A new day, a new dawn.

Afghanistan.  Near the end.  2011

I didn't sleep again last night.  For once, the cause was not the strange shift pattern interrupting my sleep cycle, nor some overwhelming issue, preying on my mind, that kept my peaceful slumber at bay.  This time it actually was the insurgents.  Well, it was but it wasn't.  I spent four hours last night hunkered down in a concrete bunker.  From 2000 to 2359 (military time - there is no midnight), when I could have been tucked up warmly, if not safely, in bed, I, along with about 12 others, was crouched in a dark concrete tube designed to protect me from rocket attacks.  The reason I was there, was credible, specific intelligence that an attack was planned.  There was even a launch location.  I seriously considered staying in my bed, which, even though in a tent, is only 12 inches off the ground and surrounded by sandbags.  Only a direct hit would be dangerous.  Probably. On balance, the fact that I have only about 10 days left, combined with the fact that the Belgian Force Protection Company were yelling at everyone to get under cover and the loudspeakers were wailing dire threat warnings, persuaded me that I should forsake the relative warmth of my duvet cover for the relative safety of my concrete cover.  In the end, there was no attack.  The all-clear sounded, on cue, at 2359 and we all shuffled back to bed/tents/work, filing past the very sheepish faces of the Belgians who had convinced us all of nothing less than imminent overrunning of the camp and subsequent massacre.

So, after all the excitement, I couldn't sleep.  It didn't help knowing I had to be in again at 0500.  Somehow, knowing I should be asleep, needed to be asleep, made it harder for sleep to come.  The more I knew I should be in the Land of Nod, the harder it became to find it.  As I lay there, listening to the mice/rats scrabbling about (more of which, I am fully sure I will relate in a future email), the darkness slowly giving way to the morning light, I came to the conclusion that any chance of me completing my journey to aforesaid Land had met with a nasty accident and I decided to take a diversion.  There is an observation post/radio mast here, rising up above the Headquarters.  My predecesssor had stated that he intended to climb it and watch the sunrise at least once before he left.  He never did and I was determined not to make the same mistake.  I climbed the tower this morning and at the top there is a small platform, bizarrely enough, with a desk.  I don't know why or how, it just is.  Somehow, such an anachronism seems perfectly at home in this place.  I wasn't quite early enough to actually see the sunrise, it gets light very early here, but I was early enough to enjoy some solitude, something in very short supply normally.

I sat on the desk and looked.  Across the airfield where three attack helicopters sat, rotors turning, heat haze shimmering from their engines.  Across to the low hills, where mud walled compounds marking the outer suburbs of Kabul cover the slopes, glowing orange in the early morning sun. Across to the now snow-free tips of the jagged Hindu Kush mountains, muddy brown against an already clear blue sky. Above the ever-present humming of the hundreds of generators that power this international camp I could hear the Muezzin calling the faithful to Fajr, the first prayers of the day.  With less than two weeks to go I sat and thought.  I thought about the last six months, of the things I have seen and done and what they mean to me.  I have been told by some friends that some of my emails are a bit dark and brooding.  They are probably right.  It's difficult to find light and airy tales to tell.  Some of them have expressed concern about how it may have affected me.  It's difficult to say.  I have seen things I wish I hadn't.  I have done things I never thought I would.  I hate this country and love it in equal measure.  It's beautiful.  Its people are incredibly welcoming and hospitable.  It's also incredibly ugly and home to some of the vilest people on earth.  I wish I had never come, but wouldn't want to have never been.  I am glad I came.  It has affected me, I don't know if it has changed me.  I don't know a lot of things but it's a new dawn, a new day.  And I'm feeling good.

Brotherly love

2011 Afghanistan

Yesterday I said goodbye to Major Dean Randal, United States Army.  US Ranger.

I knew Dean for 3 months.  Dean went to Westpoint (you have all heard of it).  Dean spent a year in Korea, two years in Iraq and was on his third year long tour of Afghanistan.  Dean Randal flew home early.

