Arrival in Kabul

Well, I finally made it Kabul today. Let me see if I can elaborate on the last few (sucky) days.

I caught a plane from Kuwait to Bagram Air Base on a C17. That was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. We were packed into small coach sized seat wearing full battle armor and resting our backpacks on our laps. The seat cushions were worn out so it was very hard. It felt like the blood circulation was getting cut off to my legs the whole flight. So I kept fidgeting the whole flight but I was never able to get comfortable. It was like sitting on a wooden bench for 5 hours and being unable to move around. I was in agony. And we weren't allow to get up for most of the flight because of turbulence. I was able to half stand up once, but I couldn't move around. I was so happy when that thing finally landed.

Bagram sucked. I'm sure that is the nastiest base I'll ever see. There are about 28000 on that base, and the infrastructure supports maybe 5000. It was dirty, smelly, and dilapidated. It seemed like most of the base had something under construction. I asked one of the locals about it and he said all the construction began about 6 months ago. It looks like we are planning to stay a while because unlike kuwait, the new buildings are permanent structures. I stayed in the transient tents for two nights. I had a bunk with a mattress at least. There were about 120 Army guys in there with us. Unfortunately the Army is not keen on cleanliness.

We convoyed down to Kabul today. The convey was uneventful. This country is dirt poor. Looks like they build houses mostly with a kind of mud brick, or whatever garbage they can find. Everything I saw was either dead landscape, or some small settlements that looked like a garbage dump. Kabul itself cleaner. Nicer cars driving around. It seemed busy with taxicabs and all. Still dirty and run down, but definitely more signs of civilization.

Camp Eggers is really really small. I'm stuck in a transient tent again. They don't have any permanent space for us yet. They said maybe two weeks. It's a smaller 12 man tent with just Navy so that is better.

As far as my job... I'm pretty disappointed. I don't actually have a job yet. They are going to have a meeting tomorrow to make up some jobs for us. (I've heard the same thing from several other people that arrived today.) But even when they do make jobs for us, there isn't enough space. They don't have computers, desks or chairs for us. I can't help but think this whole thing is stupid. They made it seem so critical that they redirect us from our missions in Iraq to come here, yet the people here are scrambling to find space and work for us. I think the only critical thing about getting us here was to plus up the number of US troops in country to satisfy the administration's goals.

Anyway, enough ranting. I finally have a mailing address:

Charles Beyer
CSTC-A CJ-2
APO, AE 09356

I don't really need anything though - I'm still living out of my luggage while I'm in a temporary tent.