Mountain-Scapes and Sky-Scapes

Well, we just went on another overnight mission recently to support one of our platoons first missions into 'dangerous territory'. The most dangerous part turned out to be the trip out there... we had to travel along a mountain pass that was bumpy and sometimes was only a hair wider than the truck's track.

The last picture was at the Motor Pool at FOB Salerno. We had just returned from the mission and were getting our trucks looked at and maintained. The sunset was just gorgeous with the swirling clouds and the orange tinted sky... so I figured I'd share that with everyone.

Night Rainbow

I'm sure glad God chose to not flood the Earth again; and I'm grateful that He's given us the rainbow as a sign of His promise. But now I'm so thankful for Him giving me the opportunity to witness his promise at NIGHTTIME!

A friend of mine, SGT Larmer, was telling me this is pretty rare, and I know it's a bit hard to see it in the pictures, but there is a rainbow in the night sky, given off by the light of the moon. In fact there is a complete ring around the moon. If I had a camera and a different lens I could have tried to capture it, but as it is I couldn't

back away far enough to get it; but you CAN see the faint light arc above the moon in what I did manage to snap! The middle picture is probably the best one, you can make out the color change from inside to out, infrared to indigo.

I felt a little dumb... it's the kind of 'happening' that normally I would have liked to tell Natalie, take her outside and hold her hand and sit out in the yard staring and talking. But she's not in Afghanistan with me, so I went and got SSG Baker (my squad

leader). We didn't hold hands...

Well, we're moved. We've been moved for around a week now. As you can see it's tight but it's not too bad. We built shelves and stuff so we have places for most all our gear. We even have a little space set aside for Christmas! (not that presents will fit under our tree, of course...) What you can't see in the pictures is that I took my big Wall-Locker shelving unit from Salerno to here... hey, it fit in the trailer, so I took it! And good thing! It has all my clothing and food items on it! Anyway, we're all glad that it's not near as bad as we thought it was going to be. Granted, we have to go back to FOB Salerno every few days for laundry and showers... but still, it's not so bad.

Moving...

Well we're moving. My company is being moved off of FOB Salerno out to a communications outpost where we will be intended to operate as normal and come back to do duties at FOB Salerno. No one is exactly sure of the purpose of the move and the logistics make it apparent just how close impractical and impossible really are. It will be difficult to do our jobs at all if we can even pull them off. We will have to take regular trips back to Salerno for laundry, fuel, and as I said before, duties on the FOB to include security and convoy escort and taxi missions.

Moving is stressful, but for some reason packing is the worst part for me. I hate it. I get jittery and irritable and really feel the stress as i try to fit all my crap into bags and boxes and contemplate getting it all set up comfortably somewhere else.

We're all hoping the company is able to get high speed internet set up out there for us since most of us use the internet as our primary (if not sole) source for connecting back home. I know it's a necessity for me personally. I'm pretty sure I will lose my mind without the internet; but at least now I have an Xbox360 to give me a chance to zone out and disconnect from Bravo Company and Afghanistan.

Also, please note that it may be a LONG time before I am able to update this page... it will entirely depend on whether or not the company is able to get something set up for us, internet-wise.

(My camera was already packed, so I borrowed a friends to get these pictures for you all.)

when you work, you work hard

It used to pain me to admit when I was wrong; but even worse than me being wrong, it was so much worse to admit that my dad was right. Thankfully, I've grown and matured (I think...) over the years. Now I just go to great lengths to be sure I'm right. HA.

Anyway, a long time ago, my dad told me that we, as humans, are designed to work. Intended to work. He did what he could to teach me to work when there was work to be done, and to prioritize my activities to accomplish the work first before play. He told me, "when you work, you work hard; when you play, you play hard." I used to hate it when he gave me these talks (and many others), but now I'm glad he did it; in fact, I plan to torture my own child(ren) with many of the same rhetoric and timeless philosophies.

What I've noticed about myself, using others around me as comparison, is that I'm one of the few that received this valuable training. In the Army there are lots of orders going out all the time, many of them replacing or altering the previous orders. So, you never start working on a project the moment the order comes down the pipe. Instead you prepare to work on it. Gather guys, equipment, paperwork, etc... then hopefully by the time you've done all that you'll have a more finalized version of the order to operate on. This discourages men to work hard and to take action and initiative; but many of them are just plain lazy to begin with and this simply exacerbates the problem. What I've found is that others will begin to do the work, but not to get it done. It is obvious by the way they do their work that their goal is completely different than mine. I work hard, and I work fast. I work with the intent of finishing the task I was given. The others simply work to appear to be moving, to appear to be working. Successfully meeting their goal means someone thought they were working; success for me is moving the whole stack of wood, or unloading the entire trailer, etc. And, here's the crazy part, I feel GREAT about it. Seeing what I'm accomplishing and working hard to accomplish it feels good. Sadly, many of the other guys just don't get it; the feeling or the understanding.

There are a few who do not hesitate to work, and they work very hard right along side of me but their goal is still completely different than mine. For them it is still about appearances. They are military "Yes-men". They work hard to complete tasks to impress higher ups. This is great for being seen and earning promotions, but it's still not working because it feels good to work.

As bad as my attitude was toward work when I was younger I am surprised and relieved to see that somehow I accidentally ended up with a decent work ethic. Now if only I can convince a few other guys around here...