Hold on.  Hold on.  You think he's dead don't you?  Well I am pleased to announce he isn't.  Dean is very much alive.  Come on guys.  This is a "Good news " story for once!  So who is  Dean Randal?  Dean was the guy who got us attached to a Combat Logistics Patrol when we were left in the mountains with no helicopters.  Dean was the guy I spent all day with, lying on a helipad in the baking heat, arguing over trivia.  Dean was the guy who stood next to me when I was thrown out of a very angry Generals office whist I was trying to arrange for us to kill someone with a missile strike.  There's lots more I could say about Dean but can't, and yet I barely know him.  I will probably never see him again.  I might email him.

Dean left because he has been posted to another unit, which is due to deploy back here to Afghanistan next year.  Having been here since September last year, someone saw sense and cut him some slack, so they sent him home to have 6 months with his wife and three children. (two girls and a boy).  When Dean found out he was going home he knew his replacement.  It was one of his friends from his current home base, who lived across the street from him on post.  Dean got this guy to cut the combat patches off his Class A uniform.  The Americans wear lots of patches.  On their left arm they wear the patches of the unit they are currently serving with - in this case, the 10th Mountain Division.  On the right arm, they wear the patches of the first unit they saw combat with, in this case the 101st Airborne Division.  These patches are a big deal to the Americans.   A very big deal.  Before he left, Dean gave me the combat patches off his class A uniform.  I almost cried.

Military service is a very big deal to the Americans.  They live together, fight together, serve together and, unfortunately, die together.  Their Special Forces community call it a brotherhood.  Brothers in arms.  They call each other brother.  Honestly.  It sounds corny, but it isn't.  It isn't corny because they believe it.  Actually, it isn't corny because it's true.  They have an incredible emotional bond.  I have never felt anything like it before. No. That's not true.  I feel it about my brother.  I get that same impression - that Dean would genuinely do anything for me, without question.  Just like a brother.  When Dean left, I put my hand out to shake his.  Dean gave me a great bug bear hug.  I did cry.  Well.  I had a tear or two.  Probably dust.

Yesterday I said goodbye to Major Dean Randal, United States Army.  US Ranger. Brother.  Friend.

Fathers Day

Afghanistan 2011

It's Fathers day today.  I've missed it.  I didn't spend it as a father with my children, or as a son with my father.  This may sound familiar, probably because I have said it before, but that got me thinking...

When I was a child, Fathers Day didn't mean a lot to me, in fact when I wasn't such a child it didn't mean a lot to me.  It was, I confess, too easily forgotten.  (I think that's one of the reason we have mothers).  The thought of it being forgottten now brings a lump to my throat.  I miss my children and I hope they miss me.  I miss bedtime stories, even though they can be a pain.  I miss bathtimes, even though they can be messy and I miss teatimes, even though I do my best to avoid them when I am home.  I miss a lot.  I phone home regularly and, depending on timings, sometimes speak to my children.  It's a fine line between happiness, when my son just gabbles, however incomprehensibly, and my daughter says "Dadddeeeee", and disappointment, when he would rather watch television and she is screaming.  It's hard not to get emotional.  It's hard to not be there.

When I am at home, people always seem to say that children need their father to be there.  I agree but not completely.  Being a father is not about always being there.  It's sometimes about not being there, more particularly, it's about deliberately not being there.  I chose to be in Afghanistan, I volunteered to leave my wife, my family, my friends and my children.  I knew I would miss birthdays, parties, bathtimes, haircuts, potty training, ice creams, tantrums, decisions and occasions.  I knew all that and I still decided to go.  I decided to go for lots of reasons, but mostly because I thought it was important.  Being out here means something to me.  Without being trite, I think it's important to play your part, do your bit, stand up for what you believe and pay your dues.

