Vive la... France?

Okay, I know, I'm quite aware of what we all think of the French in America but to tell you the truth they are some really cool guys. The French military is working here in Afghanistan and I actually have the pleasure of working with these guys. To tell you the truth though, when I first found out about it I wasn't too excited to have to work with those "frogs". My view point has changed though. From what I've seen so far from these soldiers is that they are very polite and hospitable. They are more than happy to provide accommodations in order to make you comfortable. Plus a lot of these guys speak pretty English fairly well, I feel kind of dumb not being able to speak any French back to them as a courtesy. I'm trying to pick it up though... It's just coming kind of slow. The first night that we hung out with these French guys they threw a trick question at us, "so what do the Americans think of the French?". Yeah try answering that and keeping good relations with them at the same time. It's kind of hard, we made it work however.

On a side note though I thought that I would write a little story about one of my last missions. You'll like it, it was pretty funny. So for our last mission we went up to a little village that is buried all the way up at the top of the mountain in this tiny valley. The roads up there were horrible, actually quite nonexistent. There were some points where our HMMWV's were bottoming out and even having a hard time fitting through some of the passes. The drive up to the village was about 2 1/2 to 3 hours long and it did nothing but bump you all around. We finally got to the top of the mountain and made it to this little village that was tucked up in the edge of this valley. We got out and went and met with all of the villagers. We talked to them to see what they could use, see what we could do to help them and to just see how things were in general. They seemed pretty happy with the way things were so we decided it was time to head back. Before we left though they told us that if there was one thing that we could do it would be to fix the road, yeah no kidding. So we took off and started to make our way back down the mountain. Again just bump after bump, turn after turn. It was getting pretty old by then. Than it happened. We were about half way down the mountain and out of no where a thundering boom that could have been mistaken as God's anger came crashing over us. BOOM!! What was that? Without hesitation, without time to think, without telling myself what to do I instantly looked up out the turret of the HMMWV to see where the rocket fire was coming from. Everyone in the truck thought that we were done and let out the only reasonable reply, "OH, SH...!!!". I thought that we were done. I didn't see any explosions, I didn't see any Taliban on the ridges ambushing us, all I saw was a giant F-15 fighter jet flying close to 100 feet over head. Now I'm not sure if you know your distances when it comes to fighter jets but 100 feet is about 100 times closer than I want to be. Turns out the BOOM was nothing more than the explosive sound of an F-15 breaking the sound barrier right over hear, 100 feet over head. To make it even more explosive, at the time we were tucked down into a tight little ravine and the sound just echoed. I took into consideration what just happened, I checked my underwear and tried to slow my heart rate because I now understand that I get to live another day. After I got my heart rate and adrenaline under control and realized what just happen I couldn't help but to laugh about it. I seriously thought that I was done, but it was just a friendly jet flying over head and saying hello. And for you Meg, I know you're probably reading this freaking out that I thought that I was a goner and thinking how is that funny? Well it's because of the mere confusion of what was happening and having it turn out to be something completely harmless. I love you though, please don't worry. I'm all gravy baby. I'll even attach some pics for your viewing pleasure. So, pleasure away. Until next time.

Can a wrong be a right?

Today I want to write to you all and not really post of news but to leave my post up as an open discussion. Meaning that I want reader participation and have you leave feed back on your opinion of the matter that is to be discussed. With that I will now be on with my post.

If sometimes doing something that you know to be right turns out to actually be wrong, can doing something wrong actually turn out to be right? Lately I had someone tell me that I had a very combative personality (thier translation was that it meant that I have a very intimidating presence), so I'm not sure if I just have a skewed perspective on things or if that person was just full of crap. I'm of course going to think that he was just full of crap. All of this spawned from a conversation with a Special Forces guy who instanly started to sway away from conversation because he thought that I was looking for a fight when all I was doing was obliging him in conversation. That's a story for another day though. After that is when one of my team mates told me that I have a "combative" personality.

