Pix from Afghanistan

4

These came from Sarge so we'll let him to any commentary he likes.
 

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Thanks for posting these for me Uncle Bill, I figured all the forum gang would like to see where their HI Khukris are headed ;-)

pic #1: good shot of some of our guys arriving via C-17 cargo transport

pic #2: Home sweet home, the stuff in boxes is water, got no water treatment so drinking water is brought in by the nice C-17 crews

pic #3: One of the most beautiful photos I've ever seen of A-10 Thunderbolts, a.k.a. "Warthogs" preparing to go and dispense their life saving loads of death and destruction

pic #4: The Hindu Kush mountains, kind of like Colorado with land mines and snipers

More to come as soon as I get my feet on the ground over there. Hopefully some of the guys with their khukris, but they'll all be "hollywood" shots, if somebody needs to draw a khukri for real I ain't going to be holding a camera.

Sarge
 
Nice photos Sarge! I national Geograpic photographer that lives near me told me that he started in photography in the navy during VietNam and walked out of the service into an assignment at the geographic. With pics like these maybe you could have a second career waiting for you when you get out--build that portfolio:)

Thanks for sharing the photos with us. Such a beautiful place--hard to believe what has gone on there and what must go on now.
 
Great pics Sarge! Uncanny how much the region resembles much of the mountain west here. Those A-10s almost look like they are sitting on the tarmac at somplace like Hill AFB in Utah or maybe Mountain Home here in Idaho.
 
Thanks, Sylvr!

Impressive terrain, look at the snow in those mountains. I'm a flatlander these days, and I have to travel and hour just to get into hills.

Obviously the locals don't have time to look around and enjoy the majesty of their world, or they might put down the AKs and marvel...

GO get 'em.

Keith
 
Maui Rob: they are beautiful pics, but I can't claim any credit for them, I won't be getting on the plane to go over until next week. I'll take some no kidding pics with people in 'em as soon as we get settled in.

Cole: the guys over there tell me it reminds them of Colorado, but that's probably their closest frame of reference since we've got an associated unit up in Colorado Springs that we visit now and then. The airstrip those A-10s are sitting on is at an elevation of 6,000 feet, so the mountains behind them are obviously of fair proportion.
I doubt Hill or Mountain home have problems with camel spiders, land mines, and unexploded Soviet ordinance, but mountains, and "Hawgs", are pretty to me wherever they are.

Sarge
 
Originally posted by Cole
Those A-10s almost look like they are sitting on the tarmac at somplace like Hill AFB in Utah...
Click to expand...
Took the words right out of my mouth. Great Salt Lake Basin - #3
You could probably convince a lot of people that #3 was taken here at home.

Kinda makes you realize that even the enemy has beautiful country as its backdrop.
 
Sounds more like a race of superticks to me...

I've had friend stay in my basement and get bitten by wolf spiders, but a camel spider sounds pretty insidious.

Keith
 
Re: Camel spiders

Camel spiders are about the size of a brown tarantula. They inject a "necrotizing" venom which causes living tissue to die, they then feed on the dead tissue. It's fairly painless, but makes huge ugly sores that take forever to heal and leave scars.
Never heard of anybody dying from one, but we did have a few incautious souls bitten back during Desert Storm. I had one jump on me one dark night over there, which I swatted off, stamped with my boot, and then picked up a rock and set about steadily and viciously pounding. One of my guys said, "Sarge, that critter is way dead". I said, "I know hoss, I'm just doin' this in case any others nearby are watching".

Sarge
 
THanks for the elucidating commentary, Sarge. Entertaining.

"inject a "necrotizing" venom "--like brown recluse here. Except that stuff is more painful, but takes months to stop swelling, oozing. And, they're smaller. I'll take the recluse any day. Can't see their fangs so weel with the naked eye.

Keith
 
Hobo spiders, so called because they hitched a ride on the rails from the Pacific northwest all the way to the west face of the Rockies. Like a Brown Recluse, but worse. Tissue just keeps dying. Every year in Idaho Falls someone loses an appendage or something. House we rented was FULL of them. I steamcleaned the house of dog piss awaiting the arrival of my wife in a few days...big sucker comes running towards my sleeping bag. Squash. Later that summer I could walk through the basement and beat them off the walls.

Did I mention they are as big as the biggest US wolf spider but FAT?

Still, nothing as bad as living next to the rattlesnake dens on the farmhouse we rented for 3 years...

munk
 
Sarge, that's about what most spiders do; the venom liquafies the tissue and they drink it down. Hmm good. Steak shake.

My question is this: after you've been biten by a camel spider, would you be better off to let him drink the rotten stuff out?

munk
 
I'm no doc Munk, but best I can remember the medics will inject cortisone to stop it spreading, then "scoop out" the dead flesh from the wound site. Like most stuff best treatment is prevention, but like HIKV, even the best prevention can't guarantee you won't get "bit"

Sarge
 
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