People also say that it's a job.  Yes it's a job.  But it's not actually my job.  I left the army a long time ago, even though I still consider myself a soldier.  I now sell stuff, Yet here I am, in Afghanistan.  Doing my duty, however hard that may be.  Both my father and father in law were in the military and both spent time away.  I am immensely proud of both of them and now know a little of how they must have felt. Being a father means setting an example and, sometimes, to do that, it means not being there. 

So, on this Fathers day, I definitely haven't forgotten you, and though you may not have a card it doesn't mean I am not thinking of you.  This all sounds a bit old fashioned and is probably not very cool -

That's definitely also what being a father is all about.

Friends reunited?

June 2012.

I went to a school reunion recently.  This is the post I was supposed to write.  I started writing it but ended up with Secret lives.  I ended up with Secret lives, with its dark undertones and confused message because I couldn't articulate what I felt properly.  I tried to set that right and ended up with Shallow Graves.  Third time lucky?

We are kites.  With all our possible pasts fluttering behind us like carnival streamers.  Each strand representing what could have been.  From a distance bright and colourful. They fly freely.  Floating effortlessly, weaving and diving, they move in no discernible pattern.  Only on closer observation can we see some are tattered and torn, little more than bright rags, the illusion diminished by proximity.  Some are short, ripped and stunted, never again to fulfil proper purpose, instead upsetting balance and creating drag.  Our lives are tethered by ties, invisible at distance.  Every move is restrained, bound tightly to earth, true freedom frustrated but essential to prevent becoming lost in the maelstrom of wind that blows ever stronger.  Our lives are like this.

For over 20 years I have not been back.  I unconsciously vowed never to go back.  Not through spite, or fear,  nor through any sense of righteous indignation.  I just moved on.  I haven't spoken to the people from my past or displayed any interest in their lives.  I didn't care.  For me, they simply ceased to have meaning. Until Afghanistan.  For me, and for reasons that are not relevant here or yet, Afghanistan represented something I needed to do.  But in preparing for it I was forced to consider, and reconcile myself with, my past.  Just as I had to accept the possibility that there would be no future.  As part of my mental preparations, I found myself drawn.  Back in time, and back in place, to another world, another part of my life, long forgotten, barely remembered, hardly considered.  Whether through a misbegotten desire for closure, whatever that is, or a desperate need to recapture a sense of, at least once, belonging.  I needed to look back and see something bright, something whole, complete and unblemished.  Something to savour in the times to come.  Despite having nothing to be ashamed of, I stole back, unannounced, unaccompanied, to see, once more, the places of my childhood.  I saw the school, the streets, the sights, but they were just memories, places empty of personalities.  I needed more. I felt the wind picking up.  A storm was coming.

Certainty

Afghanistan.  2011

Benjamin Franklin once famously said "nothing is certain, except death and taxes".  Yet another great man who never knew Afghanistan. 

On Monday, a UK Apache attack helicopter, firing 30mm cannon on an insurgent on a motorbike, hit 5 boys playing in a field.  On Thursday, a French soldier opened fire on a car in Kapisa, killing three Afghan civilians including a woman and a child.  Also on Thursday, a 9 year old boy called Ibrahim was strangled, his body left in a ditch, because his police officer father refused to give the Taliban his police car.  On Friday, 16 civilians were killed in a roadside bomb blast in Helmand. 22 more were killed, mostly women and children, in a series of linked suicide attacks in Uruzgan.   

Depressing as this all sounds, it gets worse.  Civilian casualties are at an historic high, with recently released UN figures showing Afghanistan suffered 1,462 civilian deaths from January to June, a 15% increase on the same period last year.  It is stressed that 80% of all these deaths were caused by insurgents, with 14% caused by ISAF and 6% "unattributed".  May 2011 saw the most deaths of any month since the UN began recording civilian casualties in 2007, while June 2011 saw the most casualties recorded by improvised explosive devices.   Over the same 6 month period, suicide attacks have caused 52% more casualties during the first half of 2011 than the same period in 2010. All these figures are, of course, unverifiable.  They are a "best guess".  All these figures also form the backdrop for the handover of responsibility for security, from ISAF to the Afghans.  Things must be getting better...

