quote:

Originally posted by soldier_117:
Im surprised there hasnt been anybody post here with first hand experience, so i guess I will be the first. I am still currently in afghanistan and have been for the past 11 months. Im one of the short-timers now and i love it.

Anyhow, my story is something that I will never forget for the rest of my life. It doesnt involve IEDs or responding to an attack, although ive had my fill of those.

My story starts with an escort mission on the north side of kabul on one late summer night. It had been a dry summer, with the moon dust so thick in the air you could choke on it. We had just dropped the vehicle we were escorting off and were heading back to camp.

I was driving this particular day, rather than gunning.

Just before we left to head back to camp, it had started sprinkling for the first time in months. As we drove south through the city we saw an enormous flash light up the sky a good distance off to the southwest. It looked like a giant flashbulb was pointed at the sky and had gone off. But nobody heard an explosion.

"Holy hell, what was that?" my TC asked. We began to discuss amongst ourselves whether or not it was a bomb or lightning. I made the point that the flash came from the ground and therefore could not be lightning. No sooner had I said that a second flash lit up the sky to the southeast, but somewhat closer. Again, there was no sound that reached us.

We were extremely puzzled by this. As we rounded a corner and started to approach a traffic circle a third flash went off. This time it was right next to us. Sparks were flying everywhere next to the road.

As soon as that happened, we realized what was going on.

The power grid in Kabul isnt exactly the greatest. With the first rain hitting in months, it was getting into the transformers and causing them to short and explode.

By the time we had reached the safety of our camp, I had seen this happen about 8 times. After we had realized what was going on, we watched and would see lights shut off in the local area around the sites.

I thought this was incredible to see. Ive never seen anything like it before and I doubt I will ever again.

I also saw a rocket get launched at Bagram through my NVG's at night from a HMMWV turret. That was pretty cool too. We had just left 10 minutes prior and laughed about it. I doubt it was funny to whoever was on the receiving end, but hell, it missed us.

Those are about the only stories I can tell that dont compromise anything at this point. Lotsa rules regarding stuff like this.

quote:

Originally posted by armst_91:
OEF II, Aug '02-Mar '03. Resided at Kabul Military Training Center. Shared our little piece of the desert with the 1/3 5/19 Special Forces. Do not know if we still occupy KMTC or if we handed it over to the Afghan National Army. Seen photos online recently and it looks alot different than from when I was there so long ago. Miss it alot, we had our trials by fire but we had a lot of good times with the Special Forces guys. They all really apreciated us and let us join in on their fun whenever we wanted to. We all busted our behinds for them and they rewarded us for our efforts. Let us not forget where everything started, Afghanistan always in my heart.

S.Armstrong