Well Saddam is dead and thank goodness they finally did it. This day 16 years ago I was freezing to death in the desert of Saudi Arabia waiting to go into Iraq and kill him then. I was in Iraq well before the ground war ever started and once it did officially start I was up for the first 3 days continuously fighting and then chasing the fight. After a few hours of sleep we were gearing up and getting ready to move into Basra and take it over. However just a few hours shy of our passage of lines to take Basra there was a cease-fire and we were told to stand-down.

Now all of this time later, the guy is finally dead. The liberals, Vatican, ACLU or anyone else can scream and cry all they want about how he was not given a fair trial or how his rights were violated or whatever they want. The guy was tried in a free Iraqi court, judged according to the new free Iraqi constitution and punished as per the free Iraqi laws. There is nothing more justified and fair than that in my book. He was not tried by us, the brits, or in an “world court”. He was tried by his own country, by a fair and free country that provided him more rights and privileges than he ever did to the people he imprisoned. He was not handcuffed and thrown from a building, lined up and executed and then thrown into a ditch, or tortured beyond belief until he died. He was tried, found guilty and quickly executed as it was deemed the appropriate punishment. I wish our country would go back to this system as it used to have it before our country turned into the political correctness quagmire it has.

Like I said, he was granted a lot more than the prisoners he ordered held. The man was a beast and will surely burn in hell for what he did. I am very glad he is dead, but wished we could have accomplished this 15 years ago. It would have saved our country a lot of money, time, effort and lives of its sons. However we didn’t, so I am glad we are back in there now finishing what we first started a long time ago.

Yes, I support the war in Iraq, just as much as I did back then and I support the war in Afghanistan. Wars suck, but are necessary. I wish we could all live in peace and not ever have to send our sons and daughters to their early and un-natural deaths, but there are people out there like Saddam, Noriega, Osama, Milosivech , and others. I hate that we have to be in Iraq, and I hate that I have lost two soldiers there, and had many more wounded both physically and mentally. I hate that I have very good friends that have had to be there, are there and will probably be there in the future, but it is necessary.

I like Rumsfeld and think he did a good job as a SECDEF. I did not agree with all of his decisions and wished he would have made changes early on in the execution of the war there and here, but he did not consult me and I would not expect him to. He was charged by the President to be accountable for the plan, so he made the decisions that he did. Would I have done things different, yes I would have. But I am sure there are those that served under me whom did not like my decisions. Just as much as I am not here to be liked and accepted by those that work for me, he cannot expect to be liked by everyone that works for him or that everyone would agree with him. Regardless, he is gone now and Gates is in there. I like the idea of increasing forces, because that is what should have had happened at the start. We are spread too thin there, just like we are here. We need to get out of there and saturating the place with troops is the only answer, regardless of how hard a pill that is to swallow.

Anyway, this is my first real posting of my opinions and since it is now 2007 here as I write this, let me make a new prediction. You will see a lot more opinion based postings on this blog. I have stayed silent for a long time, but don’t plan to anymore. I only have a few months left on my tour and through that and definitely beyond the tour I will be posting more of the truths that nobody wants to hear and of my opinions. Why, because I can.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I have an opinion and really don’t care if I offend anyone. I am open to listen to anyone else’s so I expect to be able to express mine. There are only two people I care about what they think of me, my wife and my boss. Other than that, they can love me or leave me.

Below is a good picture to move into 2007 with. It is a screen shot of Saddam hanging from the noose. His neck is broken because they put the noose on wrong (on side of his neck versus in the back of his head where it instantly breaks the spinal cord). This shot is from the full video that I have, and is the clearest shot as it was while someone was taking a picture with a flash camera so it is all lit up.

Happy New Year.

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You may have noticed, or maybe not. I have registered my site on feedburner.com at the recommendation of my good friend JP of milblogging.com. This site makes it easier for RSS readers to pick up my blog and read it through a RSS reader. If you have a My.yahoo.com page, then you can connect to my blog through there and their built-in RSS reader. If you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer 7, then they both use Live Bookmarks which also will update themselves based on new entries.