Now before I actually get to the question I need to first set it up with a scenario. A man (we'll call him mister combat) walks into a public shower and witnesses a larger man (we'll just call him larger man) shaving the back of his neck and his chest with some hair trimmers. Now, Mr. Combat initially thinks to himself, "good, he's just trying to have good hygine." After that though is when Mr. Combat sees it. Larger man has apparantly never seen what protrudes from his butt crack and over his shorts because I think that he would probably pay more attention to that than his neck and chest if he had. After seeing the amount of hair that was escaping from Larger man's shorts Mr. Combat was fairly positive that Larger man has probably lost things such as keys, wallets and girls phone numbers in there. And that's when it happens. Mr. Combat asks himslef, "self, is it more rude to tell Larger man that he should probably trim his butt crack too, or to just let him go running around completely unaware of the situation and continue to lose more keys, wallets and what I'm sure is to be hard earned phone numbers?" I made my choice and I am now living with it. My question to you though is what would you do? Would you let Larger man continue to go through his hot days in Afghanistan with a super sweaty butt crack and having him go through pair after pair of underwear because of all of the sweat? Take some time and ask yourself and than get back to me. Maybe by than I'll be able to find something worth Blogging about. Thanks and in the most non-intimidating way please have a great day.

First time for everything

I did it, I actually did it. Man I can't believe this, for the first time in my life I just bought something off of EBAY. It wasn't just through the "buy it now" function either. I put a bid out there and actually fought for this product. Okay so it wasn't just one bid either, it was several bids and it was down to the last second. It was about midnight for me and I just wanted to go to bed but the suspense of winning or losing was just too much that my body felt like I had just slammed a Red Bull and was full of forced energy. I was exhausted but my body just kept going. "How much time is left? 6 minutes, come on. Now, how much time is left? 5 minutes and 42 seconds? Aghh, I can't take this." This went on until the very last second where I finally threw out my high bid and found out that I won it. It was all mine, I AM THE VICTOR!! The best part of it all is that what I won wasn't even for me, it was for my amazing wife Megan. She emailed me the other day so sad that her CHI hair straightner had broke. She wanted to just run out and instantly but a new one for 100 bucks. I said no of course because I'm a "meany head" like that and because I had a plan of my own. I was going to go against the standard of just going and buying something, I wanted to check out other routes and EBAY just happened to be it. I was able to get a freakin' CHI hair straightner for... ready for this, $66 bucks. Wait, no I take that back, it wasn't just a CHI hair straighter it was a CHI Turbo. Do you know what this thing can do? It can heat up in 6 seconds plus it just looks cool. I'm not really sure as to what makes it more that just a CHI but I do know that it heats up in 6 seconds and that's pretty amazing. That means that both the CHI and I have something in common, Megan can turn us on and we're both hot after just 6 seconds. That was just for your benefit babe, I love you. Really though it's true;)- Well I think that I'm must contine my EBAY adventures because the rush of not losing to a bunch of other, I dare say, LOSERS was amazing. I slept so well after that. If any of you have any fun EBAY adventures let me know, we can be buddies. Until then, keep on bidding.

Who wears short shorts?

Lately, I've kind of been trying to get myself back into the swing of things. Actually I guess that I'm trying to get back to the point that I was when I first joined the Army, 163 lbs. Now I know that unless I dedicate 100 percent of my time, body and mind to it than it's probably not going to happen, so I'll settle for... let's say 175 lbs. I've been hitting the gym everyday, except Sundays, sometimes even twice a day. Plus every night before I go to bed I bust out 40 pushups, 50 supermans, and try and hold the plank as long as I can trying to hold it for 2:00. Well the main point of this post is that I've been catching a lot of flack lately because of my new workout shorts. People have even gone so far as to say that it looks like my sexual preferance when I wear the shorts is aimed towards men. So I'll let you decide. Remember I just got back from the gym so I'm looking pretty ragged. Plus I'm including a blast from the past for you to see what I'm aiming for. Again enjoy the pics and I'll post ya later.

P.S. I don't like men, I do like my wife (who is a female) though. Wait, actually I freakin love her.

