The Last Month

May is finally upon and everyone around here is anxious to get home to our family and friends, I can say that you never know how long a year is until you spend one in Afghanistan. I've seen and experienced alot of things in my time over and because of OPSEC I can't post those things in the blog while I'm over here...nor can I post pictures of certain things. However, once I leave here my last blog will tell the stories I couldn't. What I will say is God is good and I'm thankful that I've made it this far and my unit has made it this far only losing two people.


With less than 30 days left in country, we have been very busy, cleaning equipment and turning it in so it can be shipped back to Hawaii. We still have a few teams out on the battlefield but they should be back within the next week. Days are long but this is the work thats worth it because the stuff we are doing now is what gets us home. We are scheduled to roll out at the end of this month, so hopefully we can finish all of our turn ins by mid May. That way we can just relax for our last couple of weeks, the heat has picked back up and its no fun to be out there in the sun all day.

Since this is all in the news I can post it here in the blog, several hundred inmates have escaped from a prison not far from where we are and it is believed that 5 suicide bombers are here on KAF so we are on high alert and have been advised to stay away from the highly populated areas..such as the boardwalk, gyms, and Dining Facilities. If do go to any of those places we are advised not to stay long, because we they do attack its most likely gonna be a place where alot of people are. So just pray that we can make it out of here safely and with no harm.

This should be the last blog I write from Afghanistan, the next one will come from Kuwait or Manas..depends on where they have us layover at to await our flight to the U.S. 

Rainy Month/Reset and Turn In

Well, the rain finally came down this month and when you combine all the dirt that we have around here with water...you get alot of mud. As you can see from the pictures it was a mess, add in the cold weather and you just dont want to be outside. Luckily the weather has started to warm back up and the rains have died down. Warmer weather means we are closer and closer to getting back to Hawaii and the feeling is mutual between everyone, we are ready to go! I am now on the Turn In team, which isn't fun because all we do is wash equipment throughout the week and then turn it in on Friday. Although its not fun I enjoy it because every Friday we are turning in something and that leaves us with less and less equipment. I will be happy when its all gone. Since we are under 90 days and will some begin packing personal equipment, I don't need to receive any more care packages. I'd like to thank everyone that has sent something to me out here, it always brightens up my day and usually my buddies too.At the request of a friend of mine I'd like to post some here on my blog and ask for your prayers.   

"We are asking everyone to say a prayer for the US "Darkhorse" 3rd Battalion 5th Marines and their families. They are fighting it out here in  Afghanistan and have lost 9 Marines in 4 days" 

I'm praying for the day when this will over and no more lives will have to be lost.

Time is Afghanistan: 9 months, 6 days 
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 77 Days

R&R: Rest and Relaxlation

Its been a while since I've posted, I had to go back and read the last blog to see what the last thing we talked about. It is now Feb 2 and we are 10 days away from the 8 month mark. So lets go back to Christmas and work up to today. It wasn't as hard to be away from home on Christmas and I believe that was because I knew I'd be home by New Years Eve. They had a pancake breakfast for us and handed out T-shirts and goodie bags for Christmas. So all in all it wasn't too bad. I flew out of Afghanistan on the 29th and headed to Kuwait, that's where everyone who is going on or coming from R & R goes. We were there for about 36hrs but that's only because our flight got delayed twice. While in Kuwait you are separated based on where your final destination is pretty much everyone east of the Mississippi goes through Atlanta and then to their final destination. Everyone going west goes through Dallas and then to their final destination. We flew from Kuwait to Shannon, Ireland where we only stayed long enough for the plane to re-fuel and we were on our way to the United States. Once we land in Atlanta we were given a round of applause and had to go through customs, get our leave papers stamped and get our return date which would be Jan 16. Since our flight out of Kuwait was delayed we arrived later than originally  planned and the flights that they had scheduled us were already gone. I ended up catching a an 8:30pm plane and arrived in Orlando around 10pm. Even though I had been traveling for almost 3 days I still wanted to make it to church. I arrived just in time to pray in the New Year. I really didn't have too much planned this trip just wanted to take it easy. A woman from my church named Mrs Johnson had a dinner party for me with some other members of our church, funny thing was I had no idea it was for me until I saw a cake with my photo on it. Other than that I went to a couple of Magic games and took some young men along with me. Just the feeling of being home from Afghanistan was enough for me, I didn't have to do a whole lot. I will be back in the summer for longer period of time so I'm sure I'll do more and see more people during that time. It was hard to come back here but its my job and its just what I had to do. I'm glad that I took my R&R in the middle of the deployment rather than the beginning or end. As I said earlier there are only four months left and we are already starting to turn certain vehicles and equipment in to be shipped back to Hawaii. Continue to keep all the deployed troops around the world in your prayers and I will talk to you guys in March

