Travels to the Bridge, 3 October

I've been swamped since I arrived here, but thought I'd try and catch up a little on news here. I flew to Kunduz and then road convoyed to our bridge site on 3 October. It was quite a strange day. I was loaded with all my gear onto a small 9 passenger plane at the Kabul airport and then flown over these huge brown mountains into an old soviet airstrip in a deep valley with a small town in it called Feyzabad. That flight was like riding a roller coaster with wings. The pilot did a deep dive into the river valley that would have made a Stuka pilot over Warsaw proud. Then he flew up the valley doing 60 to 90 degree turns so that when I looked out the window I'd alternately see the river at the base of the wingtip, then the houses on the side of the cliffs at what looked like a distance of 10 feet from the tip of the wing. It was such an awesome view I didn't think to get scared, which I should have been. When we landed at this tiny little airstrip the plane was met by several men carrying AK-47's and various other types of automatic weapons. Fortunately, they were on our side as all I had with me was a 9MM and 3 clips of ammo. I was seriously outgunned.

They added some passengers to the flight and I turned around to see an older Muslim man who was dressed like he must have been the Grand Poobah or some such personage waiting to get on the plane. Wanting to ensure that I didn't offend this obviously important Mullah I turned to him, put my hand over my heart and said "Salam", which is the proper way of greeting someone over here. At that point he stuck out his hand to me and said with this huge grin on his face, "Hi,I'm George from California, nice to meet ya." That guy had me in stitches for the next five minutes. (See Photo #1) There were a couple of German Polizei loaded on the plane also. I told them I was sorry, that I thought I'd paid that speeding ticket on the Autobahn in 1986 and I was impressed that they really don't stop until they track down their man. They let me off with a warning.

Half an hour later I landed in Kunduz, another old abandoned Soviet airstrip which is surrounded by the rusting hulks of abandoned Russian armored vehicles and trucks in the surrounding fields, and 2 gutted soviet transport helicopters sitting off to the side of the tarmac. My Master Sergeant picked me up and we drove thru Kunduz to the Tajikistan border and my new job. The drive thru Kunduz was beyond strange. Aside from some motorized transport on the road, it was like stepping back in time 4 centuries. (See the next 2 photos) I'll send some more photos in my next e-mail. Right now it's time to hit the hay as I just got back from a 5 day reconnaisance operation into Indian territory and I'm beat. That's an adventure I'll cover at a later date.