1 Month In

So we have been here for 5 weeks and 5 days so far and I can honestly say its not going to bad. The first flew by which is a good thing and I can only hope that the next 11 go just as fast. One of the hardest parts of being out here is the heat yesterday it almost reached 120 and today the forecast was 114 when you factor in the heat index it actually feels like its 130 sometimes, and most of the work we do is outside so we always feel it.

I had to switch teams again and I was really upset about that, when the teams were formed back in Hawaii each team had 5 people on them but so many people didn't come for medical reasons. So they had to be evened out and my team was the only one still with 5 so I had to move to a team with not as many people. I have no problem with the people on the new team, its just when you get comfortable with a group of people its hard to change but its part of the job and nothing I can do about it.

We are still waiting for a mission so we can go "outside the wire" to a smaller FOB (Forward Operating Base) and actually do what we were brought here to do. So far one team has left and another one is scheduled to leave on Tuesday. On the order of precedent we are team #4 to leave. It could be a week from now, a month, or four months, nobody really knows you just have to be ready when you are called.

This month there have been a lot of rocket attacks, way more than last month I think we are to 18 or 19. This place is so big that you don’t hear the impact from most of them but one of them landed less then 200yds from the tent we live in and that was scary.

I've received a few care packages and would like say thank you to those who have sent. I never knew how happy simple things such as pringles or jolly ranchers  can make you. I always share though because there are some soldiers who haven't received any yet. I’ve received my box so there are some things that I packed way too much and will have for the rest of the year. I’m good on toothpaste, toothbrushes, shaving cream, babywipes, hand sanitizer, and a few other things.

I recorded the video at the top today while they were testing the alarm system so you can hear all the different alarms.

Boots on The Ground

In the Army they say always be flexible and that's exactly what we had to do when it came to rolling out for this deployment, the initial plan was to meet up at 6pm get weapons, accountability, and have family time. From there we we were supposed to roll out to the Air Force Base and fly out at 330am. Well plans changed and we were told to meet up 8 hours later at 2am...then plans changed again and we were told to meet up at 1pm the next day. Third times a charm, we were finally able to go through and fly out around 11pm on Wednesday.  It was hard watching all the families say their goodbyes, seeing the ones staying behind crying. We flew from Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, from there we flew to an Airport SE Germany, I cant remember the name, both of those flights were around 8 hours. We laid over in Germany for about 7 hours. We left there and flew into Kyrgyzstan, after we rested there we took a two hour plane ride into Afghanistan.



Even though the sun had already started to set it was still so hot when we landed  at Kandahar Airfield, we were showed to living quarters which is just a big tent with lots of bunk beds. Afghanistan is very hot and very dry, with lots of dust and rocks everywhere. I look around and cant believe I'm actually here.

On our second night here we had a rocket attack, luckily it was on the other side of the post, but no matter where you are when the alarm sounds you have to get down on the ground for two minutes and then seek cover in a bunker until you hear all clear on the PA system.

Until the rest of the surge gets here, we are pretty much just on a stand by status we still have to establish our company office and inventory our equipment. Once all the other troops get here we will mostly likely leave Kandahar and roll out to a smaller site to provide communications for a combat unit which means we will see alot more action. Just gotta stay alert and alive.

I have posted my address, at this time I really don't need anything because I haven't even gotten my tuff box yet which I packed full of stuff, but a few people were asking for it.


This will take you to my pictures

Florence, Caronta
B Co 307, 86th ESB

APO AE 09355 

Please don't put my rank or Kandahar of the address, it could hinder me getting  the mail.

Time Has Come

After all the preparation and training, the time has come for us to roll out to "The Box". Many people have asked me how I feel about, I'm writing this on Monday with about 42 hours until we get on the plane. I don't really feel anything right now, I'm sure as time ticks closer and were issued our weapons and actually get ready to travel its gonna hit me. I can say that I am a bit nervous and a bit anxious but I'm confident and faithful in the Lord to see us through the next year.

We will have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, we have a formation at 6:00pm and that's when will be issued our weapons and have our passports & I.D. cards inspected. From there we are going to march over to the gym hang there for a while so families can say their goodbyes and all that good stuff. We will load buses and head down to Hickam Air-Force Base where we have a 5 hour window of when we can fly but we should be gone by 3:30am. We will go from Hawaii to Chicago to Germany and then into Afghanistan. I can only imagine how it will be when we touch down, I know there will some in-processing but I just have a feeling it will be a long day.

I just wanna thank all of you who read, for keeping up with my journey and keeping me in your prayers. I just ask you to continue. I will post my address in Afghanistan when I get it. The next blog you read will be from Afghanistan.

Block Leave

It felt great to get away from the Army for a while and just relax, with no worries at all. I was able to spend quality time with the ones I love the most, which was important to me because I don't really know when I'll see them again. I flew into Orlando which is where my cousin had his wedding the day before so alot of my family were there, some of them I hadn't seen since I joined the Army so it was really nice to see them.

