I Don't Mean to Bragg, but People Know Me

Well, as nearly all of you know, in mid-July I left for a 12 month Army deployment to Afghanistan and what a journey it has been so far. I have been assigned to be the supply officer (S4) of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in the Provence of Paktya in the eastern part of the country.

The first three months of the deployment I was at Fort Bragg, NC training with my team that consists of three active duty Army guys, some Army Reserve civil affairs guys, a National Guard infantry platoon and a bunch of Air Force personnel. Yes, we are quite the hodgepodge and we were all brought together at Bragg to receive training prior to going "over there." What actually happened was we came together as a team, finding common ground in how much we hated the Bragg experience and the incompetence of those who were training us. It honestly had potential but really all they did was get us excited to get to Afghanistan (and out of NC). I would like to think that was their actual intention but I'm not willing to give them that much credit.

Below is a picture of my supply crew. Not a bad looking bunch if i do say so myself!

I have two Air Force guys working on my supply team, and we also have two "honorary" S4 team members. From Left to right in the front is Air Force Staff Sergeant (E-5) Figueroa my armorer who will be playing role of my supply NCO down range. Next to Fig is USAF Tech Sergeant (E-6) Cooey who is the overall supply NCOIC but when we get to Afghanistan he will be staying at Bagram Air Field to ensure that supplies that we order are forwarded down to us and he will also be handling accommodations for personnel heading up that way. He doesn't want to be up there and I'd rather have him with me but we need a guy up there and he's the man. Next to him is USAF Captain Parris our Physician's Assistant. Not on the S4 team but, you know, everyone wants to be on my team and I didn't have the heart to tell him to get out of the picture ;). In the rear left is USAF Captain Shafran, the first honorary S4 team member... I'll talk about her a bit more later. The next fierce looking, steely eyed, stone cold killer would be the only Army cat in the section, the HMFIC (if you really want to know, ask) yours truly, The Lieutenant Irish, a.k.a. LTI. The last individual in the picture is Senior Airman (E-4) Mayo, also an honorary member of the team. He's a good guy to hang out with so we used him for supply reasons whenever possible. It got him out of some of the crap we were doing so it was a bit of a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" arrangement.

The reason that Stacie... Capt Shafran, is an honorary team member is that she has emerged as my best friend on the team. We had a pact at Bragg. She kept me from throwing myself in front of any and every bus that passed us and I did the same for her. It is a lot easier to pass through hell when you have someone going through the same thing to commiserate with. Plus we have a very similar sense of humor so we did what we could to make our incarceration as good as it could be under the circumstances.