Home on Leave

It was wonderful to be home for a couple weeks in February. Here is a picture of Barby, Violet and I together thanks to our photographer friend Megan and Barby's mom friends.

After enjoying time with my family on different adventures going to a few places around the Northwest, eating some good food I haven't had in about 5 months, relaxing with my family enjoying being home, and catching up with a few people, I had to go back to Kandahar, Afghanistan. I got back here on Sunday February 21st after 5 days of travel and waiting in Kuwait.

It was hard to leave again, but this last time will be the last time I have to do that. I have about 4 months left until I come home for good. The latest I can be here is mid-July, but I'm hoping we leave sometime in June.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my 28th Birthday!  Of course, I would rather be home with my family and friends celebrating it there instead of here in Afghanistan.  However, only about 5 more days to go and I will be in the process of heading back home for R&R to be with my family!

I was reading some of 1 Corinthians today and these verses stood out to me in light of my birthday, chapter 1 verses 26-31:

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.  But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that just as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."

It is by God's grace and mercy that I am here to celebrate another wonderful year of life.  More importantly, that I am able to continue to grow closer to Him with the Holy Spirit working me through my salvation.  I fear God's judgement, because I am a wretched sinner, and have to give an account for my family and my sins and actions.  Only through Jesus' blood am I confident in His forgiveness and grace.

While separated over here I am learning a lot more about trust and faith.  God is also teaching me more in humility through the people and circumstances I deal with over here.

A good friend directed me to this familiar verse in Philippians chapter 1 verses 3-6:

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.  For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.      

What an interesting year this last one has been.  I now embark on the next new year.  The first half of which is going to be anything from the ordinary back home since that is about how much time I have left in this deployment.

Here is a picture of me today, on my birthday, with the 'It's My Birthday' ribbon on that my mom sent me.

Yesterday, as I was walking back from my office to my room, I noticed a giant rainbow from the NE.  It had rained not too long before I had left.  I felt some of the final rain drops as the rain clouds were just about past, and you could see them sweeping by in the distance with more rain.  This is the first rainbow I've seen over here.  I am always reminded of what God did as a covenant promise in the sign of a rainbow in the story of Noah written in Genesis 9.  It's a beautiful sign.

Left side of the rainbow

Right side of the rainbow.

I couldn't capture the whole thing since I didn't have far or wide enough of an angle to get it all on one shot, but it was a complete rainbow left to right.

Smoking my birthday celebratory cigar

One Week To Go!

Only one week from today to go until I begin the process to start R&R/leave, and to no better place than home! I really cannot wait to be home with my bride and baby girl for 15 precious days.  It is going to be a nice break.

Some of the people in my unit that have already gone and come back tell of their experience traveling back home that a VFW chapter in Texas provides a very warm welcome reception once they arrived in Dallas at the gate and in the terminal.  That will be an interesting experience.  The airlines were generous to our people also by upgrading them to First Class.  The one thing that is a for sure consensus from the people who have already gone and come back is that it is a long ride there and back.  That First Class flight from Dallas to home probably feels great after flying government until Europe and then commercial to the US.  We'll see what my experience is and I may write about it.

After I get back from R&R I will only have about 4 months left until my unit and I come home for good!  

This Sunday, the 24th, is my 28th birthday!  It is going to probably feel like another day being over here.  A good birthday present is that not too many days after my birthday I get to come home to see my family.  I did get a package from my mom and a special one from Barby with some wonderful birthday gifts in it!  Not just gifts from her, but from many of you - friends and family - back home contributing.  Thank you very much!

Many of you may have noticed this in some of the pictures of me.  One of my goals to take advantage of while over here was to lose Barby's baby weight, about 30 lbs.  It was also my baby weight ;).  In the Fall of 2008 I weighed about 220, at least I found that recorded on a weigh-in sheet in my Army records.  When I was at Ft. Dix in August I weighed in at 213.  By this last November I was in the 190s.  I'm officially at about 190 now!  I'm pretty close to the weight I was at when Barby and I got married in 2006.  I've lost over 20 lbs since Ft. Dix, and just about that 30 lbs since the Fall of 2008!  I feel great that I was able to do that and get better fit and healthier during this tour so far.  It was one thing I could do to make the best out of this deployment.

I'll leave this post with a few photos of TGI Fridays that just got completed this week.  In fact, they are opening it for service tonight.  For my birthday this weekend some of us in the unit are hoping to go there for lunch sometime and check it out.  We don't have much else to do around here!  I'll get some pictures of the food and it busy during operating hours if we go.  It is going to be busy these next few days of it first opening, for sure.  All of us are still perplexed how a TGI Fridays got over here.

The front entrance, right off the boardwalk

Another view of front with the other sign

These signs are all lit up at night

This is right as you come inside and looking to the left. Notice the bar ready to be setup for all the booze.  However, instead of booze it is stacked full of just mixes for their virgin blended smoothies.  No booze here...

