Left, a 10 year-old Afghan boy is a humanitarian patient at Craig Hospital on BAF. He and his friend was injured while playing with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). This was the second day I saw him, and he seems a lot better. Below, the Pizza Hut and Green Beans coffee shop are popular places for soldiers and the many civilian contractors on BAF. Soldiers always carry their weapons slung, or, if a hand gun, in a holster, even while eating.
Left, a jet does a night take off from BAF. The jets and various aircraft are pretty loud at times. Seems most get used to it pretty quickly.
Time has a way of slipping away from me. It's hard for me to remember what day it is, but that might all change as I enter a new phase of my embed.
So far I have spent a couple days with at the Craig Hospital. It is a top notch facility, the staff are very dedicated and very competent. The one image I chose was of an Afghan boy, but there were a few soldiers as patients, too, but not many on the days I visited. I've been on base about a week. BAF is about the same elev. as Denver, and the snow-filled mountain ranges surrounding us sharply rise to 10,000' elev. They're quite spectacular in the early morning light.
There's so much to say. With winter coming on, people say this is the season of talking, not fighting. Let's hope so.
In the next few days I'll be going out on daily missions with elements of Task Force (TF) Cyclone. That will introduce me to the local population. On 3 January, my birthday, I embed with TF Mtn. Warrior. You can Google these names to get an idea what they do through their web sites.
Everyone at the Media Operations Center (MOC) has been extremely helpful, along with some other embed photographers passing through. We stay at the Hotel California. We're only 50 steps from the latrine and showers. Not bad. Weather's still pretty good, but cold enough after the sun goes down a little after 4 pm that you can see your breath.
Yesterday I got a haircut from a Russian woman working at one of the KBR contract shops. KBR is everywhere. I asked for a trim, she made a small cut and that looked OK...so she started. next thing I knew, she was going up the back-side of my head with a lawn mower. Now I look something like an escapee from an asylum. The old adage that the only difference between a good haircut and a bad one is two week...is wrong. This is gonna take at least three to look decent. Plus, my head's cold at night!
Without divulging any secrets, I am happy to answer questions. I'll stick up some more images, now I've figured out how.
As I write this, Thursday, 17 Dec., it's 11:30 pm here and 1 pm in Denver. Our time zone is 30 minutes different. Don't ask why. I don't know.
From the San Francisco suite of the Hotel California, BAF, Afghanistan, thanks for your interest.
Ted
