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

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.