Day Nineteen

Today's Friday and an off day. I got up when I wanted to get up, which was nice. It was cold this morning, and seems to be getting colder. I really can't wait for Spring to get here.

I came into the office today to an interesting surprise. The door was locked, but Sandy opened it, which I thought was strange initially. As I walked in, I noticed a small pillow and blanket in the old beach chair we have in the office. Sure, this isn't a very significant point to be making until I tell you that I noticed the blanket moving. About that time, Sandy said, "I have a new friend." I said, "yeah, I figured since I noticed movement over there under that blanket." We laughed and she unveiled a beautiful little female puppy she found in the market today. It was completely matted from head to toe and covered in the light brown moondust that is all over camp. Her poor little face peaked out from behind the blanket as if to say "thanks" for rescuing her. She was so cute. Sandy said she had a rope around her neck so tight that she couldn't even get her finger underneath it. Poor thing. All the Afghan people were just standing around and no one was doing anything for it. When Sandy cut it loose, they said, "Congratulations on your new dog." Real funny. Apparently, dogs aren't a priority over here at all. So, I guess we have a new PA mascot now. It looks kind of like a Chow, but who knows what it is. It's very cute though, and once Sandy and Ryan gave it a bath, it looked pretty good. Still a little matted, but cute. It was a funny site watching them give this dog a bath in a mop bucket filled with hose water, and them brewing hot water in coffee pot after coffee pot to pour it into the bucket to warm it up for the poor thing. Crazy...as Sandy would say. I don't know what the future holds for this puppy, but Lord knows it wouldn't have made it much longer if Sandy hadn't saved it. Maybe it will make it back to the states, who knows? If Sandy has her way...it will.

I didn't do much today but hang out in the office and around camp. I played pool a little bit, checked e-mails, and got my equipment out and prepared it all for the mission we have coming up soon. I quality-checked my cameras and microphones to ensure they all worked properly. I loaded up my bag with some tapes and batteries and got that all that ready to go. Went to a meeting with some Army guys to talk about some things that are going to be happening. Obviously, I can't get into specifics. I went back to the office after that and loaded up some ammo into my M-4 rifle magazines and got the laser sights put back on in the right place. I checked my kevlar vest and helmet to make sure everything was in order. I still have to put the ammo pouches on my vest and finish that. I'll be ready to go outside the wire whenever it's time to go. Again, I can't say too much on here. I'm just ready to go. Tonight, I ran another four miles on the treadmill and felt ok afterwards. I was shooting for six miles, but I accidentally pulled the emergency stop switch at thirty one minutes. Once I finally got the damn thing running again where I had it, I didn't have it in me to go the full hour. My knees were bothering me today anyway. I did nine more minutes to make it an even forty minutes (four miles), and called it good. I figure if I shoot for six miles per day and run only four (at a minimum), I'm doing pretty good, right? I never would've thought I'd be running four miles a day at this point anyway.

Thank goodness for my Intel and COMSEC/OPSEC friends following my blog. As a PA guy, I know what I can say and what I can't say. The releasing authority for public information in the Air Force is PA, so I have the liberty of knowing and releasing the information I tell. However, I'm not perfect, and sometimes I get so into this that I do say some things that are near what I probably shouldn't. I'm always aware of what I say, and I don't get too into specifics, but I'm reminded at times that certain "pieces" of what I say can be put together and become something valuable for someone to use. So I have to be cautious, and again, I thank my Air Force friends who are the experts in those fields for having my back and keeping an eye out for those things. If some of my information seems vague at times, it's for those reasons.

Well, another Friday has passed and the week begins again tomorrow. I'm looking forward to getting some valuable training done with my ANA partners, and watching them take what they've learned and implement it into their daily operations. Tomorrow is step one toward making that happen.