Blogger Checks In From Afghanistan

AW1 Tim’s friend and fellow veteran, TSO, also known as Mark Seavey, checks in with his first official post from Afghanistan. Mark is currently embedded Able Company, 3-66th Infantry. Mark is many things, Veteran, blogger, Pats fan, devoted husband, and runs the American Legion’s official blog: The Burn Pit.

His intro pieces, describing his journey to Afghanistan are:

“Back To Afghanistan, Waiting On The Bird”

“Welcome To Kandahar, Now Get In The Bomb Shelter”

and

“Gym, Chow, Laundry. Repeat X 270 Days.”

His first official embed piece is posted over to “This Ain’t Hell” another great blog, btw, and may be read in full there. Here’s the opening and I encourage you to visit TAH and give it a read. I’ll continue to post Mark’s other articles as they become available.

“Outside The Wire, Fun With The ANA”

Even before I made it out here (FOB Andar) I had heard an NCO tell me how lucky I was to get embedded with Able Co, 3-66. “Awesome unit, awesome leadership”, he said. “They love the CO, but they worship the 1SG, dude is a stud.” That was my first impression when I met the leadership as well, but I decided to ask one of the NCO’s I was out with yesterday. He sort of smiled, “Well, that’s half right, we pretty much worship the CO too.”

Getting here wasn’t easy, and it was rife with anxiety. KAF-BAF-Sharana-Andar is a pain in the ass travel scenario. At one point a AF person told me my ticket would cost $122. I was somewhat stunned, since the orders just said I was to have access to anything I needed, but I said “ok, how can I pay.” What followed was a surreal experience as they explained that I couldn’t pay cash, couldn’t pay credit card, couldn’t be billed for it. Then the AF female and a KBR person just started screaming at each other, and the loadmaster that was for my bird whispered to me, “We’ll get you on the bird man, don’t worry about this horse[expletive.]“ At the next stop, an Army female and a KBR guy also got into it over who had priority for weighing folks on the one scale they had.

So by the time I made it here, I was pretty tight and apprehensive all around. Every unit I’ve been in has had some defect. Whether it is the leadership being not up to par, or the troops not getting along, there’s always s0mething. Here, not so much. Everybody gets along great, and they play jokes on each other constantly. And the PLs and PSGs all seem top notch, none more so than the Platoon I went out with yesterday.

Go and read The Rest. It’s good to see real MilBlogging like it used to be.