Greetings From Afghanistan "Afghanistan Daze"

 

Howdy friends and neighbors! I'm Shawn Kent, and I would like to share for you a series of letters, and emails I sent home from Afghanistan during my deployment there with the US Army. Years ago I spent a fun filled year in sunny southern Baghdad. I noticed that a lot of soldiers were writing home about their manly exploits, that seemed specifically designed to scare the pants off their loved ones. So I decided to throw gritty reality out the window and write a fun, semi-factual series of letters home to keep my family and friends smiling Well, here we go again. This time our destination is Afghanistan, and I'm showing up a few miles from the Pakistan border, a complete stranger to a unit already deployed. Hopefully there will be a lot of action to share with my readers, but not to worry, I can always make something up!

So without further ado, I give you..........

Before we begin this episode of Greetings From Afghanistan I would like to stop for a moment and reflect on how awesome I am. To you at home it seems easy to sit down, and dash off a quick e-mail, and to be honest, the pathetic drek you compose ,probably does require the brain power of a toaster, or television celebrity. In stark contrast the pure literary genius, that I regularly spew forth, takes a LOT of work even for an journalist of my caliber, (.357 magnum) not to mention the added handicap of the absence of beer. Often it takes me several tries to come up with just the right “zinger” to elicit the emotion response I want from my readers in the form of loud snorts. I have decided that this time, you, my readers, should not simply enjoy the finished product of GFA, no indeed! You should have the opportunity to suffer through the creative process as well, thereby coming to greater understanding, and richer appreciation for, what a spectacular human I am. So without further ado (That simply can not be a real word. Say it ten times really fast. Ado Ado Ado Ado Ado Ado Ado Ado Ado Ado. See, told ya so!), I bring you, uncensored, unedited, and possibly unsuitable for the reading public G. F. A!!!!!

Greetings from Afghanistan, the Jamaica of the middle east! Today I take keyboard in hand to share with you a great evil that has beset our heroes at COP Penich. A dark cloud that threatens to engulf the bright light of our accomplishments in this Area of Operations. A feral gerbil that is gnawing at the protective newspaper of our honor. Reality television! Ha ha! Just a little humor there, we have not sunk to those depths, we just have a major drug problem.

That's right GFA fans, we of Charlie Company have discovered that a large number of our younger soldiers are actively practicing for a role in Cheech and Chong's new movie: Afghanistan Daze!

Some of our younger soldiers are enjoying the chow hall food WAY more than the rest of us.

Some of our younger soldiers are listening to Pink Floyd and NOT being bored out of their minds.

Some of our younger soldiers are listening to John Mayer and thinking the lyric “Your Body is a Wonderland” should not be punishable under federal law.

Some of our younger soldiers are getting WAY too much meaning out of old tele-tubbies re runs.

Some of our younger soldiers are developing a strange fondness for tye-dye.

Now most of you at home think of Islam as a strict religion calling for a clean mind and body, eschewing (no idea what this word means, maybe sneezing an entire cashew?) the evils of drugs, alcohol, and sex, and you would be right. The actual Islamic people however, are some hard drinking, brothel visiting, hash smoking party animals, which is understandable given the fact that their other recreation options mainly include, rock farming.

Recreation options mainly include, goat tossing.

Recreation options mainly include, standing in rock strewn fields, watching military traffic, while flies crawl across their face, and Sally Struthers tries to eat one of their feet.

Recreation options mainly include, building houses made of poop. ( I am not making this up!!! Basically they stack a bunch of randomly shaped rocks, and then collect large quantities of goat poo and stick it to the rocks. After months of this it dries, and the undigested pitch, and other poo matter form a substance that looks like brittle clay, and smells like Rosanne Bar.)

Due to this rather loose standard regarding drugs among the locals, they often bring small balls of hash onto the COP to trade for dollars, or other items our soldiers have plenty of, such as videos of naked ladies. By the way, to my untrained eye, the hash balls looked like little rabbit turds.

Possible sales scenario:

Afghan Drug Dealer: “Here Mr. American, please give me ten US Dollars for this small brown greasy ball that is definitely not animal feces.

American: (forking over cash) Yay drugs!

So, when the results of the company's 100%drug test came in we did slightly worse than the US Olympic snowboarding team.

We did slightly worse than Cheech's nasal hair.

We did slightly worse than Hot Topic employees.

We scored slightly worse than the audience of a Bob Marley Concert.

We scored slightly worse than...hey is that chocolate chip cookie dough?!?

I don't want to come across as a “square” I will have you know that I am the kind of hipster that drives around in a little red Toyota blasting “hep” tunes such as Sinatra's “Come fly with me” belting out each note AT LEAST as good as Sinatra at the top of my lungs while driving around my predominately black neighborhood in Tennessee (state motto: We have an actual city named Paducha!) with the windows rolled down sporting my 12 year old gym shorts and a purple t-shirt that cryptically states: “I got my kicks on RT 66!”. It is difficult to imagine an adult who is more in tune with today's youth than myself! (Except the trend of wearing baseball caps in every possible direction EXCEPT the right one, this makes about as much sense as wearing a shirt so that the arm holes are positioned over your chest and back, it was probably a bad idea to say that due to the fact that some rapper possibly with a name like “Pistachio Ice” will start wearing HIS shirts so that they function like a straight jacket and the next thing you know, young urban hipsters will suffer major confusion from the ensuing difficulties throwing up signs for gangs that they are not really members of , and seriously inhibiting them from “busting caps” with 9mm handguns that they twist sideways for no apparent reason, I mean what is it with these people and not using things in the right direction, do they wear their JOCKSTRAPS backwards? (Please don't tell me if they do!)

After all the “hot” pee tests, investigators flew in and started questioning soldiers one at a time, too see if they could ferret out any other users on the base. During the questioning one of the soldiers who knew he was caught, decided to pretty much tattle tale on everyone, both real and imagined, that had smoked with him, or walked within fifty yards. They were talking about throwing all the “hippies” off the COP until they realized that would only leave enough of us to man one vehicle.

Until they realized that would only leave enough of us to carry their bongs to the flight line.

Until they realized that would only leave three guys and the drug sniffing dog.

Until they realized that no one would eat the chow hall food anymore.

Until they realized they would have 200 pounds of macrame, and nothing to do with it.

Until they realized that there would be 7,000 packages of Funions that would go to waste.

So I am not sure how this will all come out but I know one thing about all these young men... None of the little b******s offered me any!