Leaving the Hotbox

And now, a quick recap of my final days in Jalalabad Airfield before bouncing from there to Bagram to my previous station, FOB Salerno in Khost. What's old is new again for the AfghaniDan...

For one last photo with Marine compadres in J-bad, I grabbed two jarheads who did an outstanding job of providing public affairs support to Task Force Lava...Sgt Kaus (on left) and LCpl Kwietniak (on right). Both are pros at their respective jobs, Kaus on video and Kwiet on still photography. Here we are posing on the JAF camp's main loose-rock-covered thoroughfare.

Here is a leftover photo from the transfer ceremony...Tony the FAC and the two battalion doctors register their excitement at completing the handover and leaving country. Or maybe it's the excitement of standing the shade, where it was only about 100...that's also possible.

A Marine passes by the flag of Afghanistan, on his happy way to one last official function before leaving. Lucky bastard!

There's my tent sweet tent, my last day there before flying out. It was pretty weird after the Marine battalion left and that half of JAF just became a ghost town. The base remains manned however, with the 10th Mountain battalions who stepped in...

A dust storm sweeps into the airfield camp, the day before I left. The assaulting heat, dirt and dust were all there, even spinning dirt devils that coasted through...all we needed were some tumbleweeds to complete the picture.

A soldier from 1-32 ties protective covering on his vehicle's machine gun as the dust storm hits. The windstorms are sudden, violent occurrences that pelt everyone and everything with dirt and rock. I hear that Naomi Campbell's outbursts are the only natural phenomena that compare.

One more J-bad sunset before leaving the base...for now, anyway. Sunset also happens to be the cue for yelping mongrels to begin their nightly call to each other. There were packs of them roaming around the airfield, looking hungrier and hungrier as I'd pass them on my running route.

Waiting for the C-130 the next day...this would be my first fixed-wing aircraft (I believe that's called an "airplane" in civilian speak) flight since arriving in country, and boy, was it a doozy. A short runway, steep banks, and some turbulent weather made for a knuckle-whitening half-hour or so after we lifted.

There's the big bird, as soldiers file on. I turned out to be thankful I hadn't scarfed down a lunch before the flight, as many who did lost theirs, including both guys next to me...not that I noticed at the time, since I just poured sweat and wondered if the cabin's heat or the g-forces were draining me of fluids. I looked like Ted Stryker of Airplane! after the good drenching my flak jacket received.

This was my sixth and final attempt to get a decent photo of the cabin, after we'd landed. As you can see, we were packed in there like sardines, which didn't help. But I'll post the kind of blurry photo I don't usually display, since it pretty accurately conveys how we all felt!

My next C-130 flight however, two days later, was the complete opposite. It was cool, spacious and mercifully free of turbulence. That flight was smooth as silk...I slept the whole way and barely felt us land. Bravo, good pilots...bravo.