Crossroads

A wise man once said that Afghanistan is “the crossroads of migration, conquest, and trade.” Why? The country itself is poor, with harsh lands incapable of most types of agriculture, and no other natural resources to draw anyone here. It must be its location - right between India, China, Northern Africa, and Europe. Smack dab in the center between numerous giant civilizations, and tons of history.

The USA isn’t the first foreign military presence in this country, not by a long shot. You can look back to Alexander the great in 330BC, Genghis Kahn in 1220AD, Britain in the 1800s, and Russia in 1970… several millennia of foreign actors here for one reason or another.

Bagram Air Base itself is built upon several generations of foreign occupation. Buried beneath the sand are remnants of the ancient city Alexandria on the Caucasus. Scattered across the surface, slowly being reclaimed by nature, are ruins from the Russian airbase that once sat here. I took a trip away from the Commpound to explore these ruins – creepy, and intriguing!

It is a complex of one-story structures, some collapsing, walls several feet thick built of stone and cement. Heavy metal doors, locks smashed, lead to the insides. Cramped rooms, still furnished, connected by nightmare-fuel corridors, pitch black, and tagged with graffiti. A lone wooden guard tower sat perched on top of one such building, ladders long gone (probably not a smart move to go up there in general!) It’s clear that former inhabitants got out of here in a hurry! Super cool site to explore, but I wouldn't want to get stuck in there overnight!

I feel sympathy towards the innocent folks just trying to live in Afghanistan amidst all these conquests. If my house sat right between IKEA, CostCo, and McDonalds… and people kept driving through my yard to get from one to the other, getting into fisticuffs on my porch… I’d be pissed too! That being said, some of what happens here… some of what is allowed to happen here… is absolutely intolerable, and I stand behind the reason for our presence here.



In other news... making friends pays off in this environment! I’ve been able to take some behind-the-scenes tours around here, seeing some really neat stuff that I’d get in trouble for posting online – so y’all will need to wait until I get home to see that.

Also, just this past week, I received several boxes of Ross-style snacks… a daunting amount of food - I might need to share with the pine! They were sent anonymously but a little birdie told me where they came from – so, THANK YOU, “anonymous” sender! The D-FAC food and snacks provided on base are good, plentiful, and free... but they're HEAVY. I feel sluggish compared to back home. It’ll be freaking awesome to have some healthier options available.

Work is going well; the days are long but pass quickly. The joys and pains of being a supervisor are starting to take hold. There’s hardly enough time after my shift to get a quick workout in, a pinch of socializing, and still get enough sleep. Personalities and work styles are starting to appear. Old procedures are being tossed, and new methods are being proposed. It must be frustrating to go through this as one of the long-term contractors here on base; one of my guys has been here for over three years... can you imagine all the turnover he's seen? Half a dozen teams, each one coming in and shaking things up for better or worse.

That's it for this post! I'm wrapping up my third LBR here, a mostly lazy day. I slept in (straight through an early morning IDF - our sixth since I've been here), ran a few miles, played some VR, watched some videos, and dodged leadership since I didn't shave :-) The big progress chart shows us at 18.5% through this adventure. That's just over one month down, five to go! Feeling good, keeping the faith, and hoping the remaining 20 weeks go as fast as the previous five!