1 Month Down

Ahhh, Kosovo.  I’m almost settled?  Not sure if I ever will be, rhythm is difficult. For a place that is “slow,” it sure can be pretty busy sometimes.  I must be honest, the paper work can be mind numbing, and is definitely one of the worst parts of the job.  It kind of reminds me of “Office Space,” where his TPS reports are rejected because he has the wrong cover sheet on them.  I once had to jump through hoops at the last minute because I used the wrong mission ticket that literally changed over night… the difference in the two?  Nothing substantial, I can assure you.  Other than that, it’s not bad.  Living conditions are good and getting better, especially since the last rotation has finally left: no line at the DFAC (dining facility), no wait at the gym, and I finally moved into my room, which is about the size of my master bedroom at home.  Camp Bondsteel is pretty cool.  It has some amazing views and good run routes.  I’ll post pics of Bondsteel later (when I take them that is.)

Picture from Camp Atterbury, IN.

What are we doing here?  Good question.  We are a deterrent presence.  That means, we do a lot presence patrols to ensure that no ethnic tensions flare up.  On the off chance that they would, we train a lot in crowd and riot control.  This training can get pretty brutal.  It is pretty much force on force, that is, a multi-national infantry company will act as rioters for us and then we’ll act as rioters for them.  You can imagine that it gets rough.  So far, I've seen a broken nose, a broken finger, and numerous cuts/scrapes. We also do a lot of border security, trying to deter smuggling of all kinds along the ABL, or Administrative Boundary Line, between Serbia and Kosovo.  This is primarily in the mountains and the views are amazing.  I have some pics, but they don’t do it justice.

  

Kids riding on a horse drawn cart.

In the towns, the kids love us.  They are always running along side the humvees, waving.  I must be honest though, I’m not sure if they love us, or love the chocolate and gum soldiers are prone to give out.  I guess love is love.


The villages are pretty cool and the people are generally friendly.  It’s pretty crazy because Kosovo is starting to really work on infrastructure, so we see it developing.  I have often wondered what it was like driving across the US while the roads were getting paved for the first time.  It must be a lot like here.  You’ll be driving into a major city and the roads are paved and in decent condition, but as you exit, you are literally diverted into oncoming traffic without warning; the pavement ends; traffic goes from 50 MPH to about 10 MPH; and we narrowly avoid an accident every time.  I’m not sure how people know where to go.  There are no signs, cones, nothing; just a break in the guard rail.  Pretty crazy.

Small mountain village

Sorry for this next part, most will think it’s pretty disgusting.  The toilets in Europe are terrible.  First noticed in Germany, they are built backwards.  Meaning, the hole to flush through is in the front of the toilet, not the back.  Also, the water level is non existent.  You can imagine that this leaves some major streakage.  Kosovo is worse.  The hole is still in the front, but now there is a bowl area to catch the excrement, still no water, so it just sits in the open for all the world to smell.  Terrible design.  Sorry, I don't have any pics.
Well, that’s all for now.  I’ll try to be more regular in posting, but no promises.  

Dinner after a long day

More Pics (Germany and Kosovo)

Here are some more pictures.

 

The bunker I mentioned in an earlier post.  Hitler used these to train his SS.



The aftermath of the crazy drive.





Random mountain village




Germany and Kosovo

I have finally finished JMRC (Joint Multi-National Readiness Center) and am now in Kosovo.  At the end of training in JMRC we got a pass into Regensburg, Germany.  This town dates back to the Roman times and was actually founded as a Roman outpost that was on the edge of the civilized world.  There are still remnants of the Roman wall.  Among other things, the town is known for: the world's oldest bratwurst stand, St. Peter's Dome (a massive gothic style church), and the best history museum in East Bavaria.  It was a small town and took about 30-45 minutes to walk from end to end.  The beer was delicious and the food was... well, let me quote my friend on this, "It takes about two beers for German food to start tasting good."  Enough said.
Now for Germany pics:


This was taken outside of Hohenfels, Germany



St. Peter's Dome



St. Peter's Dome

One more thing from Germany; As we were getting ready to board the bus at the end of pass, we stopped in a grocery store and ran across this... too funny!

