Schutzenschnur

Holy Crap it’s been almost a month since my last entry!

Well, we were supposed to be heading home next week but unfortunately we were delayed 2 weeks. I should be home before 1 March for sure.

Let’s see…so much has happened since 2 January:

I participated in a Humanitarian Aid a couple of weeks ago. We first ended up at an all girls school by accident (there was a miscommunication with the project leader and the convoy commander) so of course we couldn’t just leave without giving them something so we handed out some small things such as toothbrushes and stuffed animals. The interesting thing about the girls’ school is that there are very few in Afghanistan. Most villages still do not allow girls to go to school. So, it was very cool to see. Also, I was the only female on our convoy and they were just ecstatic to see a female soldier. Finally we ended up at the correct location where we met up with a group from another camp. We handed out clothes, blankets, shoes, toy, etc…to a village in Kabul. It was so sad to see so many kids running around in the snow in just sandals with no socks and babies in thin clothing in single digit weather. It was an awesome experience! It was an up close and personal reminder of why we are here. I was heartbroken when we ran out of stuff to give.

My new class started 2 weeks ago. We had to move to another building because the camp needed more room for trainees (ANA) as they are rapidly increasing in size (yeah!). For the first 2 days we had NO HEAT. As you’ll recall in my last paragraph, we were in single digits. I could see my breath during lessons!!! BURRRRR…The problem has been resolved with 3 small space heaters but it’s still chilly in there.

A couple of days ago I and my fellow AF-Mates were invited to shoot some of the German weapons. We only got to shoot the 9mm and the MG3 but it was cool as hell! I received the Gold German Army Marksmanship Award (Schutzenschnur) on the Machine Gun. Not only that but there were a total of 4 Air Force, 5 Marines, and 3 Army and not one Marine shot Gold. The 4 Gold medals were earned by 3 Air Force and 1 Army. GO AIR FORCE!!!!

Almost There

Only 1 month left!
Work has been extremely hectic hence the reason I have not been blogging/emailing/chatting much recently. We have been working on a huge project for almost 3 weeks now and things are not going as smoothly as planned. Because of the problems we have been incurring I have had to convoy out to Bagram Air Base twice in one week to pick up equipment and additional personnel (the experts...who can't fix our problem either). It's a different world out there. The drive is long and bumpy and the base is huge compared to my camp. We are still dealing with complications but we're making progress. I don't see us completing our task before I leave here but don't worry, it won't hold me up...I will still be home in February I'm just a little bummed that I won't get to see the end product.
We had a very white Christmas...my first (that I can remember anyway). It snowed all evening on Christmas Eve and all day Christmas Day. We had a long day on Christmas Eve but we did get to break away in the evening for a Christmas celebration/Mass. A few of us sang carols then stuck around for an impromptus open mic night (see Fa La La...post). On Christmas Day I slept in then spent a few hours in the afternoon repairing the phone lines (something else to add to my resume). During our move we had to move the phone lines but our phone guy is currently on leave so I had to quickly learn how to troubleshoot phone switches to ensure everyone could call home on Christmas Day. In the evening we had a nice Christmas Dinner then watched It's a Wonderful Life. Not a bad Christmas for being deployed. It was much better than the one I spent in Basic Training 11 years ago. Yep...that's right; I went over 11 years last month. Holy Crap it went by fast. I'm over the hump so I guess I'm a lifer.
On New Years Eve our DFAC (chow hall) cooked up another lovely dinner with sparkling grape juice (no alcohol in country). We also had a small bonfire and toasted with grape juice to farewell 2006 and welcome 2007.
2006 was definitely a better year than 2005. Things didn't really work out as planned but I did have a good time and I have some wonderful memories.

Happy New Year!