Rocket Attack Part 3

1/12/2012

There was a rocket attack earlier this week, the same night as trivia night at the British coffee place. It took place early enough in the day that it didn't conflict at all with attending trivia night. On the walk back to our rooms from the British compound, one of the people I was walking with said they had been relieved when trivia night wasn't interrupted at all by the rocket alarm. I had to think, "was that today?". I had been so unconcerned by the rocket attack, that I had forgotten that it even took place.

That's definitely the strangest part about the rockets. Not the fact that they exist, or the sound of explosions in the distance, not the physical danger, but how used to them we all become. I'm rereading what I wrote about rocket attacks back in September/October and it's as though someone else wrote those words.

At Shabbat dinner this past Friday, the alarm went off and nobody even ducked to the ground, (I usually do, but since nobody else was doing it I didn't want to look like a loser). As it turned out the explosion sounded to us louder than average and people regretted not having ducked. They resolved then to always duck, but who knows if they'll stick to it or not?

I don't want to scare people too much so I'll clarify - an explosion can sound extra loud even if it's a mile or more away, especially on a cool clear day as last Friday was.

2/2/2012

Today I and someone else who works at the Education Center happen to be at the COMKAF (basically KAF headquarters) getting approval for some flyers to be put up on the boardwalk. While she was in the office getting these flyers approved I heard from a nearby office the sound of someone over a radio saying "Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!". I figured, hey, wow! I'm right next to where some mission is being carried out over the radio! It wasn't until when we were leaving the building that the rocket alarm went off and I realized that what I was hearing was the process that leads up to the alarm going off. That was a pretty fascinating coincidence.

2/20/2012

A while back, while driving somewhere or another on base we came across some of the more interesting pieces of graffiti art on KAF. It's one of the bunkers painted to look like a quaint little house. Inspecting it more closely led to the discovery of more and more decorations. Apparently someone had gotten bored of staring at the plain concrete inside of the bunker several hours per week and had done something about it. There's plenty of art, a table and benches to sit on inside, and a light switch rigged for night hours spent in the bunker. Enjoy:

Finally! A NAME I can put to some of the artwork around KAF.

For a few more visuals involving the rocket attacks, click HERE.

Rocket Attack Part 2

9/11/2011

Last night there was a USO show. The show was pretty good... meh it was alright. Anyway, I was there to see the comedian. He was doing pretty well up until the wail of the rocket attack alarm went off about 3/4th of the way through his set. Then he bombed... Haha! Zing!

Obviously he wasn't used to the threat of a rocket being aimed at the compound he's visiting so the sight of the 800 or so attendees of the show sprawled out in front of him all hitting the deck surprised him a bit. With the microphone still at his mouth we all hear him say, "Oh, Shit!" over the speakers. One audience member yelled out, "every damned time!" in frustration.

The evacuation plan for the boardwalk went steadily and smoothly with us all being ushered to rise at the same time and head towards the exits, when another rocket attack is signaled and we lay flat once more. Finally we all get out and headed towards the bunkers.

10/19/2011

Yesterday, I was skyping with a friend of mine and the rocket attack alarm went off. It was the first time that the alarm has gone off while I've been skyping with someone back home. I felt bad that someone saw me duck down to kneel while maneuvering the computer mouse to hang up on her for the couple minutes before I could call her back. I hate to worry people - especially as watching me crouch down is not by any means a representation of our level of physical danger here, which is actually quite small.

10/20/2011

I find myself thinking a lot about the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. SPOILER ALERT: if you do not wish to have the surprise ending ruined for you do not continue with this blog post until you read the short story (click the link to get to it - it's not very long). In it, a small American town draws lots to determine who will be the one member of the community stoned to death to ensure a good harvest for the year. The character who is selected in the end has the final line of the story and it's this: "It isn't fair, it isn't right."

I don't actually think of my decision to come here in this way, nor do I believe in human sacrifice to ensure a prosperous harvest, but I keep coming back to the idea that living here on KAF is like putting your name down for a lottery. It's morbid, and to talk about life in these terms to anyone who lives here would some sort of breach in etiquette, but we are all in a lottery of sorts.

11/6/2011

Amid a period during which there have been relatively few rocket attacks, one went off while I was in the gym a few days back. I'm hardly fazed anymore, but there was something different about this one. It's very rare to be huffing and puffing doing cardio - and then suddenly be lying motionless on the ground - it felt weird, and you're supposed to do a cool-down and I can't believe the taliban would be so inconsiderate to my leg muscles...

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:

NATO Forces

KAF is a NATO base. It's not just Americans. So far, I've seen coalition forces from Slovakia, Belgium, France, UK, Australia, Turkey, Romania, Kosovo, and Bulgaria. Definitely there are more Americans than anything else, but these other soldiers make themselves known.

Merukah!

This is the sign for the Romanian compound with the creepy church in it. Might as well say "Quarantine".

Every time I see a Bulgarian I want to talk to them, but don't. I visited Bulgaria as an Ohio State University International Affairs scholar back in 2008, so I know a lot about Bulgaria's history, landscape, and culture. But I know the conversation would go something like this:
Me: Hi! I've been to Bulgaria!
Bulgarian: Really?
Me: Yes! I've been to Sophia, and Plovdiv, and Nessebar, and Veliko Turnovo, and I know about Aleksander Nevski and so on and so on.
Bulgarian: Ok.
Me: Nice talking to you.

As much as it would be nice listing to a Bulgarian the things I know about and the places I've visited in Bulgaria, I think it's a conversation worth avoiding. Perhaps the urge will be too great and I'll have that very conversation some time - word for word.