Kosovo

I am now in Kosovo.  It is very green and has lots of rolling hills.  The cities are interesting.  The are filled with trash.  You'll be driving along and all of the sudden you'll see a big pile of trash on the side of the road from people randomly dumping. 
There is a huge disparity in wealth and it is apparent in the homes and vehicles that people drive. 
Yesterday, I was able to go to Northern Kosovo and it is different than the south.  First, there was 3 inches of snow; second, fog kept visibility to about 50 meters, and lastly, the vegetation reminded me of Chama.  To get there we had to go on these unimproved roads, if you can call them that.  It was the craziest off roading I have ever done- I can't describe it, but I'll post a pic from the aftermath after this.

I hope you have enjoyed the pictures.  Tung!

Notes from Germany

A few quick notes.

The flight over was pretty uneventful except for one thing: Bangor, Maine.  We had to stop to refuel in Bangor.  It was 0200 in the morning.  When we got off the plane, there were about 2 dozen people standing there greeting us.  They were all clapping and shaking our hands.  The airport opened all the shops and we all just hung out with these old people.  Surreal.

Germany is deceptively cold.  It looks warm and nice outside, but freezing.  The temperature can even be above freezing and it still feels really cold.  I blame celcius!

We are training in an area that Hitler used to train the SS.  My german interpreter said that Hitler picked this place because of the rough terrrain and terrible weather.  We were out on mission yesterday and I looked up and saw an old German pilbox.  I started looking around and noticed that the hill side was dotted with them.  Some clearly bombed, others fully intact.  I will post the picture later, when I have time. 

This is the confusing life I lead: I miss New Mexico, but wish I were in Kosovo.

Inspiration

After 34 Mondays in a row, I woke up last week and it was finally Saturday.  It has been an extra long first leg of deployment, but seeing my family at the end was totally worth it. 

 

A few things get me through lonely nights: my faith and reliance on God; the love of my family; and reading, lots of reading.  I usually read during the little free time I have and at night before I fall asleep.  So far, I have read The Hobbit, and am in the middle of Blood and Thunder, by Hampton Sides.  The latter is about the US war with Mexico, the claiming of the New Mexico Territory, and the wholesale slaughter of Native Americans.  It follows Kit Carson as the central character.  It is very interesting, especially being from New Mexico and spending most of my childhood in NM’s northern mountains.  I highly recommend it.  Anyway, I wanted to share a few quotes that really struck me this past month.

The Hobbit

“I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!”  It was not the last time that he wished that! 

There hasn’t been a day that I don’t think about the things I could be doing in my nice “hole.”  Don’t get me wrong, I love my job.  I love leading soldiers and “getting in the dirt,” but I will always long for home.

It was at this point that Bilbo stopped.  Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did.  The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it.  He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.  At any rate after a short halt go on he did.

This is as true for me as it is for Julia.  I fought a real battle in the Airport on Tuesday.  Saying goodbye- fully committing my mind to that which I know I have to do.  Julia- committing her mind to raise Ellie by herself and to keep the house, pay the bills, and keep everything else in order.  There will be hard days and nights, and times when I may be in danger, but I already did the hardest part of this deployment.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

Word.

“I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led.  And through the air.  I am he that walks unseen… I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water.”

This last quote comes from when the Dragon asks Bilbo who he is.  I included it because it is a pretty cool parallel to Christ.

The Bible NKJ

1 Corinthians 15:33

Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.”  Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God.

1 Corinthians 5:9

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. 10 Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.

