afghan-O-rama

Movie Reviews

jrkerney — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:19:03 +0000

So while Ive been at one FOB waiting transport to another FOB I have had a lot of time on my hands, and with that time I have been watching movies (I also watched the first season of Deadwood… I was counting the times that the word ‘fuck’ was uttered but I lost count at around 3000… and that was only the 1st episode! Just kidding… but seriously they say ‘fuck’ a whole fucking lot in that show). I have a couple hundred movies on a hard drive so I thought I would do some reviews just to pass the time. Seriously I’m really bored and Im too sick to smoke so this gives me something do. I added a lil twist to the review, take a gander and see if you can spot what it is:

Movie #1 – Bronson:

Big bald beautifully brutal Brit

Likes jail too much

Sick mustache

Movie #2 – American Pie: The Naked Mile:

Oh God not another one

Good job Eugene

You’re gainfully employed

Movie #3 - Zombieland:

Goofy Jewish kid from Adventureland

Gets the girl

Bill Murray dies

Movie #4 – The Spirit:

It has the dad

From the Wonder Years

And Sam Jackson as a Nazi

Movie #5 – Observe and Report:

Disgusting fat slob

Shows off his small prick

And its not Seth Rogen

Movie #6 – Semi-Pro:

Jackie Moon, Ron Burgundy

Ricky Bobby, Mugatu

All the same

Movie #7 - Good Luck Chuck:

Dane Cook is just awful…

yeah thats all I got for that one.

So did you figure it out?

On the road again…

jrkerney — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:05:44 +0000

So Im out and about once again. I’m a bit under the weather but I feel I will get better when I spend as much time away from Bagram as possible. The guy that bunks underneath me has been sick for like 45 days, no seriously its been a month and a half. He hacks up a lung all night, never covers his mouth and leaves snot rags all over the place. Im actually surprised that I made 45 days before getting sick. It also doesn’t help that the heater is cranked to some hellish level therefore making my shitty plywood love shack and incubator for germs.

Of course things are always nicer out on the road, I have my own bunk in the corner of a tent and there are only two other people occupying it… the tent that is, not my bunk. Plus there is no noise, no snoring, the air is mild and I can sleep, for the most part anyways, im all stuffed up.

Also where I am out now there are no lights and last night the sky was cloud free and the stars were shinning bright. It was absolutely EPIC. You could see everything! If it wasn’t so damn cold I would have stayed out and gazed at them longer but it was like 20 degrees outside and the snot running down my nose was starting to freeze to the scraggly patch of hair on my face that I call a mustache. That’s all for now.

Get Some…

jrkerney — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:34:41 +0000

So I finally got to get out to some of the sites over the past 10 days and I had myself a blast. I guess anytime away from Bagram is awesome Ill definitely be looking to go out as often as I can. I felt productive for the first time since I’ve been here, helping out on the systems and getting them up and running as to where they can properly function. But it was cool hanging out with the soldiers and just shooting the shit with them, smoking and joking just like I use to. They would tell me stories and how things are going out there; they were very approachable and were very open to me. I would tell them how things were when you’re a civilian and how I had fun at college and they seemed to latch on to that as most of them were planning on getting out and going to school when they got back state side.

I had the most fun at FOB (Forward Operating Base) I went to on the 7^th. They were having problems with some data and I was already in their area so I said shit why not, I’ll roll out. The helicopter landed on the LZ and I was unloading my gear I hear this big BOOM and I was like “oh shit what the fuck was that!” I ducked down a little bit and turned to look at the front of the LZ and there was a battery of 105mm Howitzers firing up into the hills. The guns were hot when we landed and soon as the bird touched down they fired. As I was walking up to the FOB they kept firing. They paused and let the helo leave then they let go another salvo. It was pretty damn cool. I would never want to be an artillery man but still it was pretty awesome.

