Rocket Attack Part 1

Pre-post apology: I'm sorry I kept the subject of the following few posts a secret from pretty much everyone I know. I asked for friends and family to not keep secrets from me while I was away, and I was keeping my own and that's not fair. I was trying to protect people from stress thereby protecting myself from the added stress of other people stressing.

Most of this post was written in September, 2011.

"Rocket Attack. Rocket Attack." So says the cool, calm, and collected British lady's voice over the loudspeakers strategically placed all over the base as a wavering siren blares. People say they get used to and disregard the warnings earnestly being thrust upon us by the powers that be. They even see the alarms as a nuisance to be ignored, rather than the way I see them: an instant jump in heart rate - followed by an intense suppression of a freakout-reflex that I was hardly even aware that I had before I got here.

When this happens, a thought always runs through my mind: "What the hell am I doing here?!"

In truth, the periodic rocket attacks here aren't anything to be really afraid of, not if you have any faith in statistics. If there are 30,000 people who live and work on the base, and you have an equal chance of being harmed by them as everyone else does, you're probably more likely to die in a car crash in the states than in a rocket explosion in Kandahar... and that's what's going through my mind as I turn on my iPod to pass the time spent in the concrete bunker we are meant to stay in until we are given the signal to head back to whatever it is we were doing before Taliban insurgents decided to interrupt our day... how rude.

I've had some hilarious conversations in the bunker. It's like a mixer due to unfortunate circumstances. Most conversations limit themselves to small-talk. Sometimes they evolve into philosophical or shared-interest discussions. One time with the service members who live in my mod building with me, we discussed what would be an incredible irony: if a rocket attack actually hit one of the Muslim prayer centers on KAF. Not that we wished harm on anyone inside any of these centers - but the very idea of the supreme irony tickled us.

I imagine the rockets launched towards KAF can most easily be compared to the rockets launched from Gaza into Southern Israel over the last few years. In sophistication, and method of detection and protection from danger, the situations are a alike.

There are plenty of youtube videos out there relating to the Kandahar rocket attacks and here are some of them:

These guys happen to be outside of KAF at the same time as rockets were falling exactly where they were, and they had a video camera rolling.

In another group, someone had the presence of mind to grab a video camera to document the evacuation to the bunker when the rocket alarm sounded.

Some people have a sense of humor about the whole thing:

Here's what it sounds like when the rocket alarm goes off (this was a test).

And here's what the all clear sounds like when the danger has passed.

 

Someone even created a KAF rocket attack alarm remix: