Blogs from Helmand, South, Afghanistan, Asia

It's been a little while since I've written, but I can't say that much has happened. Easter, Memorial Day, and we killed Osama bin Laden. Otherwise, business as usual. At the end of my last blog, I was getting excited about soon becoming the squadron "on deck" to leave theater. Well, the time has come and gone -- we're now NEXT! I can't even describe the feeling of excitement about that. It's like Christmas, Easter, and your birthday as a little kid all rolled into one. I can barely contain myself. We're right around a month out, and talk everywhere is for preparation for returning. I've already started mailing some of my stuff home. Mom got the footlocker at home and is also getting excited about how close we are! We're in that phase right before ... read more

Month 2 is coming up quickly. Not much has changed, but we're all settling into our routines a little more. Mine now includes a panini for lunch pretty regularly. Maggie and I have it down to a science. We do some "shopping" at the DFAC, where we get wraps, ham, pastrami, turkey, swiss and provolone cheese. For hers she gets some other weird stuff she adds (chinese noodles, green apples, raisins, pickles. Weird!) We've found that the secret ingredient is pesto! Once the pesto is on the grill and cooking, the aroma it sends out is like a siren for everyone around us. People come to investigate, and we end up making extra paninis. It's been fun though! The highlight of the deployment, for some of the people. The only limiting factor for a really amazing ... read more

I'm currently working on a so-called "community stabilisation" or "soft kinetic" counter insurgency (COIN) project in south Afghanistan. The idea is that once the military (the "hard kinetics") have "cleared" and "held" an area, we come in and distribute useful assets and help with the reconstruction. The truly innovative aspect is that our project is focused on agriculture (since most Taliban are actually farmers) and providing training in how to get better yields or use tractors more efficiently seems a great idea to win hearts and minds away from the extremists. More on the project itself in my company web site FoodWorks Much of our work is undertaken in the productive river valleys of the Arghandab and the Helmand, the latter being one of the major rivers of the region with the former being an important ... read more