Time is Afghanistan: 7 months, 21 days 
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 114 Days

Thanksgiving

 

Seasons greetings and Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. This year marks the third year in a row that I will spend Thanksgiving away from home, so I guess you can say I know how it feels. Next month will be a little weird because in 21 years this year will be the first Christmas that I'm not home but that will be in next months blog. They dressed our Dining Facility up really nice with decorations and table clothes to give it that Thanksgiving feeling and we had live music from one of the Army bands. On the menu they had Prime Rib, Stuffed Steamship Round, Pit Ham, Cornish Hens, Lobster, Salmon Cakes and of course Turkey. All your traditional sides and deserts were served too. So as you can see they tried to give you as many options as they could and I have to say it was a  pretty good meal. Only thing was that the football games didnt come on until about 10:30pm because of the time difference so there was no football while eating.

This time next month I'll be almost out of the door for R&R I should be leaving Afghanistan on Dec. 28 and after all the stops and checkpoints I should be back in the states on Dec 31, hopefully in time for church. There would be no better place to close out this year and start the new one than in the House of the Lord.

Our official re-deployment date came down the wire this week and we will be heading back to Hawaii on May 28, 2011. It's about two weeks earlier than we were expecting and I'm sure no one is complaining about that. 

Once again I wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and if I don't have the time for another blog before R&R I wish you all a Merry Christmas as well.

Countdowns and Countups:
Time is Afghanistan: 5 months, 14 days
Time until R&R: 36 Days
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 183 Days

Untitled

The other day I walked outside and looked in ahead of me, in the distance was a mountain. I turned to my left and there was a mountain. I turned to my right and there was mountain. Looked behind me and guess what I saw...a mountain. Looked on the ground and there are dirt and rocks. Looked at the sky and its cloudy and gray. Those are just some of daily things I see when I walk outside here. I'm not happy here and I'm ready to leave this place. Theres nothing to look forward to, you cant look forward to the weekends because you're working. When I get off from work I do nothing but eat exercise and  then sleep. When I'm at work there's really nothing to do, because I work the late shift 11pm-7am and everybody's gone, so I have to do is really just make sure our link stays up and guard the equipment because we do have secure items that not everybody can have access to. Even with all that I try to make my days count instead of counting days. (Although I do know I have 58 days until R&R.)

I definitely want to say thank you for the care packages that were received this past month, they were enjoyed. It means alot know you thought about me.


The picture you see is my team I feel I should introduce you to them since they are pretty much my family while I am here. The white guy you see is our Team Chief, Sgt Chris Bell he's from Oakland, California. To his left is Spc. Roy Lee Holmes he is from Augusta, Georgia. To the right of him is my roommate PV2 Jeremy Johnson he is from Fayetteville, North Carolina. You all know me. Finally the lady of the team is Spc Felisha Wade and she is from Plain Dealing, Louisiana. All from different places but here in Afghanistan together. I ask you continue to pray us and every soldier fighting in this war.

