4/30

Real boring day at work, dragging pretty bad, three hours to go. The shooting deaths of 8 air force servicemen in Kabul has weighed on me. For one, because my cousin chris is stationed there and he trains Afghans in Secuirty Forces stuff, and another, is, who can you trust? This afghan who did this, he was a pilot in their air force, we trusted him. I heard from my Aunt that Chris knew two of the guys that were killed, they were in the office accross from him. I also found out that two were stationed at Luke Air force Base. It's sad and it really ticks you off at the people we are trying to help. Then I look around and we have people everywhere carrying weapons. The mission is different here, at least at Sather. We don't really see Iraqi military walking around, they are mostly at area IV their special ops section, which is disconnected from Sather by about 1 mile. The foreign nationals we see are the Ugandan guards and the laborers from Pakistan/India. So it is a different mission here, but you can't help but think about it a little, still you can't dwell on it for too long because it weighs on you. I signed up a Captain and asked him about how many deployments he's been on and he said 5, that's crazy. I asked if when he had to drive to different bases I asked if he thought he felt safer, and he said sometimes. "other times," he said, "it feels like they are trying to funnel us into a trap." He expressed how he's pretty dissapointed we haven't come further along in our progress. But he says, "you can't fight against their culture." Not surprised. I need to ask these guys more often what their opinions are on the state of affairs here, alot of times we just go through the motions of doing our jobs, we see the people behind the uniform and think too much of our own lives and problems, but I'm sure there are interesting stories out there.
Speaking of foreign nationals, we have had to learn this training on screening them when they get off the flight. This is wierd, because you would think if they were on a flight, they would be screened. But now they are looking for items that they can use to acquire information, cameras, usb memory devices. If we find them we have to confiscate them, which stinks, because there are going to be some upset people. Thank god they don't have weapons and SF personnel should be there to help us. Another thing to stress out about....
I asked Chief about why we all of the sudden have to screen them and he said that there will be many more coming in to replace the departing troops. He was having a side conversation with some of the SF's when I started listening in. Seems like 6 of Iraq's top military leaders have been assasinated in the last few weeks. They mentioned Brigadier General Muhammed was one of them. I remember chief mentioning him a few times, I remember how he said he was obsessed with mickey mouse. some Iraqi's are wierd like that when it comes to american culture. I guess his vehicles was driving somewhere in Baghdad when a car pulled up and nailed him with a silencer. I then heard something that freaked me out, al qaeda is taking reponsibility. You rarely hear of Al qaeda in Iraq anymore. if this is true they are scheming something bigtime. They are a relentless enemy, man its hard to fight people when they believe God is on their side. Their god is definitely not my god thats for sure. Most Muslims are decent people who I believe are misled in their teachings, radical Islam, however, needs to be met with force and fought whenever and wherever. They justify murder pure and simple.
I've been reading the stars and stripes almost every day. There are a lot of articles about world affairs that you dont't read about in the states, especially in dealing with the military. By reading this stuff, hearing about it hear, and seeing it, we are getting pushed prett damn hard, the military. To the limit? It's getting there, it's getting there....
anyways this gave me something to talk about, I just hope things don't get worse in Kabul before they get better. I just feel bad my cousin has 7 more years before he can retire.