Today was my first taste of Afghanistan, and I mean that both literally and figuratively.

Here’s why:

At work we produce a weekly magazine (I don’t personally, but another office does) and we have a contract with an Afghan man whose company prints these magazines and distributes them to bases throughout Afghanistan. I met the man today when he brought a van load of Afghan food to share with us and welcome all of us new folk to his country. And that’s how I had my first taste of Afghanistan, literally.

The food was good, it reminded me a lot of Turkish food. You had your big pieces of pita bread with rice and chicken mixed with different vegetables. There was barbecued lamb and some other meat. The guy went all out. It was a feast.

It was also a chance for me to have my first taste of Afghanistan, figuratively. One of my favorite parts of traveling is getting to meet people from different backgrounds and nationalities. It’s so interesting and it really opens your eyes to the world. Of course, here it’s a bit different. I don’t know how often I’ll be able to leave the base and interact with Afghans, but I promise you the Afghan people are not what many Americans imagine them to be. I don’t know this to be true, exactly, but I am almost sure of the fact that most Afghans are very caring, hospitable people. This guy didn’t prove otherwise.

What stuck with me most today was when the man spoke for a bit to welcome us to his country. I can’t remember word for word what he said exactly, but he mentioned how thankful he was for us. And by us, I mean all Americans and other nationalities that are here. He said that he knew we were leaving the safety of our homes and leaving our families behind to help fight for his country to have a better future. And that meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to me not because I’m out there risking my life, I’m not, but because hearing that come out of the mouth of an Afghan man goes to show that what we are doing here is right.

It’s so easy to sit back in the comfort of our American homes and say “it’s not our fight, what are we doing, let’s leave,” but when you look into the eyes of someone like this Afghan man and you understand that he is truly thankful for what our country is doing, you realize it’s worth it to be here.

And it is. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but I hope we don’t leave until the work is done. The Afghan people deserve it.

Yesterday was Sunday.

Yesterday was my day off.

I woke up around 10:30.

I read a book, in my bed, until 12:30.

I ate a bowl of cereal.

I read some more.

I took a nap.

I read.

I played Guitar Hero.

I took a nap.

I ate dinner.

I read.

I called Steph*

I read.

I went to bed.

I’m not sure if that’s what God meant when He said Sunday shall be a day of rest, but around here there isn’t much else to do when you’re not working.

I can’t wait until next Sunday.

*highlight of my day.

Here’s what happens during a deployment, most of the time: a person deploys, they go to work, they go to the gym, and they go to bed; in between they eat healthy and come back looking all lean and mean.  That’s not happening to me. I’m not coming back lean, or mean. I’m going with a new approach. I’m coming home fat.

I don’t want to. It’s not my goal. It’s just that I’ve never had so much junk food so readily available to me in my life.  Seriously, everywhere I look there are boxes of candy, pop tarts, cookies, and more. It’s hard not to walk by these boxes and not take a look through the box for something you might like. Right now, for example, I’m eating a package of Peeps. I’m so coming home fat.

My only hope is to make sure I stay active by running and working out, which means I have to reacquaint myself with my long lost buddy…the gym. Hopefully we get along and hang out a bit during this deployment. They also have indoor soccer a few times a week, so that’s good. It’s something to stay physically active…and I need it, if not I’m coming home fat. I might just bring some Peeps with me.

I’m here, and I’m settled. That’s the big news for this blog post. I know I haven’t written anything for almost a month, but to be honest I didn’t really care to. I had bigger, better things to do, like, for example, spend time with Stephanie and just forget about the outside world for the two weeks that I was home. Unfortunately, those two weeks are over, as in long gone.

Now, finally, I’m here in Afghanistan settled into my fancy little tree-fort of a room. I say finally because since New Years Day I’ve been slowly making my way to this point and I can only take so many days and nights of traveling and living out of…not a suitcase…but 4 big duffel bags.

Last Tuesday I left San Antonio and since then I’ve experienced a night in a crap hotel room in Baltimore (totally my fault), a ten hour layover in Turkey, a 36 hour stopover in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan where the temperature was somewhere around, oh I’d say 10 degrees, and where I enjoyed a night in a big tent with 150 bunk beds…all of them full. When I finally made it here to Afghanistan on Sunday I was put into a room where I had to wait a few days before moving into my permanent room. Tonight I can finally write and say I’m here, and I’m settled.

I am living in a plywood hut that has eight separate plyrooms. Ooh, I just made up that word. The plywood rooms give it the tree-hut feel, but to be honest it’s better than I expected. I have a place to hang my clothes and a place to put my books. I even have a small TV, and an, albeit slow, internet connection. I plan on doing my best to make it feel like home.

The job is cool. Much busier, and much better, than what I was doing in San Antonio. I’m glad that is the case. I think it will help the time go by a little faster. As much as I complain, I think this is all pretty cool. It’s an experience more than anything and besides missing Stephanie more than is healthy, it’s not that bad.

