Friday the 13th, Full Moon, IDF, and an Earthquake

With the Afghan presidential run-off elections imminent the base has been on heightened alert. All the intel updates have been pointing to something big so we have been on guard. In actuality, the election came and went without much noise here in Bagram. That doesn’t mean everything was quiet. There was some IDF. The rockets didn’t hit anything of significance and no damage was suffered except to a couple of T-walls. A couple of rockets landed in Coyote Creek, which was probably more harmful to the rockets than to the creek. But the day before the election did bring the combination of Friday the 13^th and a full moon to Bagram. It was a clear night and the moon rose early to illuminate everything with its glow. I joined my counterparts from the Air Force as per usual in the Russian Tower for cigars. I’m not superstitious at all so to me it was just another night. We did discuss briefly the coincidence of the full moon and the date. While we were in the tower two rockets came in and impacted harmlessly on the tarmac about 400 meters away. Unfortunately that spelled the end of our cigar night, which had us cursing at the stupid Taliban once again. But in spite of Friday the 13^th and the full moon, that was it for the excitement. There was nothing to even remotely reinforce to me any reason to be superstitious.

Around 0400 the next morning the IDF alarm sounded again. It stirred me from a deep sleep. I hate the Taliban. Fortunately, these were the rockets that fell harmlessly into Coyote Creek. The all-clear sounded very quickly and I was soon back to sleep. A couple of hours later I was up drinking my coffee and getting ready for work when something happened that I’d not experienced here to date. Keep in mind that my billets are made of shipping containers stacked together to form what we call a “relocateable building” (RLB). I was in the bathroom when the building began to shake and sway slightly. At first I thought it was a heavy vehicle driving by outside but there were no accompanying engine noises. The shaking continued and I realized it was a minor earthquake. The area around Bagram does have a high incidence of seismic activity so the trembler wasn’t surprising. It was the first time in my nine months here that Bagram had experienced one. It’s the third time in my life I’ve experienced a minor earthquake. Every time it’s been in a foreign land. The first one was on the Greek Island of Symi. A year ago I experienced one in Queenstown, New Zealand. Now I can chalk up Bagram, Afghanistan to the list.

As for the Afghan election? It seemed to go off without any glitches. Initial reports are that over 60% voter turnout hit the poles. Now we wait for the results.