A Few More Photos

These are just a few more pictures of the surrounding scenery.  The air quality and visibility are considerably better here after it rains.  I took these pictures from just outside my dorm in the morning after a rainy night.  I'm not sure how well it projects, but you can see a local village at the base of the mountains.

World Peace Through Skiing

The scenery here is absolutely beautiful.  We are surrounded by snow capped mountains, it reminds me of Denver.  And, I guess if you consider that the elevation here is 4895 ft, Bargram is essentially the other Mile High City.

Many people, including myself, have commented that many of the problems here in Afghanistan could be solved with a few really nice ski resorts.  To start with, building the resorts would create jobs.  Then the resorts would need to be staffed, creating even more jobs.  The skiing would probably be

 really good so people would travel

here for ski vacations.  That would generate flights in and out of the airport.  Roads would need to be constructed, further stimulating the economy.  With economic stimulus, the people could be fed, housed and educated.  And people who ski are generally happy, which would make them less likely to engage in terrorist activity in general.

The Achilles heel in all of this is that the mountains are probably riddled with land mines, making skiing somewhat less attractive for the faint of heart.  For the diehard skier, the trails could be rated as quadruple black diamond.  You would know you'd had a good run if you made it to the bottom of the mountain alive and with all limbs intact - body armor optional.

In all seriousness, it really makes me a little sad to look out at the beautiful landscape,

knowing that hate runs so deep.

The snow had been melting as the weather warmed up, but the last few days have been cold and rainy.  So, I suspect we will see some additional snow cover once the clouds clear.

The cold weather definitely slows down the tempo here.  And, while on one hand, I would like to be busy and feel like I'm doing my part to contribute to the efforts here, me being slow means troops aren't being injured - it's kind of a double edged sword.

With it being slow, I've had time to redecorate my room.  This essentially consisted of hanging up a flag, which may actually be the most dangerous thing I've done here, since it involved me having to stand on my rolling desk chair.  But, this isn't just any flag - this flag flew with my friend Janette over Iraq in her B-1 bomber during the initial phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  (For those of you who haven't been lucky enough to meet Janette, we've been friends since sophomore year in college when we met in ROTC and thought we were queens of the world.)  They fly flags on the flagpole in front of the hospital for people here, but because there are so many requests, it often means that the flag just gets run up and down the flag pole.  So, I opted to hang it in my room instead where it is constantly in view.  It's not quite as sexy as flying in a B-1, but the sentiment in no less real.

P.S.  For those of you wondering, I have yet to be re-united with my missing bag of laundry.  I haven't gotten to the point of going out and replacing the missing items, but I'm becoming less and less optimistic that I'll ever see those clothes again.

Church in a War Zone

I made it to Mass at the Enduring Faith Chapel (presumably a takeoff on Operation Enduring Freedom) for the first time tonight (which for mathematicians in the crowd means that yes, I've missed a few weeks).  The chapel is about a 5 minute walk and if I'd been thinking ahead, I would have brought my camera to snap a few photos - maybe next week

It's kind of an interesting experience going to church here - I have to say I was struck by some of the similarities as well as some of the differences.

To start with, like many of the priests back home, English is not the primary language of the priest here.  Like Mass on Long Island, but very much UNlike Mass in Texas, speed was definitely a priority.  At the start of the homily, the priest assured us he would be brief.  And, true to his word, we were done in just under 45-minutes, which by the way, he himself announced just before the closing prayer.  He did, however mention, on more than one occasion, that starting with Palm Sunday, we're in for some long days.

Growing up on Long Island, I can recall times at church when we paused for the noise of the airplanes making their approach to JFK.  Well, the was no pausing tonight.  And instead of the sound of 747s carrying weary travelers back from Europe, it was the sound of F-15s taking off with afterburners alight.

In addition to the primarily US crowd, there were several Coalition members present as well.  There must be a fairly regular contingent of folks from India because we paused for them to say the Our Father in their native language.

No kneelers in this church, a little rough on the knees - another deployment hardship I'll have to overcome.

