That's quite the empire you run there

Where do the hours of the day go? It was never my intent to let a week go without jotting down another reflection. But that's exactly what's happened. It has already been a week since Thanksgiving.    I believe it took almost that entire time for my stomach to recover from the feast we were served. It wasn't the tryptophan that kept me from writing another entry though. I simply haven't had the time to get my thoughts in order - much less put them to blog. So now I am forcing myself to carve out a portion of the time I normally dedicate to my daily workout in order to assure the world I'm still alive. Bagram is definitely still here and just as big and bustling as ever. Afghanistan is still a dangerous place to be. This past week provided a big reminder of how dangerous this place can be. Death can come with little or no notice.

Only a few hours after I posted my last entry I was crawling into bed. It was around 0040, with Thanksgiving day only minutes over. Just a mere hours earlier I'd been eating a scrumptious feast and enjoying a fabulous celebration. Now in bed, I had just pulled the covers over when the IDF claxton alarm sounded followed by "Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!" I heard the rocket overhead followed by the detonation of the impact. I laid there for a moment and contemplated just staying in bed. After all, the rockets always miss right? Within a few minutes my phone rang. It was my CSM. He had bad news. This time the rocket didn't miss. He simply said, "Sir, the rocket hit a barracks and there are casualties. I'm on my way there." I promptly got back up, got dressed, and ran out the door. A few minutes later I found the report to be true. Three civilian contractors were badly injured. Unfortunately, two of them did not make it through the night. I was struck by the stoic calm on everyone's faces. Was it shock? The early hours of the morning took on the surreal feeling of a dream. Was I dreaming? I wasn't. Why did this have to happen? These people have families back home who I am sure they were talking to only hours before to wish a happy Thanksgiving. Now tragedy had struck. I thought of the sadness that would soon overcome their families where happiness had so recently resided. I finally returned to bed around 0400 but couldn't sleep. Thanksgiving had become a distant memory.

A few days later the Colonel who commands the Combat Aviation Brigade invited my CSM and I to accompany him on an aerial tour of Bagram. We readily accepted. The next day around 1100 we jumped onto his Blackhawk on a bright, hazy day and took off. Over the next 45 minutes we flew over and around Bagram. I furiously snapped photos of the complex and surrounding terrain. The base is mind-boggling in size and seeing it from the air is all the more staggering. The Aviation Colonel, who was piloting the aircraft,summed it up over our headsets. As we flew along the western perimeter wall he said, "That's quite the empire you run there." "Yes it is," I answered. Yes, it is.