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.

Sweet Freedom

Well I actually had this weekend off which will probably the last time I have any time off to speak of until I get my four day pass in early October before I actually head over to theater. Since Ft. Bragg is the "Home of the Airborne" there are a lot of parachute riggers employed here and I have a friend from Boise State who commissioned at the same time that I did who is stationed here as a rigger. I called him up Thursday afternoon to see what he was up to and he and his wife invited me to stay at their house over the weekend so i would get off post and relax a little. It was great to be able to get out of the barracks and not have to deal with anything for a few days. Here are Brad and Melanie, the ones that took this poor vagabond in at Joe's Crab Shack where we ate dinner Saturday night.





I was also able to catch up with Boise State Alum Nick Allex who was a year behind Brad and I and just returned from Iraq.




After dinner we went to the movies and saw The Dark Knight which is hands down the best movie I have seen in a VERY long time. What was even more surprising is that it is a film with a good conservative feeling to it, actually depicting the idea of heroism and sacrifice without making fun of them as old fashioned ideals from a bygone era. Heath Ledger deserves all the critical acclaim that he is receiving for his portrayal of the Joker. his death was a tragic accident but I believe that this will be the defining role of his career. A feel pretty confident that he will win and Oscar for this performance and rightly so.

Brad also took me to the Airborne & Special Operations museum in Fayetteville. Apparently it is "Airborne Week" so there were a lot of WWII re-enactors there answering questions and showing off equipment from the era. I was impressed with the museum. Outside of the re-enactors there were a lot of life size exhibits.

This is the delivering of the infamous "Nuts!" reply to the German request that the surrounded Americans surrender during the Battle of the Bulge.

Air Cavalry soldiers dismounting in Vietnam

Delta Force getting ready to make their rescue of Kurt Muse during Operation Acid Gambit, part of Operation Just Cause in Panama

Oh, and here is another reason it was nice to get off post for the weekend... to get away from the equipment they've given us such as this high speed front loading dryer... for the record my clothes were in the one on the left NOT the one in the center!

Gearing Up

Well, I have now been at Ft Bragg, NC for just over two weeks… though it feels much longer. I am training up to be a part of a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan. This is a fairly new concept. I believe that I will be the fourth iteration of a PRT and is really what the Afghans thought the international community would do when they kicked out the Soviets in 1989. We are going in and rebuilding the infrastructure of the country. I will be in the Paktia (or Paktya, depending where you look) province based out of the city of Gardez.

Currently I am living in World War II era barracks that they are in the process of knocking down. Here is what some of the surrounding billets look like. At least they sunk some money in the ones we are actually in and installed window AC units. I’ve been in these types before with just a fan at just one end of the room and that is REALLY not fun.

I am in the “death by PowerPoint” phase of training. Just going through a lot of briefs about the insurgency, the country, its culture and history, about the other governmental and non-governmental agencies we will be working with. Some of it is interesting, some of it is very dry, all of it is hard to stay awake through since they are given to us in 8 hour blocks… every day for about the last six days.

I don’t have very reliable internet access right now so this will be kind of short but I just wanted to share a bit of what I have found out about the PRT. Instead of being gone for 15 months as I was originally told it will actually be 12. 3 months of training and 9 months in country. The Himalayans are going to be in my backyard. Gardez is at 7,500 feet so the air will be thin and when I get there at the end of October it will be cold. The heist peaks I will be able to see are around 21,000 feet. I can expect -20 degrees in the dead of winter. Also, FYI the mission of the PRT as I said is to manage reconstruction projects in the province. We play the “good caps.” We will not be kicking in doors, actively hunting the bad guys. That will be left to the maneuver unit in the area with the 101st Airborne Division. Since I will still fall under them, my combat patch will be the “Screaming Eagle.”

(Above is a Hollywood depiction of E Co, 501st PIR, 101st Airborne Division on 6 June 1944 after jumping into France the night before. The real beginning of the legacy of the 101st Airborne Division)