Hello Everyone,
I hope this e-mail finds you all doing well. We have moved from Kabul to Jalalabad, and we have been conducting all sorts of missions in the area. There is just a plethora of different people here, and they all want to use the ANA for PR purposes. We have run missions with the FBI, Marines, Special Forces, Army, the Afghan Police, and even a USAID representative. We have also run all different types of missions. I will tell the stories along with the pictures. The first thing is that J-bad is much lower in elevation than Kabul, and therefore much hotter and greener. They actually grow bananas, mangos, peaches, and oranges in this area. It took a while to get used to the heat. First the trip to J-bad went through a high mountain pass. It was a horrible road, and I can't believe Jingle trucks use the same route. Here is the only picture I got, it was still very cold in these hills.

The first mission we did was in Jalalabad, and it was to support a CSI team of FBI who came straight from Washington, DC. This was perhaps the dumbest mission I have ever done. We went to an old Al Qaeda camp so that they could probe for clues. A little late don't you think?Considering the camp was bombed four years ago, and it hasn't been occupied since. Oh well, it was a beautiful day and there was a cool lake there.

This is what I sat and looked at while the FBI guys ran around getting clues. They were like swat teams depicted in the movies. They ran around like they were getting shot at even though there was no threat at all. I half expected them to start shouting hut, hut, hut

Then, things got a little more serious as we moved north and west to a town known as Mehtarlam. The camp there is extremely small and rustic. Our mission there was to support Marines. They had just had a somewhat sizable gun fight with the hillbillies in the mountains to the north. The local ANA general organized a meeting of all the warlords in the area to ask them not to shoot at Marines and play nice, and we had to provide security for the meeting. The Marines decided to test the effectiveness of this meeting by conducting patrols in hillbilly land. I call it hillbilly land, because it reminds me of Apalatia. In any case, they asked for our support. They warned us that contact was likely, and sure enough an IED went off right in front of the Marine convoy. Luckily it didn't hit anybody, but it sure pissed the Marines off and they were fixin' for a fight. So we continued to push north and seemingly back in time. I mean this valley was still in the 1700s, and everyone was hostile--just like hillbillies are hostile to all outsiders. This is a photo I took while we were at the site the IED went off.

The road to the north of this was really rough and it took us several hours just to go about 10 miles. Here is a picture of part of the road. Finally, we had to get out and walk to final 4 or five miles. It seems that all I have been doing since I got to J-bad is hump a pack around.

When we finally got to where we we going, I noticed that the fields were all poppy fields. I realized that these people were probably not associated with Al Qaeda or Taliban, just drug running hillbillies who are not afraid to fight. Here is the town that we were tasked with searching for weapons, while the Marines moved to the next one.

These people were extremely hostile, but they did not attack. The previous engagement with the Marines had cost them 40 dead and many more wounded, and I don't think they had the stomach for more, at least this soon. We confiscated several weapons, but nothing else happened.

Interestingly, the women in this area do not wear burkhas. Instead, they were very colorful and pretty shawls--they could even show their faces. I was too busy to take any pictures. Also, on the way back, I noticed a house that had a plane crashing into a building painted on it---how could anyone be proud of such a thing?

After that, we moved north and east to a town called Asadabad. The first night we were there the camp was rocketed. It had just gotten dark, and I was waiting to go out on a patrol when I heard a loud bang followed by two more. The Afghans and Marines immediately began shooting the surrounding hillsides with machine guns, mortars, artillery, and tanks. It was quite a show, like the fourth of July. They probably didn't hit anything though. This became a nightly thing while I was at A-bad, CPT Oles and I actually set up lawn chairs so that we could watch the show, even though we were supposed to go hang out in a bunker. These bad guys are like teenagers on mischief night, they throw a few eggs and run, rarely hitting anything. Not really a threat.

The big threat in the area is IEDs, which is what the ANA is tasked with eradicating. Thus, we run nightly patrols along the roads and set up ambushes so that we could catch the bastards setting them. We also kick in a lot of doors to search homes for weapons and bomb making materials. Unlike Iraq, none of the roads are paved here, so instead of setting up artillery shells on the side of the road, like in Iraq, they bury antitank mines in the center of the road here. These are extremely dangerous and have caused a lot of grief here. Luckily, they are not that good at timing the explosion, so they miss more than they hit. However, when they hit, it is usually fatal.

Another mission we did was to escort a USAID representative to the town of Asmar, which is pictured above. This was a very lovely town alongside the Indus river. The USAID wanted to meet with the new governor and talk about the new road construction.

So, that is what I have been doing for the last three weeks or so. Mostly, I have been doing a lot of walking with my backpack on, and I have lost nearly ten pounds. I have also grown accustomed to the ANA weaknesses and strengths. They can climb up and down mountains with remarkable speed and agility, almost like mountain goats, it is amazing. However, they have absolutely zero discipline and they are extremely lazy. They are just doing it for a paycheck, mercenaries. One night they took off in the jeep and returned with a live sheep, which the proceeded to behead with a knife--the muslim way Then, they made a bonfire and cooked it, right in the damn patrol base. Oh well, we are just advisors and we can't force them to do anything.