Still no movement...

Well, hello again from the land of dust... no, the other land of dust. I am still writing from Kandahar, but we have still, as of yet, been unable to gain transportation to our final destination. Yes, we have been here for over a week; I think we got here on or about the 22nd? I don't remember. For those of you who unaware, I am in Afghanistan, and Kandahar Airbase is where we landed, but thank goodness, not where we are staying for our entire deployment. Sure there are amenities and such here that make it comfortable at Kandahar like the PX, the Green Bean (sort of like a Starbucks knockoff), and an assortment of fast food franchises (I had Subway the other day), but what I do is not in Kandahar. What I do is out and about, and is based out of a little base that is no where near here. Again, as of yet, we have not been able to get there because the organizational and logistical "processes" here are broken.

Okay, enough whining - let me tell you about someone with a real reason to whine. One of my guys on my team who we'll call Joe to save on confusion, got sick this week. Not just like sick with the sniffles, but really sick. At first he started with a sore throat which the docs diagnosed as strep throat. They gave him antibiotics and told him to check back if it didn't get better. Well, after a couple of days it got worse and he was having a hard time swallowing his spit, so he said. The part he left out to me at the time was that it was also harder to breath. Anyway, about three days after he originally went in, they took him to the hospital to have his throat x-rayed, and admitted him to the hospital. What we came to find out was that he had contracted mono from somewhere, but then got a sore throat that turned into both tonsilitis and pharyngitis, and they were about that close to giving him an emergency tracheotomy (see WebM.D., if you don't know what that is). Anyway, they kept him in the hospital for about three days, kept an eye on him, and pumped him with antibiotics just to make sure that he was okay. In addition to all that, they had all dozen or so of us who lived in the same room start taking penicillin for a week to make sure that we don't get mono too.

Other than that, not much going on here. I did see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and it was very good. I would recommend it to everyone.

Well, I am going to head out now. Take care and let me know if you need the address.

casey