Exhalation

Seven days on the ground. Still breathing heavily, but starting to catch my breath.

Some of it’s the fact that the higher altitudes here leave me somewhat breathless, both figuratively and physically. Right now, I’m at a German camp, FOB Marmal, just southeast of Mazar E Sharif, with an elevation of, who knows, much higher than the 950 feet I’m accustomed to. Add to it the helo flight over the mountains from Bagram to get here, which took us to just about the vertical limits of both machine and unpressurized flight. High altitudes give me world class headaches, and a little nausea, and some shortness of breath, which should pass about the time I head for home.

Another some of it is the view. Stunning. Simply stunning. Great rugged escarpments crashing into snow capped peaks. Barren mountain plains at odds with verdant, irrigated valleys. It’s a beautiful place and, as the saying goes, “it’s a nice place to visit.” Sadly, there’s a 3,000 person military encampment in the middle of it, and the mad collection of b-huts and hangers unnaturally contrasts with the simple tailoring of an Afghan craftsman, or the mud plastered walls of his simple house.

Last part of the some is that we’ve been running full bore since we arrived, with far less decompression time than I’d like for both myself and my team. This started even before we mobilized, as the client cut weeks off of our preparation time, squeezing more than three weeks of effort into about eight days. He also cut a week off of the back end of the schedule, further concentrating our efforts on the ground.

Right now, though, I’ve got a free hour, sitting on my crappy mattress on my borrowed rack in a 200 man RSOI tent on some little base in northern Afghanland. It’s a dark base, so outside, you can see all of the stars, and when the Tornados aren’t buzzing the airfield, you’d think you were somewhere near the end of the world.

Breathless.