What, Birthday!?

As some of you may know, or may not know, my Birthday was on the 6th of July. It actually sucked. A couple of friends did however try and make it at least somewhat fun. We got some pizzas and watched a pirated copy of 21. It wasn't too bad, but it still was just lame. Anyways I got a package in the mail form my lovely wife and my amazing in-laws that kind of make it a little better. So thank you to all of you who remembered and tried to make it a special day. You did great. So here's a couple of pics of the sweet shirts that I got. Hope that you enjoy. I mean I guess that it's kind of hard not to when you're checking me out. Lol.

Three of three, the begining... or maybe the end

Now this is one that you can laugh at. A couple of days ago we went to another Afghan Police headquarters and checked up on them to see how they were doing. While we were there a bunch of kids started to crowd around on the other side of the fence and ask us for water. So of course we gave them some. Than one of our guys started to make different poses at the kids and they started to copy him. So another guy got on top of out HMMWV and started to do the YMCA movements and again they started to copy him. Than we got them to finally do the Karate Kid pose and of course they did it. In this case pictures speak louder than words. So take a gander and enjoy.

Two of three, AKA: the middle

This one isn't really a funny one but it is still one that I'll always remember. About two days ago I had the chance to go and drop off some humanitarian aid items to an orphanage. It was probably one of the saddest thing that I've ever seen. When we first arrived I went into the orphanage with a couple of others to talk to the headmaster and see what we could do to help them out but when we first opened up the gate to walk in that kind of became second on the list. Instantly we were swarmed by just kid after kid. They all had the biggest brightest smiles on their faces even though they had dirty worn down clothes on their bodies. They all even had their heads shaved because of the hygiene issues. Every kid did their best to try and grab you and hold your hand. They would just look and you and say hello mister. Trying to get through the crowd of kids was a slow task but worth it. At that moment I was really able to take a look at my life and see what I really had. I stopped to make sure that I was able to say hello to every kid that wanted to say hello to me. It was a great feeling, knowing that we were there to see what we could do to help these kids. We finally made it though the kids and into the building that they had they unfortunate situation of calling it a home. The building was nothing more than a couple of windows and walls to protect them from the elements. We went to the headmasters office and sat down to see what they needed and the simple answer was, "Everything". The headmaster told us that they had approximately 130 children in the orphanage and every single one needed anything that they could get. The people that I went with told him that they would arrange for approximately 130 new mattresses, sheets and blankets. They also told him that they would get a bunch of hygiene items and clothes for the kids. The headmaster than took us for a walk through of the building. We went into the rooms that the children lived in and saw what they had to deal with. All of the beds were lined up head to toe with mattresses that weren't even as thick as some of the blankets that we have at home and every kid had a locker that was about 10" x 10" x 12". It was just enough space to place what few clothes they had and any other personal items they had. The carpet was just plane gone, completely trashed and dirty, or torn to shreds. I kind of felt bad because I loaded my HMMWV up with a bunch of items for the kids like sandals, back packs and soccer balls but I only took enough for about 30 kids. So instead of just handing them out to all of the kids I just gave them all to the headmaster to hand out to the kids. I said good bye to the headmaster and wished him the best of luck with taking care of the kids. I loaded back up in my HMMWV and drove off. It really sucked seeing the kids in that kind of a situation. The headmaster told us that most of the kids were in there because the Taliban had killed their parents. It was hard to go knowing that they needed help but we did what we could do for them at the time. Hopefully soon enough the whole country can see a new way of life. Not one that's torn apart because of those who control by fear. So when you go to bed tonight make sure that you let your loved ones know how much you love them and care for them and let them know how grateful you are to have them in your life. Things can change in just a blink of an eye and I see that now that I had the chance to meet those kids. I'm now going to just let all of you know how much I love you and miss you. I really am so glad to have the family and friends in my life that I do. I am grateful for the life that I have and will never complain about the extras and amenities of my life. I'm just glad that I have the people I have to share my life with. Thank you.