Week of September 28

James – Tami and I decided that we will try to post up a new blog each week. I'll send her what I've been doing and then she will add what she has been up too. We really don't go by normal weeks out here. I often have no idea what day it even is. Instead we go by guard and patrol rotations. We do four days of guard on the base, and then we do four days of patrols. I count a week as an entire eight day rotation.

Usually the guard rotation is pretty quiet and we get plenty of time off to do laundry (which I still do by hand), and just make sure my room and weapons are clean. This rotation we didn't get that much time off. Many people have been going home on their mid-tour leave, and it's left us shorthanded. I used to work three hours and I would get off nine. Now I'm working six hours and I only get six off. After each guard shift we have to fill the generator with fuel and by the time we are actually done we only get five hours off. That means five hours to write emails, use the latrines, get some food, shower, and get some sleep. I didn't even take the time to clean my room or do laundry even though both needed to be desperately done.

We did have some exciting things happen on this guard rotation though. On my first day we had some recoilless rifle rounds shot at us. They landed outside of the main gate where I work. They only shot four and none of them landed inside of the base, but it was exciting for a few minutes. You never know when they are going to follow-up with some small arms fire. My platoon leader slipped while climbing a mountain on patrol and he broke his thumb. We are also closing in on the end of their holy month celebrations. Kids are setting off fire crackers and we are looking in all directions thinking they are rifle shots. The Afghanistan National Police (ANP) stopped at our gate and asked us to look at a little boy who was too young to even understand he needed to throw the fire cracker and he blew some of his fingers off. I'm not sure what his outcome was. He came on the base just as I was getting off my shift.

All in all I'm glad that the guard rotation is over. I'm ready to get more than three hours of sleep at one time.

The patrol rotation was routine, except for the last day or so. I'm always in the gunner's hatch, usually with a .50 Cal, but sometimes the Mk 19 (an automatic grenade launcher). On our last day we took some Soldiers to another base, where they were going to hitch a ride further down the road so that they could go on mid-tour leave. As it turns out we had to take another Soldier down to the same base about 20 minutes after we got back. Then about an hour later we had to go back down there, pick them all up again, and continue down the road to their final destination. We did three patrols when we should have just done one.

We were scheduled to have the rest of the day off, but those patrols cut into our free time. We had the free time to prepare for a mission that would take place late that night, but instead we spent most of the night preparing for the mission and we got very little sleep. The mission went off well and we actually ended up getting some high ranking Taliban. Other than mortars we didn't fire a shot. I'm sure that they will try to get revenge so we'll be on our toes and watching carefully.

After that mission we had been up for 36-40 hours. We were initially told that we would have at least seven hours of down time to rest before we took over guard, (I had second shift so I would have thirteen hours down). Later they came back and changed it. Some of our guys only got three hours off before they started to pull six hour guard shifts. It's the nature of the beast, but we are coping. One more week has gone by, and I'm one more week closer to coming home.

Tami- Hello bloggers! I'm a little stumped on where to start. Things haven't been really exciting lately as they have been with James, but that's okay. I'll let James have all the fun; it seems to keep him awake when he pulls all those long hours. While I'm waiting to start my new job, I've taken hold of the creative streak in me and been busy making a few blankets. Now growing up I wasn't really the sowing type, but in the last few years, I've found a joy in making and observing the finished product. I have to say thought that the real icing on the cake comes when you see people's faces as the receive them. It just makes all the hard work and sore fingers worthwhile. I still have so many things yet to learn, but with my mother's expertise close at hand I should be set. If there are any requests I'm taking orders.