Yes I did make it home!!

O.K.,
Thanks to a reminder from Aunt Nan, I realized that I did not post my return home. I arrived back in the Keys the middle of February and was going to check into work here last week, but Jen decided that since I was home, she would have emergency surgery so I had to delay my check-in. She had here galbladder out last Tuesday due to several giant sized stones but is doing better now.

Thanks again for all the support during my deployment for both me and the family!

P.S. I got my splint off last Monday and am slowly getting back to normal on the usage of my hand.

On my way home...

Well, I have left ISAF and Kabul and am currently at Bagram Airfield still in Afghanistan. I got my wrist re-checked on Monday and the x-rays showed no breaks so they cut off my cast and put me in a splint. Then the physical therapist looked at the wrist and thinks there is probably some significant ligament damage. Then, I had a CT scan and they found that I have a distal-radius fracture. I am still in the splint at least until an orthopedic surgeon can look at it on Thursday. I will be back in the states in a little more than a week and hopefully return to my family within two weeks (dependant on my wrist issues). Love to all!

Run in with insurgent Snowman

I went to visit the Turkish PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) in Wardak Province on Tuesday when we noticed there was a snowman hanging out by the Afghan National Police (ANP) guards to the Forward Operating Base (FOB). A couple of us went out to investigate the snowman when he jumped me and made me slip on the ice. We were not sure if it was a Taliban or HIG snowman, but he did manage to break my wrist so we figure it must have been an insurgent. The first picture is me with the snowman and the ANP who captured him taken about 1 minute after the fall. The second is my right arm in a cast. Since we were out in Wardak, I had to have my wrist looked at by an Afghan doctor who wrapped it in an ace bandage until I could get back to Kabul to have it X-rayed. When it was finally x-rayed 30 hours later, it turned out it was broken. I will be in a cast for at least 8 weeks, but will come home when scheduled. I am fine and it is minor!!!

Too late for mailing

Sorry I did not mention this earlier, but it is now probably too late to mail me anything and have it arrive here before I leave. I appreciate all the support everyone has given me on this deployment!! If you still have stuff to send for the orphans/children/etc. you can still send it to:

Volunteer Community Relations
Attn: CPT Erin McGrew
US NSE /HQ ISAF
APO AE 09356

Thank you again!

A New Year

Well, Christmas and New Years have come and gone and I am still here in Kabul. We had our first snow today, a wet and heavy snow. It looked nice until all the mud underneath was kicked up and it all turned brown and melted into mud. I am sure that it will be all brown ice in the morning. It does look kind of nice falling though. I made it as far as Bagram Air Field this week, but our flights to Ghazni and the Polish FOB fell through and we ended up coming home on Tuesday without getting anywhere else. Oh well, thats the way it goes sometimes. I now have only three weeks left in Kabul and am really looking forward to getting back to the real world! Everyone made it home O.K from the holidays and Shorty was much relieved to find the Ducks (House and Duck Key) were still hanging around. As far as football goes, Utah finished a perfect 13-0 and showed that BCS means nothing. Denver however, well we just won't talk about being able to closeout the division for four weeks in a row and failing each week. I am kind of mad at Pat Bowlen for letting Shanahan go, I think it was a big mistake.

Thanks to everyone for all the cards and packages and I will write again soon.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Kabul. Christmas here is pretty much like any other day, cold and smoky. We have not had any snow yet, evidentially, that comes later in January. We did have a slow workday today and the bad guys cooperated to give us a quiet holiday. The best part of the holiday season this year is I will go into the 20s for days left on Saturday and should be able to get out of Kabul for a few days. The picture is of our holiday gift exchange we did on Christmas Eve in the “Burkah” Room. We had a British guy dressed as Santa and an Army Sergeant dressed as an Elf to hand out presents from our Secret Santa thing. I got a nice knife and since I had an Australian girl who we always tease about wanting to marry an American, I gave her a Kuala bear dressed in desert camouflage with an American flag on his shoulder. It was nice and a whole lot of gag gifts were given including a couple of Karzai robes, and Mosque alarm clocks. If I had to spend Christmas in the middle of an Islamic dust bowl, at least I have some good people here at work to spend it with.

Since I probably will not be here for New Years this post will serve as my overall holiday blog post. I will be back shortly after the new year and will post pictures etc for my trip to the Polish Forward Operating Base (FOB) with my old roommate who is a Polish Major. It should be a good trip and I am looking forward to seeing more of the country for a few days and I will get to ride in a Polish (Russian) helicopter!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a wonderful new year!!

Two weeks closer to home

Well another couple of weeks have gone by and things are still quiet here. After almost no rain for the first four months in Afghanistan, it has been raining non-stop for the past couple of days. It has gotten colder here and is supposed to get down to single digits Fahrenheit this weekend. Things in Kabul are quiet although we are still kept busy by the bad guys in the rest of the country.
I am now down to almost five weeks here followed by more than two weeks to get home after that. It has been an interesting tour to say the least.
Christmas in Afghanistan is quite different. There are a couple of lights up around the base and we are hoping to have a quiet Christmas this week. I will be going on a trip to visit a Polish PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) in a couple of weeks and am looking forward to seeing more of the country and getting beyond the walls here for a few days.
Nothing more to say now, I will try to blog again on Christmas.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!