          More pictures of the inside. It really looks like one from back home inside. This will be the nicest spot in Kandahar for awhile.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  Goodbye 2009, hello 2010!  This means the end of my time over here in Afghanistan and the beginning of me being back home for good is getting closer.  January is our half-way point.  In about 27 days I go on R&R leave also!  It can't come soon enough...

For New Year's Eve I planned a big party for our unit plus other friends we invited.  We had a small ceremony for promotion and reenlistment, and then a lot of food, music, karaoke, smoking cigars, and having fun bringing in the New Year!

A funny thing happened with our food that night.  I had ordered a lot of food from this one dining facility that is more American called Harvest Falcon.  A guy with a thick accent from the UK (sounds Scottish) is the manager.  I ordered the BBQ menu, which provided BBQ ribs, hot dogs, hot wings, salad, dessert, drinks, etc. not a bad setup.  So, all food is suppose to leave the DFACs "cooked," even BBQs now.  They failed to mention that meant cooked but chilled.  We had picked up all the food, brought it back, set everything out, and were pulling the trays out of the hot pack box that holds all the cooked meat about ready to dig in and enjoy dinner when I realized, as I was handling the trays, that they were all ice cold along with the meat!  We were given fully cooked chilled meat.  What an important detail to forget to mention to us.  We then scrambled to figure out how to heat the meat up.  While our new acting commander ran to the PX to find BBQ briquettes, I searched around the compound we were in for a BBQ. Thankfully, there was one nearby and I grabbed some of our guys to carry if over.  Soon after moving the BBQ the briquettes arrived.  Next was figuring out how to light them.  Use JP8, diesel, gasoline, or is there lighter fluid somewhere?  It just so happens that hand sanitizer gel is flammable, and kinda worked for lighting the coals.  Thankfully, I found another BBQ that had some matchlight briquettes in it which allowed us to properly light the coals.  About 2 hours later after figuring out all the meat was cold we had found a BBQ, got coals, started it, and got all the meat cooked!  And the ribs, hot dogs, and hot wings were really good.

I hope you had a good New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  Happy New Year from Kandahar, Afghanistan!  May God bless you this New Year.

Cheers,
~Aaron

Here are some pictures from New Year's Eve:

Setting up

Part of the spread of food

Salinas reenlistment

Baker having fun being dj with his ipod

Cigars that night thanks to Thompson Cigar

Karaoke

This is interesting- there is a TGI Fridays being built here in Kandahar on the boardwalk!  We all noticed it just this week.  I wonder if they are going to serve any of their mixed drinks?...That would be nice, but probably not. Who would have thought a TGI Fridays would be built over here?

Earlier in the week there was a thunder storm with rain and hail.  These are a couple shots of the hail that day:

Out front of our office building

Hail on the ground.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone from Kandahar, Afghanistan!  Since I am 12.5 hours ahead of Pacific Standard Time, while you all are sleeping, or up really late (or really early, however you see it), I get to celebrate Christmas before everyone back home!  Christmas eve and Christmas day was just another day for us around here honestly.  The only resemblance of it being Christmas around here are the decorations around.  It's hard to feel connected into the season without being around my family.
Even though I am in Afghanistan, what a wonderful day today is though!  We celebrate today the remembrance of Jesus Christ's birth!

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace." -Isaiah 9:6


God coming down humbling Himself taking on the body of a man.  Fulfilling Scripture, the prophecies of His coming.  Ultimately dying on the cross in my place saving me from my sin and death - the only way for forgiveness of sin.  What an amazingly beautiful gift!
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas day.  I wish I could be home with Barby and Violet, my family celebrating today.  Soon I will get my R&R leave to come home.  A week from today it will be the New Year too!

Merry Christmas!
~Aaron

Here are some photos from today (some from during this week too):

Opening some gifts Christmas day.

In the morning on Christmas. A Christmas tree, thanks to the Romanians, outside & near our office. I don't know where they got an evergreen tree.

Christmas dinner

Me during the day on Christmas

The day on Christmas. If you look above that tent in the distance, near that power pole, and at the edge of the ridge in the distance, you can see a chinook helicopter coming in.  This road gets really muddy after it rains BTW.

Sunset on Christmas.

Opening a gift on Christmas eve. This was really wrapped with many many layers.

We put together a simple party/hang out for us that help in the chapel worship band Wednesday night. This is the spread of treats and food. A lot of this came from care packages that were sent to us. We like to share to help eat a lot of the goodies we got. Just mine alone took up the left corner of this table and that small little table to the left!

Some of us in the chapel worship band frosting the Christmas sugar cookies thanks to the 'Allen Girls'.

