Yo,
It's been quite some time since my last entry. I've been unable to access my AKO and a number of Web pages have been blocked, yours included.
Last night was the first full night of sleep I had gotten in the past few days. Me being the acting NCOIC of the shop, and the only individual available, has seen me staying in the office for hours beyond close of business.
I woke up this morning, still feeling (and looking) exhausted. I'm unshaven, my eyes are bloodshot and framed in dark circles, and I haven't bathed in two days.
Motivation is much scarcer, with simple everyday tasks such as eating, bathing, and conducting physical training becoming mundane and troublesome. My appetite has become less voracious and is sated in smaller portions spread throughout the day in place of three to four large meals.
It's become excruciatingly cold, falling anywhere between 10 to 20 degrees, and with the frequent power surges we've experienced, our heat has been known to shut down for a few minutes to an hour at a time.
However, in spite of all this, I've picked up drawing as a pastime once again and my cross-training as a combat photographer is progressing nicely. This morning, merely thirty minutes after the Commander's Update Brief, I was tasked to accompany a small group of soldiers as they strolled out the back gate to speak with the locals and hand gifts to the children.
It was my role, of course, to document this event for a later press release — but first, I found it necessary to stop and play with a stray cat I found.
This turned out to be a rather amusing romp in the Afghan village as I watched the elders do their best to restrain the children from bum rushing us and the boxes of candy, toys, and clothing — which was somewhat successful, to my relief. I began snapping away with my camera, taking pictures as an attractive Filipina — by appearance, at least — major helped a child put on a pair of small gloves and handed out gifts.
The elders had the children line up a couple of meters away and sent them up four or five at a time to receive whatever gifts they were given. What amused me most was the manner in which the children acted: The boys were obnoxious and demanding, and were sent away quickly. The girls, on the other hand, quietly accepted whatever was given to them, and were given extra items and special treatment as their reward.
Quite the opposite of our social structure in a comical fashion.
I snapped a few more pictures then moved on to my next point of interest. I looked off to the side and found it funny to see a veritable termite hill of small Afghan kids riding along on a vehicle that was obstructed to my vision. This phenomenon turned out to be a pile of children receiving a brief ride on one of our ATVs. The highlight of the entire endeavor was at the end of the little mission, where toys and candy were simply thrown out to a mob of younglings like Mardi Gras, just less fun.
I took pictures as I watched these kids leap into the air, climb on each other, and throw each other aside to grab whatever they could as if they were starved ants. It wasn't long before they rushed our small group, grubby arms and hands flailing, to grab whatever they could.
I found myself at the front of this as I snapped away with my Nikon. Upon suppressing this riot of sorts, half of our group — myself included — left to head back to the camp while the others stayed behind to speak with the elders.
My mission was finished, but I decided to climb my way to the top of a guard tower to snap a wide overview of the village and snow-capped mountains at the lovely major's request. We finished half an hour before lunch, so I took advantage of this time to take a shower. I intend to do the same in the future, considering the showers are normally empty at this time and noon is the warmest time of the day.
I enjoyed a simple lunch and the company of my First Sergeant and Group Commander before heading back to work.
Within the time frame between now and my last correspondence, a number of things have come about. I was able to tag along on a couple of missions to Kabul, both of which were uneventful. The first time I was tasked to accompany a Brigadier General and his entourage to ISAF, while he spoke with other officers of importance.
Unfortunately, I was not given the chance to take any photos; however, there was a nice coffee bar where we had cappuccinos served to us by a beautiful young Indian barista, so it wasn't a complete loss. My mission was to cover an LCLA flight that was going down at Camp Moorehead — we stopped by ISAF and had cappuccinos again, of course.
Moorehead was a nice camp stationed along the base of a small mountain. The food in the chow hall was great and most of our time before and after the mission was spent watching movies in the television room. Unfortunately, the heater in my room didn't work. When it came time to perform what we had come to do, we hopped on a couple of ATVs and rode down to the drop zone to wait.
An LCLA is a Low Cost Low Altitude equipment drop where a supply bird flies by at roughly 200 feet and drops a couple of pallets of supplies, which are then recovered by a ground team. I snapped photos of the plane as it flew by and dropped supplies, then hopped on my ATV to intercept the ground team as they prepared to gather the supplies in two Humvees. Upon completion of the mission, with no time to rest, we loaded up our convoy to head back to Bagram.
I was scheduled for a few other missions but was denied by my Sergeant Major. Since then, I've been stuck in the office performing menial, mundane tasks. I was sent out to take pictures of some Officers and Command Sergeants Major touring a new compound currently under construction. I haven't had much in the way of illustration work, having only made a flyer for a spades tournament and a logo for the IMO section.
It was requested that this logo consist of Scrat — the saber-tooth squirrel from Ice Age — and whatever I could do to make him look gung-ho. I completed this task, giving him a tattoo of our group crest, the helmet from the cover art of Full Metal Jacket, and an M240. My work was praised, but that's when the specifics came in.
Most of these were simple adjustments, but one in particular caught me off guard. I was asked to give this children's cartoon character a massive scrotum which he was to drag behind him. I found this difficult, considering that I hadn't drawn anything of the sort since elementary school, and I believed that I was above such a thing. Needless to say, this is still a work in progress.
That's it for now, but I'm sure plenty of other things will make for good writing material soon enough.
Peace,
Feelgoode
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
