Kandahar Diary

Another blog to add to the list of Afghan-centric stuff in the blogroll. As a nice bonus (for me), this one's written by a security contractor based down south in Kandahar. Appears to be handling mostly mobile logistics security, which is always a tough gig, especially down south. On the upside, he seems to be in a management/oversight position, so he doesn't have to ride in the cab of a fuel tanker, which is nice.

Like me, the author of Kandahar Diary maintains his anonymity for personal, professional and OPSEC reasons. He mentions that he flew in from Brisbane, so possibly Australian, but also possibly not.*

*Based on what I know about PSC convoy ops down south and from the few clues gleaned from his posts, I could speculate about the outfit he works for but I won't. He doesn't mention it, so neither will I.

From the few posts he's put up so far, I can tell he'll be an entertaining read. He already posseses the standard disdain for Big Army fobbits, as is obvious by his reference to them as "pasty faced, pudding-gutted base pogos." And that's the guys who live at KAF. Here's hoping he never has to see the paragons of the fobbit species resident at Bagram. He'd probably shoot them on site. Or puke. Or both.

Only thing I differ with him on is his complaints about the food. Lack of fresh fruit? Check. Too much chicken? Check. Piss-warm UHT milk? Check. Luke-warm bacon? Check.........wait, WTF? You've got BACON?!?!? I haven't had bacon since shortly after New Years Day. I'd gladly shoot somebody for some pork products, luke-warm or otherwise. Apparently life down south ain't all bad.

One other thing to mention: the author notes that he is on a ten-week deployment. That is one of the key advantages (perhaps THE key advantage) to working for a Western outfit. Reliable, predictable leave schedules, with a limited time in-country on deployments. Ten weeks on, three or four weeks off is the industry standard here. Needless to say, I've had a total of five weeks off in the last thirteen months and even that time was really more of a "working vacation." The price you pay working for an Afghan outfit (one of many).

And I recognized myself in this quote:

I am smoking too much – I need to get back on the home routine of a couple in the morning and nothing again until 6.00 p.m. Don’t even think of saying I should give it up – this is neither the time nor the place for that.

Sounds familiar, except for the bit about "a couple in the morning and nothing again until 6:00 p.m." That's just insane.