Planes, Chinooks, and Automobiles

Well, I finally made it to Ghazni and I only was forced to make six intermediate stops. The first stop was Shannon, Ireland for 15 hours. In that stop they were nice enough to put us up in a hotel, but we weren't permitted to explore anything out in town. I couldn't even get a Guiness. Next stop was Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan where I stayed at Manas Air Base for a few days. There are several insert consonants-stans so feel free to Google this one. I had never heard of it, but it was neat to see the Asian-Russian mix in their people. The other oh by the way is that it borders Kazakhstan, which is birthplace and home of the famous celebrity Borat Sagdeyev. You may have seen his movie. From Kyrgyzstan a few hundred people and I crammed into a C-17, which is an air force cargo/transport plane, and flew into Bagram Air Field (BAF) where I stayed a couple of days to get some final gear issue and training. If you're counting stops, that's three. The last three stops were aboard a CH-47 Chinook helicopter where I FOB (Forward Operating Base) hopped to my final destination of FOB Ghazni. That's the down and dirty of the travels.

Now I'm in the process of receiving a fire hose of engineering turnover so that I can be the engineer of a province about the size of New Jersey. No big deal. Seems like I'll be taking on several good projects anywhere from road construction to hospitals in the various districts. That's all for now. The picture is looking out the rear of a Chinook at the gunner and the Afghan countryside.