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My Afghanistan Photos

#101
Thanks for all the well wishes all. Hartke: PT every morning Mon-Fri, the difficulty depends on your Platoon Sergeant/Squad Leader or who ever is in charge of PT. Life after basic is kinda like a normal life except we live in barracks (if you're not married). Work days are LONG. PT starts at 0630 and the end of the day is anywhere from 1600-1900 (4pm-7pm). There really isn't much of a life outside of the Army, you work long days and on the weekends everyone usually gathers to get drunk and make poor decisions... Some people love the Army but it's just not for me. I will look back on the last 5+ years of my life and say that I did a great service to my country and countrymen, I met some great people that I will never forget but I'm done with the Army. I'm actually started the long process of transitioning back to civilian. I'll be out of the Army in March, by then I will have served 5 1/2 years. It might be hard for you to get into the Army as they are cutting back big time with the withdraw from Iraq and eventual withdraw from Afghanistan. I would look into Commo or something that will set you up for a good job in the civilian sector once you get out. Armor or Trans will do you no good in the civilian world.
 
#104
Thanks guys. California takes care of veterans. I know alot of people talk bad about "hippie liberal California" but they really treat veterans very well. I applied to San Jose State in October and about 3 weeks after I applied I was accepted. They pretty much accept veterans at state schools. I'm gonna go back to school (thanks to your, and my, tax dollars) and get me an edumacation. If anyone is ever in the San Jose/Milpitas area just go to a local Home Depot and you'll probably see me working there. My paychecks will go right back to them LOL. Bob, are you down in SoCal?
 
#106
I've got a question for you regarding them! I have a few close family friends who have been overseas in the same areas, but I have never really seen pictures before.

Could you get in any trouble for posting this pictures? I mean, I know most of them are of you, but I really don't know anything about the confidentiality. It's not like you're posting videos of you blasting people or throwing grenades into houses for fun.

My buddy who just got home from Iraq is pretty tight-lipped. He's told me a few things here and there, but he kind of keeps it short and sweet. He'd much rather talk about bass gear, anyhow.

There's a guy in one of my classes who says he was in the military and he's always blabbing on about things he's seen and done. He's said some things that sound pretty damn confidential to me. I'm starting to think he's bullshitting just because I've always heard you're supposed to keep your mouth shut!

P.S. A big thank you from your friends up north!
 
#107
JacksonAerodyne said:
Thanks guys. California takes care of veterans. I know alot of people talk bad about "hippie liberal California" but they really treat veterans very well. I applied to San Jose State in October and about 3 weeks after I applied I was accepted. They pretty much accept veterans at state schools. I'm gonna go back to school (thanks to your, and my, tax dollars) and get me an edumacation. If anyone is ever in the San Jose/Milpitas area just go to a local Home Depot and you'll probably see me working there. My paychecks will go right back to them LOL. Bob, are you down in SoCal?
Click to expand...

Yup, in OC. Between Disneyland and the ocean. ;)
 
#110
Here's a little story for yous guys and I'll accentuate with pics.

We started this mission looking for a weapons cache (some guns and explosives buried somewhere). Sounds like a needle in a haystack type deal you say? It was...

We started early in the morning on St. Patty's Day, so 17March2011. We started walking, and walking, and walking... Finally we made it to the top of a small hill overlooking the supposed cache site.

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We searched and searched and searched the area where it was supposed to be until we got word from 'higher' (company commander and such) that the info we had originally received was incorrect. So we got the coordinates for the new cache site and start to move out.

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We got to the area where the cache was now supposed to be and we searched, and searched, and searched. Then we were told "hey, it's back where you came from!" So we headed back to the original spot...

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...and we searched and searched and searched. Nothing. Again, we were told "Hey! It's back where you were before you came back to the starting point!" (Getting confused? So were we, that and extremely pissed off!) Well this time we took a slightly different route because we didn't want to get ambushed and we came across these:

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Tail fins for RPGs. These are what provide the RPG with the spin and the stabilization needed to fly (somewhat) straight. You usually don't just see these lying around so it was a bit fishy. Order from higher up were to leave them, take pictures and get a grid, and move on. So we did. We started moving back to the 2nd location (now also the 4th as the 1st location was also the 3rd!). When we arrived we used a metal detector and we looked for visibly disturbed earth, just like someone had dug, buried and then covered something. Here is a picture of the exact grid I was given.

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And pictures of us walking around looking for any signs...

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As you can see we were pretty spread out and covered alot of ground searching for this "cache site." It was about this time that I got pissed off. We had been out for approx. 8 hours at this point and it was hot! We were walking around on a wild goose chase in 100 degree weather with all this weight. Some of our guys were running low on water and it was turning into a bad scenario. Remember, we still had to get back and it was roughly 8km, half easy half rough terrain, in 100 degree heat with roughly 60-70lbs of gear on. I started to get in a yelling match with our Company XO (Executive Officer, 2nd in command). I told him that the grid he gave us looked like the moon and that there was no way for someone to bury something without us finding signs. We had looked in a 500 meter bubble around the grid and found nothing. Finally after wasting close to 2 hours looking in this one location we moved partway up a small hill to get some cover and take a break.

