5/26

Three days ago I got invited by Shawna to got to the VBC area to the bazaars. Smith and Anderson were going to. It felt good to get off base, it's been about two months I think. We go to the artificial lakes to get to the shopping area, can't remember the name. We got temporarily lost but it gave me a chance to take some pictures, I saw a few mosques I wasn't sure were there before. I wish we could stop by them to take a few pictures but I'm not driving. We get to the little area to shop, it's dead, this might because of the command directive that pretty much bans us from eating at most of these eatery's. They did some tests and found some high levels of bacteria, I mean, I do appreciate the looking out for our safety, but I do feel bad for these restaurants, how are they going to survive? It's interesting to see the dynamic of the military trying to stimulate business in the country, yet we also have the power to crush as well. We go to shop at these places, most of the stuff is lame, just wierd clothing styles, very euro-centric with the soccor style shirts and the huge emblems on shirts, the gawdy shoes, and jeans I wouldn't be caught dead in. We stayed there much longer then I wanted, I knew the bazaar by the main exchange would have a much better selection.

I bought a t-shirt and a coin. We get to the Bazaar, I'm making a few deals, then it seems not even 20 minutes, the group is acting like they want to go. Here we go again, flashbacks of every annual tour I've ever gone on, always being dependant on other people, great difficulty ever being able to do anything on your off-time 100% independantly. so now I have to rush my shopping,I got almost everything but their were I few items I wanted to grab that I couldn't. It seemed like everything was over-priced, you could barter, which I did, but they only go down so much, honestly I was too tired to make a scene and try to get them to go lower then I did. I got my wife a cool dress and the girls cute scarfs, and got other various items for the family. I felt a little bummed spending the money I did, maybe I'm just not use to shopping. But with me I try to do the glass half full philosophy, noy very many people come here, even fewer buy things from here, I was able to do that. I hope people like my stuff. We got back and I got about 5 hrs sleep, I was hurting.

The next day was crazy, same ole stuff, cancellations, diversions, delays. Sergeant "Jump to" was parolling the area, I never remember sergeant "Vulcan" coming around the terminal this much, (shrug shoulders). He finally comes up to me and asks me about the schedule, I told him Sgt. Smith has been doing it. He then starts asking me all these questions about it, "why has A1C M been in the same sections two weeks straight?" 1. Another exageration, hasn't been that many days, 2. Why are you asking me about this, didn't I just tell you I wasn't doing the schedule? Everything was said to me in a manner that conveyed that I was either to blame or responsible, he said to find out about it, I'm thinking, "no, I'll email him to talk to you about it, I'm not responsible for this." Then 30 minutes later, the ATOC rep and dispatcher are trying to get ahold of the gate regarding bringing pax out to the plane and there is no response. I'm manning the X-ray sation, I go into dispatch and say, "why is it that noone is answering that radio call when we have three people manning that station?!" I was annoyed, but even got more annoyed when I saw sergent "Jump-to" was sitting down at the desk. Great, he's listening, I'm sure in some grand scheme of things I am personally, directly responsible for the Gate not answering the radio. Where's Sergeant C??? Probably at the plane where he does absolutely no good as an NCOIC. It's so busy around the terminal and so many darn people are going through the X-ray that I do not get to speak to him until an hour and a half later. I tell him, "you do us no good being at the plane, you need to be at the flight line so you can monitor what the gates are doing, we had a situation where the gate isn't answering the radio, how can you monitor that when you are behind the darn C-130 engines??" He said he's just use to going out there, but I told him he's the NCOIC, he's gotta be available for dispatch to pass down information, he keeps taking off, and he's of no use not being where the action is. He's worrying me, he try's hard but to me it's obvious he doesn't want the responsibility so he sets himself up to subtley avoid it. I'm really not going to over worry myself, I really am trying but as soon as I get in that C-130 it's no longer my concern.

We are trying to leave at shift change when we see the baggage guys are still building a pallet. This is annoying because the day shift should be taking this over, they have plenty of people in their sections to where they can get them to assist in building the pallet. I could bring this up but honestly, I have a short-timers attitude in that it would be too much work and heartache to see this through. So we start helping them, it's crappily built, and very soon, it falls apart, almost burying A1C Salee from the other shift, all 145 lbs of him. He's pissed, and angrily limps off and slams the gate. All of the sudden SSgt. Mohr takes charge, barking orders, saying we can do this, it's nothing. I'm impressed, I can tell some of the airmen don't like this, but she served at Bagram, an insanely busy port, and that alone gives her some definite respect points in my book. A1C CL starts complaining, this is dissapointing because him and D worked very hard to this point working baggage the whole shift, but now things that are coming out of his mouth are turning me off. He's asking for the rationale and the "Why" to the purpose of this whole pallet? I try to tell him, we had to reconfigure the pallet to fit PAX, with this new configuration we can only put on one pallet so yes, it's going to be a real big pallet. He the proceeds to ask out loud, "why didn't somebody stand up for us?" I'm thinking, "what?? That makes no sense, it's not about standing up, it's about MOVING PEOPLE!!" some of these flippin airmen, their mentality is all about the amount of work they do or don't do, not about being a professional and doing your job, completing the mission. I let the comment slide, it would be a waste of time to respond and delay us from getting this done and getting the heck out of their. I proceed to help re-build the pallet. I did take a mental note and I will repond the next time he openly complains about something again. We finish it, it looks fantastic, I'm proud of sergeant Mohr for taking charge of the situation. I've said it before and I'd say it again, I am not a pallet building expert.

I have the day off, I have to go in to fill out a questionaire for medical so I have to do it on a military computer. sergeants E and "jump-to" are there, please don't tell me they are going to start asking me about stuff on my day off. They do, first "jump-to" about if I talked to smith. No, he was off yesterday and I was off today, how could I have time to talk to him, I told him i sent him an email to talk to you as soon as you got in. He leaves and then sergeant E stays behind and asks me something that totally threw me off. He asked me if there was a mutiny going on against someone. At first I wanted to laugh, i said who? He said sergeant C, wow, I couldn't believe it. I've had some frustrations with him but I have not verbalized it. I told him no, not since a particular airmen expressed concerns but that was two weeks ago and I told sergeant E about it. I said I'm trying to help him take my job over. He said that was all he needed to know then left. what was that all about? what was said? Great!! I'm at a point I honestly don't trust anyone in are section that is a higher rank then me right now, and there are very few people in our aerial port section that are higher rank then me so if you can read between the lines...I thought all the drama left when the last group of aerial port deployers left?? Who flippin knows! I guess I'll have to do some investigating tonight. A mutiny!! I can't believe it! To hear the words "civil war" and "mutiny" being used in describing the airmen to airmen interactions of the aerial port is just goofy! Man, just let me survive oh lord, just one more week!!