Afghanistan Photo Contest, Billy Ray Cyrus, & the British Cafe'

In September, when I was in Bagram, I heard about a photo contest for photos of Bagram and around Afghanistan.  AAFES, Nikon, and Exchange new car sales sponsored the contest.  It had 7 different categories: on duty, off duty, aerial, macro, people, action, and ground ops (a couple were added during the contest).  Winners got digital cameras, t-shirts, and gift cards.  It ran from September until December 15th, a few days ago.  Since it started I've been submitting a number of photos that I've taken while here.  The judging happened this last week and the final results were in.  It turns out one of my photos got First Place!  It was one of my macro shots (macro category).  I personally thought it was going to be the 'Razor's Edge' photo I took of the razor wire, but to my surprise it ended up being my picture of the 'Big Bee' that I came upon one day hanging from our gator.  Below is my winning photo for the macro category.

 
Here is the link to the winning photos from the photo contest: http://picasaweb.google.com/BagramPhoto/BagramMWRDigitalPhotographyContestWinners#
And this is the link to see all the photos that were submitted for the contest, including the different categories: http://picasaweb.google.com/BagramPhoto

Last week, on Wednesday December 16th, we had a Holiday Variety Show put on by the USO.  Billy Ray Cyrus, Dave Attell, Nick Bollettieri, & Anna Kournikova were the special guests who came to see us.  That evening they put a simple show on for us.  Dave Attell mc'd the evening with his comedy, Anna just came to support, Nick gave us a motivational message, and Billy (with a couple other guitars and singers) played 'unplugged' on acoustic for us some old country songs with some twang, including Aiky Breaky Heart!

Me and Billy Ray Cyrus

Me with Anna Kournikova

Me with Nick Bollettieri

Me and Dave Attell

I'm not sure if I put a photo of this place up before, but this is the British Cafe'.  It's like a Starbucks for us out here how nice it is decorated inside.  It's a warm and inviting place - a good place to get away and escape for a few hours.  Tom, Chen, me and others who play in the chapel 'next' worship band meet here about every Monday night for coffee, and the newly added cigars and guitars.  After hanging out here it almost seems like we aren't in a war oppressed area like Afghanistan.

This week is Christmas...wow!  Soon it will be the New Year too, which means I go on leave not too far afterwards!  Time seems to be moving by quicker for us, and that is good.

Until later, cheers and Merry Christmas!
~Aaron

December Update

Since Thanksgiving I've took a few good pictures to share.  I've got some pictures of scenery from around here, some of decorations for Christmas, pictures of me with some friends, our unit picture, and some shots from an event the British sponsored that went on yesterday night December 12th.

It is interesting being here through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's.  I would have never thought that I would be away from my family during the holidays, let alone being in a war zone.  A lot of people have gotten into the spirit and really decorated their office or building.  I think we are all trying to make the best of our situation here.  We've also got a good number of packages from different organizations wanting to support us from home.  This is really nice.  A couple people in our unit have friends and businesses back home that have sent care packages for each of us in the unit.  I am very grateful for those that do what they can to support us over here, and our families back home.

The first picture below is of Tom (on left), Chen (on right), and me.  Air Force, Navy, and Army all represented here.  We all play on the worship team for the contemporary chapel here on KAF.  We also play for the monthly worship concert and prayer event that started a couple months ago called 'Ignite' (based on Acts 2).  Tom is from Alaska and Chen is from Texas, originally NY.  Tom has been leading the worship team here also.  We hang out together usually every Monday night at the British cafe' over coffee.  This picture is from Monday this last week and we had cigars, coffee, and jammed together outside.

Chen (chief) jamming on the guitar.

Clouds over the boardwalk

View from South Park, Harvest Falcon DFAC area

This is what the rain left over, standing water and mud...

Nice sunset

Christmas decorations in the MWR

Letters to the troops from supporters, posted up in the MWR

My work area and desk in our small 'closet' office.

Our office decorated

Friday I got a box in the mail from the Thompson Cigar Company.  I opened it to find it FULL of cigars, and many that look to be nice at that!  This was a cool surprise to get donated a giant supply of decent cigars.  Thanks Thompson Cigar!

This is a picture of most all of the 804th on December 11th out at ECP4

Our humvee, 'Jingle'.  I guess we could say it's "Jingle all the way" during this season! (see the bottom right windshield)

Me and Chen with the guitars we got from Guitar Gallery. Thanks again Guitar Gallery!

These are a few photos from the event the British sponsored last night.  Charlie Boorman and Ross Noble.  Charlie Boorman travels on these bikes with Ewan McGregor.  Unfortunately, Ewan wasn't there.

These gals opened up the event dancing in their leather outfits with metal plates around their waists doing these grinder displays with sparks to the music playing over the system. Crazy English.

Ross Noble on left & Charlie Boorman in the middle.

You can see all of these photos and more in my Picasa Web Album located here: http://picasaweb.google.com/amallen/KandaharAfghanistan?feat=directlink


Until later, cheers and Merry Christmas!
~Aaron