Bala Hissar

This morning I traveled to an ANA (army) base. The ANA facilities are much nicer than the ANP (police) facilities. I walked up some hill to take pictures of the countryside.



I had a great view of the nearby neighborhoods. However I was nervous standing around too long in case someone thought about taking a pot-shot at me.



All the stray dogs here are so nice. Not very healthy, but very sweet.



This afternoon VADM Harward crashed our meeting with LTG Yarmand.

New Puppy

Today I went over to MOI to take delivery of a ton of furniture for the police. It was somewhat funny because we bought them way more furniture than they were expecting. The delivery trucks just kept coming. We were there all day.



I helped unload. After a while I embarrassed the afghan offices and they yelled at their enlisted to come help. In their full gear. That was funny to watch. The afghans officers don't do any manual labor. The enlisted mostly disappear when the see the trucks come in and the officers kept having to chase them down. So much for reports that afghans are hard workers. They mostly seem amazed to see me working. I don't know if it's because I'm American or if it's because I'm an officer. It was a good day though. Better than sitting around in the office doing computer work.



They had a couple of new recruits. They were testing their endurance by making them run laps with a vest on. Afghans don't believe in pt-gear - they do most things in their man-jams.



When I got back to the shop there was a dog in the secure facility. The NGA people said it followed them all the way back from their mentoring mission. I wonder how long he'll stick around.

The Back Half

Today was a pretty typical day. We went over to the MOI and talked to the Biometrics director. The internet was down in the office most of the afternoon. There is a conference going on next week so most of the city is shutting down in case the taliban try something. However they weren't very successful attacking the peace Jirga.

Some of my team may go to Herat and Mez next week to investigate setting up the new Biometrics collection sites. That reminded how nice the airport in Mez is and Camp Marmal in general. This terminal is the first building you enter there:



It's so nice compared to any of the other bases I've been to here. I wish I could take my 4-day R&R there. But McCrystal canceled that for everyone. Well, he didn't cancel it. He said we can take it in our rooms. Wow - thanks.

I suppose I'll work contract issues for the next few days. They are minor issues, but with 15 contracts and a broken finance office at Eggers, the problems take a while to fix.

My roommate left today. So switched to the back of the conex. It's a great improvement. Much more privacy back here.

Flags at Night

I know I haven't written in a while. It feels like nothing new is happening to write about. Things change, but the new things are just like the old things. The only change I really notice are the flags I walk past every night when I leave the office. The same flags seem to go up and down. The American flag tends to stay at half mast.



Here's a picture of me and an American cop I used to work with. We are standing next to some explosive material that our afghan team seized before it could be turned into IEDs. Mark has gone home now. He's probably sitting around just "fanning his balls" as the he liked to say.