Little fun at night...

Well, it was another hot one here today. Got up to around 112. Not to bad though. Been getting a little spot ready for my pool. There are some people here who kinda frown on it because of the mosquitoes and such that can breed in it, but it has a cover and also it is small enough that i can drain it out regularly enough to prevent vectors from breeding. I think I can get my hands on some chlorine tablets as well. Anyway, I thought I would show some of you all what the world looks like through my night vision. We were out on a night with pretty good illumination, so it was nice. The best part of being out at night is not only can we sneak up on people, but it is so much cooler. Granted I still sweat, but not as much. These photos are of my gunner, (the one with the big ol .50 cal), my driver and me (the one kneeling) providing security for our ANP partners, and me just watching the area. It was a quiet night so no bad guys. Oh well, there is always tomorrow. I hope everyone at home is doing good, as we are here. The time is going buy pretty fast. I come home on R&R in a few months!! I can't wait to see my wife and kids and our new house. It will be nice to just sleep in and eat some real food and not deal with everything here. I heard that our R&R might get lengthened to 18 days from 14. That won't be bad at all. We have been playing a lot of volleyball lately. I am trying to teach those in my squad the rules. It is fun though and a good stress reliever. We actually got some good sand from somewhere. I am not sure exactly where, but it makes a decent court. I will have to get some photos of us playing. It is the little things that you have to do here to take your mind off things and just de-stress yourself that count. I try to instill that in my soldiers as best as I can. Don't need them or myself bugging out over stupid stuff, when there are much more important things to worry about. Well enough of my rambling. If anybody knows of a program that makes movies for computers that isn't to complicated and can convert quicktime into a windows format or can tell me how to do that on my computer, please let me know. We have digital cameras that take movies, but they are in quicktime and my windows movie maker wont let me add that format for some reason. Ok, thanks and love and miss you all. Russ...Apocalypse-2.

Happy fathers day!!

Well, to all you dads out there, this ones for you. Hope you are all having a good fathers day. I am, as it is warm here and I think we will be playing volleyball later. I am thinking of my family today and what we might do. It wouldn't be much different then any other day off, maybe sleep in...ha ha. Thats only if the kids let us. Then we would probobly go to the park if it was a nice day and maybe do some shopping and such. I can't wait to get home and be able to just hang out with the wife and kids. I miss just being in a house full of people, and dogs, and now a kitten, just running around having a good ol time. Anyway, the pics above are of one of the high schools in my area. We stopped to talk and find out info about the school and how many students and go there and such. When we got there, it was closed but the night watchman was good enough to talk to us. I belive this school has around 5000 students and 25 teachers. The school has only 12 or 13 rooms with hardly any furtinure. So most of the classes are outside. It is sad, but the kids and teachers drive on every day. We are trying to get more funding to help rebuild as many as we can. It is good to see so many kids here going to school, even the little bit that they do. It makes alot of this worth while. Well, gotta go hit the gym, so have a good one and keep the mail and support coming. Russ

Been busy...

Well I apologize for not updating this in a while. I have been very busy here lately. We have been running at 110 MPH lately. On top of that, it has been getting much hotter. Only 115 during the day and in the low 80’s at night. A few days it has gotten up to over 120 in some areas here, and it is not even summer yet!! Well I had a good birthday. Got a small inflatable pool from my brother. I still have not set it up yet, as I am working on getting some chlorine. But, it will be very nice. My wife was about to buy the same one, but heard he got it, so she sent some other goodies instead. Thanks for the cookies honey, they were great! My mom sent some yummy chocolates from Costco. They got a little melted, but still were excellent. I thank everybody for the packages and letters of support. Every bit of mail that we receive here is great. We don’t have a PX, and the closest one is over an hour away, so the little snacks and amenities help greatly. The biggest thing we have been dealing with here lately is the heat. We are starting to get some what acclimated, but it is still very hot. When we walk outside, it feels like you just walked into a furnace. Plus add in all of our gear we wear, and that adds about 10 to 15 degrees. I’m sure there are some folks back in the states that work in factories or steel plants that can relate to the heat. It sure is not enjoyable. My hat goes off to all you hard working blue collar folks back home who bust your tails day in and day out in your jobs. We as soldiers respect you all and thank you for working hard and supporting us. I share all the letters and goodies I get with my squad, and I am trying to create a board to hang all the letters and supportive letters up so everyone here can see them. Oh yeah, the pictures above are of one of the Afghan Police stations that we are responsible for. I am meeting with some of the officers before a joint patrol. We are discussing the area, problems of the station, and things that have been improving. The run down building is a elementary school in one of my districts. These poor kids only go half days and most schools don't have buildings or furniture. We are working on identifying all of these and helping to rebuild them. It is really sad when kids back home take what they have for granted. Well, I gotta go take my squad for a run up a mountain. More later from the “sauna”. Russ

wet birthday...

well, my soldiers got me on my birthday. They missed with a huge can of water, but tackled me and doused me with shaving cream and baby powder. It is kind of tradition here to get people on there birthday's with a different assortment of items. Usually shaving cream and powder, but sometimes Gatorade and other items like coffee grounds and toothpaste end up in the mix. It is all in good fun though. My guys plotted all day to get me, but missed with the water. It was hot so I probably wouldn't have minded that bad. later for now, Russ.