Can you believe July's over already?! Where has the year gone? Despite the fact that they have us sitting around doing mostly nothing for the time being; time feels like it's cruising right along. Anyway, should be leaving here in a couple more days. Things will be a little more busy and time will really start to fly by!

Well, gotta go for now. I'll be back before I leave.

Hey everyone. Just a quick note to let you all know that I'll be leaving Herat for other places very soon. Bear in mind that I won't have phone or internet for who knows how long. It depends on the events that unfold. I'll let you know when I'm leaving.

Some pretty cool stuff today. A couple of the US drill SGTs that help train the Afghans came by and said they wanted a medic to go to a range with them, did I want to go? HELL YEAH! Shooting's fun. Far be it from me to turn down any trigger time!

So I go over to the ANA compound next door and out to the range. There they are. Three companies of Afghan privates, training on RPGs. We didn't get to fire them because they only had enough rounds for the troops that they were putting on the firing line. Cool to watch none the less. The video is a couple of Privates getting to shoot the RPG with anti personnel rockets. They are not that good, but they are motivated! The sound quality isn't that good due to the wind. But you do get to hear the rocket take off and see/hear the impact. Hopefully I uploaded it right!

Apparently I didn't, so stand by. I'll see If I can sent it to Danielle to load for me.

After they finished, we asked if the Drill SGTs and their Commander wanted to try the M203 grenade launcher. Not as much fun as the RPG, but still, blowing stuff up is lots of fun! I got my hands on it and shot some smoke rounds, practice rounds and some HE (high explosive) rounds. All in all, a good day.

Hey all! How's it goin' back there in the real world? Not too shabby here. Same heat, different day.

Yesterday I took a trip to a couple of out of the way places. Since they haven't seen too many American or coalition forces out that way, we were quite the novelty. The first place is called Zindajan. Looks just like every other village I've seen so far. Well, that's not exactly true. These places have quite a few pine trees. They actually look pretty good. The other place was called Ghoryan. That's the center of the village with the gun truck. Looks just like the other except there's no paved road to get there. You have to follow the right dirt trail. That, and they have sunflowers there. Never though I'd see that here. By the way, I was only about 35 mi from Iran. If I get out that way again, I'll see if I can get a picture of me IN Iran! HAHAHAHA!

Going out and coming back in, we went through downtown Herat. It's a lot nicer than Kabul. Cleaner, more colorful and the people smile more. I'm not quite sure if we should worry about that or not. Do they know something we don't?! Anyway, the other shot is downtown Herat at one of the traffic circles.

Other than that, not much is going on here. I should be finding out in a few days when I'm leaving for my follow on mission. "Somewhere" northeast of here. I'll keep ya posted!

So, the Air Force replacements showed up today. Wow. The PA that's taking over is the only one who seems confident and in shape. The rest of his crew are a bunch of fat bodies that came in huffing and puffing from the walk from the HQ to the TMC. A walk of about 100 meters. Shameful.

Tomorrow we'll start getting them up to speed on how things are done, all the processes and paperwork that needs to be done, and showing them around. Since we don't see many people here, the changeover should only take a couple of days; hopefully.

After that, the Col. and I should have plenty more time for other things like prepping for our upcoming mission. There's not a lot left to do for us except get ready physically and mentally. What I mean by that is to get our heads ready for all possible situations. Other than that, we just need to know when we're leaving. I wouldn't mind going to a range for some trigger time.

Other than that, not much else going on. 'Till next time...

Just a view of the center part of the camp. So, that's the good guys, NATO, Afghanistan, Italy, some former Soviet state and Spain. That's who we have here in our little part of the world. No French! They stayed in Kabul.

Happy 4th all!

Not much has changed since the last posting. Well, ok. One thing changed. It's getting hotter. Today was up around 125. Don't anyone say, "But it's a dry heat". 125 is 125 no matter how you look at it! It'll suck the life right out of ya.

So, today, here in paradise, they had the usual 4th type of thing. Grilled food for the dining facility. Sounds good? If you like steaks that you can use as a baseplate for a mortar tube! When these people cook something, wow, they cook the hell out of it!! They had the usual Friday bazar also. Instead of going over to the Afghan side of the camp as usual, they held it on our side. Today they even brought over a mangy camel. You could ride it for a couple of Euros. Don't even ask, no I didn't go for a ride. But it was friendly enough. You always here that they are quite nasty. This one must be used to being around people. It just hung around.

Had my first interesting case this evening. There is a local that works as interpreter that had surgery on his leg about a week and a half ago. His legs were burned by a suicide bomb 3 yrs ago. The surgeon had to cut some of the scar tissue away so he could get his full range of motion back when it heals. The problem? If you don't follow up with your patient or give them antibiotics, they get infected and it starts to smell like this guy! So, the doc and hooked him up with cleaning his leg (looked realy juicy, red, yellow and tan), changed the dressing and blasted him with antibiotics. Now we have to see this guy every day for a while now. I'll take pictures of the wound tomorrow. Great stuff!

The Air Force should be arriving around the 12th to take over the TMC. Then the Col and I will be leaving Camp Stone, Herat for another exotic location north of here. Exotic in the sence that it's an even higher elevation, I'll be there when the snow starts and it drops to around 0 degrees. Ain't war fun?!?!?!?!

Other than that, there's not much going on here besides packing gear for the trip to the winterlands. I wonder if I should get a sled?