So mind you this the 7^th of November. The runoff election was supposed to be held that day. But a few weeks ago Abdullah Abdullah backed out. The whole time I was out there I was thinking to myself, if these guys (Taliban) were planning do something on Election Day, they would still do it even if the elections got cancelled. Why let a good plan go to waste right? So later that night a call comes down from an OP (Observation Post) that overlooks the FOB saying that they were getting shot at. The OPs are manned by ANA (Afghan National Army) and they don’t have night vision like the Americans do. So all there saying is that they are getting shot at but don’t know from where. So we swing the camera system around to the OP and we can see the ANA as clear as day with the IR (Infra Red) camera. And they’re up there just kicking it. So the TOC (Tactical Operations Command) commander is like “Those fuckers aren’t getting shot at,” then all of a sudden they start scrambling and you see little puffs from where the rounds are hitting their compound and the rocks that surround the OP. Then we see this one ANA joker stand up and put his AK over his head and start shooting wildly like he’s back on the block or something and everyone in the TOC starts busting out with laughter watching this ANA dude do his best impression of Tony Montana in the finale of Scarface.

So the soldiers are scanning the hillside with the camera and can’t see anybody, so the bad guys are more than likely on the back side. A few minutes later there is call from some helos saying they’re in route, so everybody in the TOC runs outside. Now it is pitch-black outside, you seriously cannot see your own hand in front of your face it is that dark. There is total cloud clover and you can see lighting glowing in the clouds in the background. Then you hear the woosh woosh of the rotors from the helos. I’m telling you it was straight out of the movies, Hollywood could not have written a better script as how this thing unfolded. You can hear the helos hovering over head then you see a bright orange burst, looks exactly like a firework going off in the sky. Then a millisecond later you see a bright orange trail and loud WOOOOSH as the rocket goes flying across the sky into the draw where the bad guys are. The helos probably fired 6-7 salvos into the draw. All the soldiers are outside the TOC yelling “Fuck Yeah””Allah Akbar motherfuckers!””Oh shit that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” Yeah it was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen too.

So yeah, that was my excitement over the past couple of days, now I’m back at good ol Bagram hanging out in the plywood love shack with my civilian snorechestra pretty much hating life again. Hopefully Ill get to go out again soon.

Yarp

jrkerney — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:59:58 +0000

Guess who got a desk in an office!? This guy! Yeah buddy, rolling like a big shot, chevy tuned up like a NASCAR pit stop and what not.

So I felt pretty magnanimous the other day and gave away some clothes to some of the locals that work on our cool lil compound over here. 1) There will be some styling mofos over here now 2) If I see a terrorist running around in my old Nudie Jeans im going to be really pissed off!

There was snow on the mountains this morning, it was pretty cool (literally and figuratively). I need to bust out my camera and put some pics up. Its gonna be pretty effin cold this winter, this according to the locals. They should know, right?

So um yeah, still nothing really exciting to write about, but that should be changing soon. Elections coming up in a few week s here, should be pretty exciting!

War is Hell…

jrkerney — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:15:36 +0000

shit

jrkerney — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:15:34 +0000

I really need to get up on this thing, there just really isn’t anything that has happened to me to write about! Arrrrrrgh! This place just gets dumber and dumber over here though. There was a contractor who was in some sort of supervisory position and he was watching hajis (locals) do electrical work on a wooden building that has been turned into a living quarters. Man I feel so safe here. If a mortar or an IED doesn’t get me its gonna be because of some spotty haji engineering which was checked off by some backwoods hick. I should be getting outside the wire soon which will be welcome because this place is killing me!

As for the Prez getting the Nobel Peace Prize… really guys? The Nobel Peace Prize is a sham award. Obama got the award because he is not George Bush. He was given it because of his attempts to broaden international diplomacy, curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons and reach out to the muslim world. Keyword attempt. Didn’t Iran pretty much give the world the middle finger on the nuclear issue already? I think North Korea has thrown up a second middle finger too. What kind of message would 40000 more troops in Afghanistan send to the muslim world? I think the Prez should say thanks but no thanks. There are much more deserving people of this award than him and there are people and organizations that could use the money more than him. If he doesn’t accomplish what the nobel committee expects him to accomplish what are they to do? You can only go so high before you have to come down.

