FOB Smart at 2200 - Friday
I completed two missions outside the wire today. The first, a dismounted foot patrol through Old Qalat City and the second, a mounted combat patrol, through New Qalat City. We observed progress on a radio station, municipality perimeter wall, a hospital expansion, next a set of agricultural offices and site work, a garden and cistern project, another set of municipality offices and compounds, and finally a food storage warehouses project.
When outside the wire, even with the risk of attack, of death, and of harm in some way however minimally or the worst, I feel alive. I enjoy being out amongst the good people of Afghanistan. Not the bad people mind you, but the hardworking shopkeepers, the subsistence farmers, and the magical children who, for now, know no harm and no different. Being out there opens my eyes to their existence, to their fate, their plight, their exposure, and it assures me that regardless of the larger picture, the reality of their lives is so vastly different from my own. It helps me remember that my own troubles, whatever they may be, are certainly light years removed from their more serious and urgent problems. Cold, heat, hunger, strife... these are all things I really know nothing of and I am very fortunate to have grown up in a society and family far removed from such hardships.
Today was a good day. I gave candy to children, sent to me by family and friends, and I remembered, again, why I enjoy this work here so much. It is about making a difference in the lives of those with so very much less than that which I enjoy. Yet, some of them, maybe most of them at times, seem content within their circumstances, content to live much simpler lives, and content to live as they must or wish.
Tomorrow is yet another day. I yearn for my days to be "normal" again back home. I have less than 75 days remaining here in Afghanistan. It is my sincerest desire to make the next 75 days of my life count as much as these last 272 days.
143, Kaesen.
Good night and good day.
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