And, I can honestly say this was the first time in my life that I was packing heat when I went to Mass.  It's definitely strange to look around and see people armed when you're at Mass.  There are also racks in the back of the chapel for people to park their M-16s.  Add to that walking out the front door and seeing Humvees parked around while the sound of swirling helicopter blades fills the air.

Needless to say, one thing remains constant - I continue to pray for peace.

I'd Like to Buy a Vowel

So tonight was UAE Tuesday.

After a while, as the routine becomes routine, the days start to blend into one another.  This makes it somewhat challenging to distinguish the days of the week from one another.  This is where dinner becomes critically important.  There are multiple Dining Facilities on the base, affectionately referred to as DFACs (dee-facs).  And, while there are all basically run by the same contracting company (KBR), the fine cuisine is a little different at each one.

So, today being Tuesday, it was UAE Tuesday.  The UAE has it's own unit here on the base and so once a week, they open up their DFAC to outside visitors.  Tonight was actually the first night I was able to make it over there.  Needless to say, the food was very good, though I'm not entirely sure exactly what was in each dish.  Having said that, this DFAC is the only one on base that isn't governed by US food standards, so I'm told that UAE Tuesday often leads to Diarrhea Wednesday - I promise not to let you know how that turns out for me tomorrow.

Thursday is Polish Sausage night at the DFAC affectionately referred to as the Meat Shack.  Friday is Surf and Turf night and there are varying levels of Surf in the different DFACs - in some places it's filet of sole, and in others it's lobster tail and crab legs.  Saturday doesn't really seem to have any distinguishing features and neither does Sunday for that matter, though many of the guys make that the day for Ice Cream Sundae.  I haven't yet developed that discipline as I often find a bowl of ice cream in front of me on other days of the week as well.  Monday is also pretty non-descript, except for the fact that it's the day before UAE Tuesday, and so the cycle begins again.

All in all, the food is actually pretty good here.  I miss the niceties of real silverware and real dishes and cafeteria style dining is, well, cafeteria style.  But, there is certainly no reason to go hungry, and going to the gym becomes somewhat of a necessity to keep up with the caloric intake (especially when you factor in all of the goodies from home).

P.S.  KBR also does the laundry here and one of my bags has gone MIA - follow the blog closely to learn the whereabouts of the missing linens...

Pictures of Home Away from Home

So these are the pictures I couldn't get to upload with the last post.

My Home Away From Home

Let's just say this blogging thing may prove hazardous to my health in that I may stroke out with all of the technical issues I've been experiencing.  I've been unsuccessfully trying to upload pictures to go with this post for the last day and then the blog popped up in Arabic and trying to log in proved somewhat challenging.  It's sort of strange for the web page to be right side justified...

Anyway, I'm living in a dorm (image picture of unimaginative rectangular tan building).  It's a 2 story, hardened facility that is right across the street from the hospital, making for one of the shortest commutes I've had in a while.  I think just about everyone who lives here works in the hospital as well.  There's four of us in the room, which, let's just say it's been a while since I've had roommates other than Greg.  Actually, it's not that bad.  One of the drawbacks is that everyone in the room is on a different schedule so someone is usually asleep in the room.  I feel like invariably I end up bumping into something or dropping something and making a lot of noise.  And, there's the swishing noise made by my PT pants every time I move...

         The water here isn't potable, so there's bottled water everywhere (imagine photo of palates of water outside of the unimaginative rectangular building).  When I first got here, I even used the bottled water to brush my teeth.  However, after several trips back to my room because I forgot to bring the water with me, I decided that the bacterial load from brushing my teeth would probably be just enough to give me some relative immunity without making my completely ill.  So far the theory is working out okay...

         As you can tell, the room isn't terribly fancy, but it's my own little space.  (Image photo of room with tiled ceiling, off-white textured drywall, linoleum tiles, and particle board furniture.)  I've got a bed, which with my pillow topper (yes, the hardships of being deployed) is relatively comfortable.  Note the wool green issue military blanket (imagine standard issue Army green wool blanket with US printed in the middle).  I think that's a design that probably hasn't change much in the last hundred years.  I've got some pictures from home to remind me about the good things in life and everyone whose cheering me on.  For those of you concerned about my education, I've been reading about Pediatric Surgery (image picture of cheap office chair with Volume 1 of Grosfeld) in my spare time - getting ready for the Boards in September.  The closet here is considerably smaller than the one at home, but since I pretty much have only two outfits to choose between, it's more than adequate.