Lame-ski!

jrkerney — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:02:00 +0000

I wish I could write more about my totally awesome adventures in this wondrous land of ancient peoples but unfortunately I have had no such adventures to write about. It would be monotonous of me to write about my daily routine of waking up, eating, sitting, eating, shitting, sitting, eating, shitting, showering, sleeping. Rinse, lather repeat. WTF am I doing here besides collecting a fat pay check, which will be even fatter once I get more hours added to it.

Im a man of action, not a man of in-action. I probably should’ve stuck to my guns back in the day and gone back in the Army. Honestly it has never been about the money for me. Id rather do something that had purpose and where I would get some sort of satisfaction out of it. This job, not so much.

But before I get ahead of myself I will be occupied with some biznass on fixing the flaws on the system my company has fielded out here. It will give me something to do and maybe ill enjoy it… prob not though. Oh well.

They should call this place Bore-gram

jrkerney — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:13:15 +0000

So this must be what prison feels like. Confined to certain area where the only forms of entertainment are lifting weights and showering. I haven’t done shit since I’ve been here. Well the other day I went up on a redneck-rigged fork lift and changed out a camera that was on top of a pole. (Pictures to come later) Wasn’t my company’s camera but I was bored and I wanted something to do so I went. Seriously when I was here with the military I had a mission and I was occupied just about every hour that I was awake. Now in the off chance an issue arises it’s either a quick fix or I forward on the issue to the office and they sit on it.

I have made plenty of observations since I’ve been here; like the fact that are a lot of fat bodies trolling around this piece. They have Burger King, Subway, Pizza Hut, Popeye’s and coffee shops up in here for god’s sake! They say it’s to keep the morale of the troops up. To give them a piece of home here in the Ghan. We lost the war as soon as those things went in. What kind of soldier is gonna go out and fight when he is content being fat and happy choking down Whoppers and caramel lattes? I wouldn’t want a double wide in my fighting position with me. The kind of soldier you want out in the field is one who is pissed off as all hell cause McDonalds brought the McRib back and he isn’t at home to enjoy it. Instead his best friend is taking HIS old lady out to get one, and you know what he’s gonna super size it for her. That’s what need in the field, a caged animal ready to attack and kill on command. An angry American. Just like we use to be. Game over.

Back from the Souf!

jrkerney — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:17:59 +0000

Sorry it’s been a few days since I’ve done a post but I was down south in Kandahar for a few days. Why I was down there I have no idea because there were no systems down there for me to even look at. Yeah I have feeling that this place is going to make dumber than I already am.

So Kandahar is a NATO base and let me tell you that the Europeans know how to go to war. 1^st off they have pretty girls in their military and they have, shall I say form fitting uniforms. The Euros definitely field a forward fashion military. 2^nd they don’t have all the stupid rules that the US does, the most important being the banning of alcohol. Gotta love the Euros.

Problem is that they share a DFAC with the Americans. And when the Euros do burgers and fries they omit a few key ingredients that go with that combo. Ketchup and Mustard! C’mon fellas we having going to war and such for 60 years now, you know Americans want ketchup and mustard for their burgers and fries, not mayonnaise! But they did have pretty good coffee; I know for a fact that they wouldn’t screw that up.

Also Kandahar smelled like rotten eggs. Someone told they have a giant poo pond in the middle of the base but I didn’t see it, all I know is that place wreaked pretty bad.

Anyways I am back up at Bagram now, I’ll let y’all know when something stupid happens…

My B-Hut

jrkerney — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:54:25 +0000

Not Pictured: Members of MS-13

Yeah i called top bunk when I got here no big deal.