Bee's Blog

Here is a link to a video I took of my plane landing at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan: LINK

I just walked in my door. Time for sleep.

I made it to Dubai. I'm sitting in the airport waiting for my flight home. 6 hours and 45 minutes from now I'll be taking off. Can't WAIT!

My mission here is officially finished. It's 10pm and I'm about to shower and go to sleep. My flight to Dubai leaves tomorrow morning at 10:30am. I have more photos to post, but I'm posting from my iPhone right now so I can't. I will try to post them over the next day or two.

It's Thursday night here in Afghanistan, and I just finished up another work day. Tomorrow is my last day in the office here, and then I head to the airport on Saturday morning at 7am.

I've been out of touch lately. Last Wednesday I flew to a small base in Sharana. The day I got there, two soldiers were killed and the base went on mandatory blackout (all phones, internet, and email is cut) until the Army could notify the families. Our communications came back online Friday evening, but I still had extremely limited access to anything. Uploading photos or getting to this blog was just not happening.

Oh, I saw my first camel spider in Sharana!

I went to the PAX terminal last night at 7pm to try to catch an 8:45pm showtime for a flight back to Bagram. Soldiers filled that plane, so contractors get left behind. I caught the next showtime at 3:20am, and ended up flying out on an Air Force C130 (cargo) plane at 5:30am, fully geared up in body armor. The flight was only 30 mins, so I landed back at 6am this morning, and went to work at 7am after skipping a night of sleep.

I have some images to share:

This was last wednesday while I was waiting for my flight to Sharana. Bags packed and my body armor ready to wear.


I had a very early flight. Here is sunset across the mountains with the fence of our base in the foreground


Upon arriving in Sharana, it was nice to find that I didnt have to share a tent with 16 people. But I did stay in a plywood box bedroom with no heat or a/c


The food was terrible every night, except for Friday night, where I had steak and lobster


A blackhawk helicopter hovering next to my office building


I work in a building where the Army turns in their vehicles when they are finished with them, so that they can be issued to somebody else. These guys are turning in three hummers to our RPAT yard.


Most of the stuff that gets turned back in is large MRAP's and hummers that are battle-damaged, but I am not allowed to take photos of battle-damaged vehicles (we don't want our enemies knowing exactly how the bomb effected the truck). But it was crazy to see some vehicles that were blown up in real combat over here.

This was kind of sad. I saw this in an Army latrine/shower room in Sharana in a bathroom stall.


One day my boss drove me to the top of the mountain that overlooks a small village near Sharana.




Sharana is very high up. It's about 7300 feet elevation, as where Bagram is a bit over 4,000 feet, which is nothing to sneeze at either. It was extremely cold at night time, and the mountains are snow-capped.

Today I booked my flight back to Dubai. I fly back to Dubai on Saturday morning at 10:30.

I woke up at 1:30am to pack, shower, and take a bus to the other side of base to the PAX terminal (passenger terminal) for my 3am showtime. The flight was canceled, so I headed back to our compound. The next flight to Sharana has a showtime of 8:45am, which means it'll probably leave 2-3 hours after that. I hope that flight doesn't get canceled, and that I get a seat (contractors usually fly "space available"). I have to be in Sharana for implementation on Friday. We usually schedule travel a few days in advance because this stuff happens often, and it can sometimes take a couple days to catch a flight.

The excessive walking on rocks here really takes a toll on your shoes:

Some screenshots from my iPhone GPS/Google maps:







I liked Iraq *MUCH* better. Iraq seemed like a vacation resort compared to here.

I got my MIL-AIR flight approved to fly to Sharana on Wednesday at 3am. I'll be there until the following Tuesday.

My boss here told me I could fly out of Afghanistan a day or two earlier than planned if I want to hang out in Dubai for a couple of days on my way back home. But that would come at the expense of a day or two less of Afghanistan hazard pay. Hmmm...

I made it to Afghanistan a few hours ago. It is now 12:30pm local time, 4am Eastern Time.

I am staying in a tent that has 8 bunk beds, for a total of 16 people.

I have it much better here than I had it in Iraq as far as internet goes. Speaking of which, I thought this would be a lot like my time spent in Iraq, but Afghanistan is going to be COMPLETELY different.

Some views of Afghanistan from the flight in. The mountains are huge:






Snow-capped mountains


We flew over the base before we landed. This is the base I am currently at. It's called Bagram Air Base. I will be headed to Sharana on Wednesday, though.


Compounds in Afghanistan. Seems like everybody has a compound-like house with walls around it.


My neighborhood


The bathroom. Also the showers are in the white trailer to the left


My tent


The inside of my tent


My bed. It's very uncomfortable.