in my pocket. I think the fact that I had a pallet of 5.56mm ammo about 4 feet in front of me and about half the flight armed with M16’s or 9mm’s. Surprisingly I didn’t actually have my first “What the hell am I doing, what the hell did I get myself into” moment until we were about to take off in the the Black Hawk and the 2 door gunners were checking the mounts and readying their M249’s. Tera apparently had hers shortly after mine, when the gunners in her chopper (there were 2 choppers flying together) seemed to get interested in something.
I did get some great Afghanistan countryside photos though, I hope, I’ll post them when I get a chance (may be a bit until I get a personal ISP, can’t plug personal drives into the business computers).
I’m getting over a cold or the flu I think, it hit at the tail end of being up for 38 hours straight bouncing all over the place to Kabul. Needless to say I wasn’t too with it yesterday when we first got here. It’s mostly down to an annoying sniffle and sore throat now.
Tera and I are still in tents in slightly different locations, but hopefully should be assigned a dual occupancy room or something very shortly. We’ve spent most of the day doing the usual in-processing bureaucracy and are finally starting to get things figured out.
As you may or may not know, Tera was hired as a Switchboard Operator (Telephone Operator). However, apparently the switchboard she’s suppose to operate in Bagram won’t be installed for 6 months or so. In the mean time she will be working on the HelpDesk, and is probably the reason were both assigned to Kabul instead of Bagram. I think she’ll be moved back up to Bagram if/when the switch gets installed, and I’ll follow when there’s an open position. Positions apparently come open reasonably frequently given the unsurprisingly high attrition rate of working over here.
In other news, we have an address now:
Devin Noel (or Tera Noel if your sending stuff to her)
ITT Systems
APO/AE 09356
It also looks like I get a cell phone tomorrow (they need to acquire another one for Tera which may take a bit). Hopefully I’ll be able to make it onto the WiFi access that’s near my House/tent, but that may take a few days.