I have a delicate line to walk.  In the Army, like the rest of the world, there are all kinds of people and all kinds of depravity.  I have seen my “good habits” become corrupted and I have also seen me border on judgmental.  I serve with great people, many of whom do not know Christ.  However, I must hold myself accountable to the Truth I know, but shouldn’t expect those who do not know or believe in Christ to hold themselves to the same standard. 

A few more goodies:

1 Corinthians 16:13

Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.  Let all that you do be done with love.

John 6:28-29

Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?”  Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

John 6:68-69

“Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Blood and Thunder

“How little do those who sit in their easy chairs in Washington know of the privations we are daily subjected to.  Even our anxious friends at home can form no idea of the trials we undergo.”

-Taken from the diary of Captain Turner, a commander in the invading Army.

A soldier’s wife in St. Louis was much like a whaler’s wife in Boston – she said good-bye to her beloved as he set sail on an ocean of land and then she accepted the voids of silence, the hard nights of not knowing, as the weeks and months became years.

Although technology has changed much about warfare and a soldier’s connection with home, these both still hold true.  Current hardships are not nearly as bad as then (for example, many soldiers were stationed in Santa Fe for several years without their families), but this is no comfort for me and Julia.

It may be a few weeks before I get to post again.  So, if you don’t see any updates, don’t worry.

Top Funny Things

Buenos Noches!
I have been in Indiana for only 4 weeks, and already some hilarious things have happened.  I feel that now is an appropriate time to begin my TOP HILARIOUS THINGS!!!  This will be rank ordered by less hilarious to most hilarious.  Enjoy.

Coming in at number 4:
The Army is full of traditions and often, each unit has its own traditions.  C CO is no exception.  Their biggest and most well kept is that of getting "jumped-in."  This refers to the time honored tradition where the "new guy" gets welcomed to the company by getting beat up and usually constrained to a certain area.  This tradition is not hindered by rank.  I was jumped in in Las Cruces.  It was after final formation, I was standing behind my platoon.  My platoon sergeant was getting ready to release them when, he had them turn around and charge me.  I made it about 10 feet before I was caught.  They picked me up, gave me a few punches and taped me to a tree outside the commander's office... classic.
2nd platoon takes the tradition a bit further.  They include birthdays.  As many of you know, my birthday was February 2nd.  This brings me to round 2:
I made it through the 2nd with only 1 person knowing it was my birthday.  The only reason he knew was because we share the same birthday.  Then Feb 3rd happened.  My platoon was away training that day and I, unfortunately wouldn't see them until the next day.  I figured I was in the clear.  Then it happened.  I am learning spanish on Rosetta Stone and a soldier from a different platoon asked me how to say "Happy Birthday" in Spanish.  It didn't click, especially since I just learned that.  I said happily, "Felize Complianos!"  "That's right" they said.  And before I knew it, I was hoisted up and given 10 birthday spankings.  This isn't fun and gentle.  The orchestrator in all this was SSG Elmore, a former 2nd platooner.  I figured he was talking with my platoon and this counted as my birthday jump in.  So, I called my platoon sergeant and "thanked" him for the birthday wishes.  Well, he didn't know it was my birthday and it tipped him off to the other person that had the same birthday.  Mistake.  They jumped him that night.
I still wasn't in the clear.  When my platoon got back they had to jump me, the first one didn't count.  That's only fair. 
By the way, it has been a busy 2 weeks for birthdays.  There have been 5 already.

Number 3:
I have a driver who also doubles as my radio operator.  He's a cool guy, kinda young, from Belen, NM, but now lives in Albuquerque.  He admittedly hasn't driven very much on snow, but we gave him some training and figured he would be alright since we are in 4WD Humvees.  Wrong.  We're driving back from a mission, I'm the lead vehicle and the roads are pretty icey.  As we start going down a hill, my driver gets worried about our speed.  He touched the breaks and before I knew it, we were spinning.  All I could think while we went round and round was, "We're going to hit that tree.  We're going to hit that humvee.  We're going to hit that tree.  We're going to hit that humvee."  We did 1 3/4 spins before we finally stopped.  It was pretty scary.  I'm told that my eyes were huge.  No big deal, right?  Well, this really shook my driver.  I don't want to fire him because it was a little mistake and he is a really good radio guy, but now he is scared to drive over 10 mph.  I don't really know what to do.  It's like when Goose died and and Maverick lost his edge.  If only Viper were here.