I got a chance to attend two Magic games when they played the Atlanta Hawks the first two games in Atlanta, which probably the most I did, for the most part I just rested and relaxed the last 3 months were very tiring and the road ahead is long, so I just caught on some much needed rest. There was yellow ribbon ceremony for me at my church where people were able to come and chat with me a bit after the service, and sign prayer books. I'm thankful that I have a church family that is back home praying for me.

This first week back wasnt too bad, I was in class for a tactical radio all week so I was away from the main operations which is always a good break, but we did have a readiness meeting where they put on out tentative flight dates. We still don't know the exact day of our departure but... we know that we will leave between the 8th and 12th of June, we also know its gonna be non stop plane straight into Afghanistan. Our barracks rooms will be packed up on the 2nd and vehicles are gonna be stored 24-48 hours prior to our flight..whenever we get that exact date.

Its a fast moving train and I'll be getting on that plane before I even know it. Y'all just continue to keep me, my unit, and the whole United States Army. 

Here is an article about our Deployment.

Coming Home

Sorry I haven't posted anything these past two weeks, we have been busy training with lots of long days and short nights, but it has all come to end and we have Block Leave starting tomorrow. Over the past two weeks we to qualify with our M16 rifles to qualify you have to shoot at 23 of the 40 targets or 57% they pop up and down at distances between 50-300 meters shoot  26/40 which isnt the best but its good enough.

We also had training at the Gas Chamber which is when we go into this where this room with our mask on and there is CS gas spraying in the air, the gas is similar to tear gas. Something was wrong with my mask and some of the gas sneaked in there, it burned my eyes and my throat I couldn't see for 10 mins. I'm really hoping we don't encounter anything thing like that when we go over. We also had a Humvee rollover training, we were put in a Humvee and it rolled over three times once it stopped rolling we had to climb out of while it was upside down. That is another thing I hope we don't have to use in Afghanistan.

These last few months have been very hard, we have done all the training and preparation that most units deploying do in 6 months in 3. Staying at work until 9:00pm and coming at 5:00am. I'm just glad its over and I'm leaving to head home for two weeks. I plan to just take my mind off the Army for a while and just relax and enjoy myself, because once we come back we have less than 30 days before we fly out. Although all the training and longs will done the anxiety will increase as each day gets closer and things will be more serious.

Hoping to see all of you while I'm home, and look forward to sharing  the next part of this journey as I go forward.

MRX 1

This week was our MRX 1 which stands for Mission Readiness Exercise, basically our mission was to establish a network as if we were in Afghanistan so that we could all communicate. There were three seperate sites and each team was spread out throught the sites.

We started off on Monday morning with an alert call around 3:20 A.M. and were told there would be a formation at 4:30. I was already up because I didnt go to sleep the night before. There were 5 chalks that we left in spaced out by about 15 mins. My team and two others rolled out to Camp Spann, which was nowhere but behind our company offices. Once we arrived we had to set up all our equipment and get into the network. Then we were told that we didnt finish all of our certifications and that we would certifying on Tuesday. We accomplished that and became 100% certified.

I was on night shift which was 7pm-7am and on Wednesday around 2pm when I was deep in my sleep we were told that we had to jump to another site. So I had to get up and we had to tear down all of our equipment and move to the new site. It was about 10:45pm when were fully operational at the new site which I cant remember the name of it.

Thursday was pretty much an easy day but Friday we were told at 5am that we had to jump again only this time it was the same site just in a different area, wasnt happy about that but complaining isnt gonna do anything we still have to do our jobs. The job was too bad and we were in bed by 9am and around 5pm we found out the exercise was sucessful and that we were going home that night. If it had not been sucessful we were gonna be out there until Sunday so everyone was happy about that.

There were some complications with weapons and a few other things so we didnt leave our motor pool until 2:45 A.M. it was still better than being in the field.

The morale was down this week lot of tensions flared, lot of anger, arguing and stuff thats just not good for us as we prepare to head down range. I just stay positive and try not to loose my cool about anything, its just not worth it.

MRX 2 is this week we will we doing weapons training and drivers trainng Hummvee rollover training all the "fun" stuff thats not really fun.

Thanks for reading.

64 Days

Happy Easter to everyone, we actually got Friday off it was the day off we'd had off in a while other than the weekends. However the week was still long, we pretty much were up at 5:30am and we had to be at the training site by 6:30am and we were usually off by 9:00pm LONG DAYS. Our team did certify which was good and when I say certify that means we have to set up all our equipment, get it up and running and make a phone call to the distant end along with pulling web pages on the laptops, and it all has to be within a time limit.

We now head out for our MRX (Mission Readiness Exercise)which will last Monday-Friday and we will be pulling 24 hrs operations. I'm really not looking forward to that at all but it is what it is gotta do it.

I was talking with my buddy Brooks, who's like brother to me and we were saying how crazy it is that we'll be back home in a month with our families, and then a month after that we'll be down range in Afghanistan, its kinda like when I was first coming in the Army, I knew I'd be leaving home but it didnt until I got on that bus to leave and then it hit me harder when I got off that bus and had drill sergeants yelling at me. I know thats how its gonna be with this deployment its not gonna hit me until we are getting on the plane and its gonna hit harder when we get off the plane and hear gunshots in the distance. I'm just trying to be mentally prepared. 64 Days To Go