A Year In The Sandbox

TSgt Baker

Mike — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 21:13:06 +0000

For anybody who hasn’t seen it on Facebook yet our team’s medic TSgt Kyle Baker took his own life just before Christmas. He had been in treatment for PTSD from our deployment. He left a wife and 3 kids.

http://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/deaths/2010/12/22/kyle-baker-61.php

Illinois Soldiers Return Home

Mike — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:06:09 +0000

Here are a couple stories from the Chicago Tribune about our security force company returning home. One has a short video of their homecoming, the other tells the story of the March 15th IED. Reading that story brought back a lot of feelings. Near he end it tells about how SFC Burleson reacted when he found out the other 2 guys didn’t make it. I remember exactly how I felt when I heard that, just crushed. Everybody expected to see SGT Abeyta and SPC Weinger again.

Not Everyone Comes Home

Celebration, Sorrow As Illinois National Guard Troops Return From Afghanistan

Future of AYITSB

Mike — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:23:05 +0000

I’m in Manas now on my way home, should be there in less than a week!

The team that replaced us is interested in keeping this blog going. Once they get settled in and rolling they’ll start posting here. It’ll be nice to keep up with what’s going on in the province and I know some of you still have family there in JBad. So just because I’m coming home don’t delete this site from your favorites!

Article About PRTs

Mike — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:15:48 +0000

I’ve posted links to a lot of articles reporting positively about the PRTs and what we’re doing here. I came across one today that wasn’t so positive. The author makes a lot of good points and there’s really nothing in the article I can argue against based on my experience here. I don’t really have a solution.

http://photomaniacal.com/blog/humvees-in-a-china-shop-anna-husarska

4th Of July

Mike — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:26:22 +0000

We have a couple Chicago Tribune reporters embedding with us for a while and they did a story about our 4th of July celebration here.

4th of July in Nangarhar

Everything’s going fine here. If everything goes the way it should I’ll be back in San Antonio before August!

Outside the Wire: The Forgotten Children of Afghanistan

Mike — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:46:42 +0000

A while back I received an email from a film maker about an upcoming documentary on Afghanistan. The film is almost completed and there’s a trailer up for it. Below is a short blurb about the film from Anthony Hornus, the man behind the project:

…in Feb. and March of 2008 I traveled with a cameraman to Afghanistan to film the first in our series of “Outside the Wire” documentaries. It is entitled “Outside the Wire: The Forgotten Children of Afghanistan.” Certainly crushing poverty, years of war and oppression and lack of basic human needs (water, sanitary conditions) makes Afghanistan a land of despair.

But, as my modernist-thinking Afghan friends believe, there is now at least a strong new sense of hope. I got sick and tired of hearing about the “Bad Americans,” blah, blah, blah by the far left. We’re not doing an infomercial for the military, but with the grace of God we’re going to balance the story of good vs. evil, and helping those who can’t help themselves.

The entire key to the success in Afghanistan-Pakistan region is education of the young toward tolerance, understanding and respect for all faiths and cultures and empowering them with basic aid, school supplies and economic opportunities, while providing security from the bad guys.

I’m excited to see the end result which should be out this fall or winter. Keep an eye on the project as there will be other films to come in the Outside the Wire series.

Watch the trailer here!

Alternate site for the trailer.

Collective Development Incorporated
Dennis Therrian

Misc Videos

Mike — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:56:44 +0000

Here are the rest of the videos that don’t really fit in any one theme.

This is a view of Torkham Gate panning from the Pakistan side to the Afghanistan side.

I don’t remember where this was, but it’s a turkey!

One of our SECFOR guys falling asleep in the back of an MRAP on the way back to the FOB from the Sherzad district.

One of our drivers snoozing outside a school near Jalalabad.

Video of the countryside I took from the window of an 1151.

Quick pan of the view from the Dari Noor DC.

Camel train outside the Dor Baba DC.

That’s all the videos I have uploaded right now!

Kid Videos

Mike — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:55:32 +0000

Took me a little while to get around to it, but here are the videos of kids I’ve taken here.

This one is at a school here in Jalalabad, we were walking back to the trucks and I was trying to get the kids to steal Cal’s pen.

This is one of our Civil Affairs guys spraying some kids with silly string.

Took this one walking through a school in the Shinwar district.

Took this one of some kid trying to trade me a potato down in the Achin district.

Some excited kids outside a school near Jalalabad.

This was up in the Dari Nor district outside a new school we were building there. The soldier in the video has his viewfinder turned to face the kids so they can see themselves.

Some kids saying the alphabet in a school just outside of Jalalabad.

The rest of the videos I have don’t fit in to a set theme so I’ll stick them all in one post soon.

Range Videos

Mike — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:46:25 +0000

We went out in the middle of nowhere a few weeks ago to get rid of some old ammo. Here’re a few videos I took that day.

This is a Mk19 40mm machine gun being fired by one of our SECFOR guys.

I carry an m203 40mm grenade launcher which most of the folks on the team have never fired. We had a bunch of ammo to get rid of, so I shared. This is one of our medics firing it.

This is our other medic firing my 203. I crack up every time I watch this one. “Where’d it go??”… *BOOM* “Ahhhhhh”.

This is one of the PSYOPs guys firing an AT4 anti-tank weapon.

This is one of our Civil Affairs guys tossing a frag grenade. He’s very proud of himself.

One of our SECFOR guys firing his m249 SAW.

Our medic struggling to charge the Mk19…

Then when she finally got it charged it blew up on her…

Tomorrow I’ll post a bunch of videos I’ve taken of kids.

Vehicle Recovery Videos

Mike — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:45:35 +0000

I finally got all the videos uploaded, so here’s the first post. Some of the videos are more interesting than others, but they’re all kind of cool to watch.

This one happened pretty soon after we got here. We were checking out a water tank that was being built just outside of Jalalabad and the driver got the truck stuck in some mud. The commander was standing next to me and I asked him what he thought the poop content of the mud was.

This one and the next one happened in the Bati Kot district. We drove through an old graveyard that didn’t have any headstones or markers. The old graves collapsed under the truck tires and got the trucks stuck.

This is the 2nd one from the graveyard.

This one was when we were on the way to Sherzad with relief for the earthquake victims. This was probably the widest dirt road I’d been on in Afghanistan but the driver still felt the ditch was a better option.

This happened just a couple weeks ago in the Khogyani district. We were checking out a road that was being built and on the way back we got a little too close to the edge.

This last one happened on the way back from Kuz Konar. This one and the 1151 were the only 2 that I wasn’t in when it got stuck, I was in the truck behind it.

That’s it for this post, I’ll put up some more videos tomorrow.