I'm not talking about the award winning album by "Midnight Oil". Diesel and dust is really the only way to grasp the environment that is Kandahar Air Field (KAF).
There are 2 paved roads. Everything else - and I mean everything is dirt. There are some 20,000 soldiers from various nationalities based here - all with their equipment, gear, vehicles in a constant rumble and malaise - all on dry, dusty, dirty roads - the dust is so thick you can taste it.
There is no "power-grid" in Afghanistan - and like every other deployed military setting I've seen, the power is all "generated" by diesel generators. The smell of diesel exhaust with the thick dust and a whoosh of sewer gas is omnipresent, and seems that it becomes part of you...
I watched the sun rise on my first day in Afghanistan. It was beautiful - and surreal. If I could send an email from my cell phone - I would post the picture I took. You start to get the sense of where you are at, by the humor that the young men and women of the military use. It is rough and edgy, and sometimes cuts right to the quick.
The restrooms available to us right now are just port-a-pottys. Not hot water - so cold showers is all there is. I was sitting in one of the port a johns having my morning constitutional.....eh hem...and the graffiti on the wall in front of me said it all...in terms that only a soldier going outside the wire could fully comprehend....and I quote...
"Take your time, enjoy your S*&t, it may be the last one you take with 2 legs..." So, I did.
It's 10:30 at night. I"m tired, haven't slept much since I've been here. I'm dirty, I'm sure smelly - could use a laundry badly. I think I'll wrap it up here.
Hey, you'll be just like some of those that I've sat by on the bus. :0)
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