by Steve » Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:49 am
If your unit needs weird shit knocked together in a hurry, try No Lemon. It's out the main gate at KAF, turn left at the MiG, go about two klicks up the road, and it is on the right hand side just before (and kinda behind) the ANP RTC / FOB Philpott / whatever DynCorp calls it these days.
While I was there, we established pretty good rapport with some of the kuchi "villages" scattered around and in Kandahar City. They are pretty good about watching what goes on around them, and if you have a good 'terp, you can sometimes get some good intel from them.
Also, and I'm sure you've heard this about a thousand times, watch for kids picking through trash on the sides of the road. Chances are, if it's a route where you normally see a shit-ton of kids, and suddenly there aren't any today, harden up fast.
And it is much better to stop the rigs, block traffic, and hand out the surplus pogy bait that accumulates from care packages than it is to toss it to the kidlets from the turret while you are moving. If the bad guys see that you discourage the kids from approaching the convoy, they are less likely to strap a bomb to a little girl and send her to beg bottled water from the troops. And if you toss candy to a kid, and they run out in front of traffic to get it, it's on you, and by extension everybody who dresses like you if the kid gets hit.
Good luck, be safe. And take the chance to have a good time, when and where you can. The smaller the base, the further from the flagpole, the better the tour.
Edit: If you get hooked up with the Canadians, they can get you smokes for MUCH less than AAFES sells them. Also, the dutch PX on KAF has Cuban cigars. And when it comes time to go on leave, DON'T go to Bagram. Bagram is a roach motel, and it is not uncommon for guys to get stuck there for a week waiting on transpo that routes RIGHT BACK THROUGH KAF.
Get your paperwork squared away at the White House, head over to the KAF coalition terminal, and hop a space available flight to Kuwait (if you're lucky) or Qatar. When I was there, there were something like 6 flights a day from Qatar to Kuwait, so moving from one to the other was easy mode.
When you get to Kuwait, hang out by the briefing tent and try to be toward the front of the tent on the right-hand side, so you can be toward the front of the line. And once they put you in the holding area for customs, hang out close to the entrance to customs. You'll be waiting for a couple of hours, but the line flat-out sucks. Being one of the first guys through is a pretty big bonus. And if you smoke, make sure you have a couple of packs with you. Once you are in lockdown for customs, you're pretty well owned if you run out. Oh, and have cash for pizza.
My best time from Afghanistan to PDX was close to 36 hours on the clock (48 experienced hours) from being dropped off at the KAF terminal to being back in PDX sucking down a Jaeger Bomb.
Conversely, I got stuck in Qatar for 11 days on a 4 day pass trying to get back to Kandahar. Like, after the first week, I'd started working angles to get back in country. The medevac birds that route from Afghanistan back through to Germany generally come back empty of passengers. A couple of JSOC guys hooked me up with one of the schedulers, and she got me squared away on one headed back into the 'stan.
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