Number 2:
It was one of those miserable days where the snow melted, but refroze as a solid sheet of ice.  What day was that?  Everyday.  Any way, on this day it was particularly dangerous because on the roads it was truely black ice.  We had to walk to the airfield and although we were walking on top of the black ice we couldn't see it.  We only knew it was there because we all fell.  So, we're headed back to the company area after the training and the next platoon is passing us on the way to training.  They are approaching the black ice when one of my soldiers calls out, "you guys better hurry, they're going to stop the training in 5 minutes if you guys don't get there."  This was less than truthful.  The all took off at a slow, safe trot.  It didn't matter.  Everyone of them fell.  Luckily we got it on video. 

And now, the TOP HILARIOUS THING OF ALL:
One of the other Platoon Leaders, 2LT Chris Tebo, is from Cameroon.  He's 37 years old, is the fastest runner in the company, and he is overall a pretty cool guy.  HOWEVER, he is very gullible.  Let me paint the picture:
We sleep in an open bay with 25 people.  There are 5 officers, all LT's.  The rest is enlisted personnel.  We all like to joke around and give each other a hard time.  One night, someone turned out the lights early.  Tebo yelled at them to keep the lights on until "lights out" and then turned them back on.  SSG Elmore, to give Tebo a hard time, yelled across the bay, "Hey sir!"  clapped his hands twice and had someone who was positioned at the light switch that is located out of sight, turn off the lights.  He then clapped once, and the lights came back on.  We all thought it was kind of funny, like a "Clap On" commercial or something. Well... Tebo freaked out.  He did not connect that someone was around the corner.  He cursed very loudly and said that Elmore was practicing witch craft.  We couldn't tell if Tebo was joking, but figured it best to go on with the ruse.  Elmore clapped twice again, and the lights went out.  Tebo immediately turned the lights back on.  Elmore clapped, lights out.  This went on for a few minutes and we all thought it pretty amusing.  We figured Tebo would figure it out, but... this event happened in week 1 and Tebo still hasn't figured it out.  In fact, the guys have convinced Tebo that he too knows how to turn out the lights by clapping.  They told him, "just picture yourself turning out the lights, clap twice, and the lights will go out."  Well, it worked.  Tebo thinks he knows witch craft. 
On a side note, they are about to cross the line.  There is an App on iPhone that allows you to add a ghost like figure to pictures.  They took a picture of Tebo at his bunk, added the figure and showed him the picture.  He freaked out and was preparing to leave the bay and sleep somewhere else.  I was just coming out of the shower as he was starting to pack up.  I felt bad for the guy, and much to the chagrin of my counter parts, told him the truth.

I hope this has entertained you as much as it has us. Enjoy your weekend.

The Beginning

So, I've decided to start blogging my Kosovo adventure.  I can't promise that I will post regularly, with correctly spelled words, or that my post will be of any interest.  The only person that may find this interesting is my wife, but that is to be expected.

I am currently in the last phase of validation before we head over seas for more validation.  My platoon is being evaluated on the numerous tasks we will be expected to do in Kosovo: monitoring the local populace, crowd and riot control, traffic control, and lots of other tasks.  We can't wait to not be here.

Besides training, Indiana is pretty much terrible.  Freezing temperatures (not as bad as NM, I hear), wind, and lots of ice.  When it snows, it takes about 2 days for the snow to melt, pack down, and then refreeze as a solid sheet of ice.  Its fun to watch people fall, but terrible to be the person falling: truly a win/lose situation.

Only 8 days until I see my wife and baby girl.  This is motivation.