There is also a new feature to the left of this entry that allows you to subscribe to the blog via email. Once you subscribe, this will email you the new entries as they are posted. This is an updates feature handled by feedburner that is better than my old subscription service. Please feel free to stay up with this blog through either method or just by checking back here, like many of you do.

I have also put these features on my StewBlog site, which is the one my wife is currently using to post entries about life at home while I am deployed.

More entries coming soon.

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Christmas day in Sharana Afghanistan started cold and covered in white. It started snowing in the afternoon on the 24th and never stopped. It started out with big flakes again, but then it thinned out. Sometime during the night it must have turned up as this morning when we stepped out there was 14-16” of snow on the ground. The snow was heavy, wet, and was the perfect type for making snowmen and snowballs. It is also the hardest type to clean off of Humvees, but was something we had to do.

I stayed up late on Christmas eve so I could call home and read “The Night Before Christmas” to Hunter, but because of all the snow the internet was down most of the night. By the time it came up, they had already left to go to a special evening service at Church on Christmas eve. So I went to bed, and in order to read him the book before he went to bed I had to get up 4 hours later and try to call then. I did get through and was able to talk to all of my boys and Christine too. They had just finished opening their one gift on Christmas eve (a family tradition) and were getting ready to make cookies for Santa before going to bed. I talked with them this morning for about 30 minutes and then I let them go so they could finish the cookies and then get to bed. I called back about a half hour later to read the book to Hunter, in which I did, and enjoyed every minute of it. I was asked today by Face what the best present was that I got this Christmas, and I told him without a doubt, it was being able to talk to my family today and being able to read the book to Hunter.

After I was off the phone it was time to deal with the Humvee snow removal. We must always be ready and the enemy does not necessarily take Christmas off. Lucky for us, the dump of snow we got probably thwarted any plans that the bad guys could have had for us today. The roads are almost impassible, especially for motorcycles and the small Toyota corollas that are so popular here. The White Christmas made it a Quiet and Safe Christmas for us. The wet snow really packs down hard and a broom just does not always work. Plus with so many crooks, crannies, antennas, and other things on the Humvee, a lot of the snow removal had to be done by hand. After I was satisfied that it was clean and could conduct operations, it was time to go back to the hooch. Last night the Christmas eve movie in the room was Apocalypse Now, which is always a holiday favorite. This morning it was Navy Seals, which is of course another family festive movie. Nothing like having Bill Paxton play a character named God who shoots muslim terrorists with armor-piercing .50 sniper ammo to get you in the Christmas spirit.

As we watched the movie, you could hear snow shovels and pushers grinding against the concrete sidewalk. Everyone was taking their turn at trying to keep the pathways clear. The snow just kept falling all day long. Later in the afternoon I went down to see my man, Face and play some Madden football on the PS2. Everything else in the day was relaxing and I even played a Christmas music CD that was sent to us. It was mainly a day of relaxing and not having to deal with the ANA. Nothing more special than that. I kept watching the clock all day and looking at the time back home, guessing what was happening at each minute. Knowing when Christine would finally get to bed, after doing all the Christmas eve preparations by herself. Guessing when the boys would be up and in our room, bugging for Mommy to get up and her with probably only a few hours sleep telling them to go back to bed for at least another hour. Which of course is an impossible thing to do for a child on Christmas morning.

For here it is just another day, and nothing else. Regardless of the music being played, gifts being opened, or decorations on the wall it does not feel like Christmas. Without kids, and family, friends or loved ones it is not Christmas. Nobody here really wants to be in the Christmas spirit because doing so means getting angry or sad that we are not at home. So getting excited about or celebrating the fanfare of Christmas is really counter-productive when you are deployed. Why tick yourself off about being away from family for no good reason. The mental state to have here is to engross yourself in being here and your job and not spend the days longing for loved ones. That just makes the time go by slower.

Dinner tonight was very good. We actually had stuffing, mashed ‘taters, gravy, turkey, ham, prime rib, cranberries, yams, shrimp cocktail, and Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream. Just about the whole team went to dinner together and afterwards we went and sat in Face’s room, drank coffee and talked about all kinds of stuff.