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Then we were finally told to RTB (Return To Base). So we yelled in jubilation and started to make our way back to the COP (Combat OutPost). Not long after stepping I was told that some of our guys were black on water (black means "no more"). I called up the fact that we didn't have any water and they sent a platoon out in trucks to drop off some water so we could refit and continue back. After our refit we made it back to the hill (from the earlier picture) and the sun was beginning to set.

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We had been out for about 12 hours at this point. We made it back and I got yelled at by a very angry XO for arguing with him. I showed him the pictures and he still wasn't happy but at least understood our frustration. Mission Complete, 0 cache sites found.
 
#113
We are in the same boat. I miss my friends, but not the Army. Thanks for your service. HOOAH!!! It took me about a month to get my circadian rhythms back to civilian standards. Took me a lot longer to stop thinking that trash piles had IED's. If I pass a mid-eastern restaurant the smell triggers memories sometimes. DO NOT BE SILENT AND KEEP IT IN, DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP IF YOU NEED TO TALK!!!
 
#115
Here's another one with videos this time! Well link to my YouTube for the videos...

Anywho, So there we were right. Day 102 I think I say in the video. I made this video after spending the night up in the turret manning our lovely Ma Deuce .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun. I love those puppies! At this point I had maybe 2-3 hours of sleep in the last 24, and I had been up in the gun most of the night. This was very early morning maybe 6 or so.

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So there you go. This was just the beginning. We ended up moving around through a narrow canyon on a narrow unimproved (read: dirt) road. Around the mountain in front of me in the video and down another canyon...

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...to about 200m away from the mountain in the video. A big @ss u-turn! We stopped and I took these pics as I walked down the road.

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Wow. They shouldn't have gone down that road to begin with, you can see how narrow it is! Anyways, we had a wrecker with us and they said they couldn't go down that road to attempt to recover the vehicle without them succumbing to a rollover as well. It took 3 days for them to get that vehicle out of there!!! This is where we stayed for 3 days:

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If you're counting now, we're at day 4. So they get the vehicle back on its wheels and back to where all of our vehicles are and we begin the treacherous journey back up the canyon. Well shortly after we start moving one of our trucks breaks a tie rod. We took the 1 good tie rod off the vehicle that rolled (it didn't need it as it was being towed by the wrecker) and swapped it with the one on our vehicle. By the time we start moving it's almost dark. We got maybe 300 meters up the canyon to a part of the road where it's VERY narrow and there is a steep drop off on one side. The wrecker team decides it's too unsafe to continue in the dark so we wait till morning. In a perfect spot to be ambushed. In a place where we've been for a few days. Sound dangerous? It was, here's why.

The next morning I wake up and I needed to get something from the platoon who owned the rolled vehicle. They had pushed ahead of us to cover our exit and to have eyes on what parts of the road they could see. As I'm walking up the road I spot something big and yellow just lying in the middle of the road about 200m ahead of my truck. I get a bit closer and see some orange det cord (what is used to initiate explosives) sticking of it. I knew right then and there what it was and my heart sank. I knew it was an IED and that it would be several hours until EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) could get out to us to detonate it. I walked up the road, avoiding the IED of course, to the other platoon. I told them about the IED and grabbed one of their guys to confirm it for me. As we walked we talked about how $h!tty this mission had been and how this was only going to make things worse. I snapped these pics as we walked back.

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the road leading up to the IED
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Bottom left corner, in between the trees you can see a yellow bowl type thing. That's the IED and in the back you can see the wrecker and in front of the wrecker you can just barely see the turret of my truck. Look closely.
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Slightly below and to the left of center is the IED again and you can see the trucks back a ways.

When I got back to the trucks I looked to my Squad Leader and my Platoon Sergeant and told them the bad news. They both said at the same time "bull$h!t" I walked them up to where we could see the IED and they got pissed. I asked if I could shoot the IED, throw rocks, hand grenades, shoot flares at it to see if we could set it off so we didn't have to call EOD and wait but my Plt. Sgt. wouldn't have it. I called EOD and they got a team out to us in about 6 hours. The EOD team leader walked right up to it, stabbed it with a knife, took a sample, placed a block of C4 on it and walked back, casually. Then we blew it in place: see video.

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After it was deemed clear we pushed on and made it back to base without any further delays. Total time out on mission: 5 days!!! 1 rolled truck, 2 total broken tie rods (not counting the one on the rolled truck) and 1 IED. Worst. Mission. Ever.
 
#118
Oh yeah, I have tons!!! The only problem is I don't remember everything that has to do with the pictures, especially from my first deployment. Plus I'd have to find someone who would actually want to publish the pictures. That would be cool. If you can get me in contact with anyone, please do.

24.8 gigs, but some of that is videos. so we'll say about 15 gigs of pics, roughly.
 
#120
No book industry contacts here but if I were a publisher, I'd be interested, depending how much you remember well enough to commit to paper. The pictures are awesome either way though.

Regardless, please write down as much as you can! Records like these are going to be very important in the years to come; historians of the future will thank you (seriously-the reason we know the Civil War in such detail is because many soldiers kept diaries).
 

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