         So, going back to the water, even though the running water isn't potable, there's still a limited supply here on the base which means we have to take "combat" showers - translation - a limit of 3 minutes of running water.  For those of you who know me well, this may be the biggest hardship of my deployment.  We are also responsible for maintaining the cleanliness of the bathroom, so we rotate the cleaning detail on a daily basis from room to room.  It works out to about once 9 days or so.  I have to confess I was dreading this before I got here, but since I was the last person to arrive in the room, the only thing left for me to do was clean a few mirrors and a few sinks.

         Well, it's not home, but it's really not bad, and trust me it could be a lot worse.

(If I can ever get the pictures to upload, I'll be sure to share them with you.)

The Team

As many of my predecessors have told me, the people you work with can be your saving grace.  There are three of us here in the general/ trauma surgery rotation which means we are technically on call every third night.  So on those nights we respond to trauma calls and general surgery consults (things like appendicitis, cholecystitis, etc.)   Having said that, on the nights in between, we are primary and secondary back-up, so that if there are multiple critically ill patients we are involved even if we aren't the "on-call" surgeon (and the "Czar" who coordinates the overall clinical effort is involved with just about everything).  In addition to the general surgeons, there are several surgical sub-specialists as well as internists, pediatricians and family physicians here.  One of the nice things about being here is that we are all in it together, so everyone is willing to pitch in and help out, be it in the OR, the ER, or in just about any other way.

My Initial Travels

As all of you probably know by now, I safely arrived in Afghanistan about 1 week ago.  My trip to get here took about a week as well, which like many things in the military, was long and convoluted.  And, while clearly I did get from point A to point B, it mostly seems like it was a week of my life I will never get back.  After leaving San Antonio, I went to Norfolk, VA where I spent the night and next day at the Fentons (friends from residency).  This seems to have become a tradition for many of us heading overseas.  

My military conveyance then commenced in Norfolk on Miami Air International.  (This is the contractor for the military whose fleet consists of an entire 9 airplanes.)  From Norfolk we made 4 stops before arriving at Manas, Kyrgystan.

The first stop was in at the Pease Airport in Portsmouth, NH.  In Pease, we were able to get off the plane and we were met by the Pease Greeters.  There were between 50 and 100 volunteers (mostly veterans) who formed a line and shook the hands of every service member on the plane.  They had coffee, donuts, ice cream, and phones we could make calls from.  They sent us off with chocolates, candies, knitted hats, and warms socks among many other things.  Needless to say, it was very moving.  After taking off from Pease, we returned to Pease because the cabin door wasn't sealed and the cabin wouldn't pressurize.  Fortunately that was the only mechanical glitch in the flight - at least it was the only one we knew about.  We then stopped

in Iceland, Romania, and Georgia before finally making it to Kyrgystan, and while Miami Air is based in Miami, our pilots sounded more like they might be from any one of the latter three countries.  All in all, it was about 24 hours.

My stay in Manas was characterized mostly by jet-lag and painfully slow internet.  There is really not much to the base there, and I am ever thankful that my possible deployment to there fell through.  After about 3 days, I donned my body armor and got on a C-130 to go to Afghanistan.  We first went to Kabul and for that part of the flight we were packed in like sardines.  The landing there was relatively smooth.  Some folks got off the plane there and I pulled rank to get a seat with some more leg room which inadvertently gave me a seat with a view out of one of the very tiny side hole windows of the plane.  While I couldn't see very much, I could tell that we weren't very far off the ground as we went over the mountains.  We did a "combat" landing into Bagram which means it felt like we were on some crazy big amusement park roller coaster.  Since I could see out the window, I had a sense of what was going on and was fairly confident we weren't about to auger in, so that was 

somewhat reassuring.

The base here is really kind of a dump, but I have to admit, it's beginning to grow on me, kind of like a fungus.  And, we are surrounded by some really spectacular views of the mountains.  So far work has not been too busy, the food's not bad, my room is okay, and I'm enjoying the people I work with.