So that was Christmas in Sharana Afghanistan….snow, video games, war movies, good chow and good friends who spend every day looking out for each other’s lives and praying for the day we can all return home together.

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One thing we found out the other night is that snow on a satellite dish will knock out the internet. The other day we got a good dumping of heavy wet snow that came down in big fat flakes. It reminded me of the first lake-effect snows we get in Buffalo. Of course what we got was not near as much as what my friend Marlene from Denver got in the last few days but for here it was a good amount. After going several hours without internet connectivity (which is the only thing that keeps us sane around here and connected with the world) CPT Ben decided he would try brushing the snow off the dish and sure enough that made the difference. The internet was bad and everyone had a smile again. Besides the fact that a lot of our work gets done via emails and internet, it is also the only connection we have back to our families, friends and everything else we consider normal in the world.

Since the snow, it has been pretty cold, except for the middle of the day for a couple of hours as the sun is out. We take that opportunity to try and clean up our trucks and gear. The only way to get frozen mud off the trucks is to expose it to the sun and find something to break it apart. As the sun starts getting lower in the horizon you can feel the temp go down quite a bit, and by nightfall it is pretty cold. I know there is not much about Afghanistan in the news back in the US, so it is hard for you to judge if things really slow down here in the winter like they say. Let me tell you, it slows down in some ways, but not in others. The threats change, that is all. We are still getting suicide bombers, IEDs, and direct engagements. When I say we, I don’t mean me personally all the time, but US soldiers in our area of operation are continually in contact.

In our team, we are taking care of a lot of tasks that are necessary to keep an army fit and equipped to conduct combat operations. We are inspecting gear, weapons, and other pieces of equipment for one thing. We have also implemented a program to re-qualify all of the ANA on their AK-47s. Thanks to the great mentorship by our Engineer ETT, the engineer company just finished building us our very own rifle range for the ANA and US soldiers to use. I know that does not seem like a big deal, but has been something we have been fighting through the red tape to get since July. It is nice to be able to walk out to our own range and re-check our weapons accuracy or take the ANA out there to let them shoot. Since many of the missions we do require us to rely on their shooting ability for our safety also, it is important to all of us to have them be able to hit what they are shooting at.

Hot water here is still a rarity, and it has become a challenge for everyone on the FOB to figure out when there is some and then rush to the bathroom to shower and shave. It is starting to remind me of the kids here that see a kid running to us. As I have mentioned before in other posts, when kids see a kid running and they know US soldiers are present they all come running knowing that something is being given away. The kids have no idea if we are for sure giving out anything, but they don’t want to miss out. Well now in our FOB, if people see someone moving fast towards the bathroom with a towel and shaving kit, everyone starts grabbing theirs and trying to get there hoping that it means hot water is present.

Christmas is coming in a few days and as with any other holiday, it does not matter how much you try to get in the mood with Christmas trees, decorations or anything else it is just hard to get into the mood. It has been that way when I was deployed before and I don’t see this Christmas as any different. I have tried, with two small Christmas trees in our room all decorated, lights around the room and even lights outside around our door. I am even threatening my two roommates, Puss and Prophet, that I am going to start playing Christmas music any day now. Either way it does not matter, it will hopefully be a day to relax, open a few gifts that have been sent and maybe have a decent holiday style meal. Bottom line is that it is just another day, but more importantly it is one more day closer to getting home.

I hope all have a Great Christmas, and be sure to keep us in your prayers as you gather around the table with family and friends. Prayers work, trust me.

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A great insight to the life in Afghanistan and what life is like for ETTs, the politics, etc. is brought forward by my good friend, Scott Kesterson. Scott is the only embedded reporter in Afghanistan and spends his time with ETTs all the time. He recently conducted some phone interviews with a lady named Taylor Marsh. I have listened to the interview and Scott does a great job of painting a picture of what life is like here as an Afghan, and as a soldier. I don’t know anything of Taylor Marsh, definetly don’t support her views or opinions, but she conducted an interview and Scott really explains a lot.