We have no idea of the numbers of insurgents killed in Afghanistan.  NATO policy is not to deal in an enemy body-count as a "metric of progress".  NATO also believes the number of insurgent deaths or injuries "does not equal success" in a counter-insurgency campaign, the main stated aim of which is now to protect the Afghan people. Conservative estimates however place the number at around 5000 a year.  NATO and its individual coalition partners do, however, release news of each ISAF nation's own military fatalities to each nation's media - hence the continuous reporting stream of NATO casualties of which you are all well aware.

Given the woeful lack of any government structure in most of this country, it seems Mr Franklin was wrong.  In Afghanistan, only one thing is certain.

Poppy Appeal

June 2011.  Afghanistan

Karl Marx said "Religion is the opium of the masses".  Karl Marx obviously never visited Afghanistan.  Here, opium is the opium of the masses.  We may be fighting the Taliban, supporting the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and securing the population but inextricably linked with all three is the drugs trade.  Opium poppy cultivation and drug trafficking are insidiously intertwined at all levels of the political and economic situation of Afghanistan. When the Soviets left in 1989 opium poppy cultivation increased rapidly as mujahideen commanders, no longer funded by the US, taxed poppy cultivation and used the drug trade as a source of financing their military groups and struggle for power. Overtly, their opponents, the Taliban condemned narcotics cultivation as haraam - anti-Islamic, but a desperate requirement for ready cash to finance their fight led to toleration and ultimately taxation of drug cultivation.  To give you some sort of scale, in 1980 just 2000 tons of opium supplied the entire worlds legal and illegal drug use. Bizarrely, to give them credit, once in power, the Taliban banned opium poppy cultivation and under the ban, opium poppy cultivation was reduced by 94% to 185 metric tons.  Yay!  Since the downfall of the Taliban in 2001, cultivation and trafficking of opium has increased significantly.  In 2002, Afghanistan produced over 5000 tons of raw opium.  Boo!  Afghanistan is now, once again, the world's largest producer of opium.  90% of the heroin consumed in Europe comes from opium produced in Afghanistan and 93% of all the opiates on the world market originate in Afghanistan.  The price for one kilogram of opium is about $100 for the farmer, $800 for purchasers in Afghanistan, and $16,000 on the streets of Europe before conversion into heroin. Despite the price inequalities, for farmers it's worth ten times what they could earn by growing any other crop.  They can earn $2000 from a poppy harvest, that's in a country where GDP is less than $3 a day per person. It's big business.  It makes up about 60% of Afghanistans GDP. 

The production of opium has not changed since ancient times.  When the poppies are grown for opium production, just before they ripen, about 90 days after planting, the petals fall off revealing a pod about the size of an egg.  The pods are cut by with sharp blade and the poppy exudes a white, milky, latex-like substance that leads to its name - poppy tears.  The tears dry to a sticky brown resin which is collected the following morning and then the poppy can be cut again.  There is a ten to twelve day window for the harvest but expert harvesters can repeat this process many times over on the same poppy. One acre can produce three to five kilograms of raw opium which can then be refined into morphine base, which is used to produce other drugs such as heroin.  This can then be pressed into bricks and sun-dried before further onward travel. Much like its effects on individuals, the effects of this trade on the country is devastating.  On a local level it divides villages.  Religious mullahs condemn it as evil and tribal elders are usurped by younger and richer men, upsetting the traditional order which is so important in this country.  The Taliban profit by taxing the farmers and by processing and selling the product, financing the insurgency.  On a national level it manifests itself in internal corruption, political instability and reduced security.  Externally it leads to international condemnation.

There are poppy eradication programmes, and the British have the lead on this, with our troops assisting the Afghans.  Programmes such as this are understandably unpopular amongst low level subsistence farmers and often alienate us from the grass roots level we are trying to win over, pushing them towards the Taliban and violent resistance.  Until a viable economic alternative can be found, until we have enough troops to cover this vast country or until we can interdict enough of the end product, the outlook remains bleak.  It seems a bitter irony that the flower which is directly responsible for the deaths of so many British soldiers, is the same flower that we wear to remember them.

Shallow graves

Some memories, like bodies, should be buried deep.  By all means, listen to the bell, tolling their death knell.  Weep at their wake and mark where they lay.  But then cover them with deep layers and do not disturb them, for the sight of corpses, long dead, bodes no good.

Some memories need marking.  To these, erect monuments, proud and tall and strong, revealing to all where they lie, conceal nothing, remember everything.  Mark your vows.

Some memories need a special place.  Scatter their ashes across much loved ground, to be revisited and savoured.  Savour the birth of a child.

Some memories need recognition.  Remembrance.  The creation of new, temporarily suspended, whilst we pause and remember the old, before returning, once more. Remember your father.

Some memories need nothing.

But some memories are best forgotten.  Bury them deep to disguise the smell of rotting flesh.  Hide them away, unmarked and unvisited for they will attract those with a taste for such things. Memories buried in shallow graves are all too easily discovered.  Too easily dug up in moments of weakness and regret.  Memories buried in shallow graves are accidentally stumbled upon and others may not be as forgiving.  Others may get hurt.  Others may hold you responsible and hunt you down, seeking to punish and exact revenge.  Better to burn them, erasing all evidence that they ever existed.  They never happened.

Any given Sunday

2011  Afghanistan

I went to church today.

As most of you know, I am not a particularly religious person.  My children were christened in a church, I got married in a church, I drive past one when I take the kids to nursery, but that's about it really. I am not going to get into a whole debate about God and stuff, that's not the point of this email.  I'll come to the point in a minute.

The padre here, a rather portly, balding RAF chap wanders around camp, mostly the DFACs (food halls, remember), trying to jolly up the troops in that well-meaning but slightly annoying "I'm not really one of you"-way that padres have.  He also sends emails exhorting us to come to church to headquarters, who post them up on buildings.  The emails are, again, slightly jolly - gentle ribs at himself and the lack of numbers at his services. In a camp where numbers can fluctuate up to 25,000 (definitely an email for the future) It's all a bit sad.

Everyday, on my way to HQ I walk past a flagpole outside the entrance.  On it is an American flag.  Every time the United States lose a soldier here (not anywhere in Afghanistan, just here) they lower the flag to half mast.  I walk past the flag pole and see a flag at half mast.  Set against a beautiful back drop of mountains and a mass of cameras and detectors watching out for INS attacks and rocket attempts, it's quite poignant.  Every time I see the flag at half mast I walk into the briefing room and offer my apologies to my US partner, who accepts them a little awkwardly, maybe a little guiltily and we move on.  This keeps happening.  Almost every day.  I have been here 24 days and I have offered my condolences a lot.  So much so that it's becoming a little trite.  I have now stopped doing it.  It was becoming a constant reminder to him that they are losing a lot of people, and it was becoming too much of a ritual for me.  It's all a bit sad.

You can probably see where this is going.  I saw one of the emails posted up and strangely, very strangely, I had nothing on at 1700 on Sunday.  I had a weird urge to go along.  Whether to keep the padre happy, show a bit of British solidarity, just have a quiet hour I dont know.  But at 1703 I was stood in a large wooden hut, with perhaps 13 other people (mostly Americans, the remainder, senior RAF officers).  The "stained glass" windows were sheets of plastic that have had coloured paint swabbed across them and the music was coming from a small stereo, but it was quiet and it was calm.  It was nice.  Just for an hour.  We did communion and the jolly padre pointed out it's the only legal source of alcohol on camp.  Dutiful chuckles.  I self-consciously stood and mumbled for the hymns, looked at my watch a lot and wondered why I was there.  At 1755 I shook hands with the padre who desperately looked like he wanted to talk to me and I went for dinner.

As I walked back, the flag was at half-mast.

Secret lives

June 2012.  This is not an Afghanistan piece.  It is a new piece.  I don't know what it means.

We all have two lives.  Our real life and our secret life.

In our real life we are what we appear to be.  We love those we are with, we care for those around us.  Every day we do what we must to oil the wheels of the machine on which we grind out our existence.  We buy, we sell, we present, we minute. We laugh, dutifully,  at our employers pathetic jokes, when inside we choke on the bile of hypocrisy.  We share pleasantries with people we would not share our air with if we had the choice.  In our real life we seize pleasure when we can, jealously grasping it, unconsciously clutching it, stretching it out.  We crave pleasure, and when we achieve it we cling to it hungrily, like a thief grasps his objective.  But such pleasures are illusory, transitory, fleeting.  The pain you experience when the rain lashes against your face, making you feel alive  The joy you feel at seeing children play. The memories evoked by the sounds and smells of your own childhood, long forgotten, briefly remembered.  Like the smile on your face when the sun kisses it, these things fade, leaving behind a growing coldness.  We return to our office, our home, our family and we feel less happy than we were, unable to shake off the insidious sense that we are missing something, that there is supposed to be more to life than this.

And then the darkness comes, and we are enveloped by it, the layers of our secret life and our real life lying like lovers,  one upon the other, the edges of each blurring, until the secret life rushes in.

It is only in our secret life that we are truly ourselves.

In our secret life we are brave. In our secret life we are strong, we know no fear and we suffer no loneliness.  In our secret life we followed the path we dared not tread in our real life.  We lead the existence we were meant to lead, the one denied to us by our parents, by our husbands, by our wives, by our real life.  We lead the life free from the incessant demands of our children and the unrelenting requirements of our employers.  In our secret life there are no consequences to our actions, at least none we can't control.  The pretty woman across the bar, with the shirt unbuttoned just one too many, revealing flawless skin, is ours to pluck.   Unsullied, supple, welcoming.  The antagonist we fear offending is ours to punish, no regret at pain inflicted, no remorse at humiliation inflicted.  Years of suffering and torment erased in a flurry of fists and blood.  All who have offended, belittled, doubted, prevented us from achieving all we were meant to achieve, punished in a cathartic, frenzied fury.

Then we wake.  Alone with ourselves.  Real life.

Food for thought.

Afghanistan.  2011

Now far be it for me to get involved in "peevish wrangling" but I think I have slightly more of a case than Lucy Honeychurch here.  Her complaint was just that she didn't have a view of the River Arno.  Hmm.  I don't have a view of the River Arno.  I don't have a view of a river.  I fact, I don't have a view.  Unless you count a blast wall and a generator as a view.  We will come back to views at some point in the future but today I want to talk about peevish wrangling.  It may seem peevish, or petty, but there is currently some deegree of consternation and complaining regarding the food served at the two DFACs (Dining Facility) here.  It's hard to explain the importance of meals and mealtimes out here but they do assume a disproportionate amount of significance.  Meals offer a chance to get out of the workplace, with a small group of friends and relax for a while.  The anticipation of what may be served at the next meal is a topic of hot conversation.  The dissatisfaction with a bad meal may affect the rest of the days work.  Apart from the war, sleep and gym there is only food.  Hopefully you get it. (The importance, not the food)

Bear in mind the original contract awarded to the caterers was based on providing "British food".  Obviously as time has passed the relative proportion of nations here has changed, so a monthly Dining Forum Meeting was instigated, at which representatives from all the nations put forward points.  The following are all genuine extracts from an email sent round after this months meeting.  They are all true but such a caricature...

The management began the meeting by stating they were taking action to deal with the flies (good luck with that!) and that approval had been granted to obtain fresh bread from a local bakery so frozen bread would be phased out.  All very sensible and welcome.  They also respectfully asked that when an attack alarm sounds, people did not cock their weapons and assume firing positions, but rather they left the building in an orderly process and returned to their place of duty.  To be fair, I see their point.  The thought of a hundred plus gung-ho Americans, cocking M16s and setting up defensive positions around the hot plate and ice cream dispenser fills me with dread.  Worse still, I expect, would be the reaction from the new-in-theatre and oh-so slightly paranoid, Mongolian Force Protection detail, who eat their meals in full body armour and helmets with weapons slung, regardless of threat levels.

Having thus set the scene for a descent into farce, the meeting was opened to the floor...The Italians complained that the pasta is overcooked, and they want the sauce mixed in not served separately. They also complained about the quality of cheese, ham and bacon, stating they want original parmesan not imitation.  The Germans have complained that the beef is overcooked and the potatoes are uundercooked.  The Australians asked for tub ice cream and for a nutritional vegetarian option.  Are none of these nations aware that overdone pasta, underdone potatoes and no nutritional vegetarian options is the epitome of "British food"?  They are, to coin a very apt, food related, phrase, getting exactly what it says on the tin.  The US, as ever,  reinforced their national traits, by ignoring the big picture and concentrating on the minutiae - they wanted the tomatoes cut smaller (?) a better ratio of diet sodas and more ingredients in the soup (?).  To complete the farce, the British rep had only one comment.  He asked for more salad....

Blue Moon

Kabul 2011

I was standing alone. You can probably see the link to the title already.  Clever huh?  Anyway, there I was, standing alone.  It was late (or early, depending on your habits), about 0100 in the morning here, which, with the current time difference, made it 9.30 in the evening there.  Did you notice the clever switch between army and civvy time?  Here to please.  Anyway, I was.  Standing.  Alone.  I had gone outside to get some fresh air.  The room I was working in was best described as fetid.  Manned 24 hours and full of sweating, smelly men, all of whom would have rather been anywhere else but there at that time.  I went outside to clear my head.  It had been a long day and another fairly depressing one, with Australian, American and British dead and wounded.  I try so hard to think of something jolly to say in these emails but it's not as easy as that.  (I am going to have to dig out some sort of "cat-stuck-up-a-tree rescue" or "soldier wins war" good news story aren't I?) 

So.  Standing.  Alone.  I looked up and although it was another crystal clear night I couldn't see the moon. Not even a glimpse.  Nothing, nada.  Probably all part of some dastardly Taleban plot.  Damn them and their meddling.  Best I investigate.  So I did.  Apparently it wasn't the Taleban.  There just wasn't a moon.  That made me sad.  I will tell you why in a minute.  Upon further investigation I discovered that most years have twelve full moons, each of which occurs, approximately monthly (one lunation being precisely 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 3 seconds - see, informative and educational.  That's me). There are very few days when there is no moon.  Great.  Just my luck.  Here's an interesting but tricky maths bit.  Each solar calendar year is about eleven days longer than the lunar year of 12 lunations. The extra days accumulate, so every two or three years there is an extra full moon. Da dah!  The Blue Moon.  Interestingly, 31 May is the last day of the lunar calendar as well as the month.  That doesn't happen often either, both dates coinciding.  I digress.  Back to the email.

Alone.  Standing.  No moon. Sad.  I'm getting there.  Hold on.  Early in my tour in a telephone conversation with my son, who was 3 at the time, he told me he missed me.  I missed him enormously too. I didn't realise quite how much until he said it. When he said it, I got a lump in my throat and a wrench in the stomach.  I am sure he did miss me, just as my wife, daughter, and I hope, everyone else, missed me.  But hearing it from him hit me hard.  In the side of the phonecabin I was calling from there was a small window looking up into the sky from which I could see the moon.  I told my son to get Mummy to take him outside when we had finished the phone call.   If he looked up he would see the moon.  I told him I would also look up and see the moon.  I told him it was the same moon I could see and if he thought of me, I would think of him.  Every time he could see the moon, Daddy could see the same moon.  From then on, whenever I see it I think of him.

Anyway.  There was no moon.  Let alone an extra one.  It made me blue.

Mile High Club

Kabul. 2011

I have fallen in love. 

It's beautiful here.  OK, ignore the weapon I have to carry at all times, the suicide bombers, rocket attacks and constant threat of imminent, ugly death.  Ignore all the doom and gloom emails and the depressing conversation.  Ignore all that and just stop for a minute.  Take a look around.  It's baking hot but I turn a full circle and all I can see are snow topped mountains rising way above me. 

When I say rising above me I mean it - and don't forget we are at about 5900 feet (or 1800m) above sea level.  For those who know it, and as a comparison, the tip of Pen Y Fan, the highest mountain in the Brecon Beacons is at 2907 ft.  That means it's about 3000 feet below me.  I parachuted from a plane at a lower height than I am standing at now. I am, literally, more than a mile high and I am still surrounded by mountains rising up.  I am on a plateau in a narrow valley wedged between the Hindu Kush mountains. If I can use a crap description - It's like being in a bowl.  If I don't use a crap description  - it's magnificent.  The sky is completely and utterly blue, a rich,deep blue with not a single cloud in the sky.  The lines of the mountains are the only things that cut straight through the sky, the black and white of the peaks in stark contrast.  It's a mountaineers fantasy, a trekkers paradise, a backwoodsmans dream.  Untouched by tourism, unsullied by industry, unspoiled by progress.

Hindu Kush may translate as "Hindu slaughter", a dark hint at its 5000 year tragic past and a pointed reminder of the many genocides that have occurred here, but there is no denying their looming presence and timeless beauty.  An Afghan poet once wrote of Kabul and the Hindu Kush - "May Allah protect such beauty from the evil eye of man!"  Too late.  I have seen it and I am smitten.  I have joined the Mile High Club.  No sex though.  Different club.

Genesis.

Everyone has to start somewhere.  Everything has to have its genesis.  Mine was Afghanistan.  Sounds dramatic doesn't it?  It sounds like a film trailer voiceover.  "He was spawned from a cauldron of conflict, birthed in the fires of war" etc. etc.  It wasn't like that.   For those of you who don't know me (nice to meet you by the way), let me explain. - Last year I went to Afghanistan.  Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be.  Anyway, whilst I was there I struggled.  I struggled to process some of the things I witnessed and participated in.  Yes, I witnessed things I would rather have not. I probably participated in some I would rather have not.  Yes it has affected me, but not in that post traumatic shock sort of way that most people think everyone who has seen war is afflicted by.  Tainted by association.  No.  Afghanistan made me think.  At least it made me think more.  About more.  It opened my eyes to the mundane nature of most of our life, the irrelevance of most of our worries and the inconsequential nature of the obstacles we face.  It made me think, and in making me think, it forced me to answer some questions I didn't know I had asked and it confronted me with responses that affected my perception of so many things I had previously accepted as immutable truths, fundamental principles.  So, in a very probable contravention of the rules, I started to write.    Nothing secret, nothing that would endanger anyone or offer succour to our enemies.

What follows now are those pieces.  Rather like my life, it's all out of order.  In writing this now, I am trying to set the context for what is to follow. What follows is what started it all.  Its Genesis. I wanted to continue with the Biblical naming thing. Not because I'm religious (I'm not).  Not because it's clever (it is).  Not because I cling desperately to anything that offers a sense of purpose or order (I do).  I wanted to continue with the Biblical reference because it's comfortable.  It's familiar, and, like a salmon swimming unwittingly back to death in the place of its birth, I need to complete the circle.  This is my Genesis.  Welcome to my Land of Confusion.

In the beginning.

Ha!  I'm here.  In the bloggosphere.  Wherever that is. I have called my blog, "Life", because that's what it's about.  Life.  Mine.  Yours.  Ours.  It is utterly self indulgent because it's all about me.  What I see, what I feel and what I observe.  Sometimes it might be about other people, but only in as much as they cross my path.  This morning when I started building this blog I went through a series of templates and when they were all completed and the blog was ready to go, a little red message box appeared on my screen from Google.  It said, simply, and I think, rather aptly - "Life has been created"