More Delays

Jan 30, 2010
Well, I am still sitting in Bagram. The day we were scheduled to fly out, the weather turned terrible. For 2 days, we would arrive at the terminal at 0530. We would sit there all day until about 3 PM when they would officially cancel the flight. Then we would go back to base and they would try to find a place for us to sleep. Our room was a tent and cot. Now at least we are in a wood box that sleeps 6 cots. We are living out of our duffel bags. Port-a-potties are wonderful. At least tomorrow we know that there are no flights to Shank, so we will try again in 2 days. The whole area is socked in. I am told that Shank got 6 inches of snow, so we are not flying anywhere. I am also told that next week we will get close to 0 degrees. I am just living the life.
This is not a place I recommend to plan a vacation to visit. The literacy rate is about 30-40%. For females, it is 20%. No wonder the government has a hard time doing anything. They can’t communicate with anyone except for direct talking. Imagine how messed up any message would be after it is verbally passed on person to person throughout a village. Very few trees No grass or bushes. Everything is dirt and sand. Now of course it is all mud and quite a mess.
There is one main road in base. All the pot holes act as a natural speed bump. You can’t go 100 feet without slowing to almost a stop to cross the hole. We use a truck to take us back and forth to the airport terminal to haul our duffels. To go a mile and a half, it takes about 15 minutes. No stop lights, just 3 stop signs and lots of pot holes.
The internet is poor at best. I tried buying a service for a few days, but it is pretty much useless. The coverage is spotty, low band. They have a USO and offer free wireless, but so many people are on it, that I can only occasionally be able to read my email. I can’t send any out. I use the government computers at the hospital on occasion, but they are so restrictive that emails are about the only thing I can do. I can’t update my blog and very little web sites are permitted for security reasons.
I finally was able to get to my blog site and update my blog. Hopefully, when I get to Shank, I am told it is better.
Due to the weather and socking everybody in, no one was able to fly for 3 days. Because of that things are messed up royally. Doctors weren’t able to go where they were supposed to go. At one point the Army was going to send me and a general surgeon to Helman Province where most of the surge will be going on. Now that the weather is better, we are back on schedule to fly to FOB Shank on Sunday.
The first photo is me sitting on my cot in our tent doing a little reading.
The second photo is all the beautiful mountains snow covered. At our base, we received 2 days of constant rain, but the mountains got snow.
The third photo is a picture of Major Joe Sucher, the gen surg and I. We were held back in case we were needed to fly to Helman Province.
Tom