Bulgarski?

Every time I go to the British compound's "Hero's Cafe" to get a bagel with lox, they're sold out. Their problems with restocking their lox stores aside, their cafe area is a nice place. Almost on par with the Tim Horton's the Canadians have. I'll continue checking in regularly in an attempt to eat some delicious, delicious lox.

The Royal Air Force has come a long way since the events of 1923.

What? Switzerland?! I thought you guys were supposed to be neutral! Oh wait, that's Denmark...

This is in the entrance hall to the building where the people in charge of KAF work. I had to go there to get my Flyer for High Holidays approved to post on the Boarwalk.

Slovaks are everywhere here. I haven't interacted with many of them, so I'll let Sarah Kemp's blog post about them suffice. Whoops! It was about Albanians... same thing, almost.

The inside of the Slovakian compound is guarded as though it were the nuclear launch codes.

There are too many of these country signs for me to take pictures of, so this'll be the last one.

What would one buy in a Canadian Store? Roots hoodies? Muskoka Bear Wear?

The Canadians are headed out of here, which is a shame. They're all very friendly, and on Canadian Thanksgiving we all got a great meal out of it. Also when they leave (which I'm told is going to be in about a month and a half) the Tim Horton's goes with them. This is a calamity! I should start a petition to keep them here. They have the best coffee and doughnuts on KAF. Maybe the Belgians will bring in a chocolate shop to replace it...

A Brief History of KAF

I would like to write about my experience at last night's Jewish service and a whole bunch of other things, but I'd like to get a better idea of what's what before I do that, so I'm taking the opportunity to write something interesting about this place where I live and work.

Welcome to Kandahar Airport!

Kandahar Airfield started out as just that, an airfield, which is some sort of way of saying an airport. We're located just outside Kandahar City which is the second largest city in Afghanistan. It was built in the late 50s and early 60s by American consultants and you can really see the resemblance it bears to the American architecture at the time. There's some conjecture as to whether or not it was originally built for the purpose of eventually becoming a military post in the event of a showdown with the USSR, and in fact it was built while the Soviets were busy building Kabul Airport.

Reminds me of Catch Me If You Can

Did Eric Mendelsohn design this airport? Am I right??

For contrast, this is what was going on with the Soviet-built Kabul Airport's architecture around the same time.

When such a showdown did occur, the airport was used by the Soviets - nice going, Americans. Between then and the current conflict here it became just a regular airport with flights and humanitarian aid coming through. In December, 2001 the airport was captured by coalition forces and since then it's been in NATO hands.

The airport actually opened back up to commercial flights about five years ago, so it's actually a NATO base and a regular airport. In fact when my colleagues go on vacations between their tours at the Education Center, they fly commercial out of here. At one point during the troop surge starting a couple of years ago, Kandahar had the busiest one-runway airfield in the world with 1700-5000 flights a week!

Now it's a huge base. I've hardly seen any of it. What I have seen includes the mod (modular) housing, Ed. Center, boardwalk, and a couple of the administrative buildings where we get our badges do things like register with our background checks and apply for an escort badge. I've also been to the Tim Horton's... Have I mentioned yet that there's a full-service T.G.I. Fridays across the street? That blows me away! I went in there just to take a look and it looked exactly like a regular TGI Fridays!

It's always Friday there! But Fridays are exactly like every other day here so the same could be said of any day.

OK, these pictures seem sort of staged... but maybe such a great time is had at TGI Fridays, Kandahar.

Most of the other American restaurant franchises that are here, unlike TGIF's, are not the same as back home. There's a Nathan's Hotdogs, KFC, and some others, but they're run out of trailers with windows in them that you walk up to and order at a counter.

This is what the other restaurants look like. Burger King's gone from here though... too bad.

Having done a lot of research on Kandahar before getting here, I and everyone I discussed this with were wondering: who is it flipping the burgers and serving the food at these restaurants. Well, I've discovered that most of them are contracted from countries closer to Afghanistan. However, it appears that Tim Horton's imports their own Canadians to work here! Friendly, with that accent that most Americans would make fun of, Canadians!

Fascinating... If you were to google kandahar airport and search in maps you'd be able to spot the unique design of the original airport building among the buildings that make up the NATO base from the aerial view. Don't ask me why military bases are allowed to be shown on google maps...

Adventure!

Quick background: About a month ago (after being unemployed for a couple of months), I responded to a job posting online that said they needed staff to work for Central Texas College. The location of the job was listed as Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait (I later found out that the other possible locations could've included Kosovo, Qatar, and Bahrain). I figured, "ehhh, I like to travel..." and applied. Later that week I was having a phone interview with a man in Germany named Abraham who told me that this wasn't a guarantee but that he "felt very confident that I would be offered a job".

So now, tomorrow, I'm leaving for my big adventure. I'm spending about three weeks in Mannheim, Germany training for the job and for the daily operation of living on a base and then August 3rd I'm slated to deploy to Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan. It's a base of 30,000 NATO forces and civilian support personnel. That's where I'll be spending the following six months.

So what's the job? I'll be an Army Learning Center Operator (ALCO). As an ALCO, I am there to support troops wishing to take classes while they are serving in the military. I'll be part librarian, part computer lab proctor, and part academic adviser. I'll be working about 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I'm excited and a little nervous. I hope to keep people updated on the general goings on during this experience through this blog. Whenever I update it, I will post to facebook so look out for it there.

I'm pretty excited! I realize this is crazy, isolating, and generally unheard of within the circles of practically everyone I know, but I'm doing it. It's only for six months. I feel like I could do anything for six months.

Adventure is out there!