I’ll try to update this more often now that I’m settled and have an internet connection. The next six months I plan to read, write, and get ready for the next big adventure in my life: marriage. Oh yes folks, I’m still getting married. She has not, as many people might have hoped, changed her mind. Thankfully.

So, this week of Combat Skills Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey has me at a simulated FOB, which means Forward Operating Base. Basically, we are living as if we were in Iraq or Afghanistan, which means living in tents and dealing with limited showers and limited hours for food, etc. Actually, this is a bit worse than it is going to be in Afghanistan. I can only shower once every other day…and I have to fight for a shower. They have 700 people here, and only 24 showers…so figure that one out. I’ve talked to a few Army people here and they all say they’d rather be in Iraq…so there you have it…this sucks.

To add to the suck, the weather has dropped to freezing temperatures…and the wind has decided to blow cold and strong. In order to get any sleep I have to bury myself in an Army issued sleeping bag (which is awesome) and pray for no wind to get through. Other than the temperatures and the showers, it’s actually pretty cool how the Army has this place set up. They have actual middle eastern people here to play the roles of local civilians in Iraq and they have the Muslim prayer go off over the sound system five times a day…all to simulate actually being in Iraq or Afghanistan, it’s pretty detailed.

They also have a million portable toilets, or port-a-potties I guess is how you would spell it. Which mean it’s a bit gross when you have to go to the bathroom here. Add the 700 people to the multiple port-a-potties and you’re going to get a lot of graffiti inside the toilets…and most of it is about Britton’s Mom.

I have no idea who Britton is, or what he did to get somebody so mad at him (or her) that they decided to go to nearly every port-a-potty and write something about his (or her) mom. Seriously…almost every toilet I go into has something written on the walls that starts with Britton’s mom… For example, and I’ll keep the examples clean: Britton’s mom isn’t afraid of IED’s, Britton’s mom doesn’t “tap out”, and there are a ton more that I don’t remember or don’t want to share. Even yesterday, and today, when I went ten miles away from the FOB to train on a different range, there in the port-a-potty is a sentence about Britton’s mom. It’s almost become a game for me. Every time I enter a new toilet I look around for something else I can learn about Britton’s mom. At least it’s entertainment.

I only have two weeks left here…two weeks from tomorrow…so that’s good. It’s about time I get home.

I’ll have another blog about CST and stuff when it’s all over. Until then…I’m going to see if I can find out who is Britton’s mom.

Today I finished what was probably the most difficult training experience yet…more than a week without internet. It’s amazing how much the internet can relieve stress and actually make you feel like you’re not as far away from the world as you are. It’s good to have it back.

Since the internet went down I’ve had Thanksgiving here, which wasn’t that bad. The infamous chow hall made a dinner for us, and they gave us the day off. We weren’t able to go anywhere, and still had to wear our uniforms but it was nice to sleep in and do nothing for a change.

The training has picked up. In the last week I’ve shot three different types of guns. The coolest was an M249. I’ve learned that the Army is way more relaxed when it comes to shooting weapons as a group. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but it sure makes shooting an automatic gun an interesting experience. They gave us each 400 rounds and said, “have at it.” We were walking next to people shooting, getting up and down while the guy’s brass next to you is hitting you in the helmet. It was fun.

This week I am learning how to save lives. The class is a four day Combat Lifesavers Course, which basically teaches you how to save a life in the battlefield. The class includes a lot of slideshows with a lot of graphic photos…hopefully I’ll get used to all the blood and deformed body parts by the end of the class. If not, I’ll end up throwing up all over the wounded instead of saving them. I should be fine by the end of the week. I’ll also get to give somebody and IV three times…and have somebody give me one…which will actually be worse…oh brother. It should be interesting.

Anyways…that’s just a quick update on what I’ve been doing. I wrote a blog entry last week, but my internet was down…so I posted it today as well. It’s titled, “I Am So Humble…“

If you want to impress somebody, don’t tell them how impressive you are.

That’s my tidbit of wisdom that I’ve come up with this week. Since I’ve been here, I’ve realized that humility is much more important than I had thought. Whenever I have thought of traits that I look for in a friend (or girlfriend, or anybody for that matter) I’ve always listed things like trustworthy, honest, humorous, kind, etc. I’ve never mentioned humble. Now, all those traits are important, but this week I’ve realized that if a person isn’t humble, they are almost unbearable to be around…so needless to say friendship is out of the question.

Here in this training environment, humility is rare. I don’t know what it is…and I don’t think it’s because it’s a military environment. I have worked in a military environment for the last seven years, and humility, although sometimes hard to find, is usually prevalent. I think the lack of humility in this environment has more to do with the fact that everybody is coming from a different place and we are all meeting each other for the first time. It’s almost like we have to let each other know how big and strong we are, like we all want to be kings in this jungle and we’ve started by showing off our roars…or something like that.

Almost everywhere I turn my ear I hear somebody talking about how great they are. Whether it’s a sport, the number of books they’ve read, or the ability to pull of magic tricks, somebody is SO good nearly every time…and somebody else is better, bigger, or stronger than them.

Yesterday I heard a guy tell us the pack he carried every day while he was deployed was WAY heavier than the ones we have to carry.

Here’s another conversation I heard yesterday:

Captain: Where are you deploying?
Master Sergeant: Balad, Iraq
Captain: Oh, that aint that bad…
Master Sergeant: Well, we’re starting off there. We’ll probably be traveling throughout Iraq a lot.

As if just deploying to Balad wasn’t cool or dangerous enough…

I think the worse though is hearing from the Army about how cool they are compared to the Air Force. The Army has constantly reminded us that they are gung ho and they don’t need certain things, that they can go sleep out in the woods for 45 days if they need to, no problem. None of this makes me jealous. It only makes me more thankful that I joined the Air Force. I quite like my comfort and sense.

Oh well…I guess that is my rant about humility. I guess I just wish everybody were humble…like me. I am SO the most humble person here…

Spend any amount of time in the military and you’ll surely find yourself in a military “chow hall.” Think of it as a college (or high school for that matter) cafeteria, complete with the tray, dirty silverware and the server who doesn’t want to look you in the face for fear you’ll recognize their look of, “I can’t believe they’re going eat this.”

Each service in the military has chow halls, but you might be surprised to know that the quality of these low budget restaurants vary dramatically. Well, at least between the Air Force and all the others. In fact, the Air Force doesn’t even call their chow halls, chow halls. They call them “Dining Facilities,” and to be honest, there is quite a difference. In a Dining Facility, you’ll find carpet and separate tables, big screen tvs, and sometimes…good food. Go to a dining facility in the Air Force and you might end up leaving satisfied. Go to a chow hall in the Army and you’ll count your blessings if you leave alive.

I’ve been counting my blessings a lot lately. Every meal I eat, unfortunately, is at an Army Chow Hall. It’s become a three times a day routine to look at all my choices and try to pick out the least toxic thing I can find. So far this week I’ve had what I think was baked fish, a greasy piece of pizza (cheese I think), a cheeseburger which I believe had a chewy center, and a piece of pot roast. ( I’d say something disgusting about the pot roast, but “pot roast” usually does it for me. ) Today however, I was greeted by a surprise when I went to eat lunch. There in front of me, in between the chicken fried frisbees and mesquite slop, was, of all things, tuna casserole.

Now…this wasn’t my mother’s tuna casserole, nor your mother’s for that matter. In fact, to be honest it wasn’t even tuna casserole. I guess it was chicken casserole because instead of tuna they had chicken. Same ingredients though…noodles, melted cheese, and tuna…I mean chicken.

I’m happy to report I thoroughly enjoyed my tuna (chicken) casserole this afternoon…even if the girl who gave it to me wouldn’t look me in the face.

So big news…or not…soon I will be heading to Afghanistan to live in a wooden hut for 6 months (seriously…check the pic). To tell you the truth I’m actually looking forward to it, minus leaving Stephanie behind. Most of my friends have been and done their job and I figure my turn is overdue, so here we go.

This blog might change a little bit. Instead of ranting and complaining about all things Christian I hope to write more about my experiences, as a Christian, “at war.” I was thinking about changing the title of the blog to something like “Memoirs of a Christian in Combat” or “Being All I Can Be…and More,” but that’s kind of stupid, so I’ll just stick with what I got.

When I head to Afghanistan I’ll be filling an Army deployment, which means I have to take five weeks of Army Combat Training in New Jersey before I go. I’m currently doing that right now. (I’m actually sitting on my top bunk in a room with 11 other guys, my headphones jammed up my ears and pumping Boards of Canada to block out the noise.) Now, This doesn’t mean that when I go to Afghanistan I’ll be running around with soldiers throwing grenades and shooting nazis…I mean terrorists. It just so happens that the job I do in the Air Force is also done by the Army and they need extra bodies, so the Air Force is stepping up and filling the deployments. The Air Force has begun filling a lot of Army deployments so now every Air Force person who is filling an Army deployment, regardless of the job, has to do combat skills training…even lousy broadcasters like myself. So…needless to say, I’m here in New Jersey doing Army combat training.

There has been a lot of things happening, a lot of nothing happening, and a lot of wondering what’s going to happen, but I’m not going to write about much of that now. I will say this: To play Army, you have to look like Army. So yesterday all of us in training went and loaded up on Army combat gear: helmets, boots, goggles, sleeping bags, body armor, knee pads, elbow pads, etc. When we get the stuff all put on we actually look like we can do some butt kicking. The only problem is, it took us all an entire night to figure out how to get it on. You should have seen all us Air Force retards in here last night trying to figure out which way to put on a helmet and wondering how to strap on the goggles.

We did get it all on though. And if you didn’t know me and saw me running around with all that gear on you’d probably be scared of me and run the other way. If you did know me however, you’d probably just start laughing, push me over, and go get your friends to watch me try and get up.

Maybe by the end of the training I’ll at least be able to hit back.