We left Ft. Hood on the 16th, went through Ireland and Turkey, before landing in the beautiful country of Kyrgystan. We hung out at a very cold Air Force Base there for a few days waiting for a flight to Kabul. We are now at camp Phoenix in Afghanistan and I am finishing up some training before I go out to be with my Afghan National Army (ANA) counterparts. I will be working teamed with an American officer, and we will mentor and advise an infantry company of ANA in the field. We will be based near Kabul for a little while to train up, but then we will move to another province to conduct patrols in the mountains. Honestly, I can not wait to get away from the REMFs (a very derogatory term for pencil pushers that never leave camp Phoenix). I have had the opportunity to meet some of the ANA, and they are very very hard people. They have been at war for the last 30 years, there is no electricity, no running water, no paved roads, virtually no comforts for them, yet they appear to be kind and friendly. I spoke Dari with some yesterday, and they were very appreciative. Essentially, I can't wait to be away from the all of these staff officers who think they are general Patton and hang out with the ANA. Also, the country appears to be beautiful, and I can not wait to see more of it. Apparently as an Embedded Training Team (ETT) member, I will get to see most of the country.

It seems I will also have a lot of funds to do things like build schools and things for small villages in the country side. This should be an interesting experience. Well, here are some of my pictures with captions underneath. I miss you all, and please write to me. I may not write back immediately, because once I am out of here, I will be in the field. Although, they have said they will be giving us hand held satellite uplinks that we can use for email--isn't that crazy?