Countdowns and Countups:
Time is Afghanistan: 144 Days
Time until R&R: 58 Days
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 221 Days

21st Birthday in Afghanistan

If you would have told me three years ago when I turned 18 that I'd be in the army and deployed to Afghanistan when I turned 21 I would have never believed you, but life is unexpected and I will spend my 21st birthday here in the desert. I'm not mad though, this is my job and part of it is being away sometimes so I will make the most of it, because I know I'll be away for Thanksgiving and Christmas too. I should get that day off which I won't do anything but get some good rest. As you can by the picture above my team put together a wall for me with my favorite teams and a bag of trail mix, it may not be much but its one of the presents I've ever gotten and it meant alot to me.

We hit our 100 day mark this month, which is good time is moving even if it doesn't feel that way. Some of the people in our unit started to go on Rest &Relaxation (R&R) which is 15 day non-charged leave and the Army  pays for your ticket any where in the world. I'll be taking mine January  1-15. I tried to get mine right in the middle so I didn't go to early or too late. I know some people that got here in August and have already taken theirs, now they wont be leaving Afghanistan again until August of next year. I'm looking forward to it, it will be a much needed break.

All in all this was a pretty uneventful month and when you're in a place like this that's a good thing, the Lord is watching over us everyday and I pray he continues to do so until our mission is complete.

Just wanted to say thanks for the care packages I received this month, all the snacks were eaten and everything was put to good use, I know there are a few more on the way and thanks for those too.

I've been told some people were having trouble leaving comments on the blog so here's how you do it
1. Scroll all the way down to the bottom where it says "Posted by Caronta" and click on comments.
2. Post a comment will come up with a box where you can write whatever you like.
3. When you are finished with the comment, right under the box it says "Comment as:" you click that and scroll down Name/URL.
4. Type in your name and leave URL blank and click post comment.

Countdowns and Countups:
Time is Afghanistan: 109 Days
Time until R&R: 93 Days
Time until Redeployment back to Hawaii: 255 Days 

A Mission

 Well we finally got a mission, honestly I wasn't to happy about it. I've gotten accustomed to the location that we were in  and the routine that we were in. I know were everything was and how everything worked in Kandahar but when duty calls, duty calls. We are now at FOB Spin Boldak which is about 50 miles from where we were and right on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. The FOB is much smaller than  Kandahar but pretty much has the same amenities which is good. We no longer have to sleep in huge tents with 30 other people, we now have 2 man rooms.

We flew over here on a chinook  which I posted a picture of one to the left, I couldn't get the actual picture of the one we flew on because there are no photos allowed on the flight line. As you can see the back is open throughout the entire flight and a gunner sits on the back to scan for enemies that may try to shoot at the chinook. Our flight did take a few shots but the combination of us flying at the speed we were and our gunner firing back it didn't have any impact on the flight. It didn't really scare me, I guess that's because my stomach was hurting from the flight. I'm glad I didn't eat breakfast that morning because if I did I don't think I would have been able to hold it down.


We are now supporting the 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade who provides intelligence analysis and collection support to the XVIII Airborne Corps. Our job is still to provide phones and internet for them.

I was able to see my brother Chris before I left out, that's him in the top picture we had dinner at TGI Friday's a couple of days before I flew out. He's leaving in about 9 days, I wish that was me, but I still have roughly 290 days left on my tour of duty, not that I'm counting or anything like that.

This months was pretty uneventful, when we were still on Kandahar there was a ground attack, kinda scary I wont get into details but I will post the link to CNN story at the bottom along with the link for the pictures again.

My address has changed now that I am here it is and I will also post that on the bottom. Some people have been asking whats good to send and whats not, I am completely stocked as far personal hygiene goes. I have tons of toothpaste, toothbrushes, baby wipes, shaving cream, hand sanitizer, and soap. So I will not be needing any of this items. A few things that are wanted/needed are air freshener (plug in or spray), febreeze, AA and AAA batteries, shaving razors ( I use bump guard it is the brand with the black man on it) and of course snacks are always great, Pringles, slim jims, chewing gum, hard candy, etc. Thanks in advance to anyone who does send anything.

Florence, Caronta
525 BfSB (307th)
Spin Boldak
APO AE 09355


Article about the attack.

Pictures