I highly suggest taking the time to go to the site and listening to all the different topics that Scott talks about. You can find it at www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=24950

He also conducted a video interview about Operation Drumstick and this can be found at www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-kesterson/operation-drumstick_b_36355.html

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Sometimes I hear comments by people here about how our team does not get moving early, we sleep in and sometimes are not that busy. It is ironic that they seem to forget we are the first and last lines of defense for this FOB. When someone steps out of line, shots are fired or intel comes in that we have to act on my team is the first to drop whatever they are doing and respond. We are the ones with weapons loaded, trucks loaded and ready, and gear just an arms reach away, 24 hours a day. So yes when there is nothing to do first thing in the morning, when there are no missions, when there is no training happening and when there is not a crisis I let the guys sleep in and don’t bother them. Everyone gets theirs, and Lord knows there have been enough nights on this team when we have been up all night surrounding a kulat full of bad guys or trying to get the ANA to chase after some.

The other day was a classic example. We were conducting gear and equipment inspections with one of our ANA companies, when gunshots and explosions had us scrambling yet again. As I mentioned we were doing inspections, trying to get a handle on what gear each soldier had and what they were missing. It really does not matter to them if they are missing anything or not, because they are not held accountable and they know that Uncle Sugar is going to eventually provide it if they don’t have it. So as we were finishing up the inspections of counting more of what they did not have versus what they did have, the excitement began. First was the small boom and then some automatic small-arms fire. As I was walking back with one of my NCOs, I told him not to worry about it and it was probably just the ANP test-firing. There is shooting all the time and unless I see tracers or rockets flying over my head, I quit getting excited about it.

Not long after getting back to my room, one of the Captains from the ANP mentoring team came to tell us that the ANP was requesting our help. He asked if we could respond as they had an IED outside their gate and there were some people in custody. Since we were asked, now it was time to respond. I told the team to get ready and have two trucks ready to go. We loaded up a whole bunch of ANA in their trucks and we all piled into two of our gun trucks. After loading machine guns, starting trucks, doing radio checks and lining up with the ANA we were outside the gate. The actual location of the IED was a mere 600-700 meters from our front gate and in fact we could see it from our front guard tower. It was a small IED targeting ANA and ANP right in the bazaar area. It was hastily placed and small so it did little damage with only one ANA soldier hurt. A jingle truck that was parked nearby had the front end blown in and the big windows they normally have were gone. I guess nobody was sitting in it, otherwise there would have been a lot more injuries. So after performing the actions we needed to and securing the entire place, searching everything and everyone, we had some people in custody. They were turned over to the ANP, as this is their job since there were no US Army personnel involved and it looks as if the ANP themselves were the target of the attack. These types of things don’t move fast and before we knew it, the temperature had significantly dropped and so had the sun. It was pitch black by the time we wrapped up all the things we needed to and headed back. Thankfully our cooks held chow for us so we at least got some warm food in us.

The next morning…some of us decided to sleep in.

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The 2006 weblog awards voting is over and I am extremely happy with the results. I did not win, in fact I think I had the least amount of votes out of the 10 finalists. However I was flattered to be nominated in the first place and to receive the votes I did get. When I started this blog, it was intended to keep family and friends informed about how I was doing and what I was doing over here. Essentially this is a diary or journal of my year-long experience here in Afghanistan. I wished I would have kept a diary of my time during the first gulf war, but never did. This time around I did not want to make the same mistake. So the blog was never created to win awards or gain popularity, it was meant to document and inform. I am impressed and flattered to have the readership that I do. I have a ton of people registered on my site, and I know many more that have not registered whom read it. There are people from all walks of life and for every reason imaginable that read this blog. Many have sent me emails of encouragement, kind words and support. I appreciate all of that more than you would know. So, I am glad to have been nominated and will never forget it. Even though I did not get the most votes I consider myself a winner because I have people that are reading this to prepare themselves for their own tours coming up, in order to understand what their own loved ones are going through over here, or because they want to hear what is really happening over here that the media never covers. For that, I am a winner.

Thanks for reading….
Troy

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