Day 397: One Last Ride

Almost exactly ten months ago I arrived in Afghanistan. Since then I have spent a lot of my time traveling the countryside and visiting downrange bases. I have seen a lot of things, met a lot of interesting people, and had many unique experiences. Well, today marked the end of my Afghan travels as I concluded my final “big trip” before I head home next month. I may have one or two runs into Herat city before I go home, but outside of that, my traveling days are essentially over. So as I spent two and a half hours on the road today, I tried to enjoy the last leg of the journey. I tried to get a lot of pictures of these Afghan people I have tried my best to serve over this past year. I tried to enjoy the interesting and surprisingly beautiful desert landscape that I have come so used to as it passed me by. I reflected on how blessed I have been to have traveled these roads in safety. The reality that this journey actually is going to end soon started to kick in. I started to feel excitement that I will soon be home with Sue and the kids, my family and friends, and normal life again.

And then all of the peaceful reflection ended as the Humvee started to overheat and I started to get blasted with hot air as the A/C was turned off and the heater turned on. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted and it wouldn’t be memorable if there weren’t a few bumps in the road...right?

Here are a few pictures of the journey.

Day 396: Trading Syringes for RPGs

For the past 72 hours I have been down at Shouz (two hours south of Herat) as part of my last big trip of this deployment. Although it has been nice to be away from Stone for a few days, it has also been extremely monotonous. My days and nights have been filled with little more than filling syringes with vaccine in advance of a new class of police student’s arriving here. I have literally spent the last 3 days doing nothing more than filling syringes...and after about a thousand it starts getting a little old.


So this afternoon I jumped at the chance to get away from my syringes for a few minutes and go do something a little more exciting. I was offered the opportunity to go out to the firing range and shoot RPGs (rocket propelled grenades). This isn’t something that many people get to do (especially doctors) so I was quick to accept the offer.

It reminded me a little of my range days a year ago back at Fort Riley. We put on our body armor, had a little class, and then went to work laying down fire on the hill in front of us. It was a very impressive, powerful, and loud weapon. I was definitely glad I was on the giving end instead of the receiving end of this beast. We each had a chance to shoot twice before the ammo ran out. It was a fun experience and a much needed break.




Well I better run...I’ve got to get back to my syringes.

Day 390: Moving Boxes

Since I have been in the military I have moved a lot of boxes. In fact, outside of practicing medicine, moving boxes has probably been the thing that has occupied most of my time over these past five years in the Navy. There have been innumerable boxes that I have packed, moved, and stored as the Navy has sent us on our journey from Washington, D.C., to Virginia, to California, to Nevada, and finally to Utah. I don’t think “clearing out the boxes in the garage” has ever left the weekend to-do list since Sue and I were first married. So you would think that coming here to Afghanistan would finally give me a chance to get out of the box moving business for a while, right? WRONG!




Honestly, if you added up all the boxes in the moving trucks, storage units, and garages I have had over the past several years, they would be nothing compared to the pile of boxes I have moved since arriving here at Camp Stone. There have been shipments of urine specimen cups. There have been taxi’s full of vaccines. There was even a bus that was completely full of first aid kits (I wish I would have taken a picture of that one). I have moved boxes from one end of Camp Stone to another. I have hauled them over to the neighboring ANA base. I have moved them from storage containers to humvees and from trucks to storage containers. About the only thing I haven’t done is loaded boxes onto the back of a camel.

Well, lately I have enjoyed my box moving experiences a little bit more. This is because I have been receiving the boxes containing the donations from our Afghan service project. It ended up being a huge project and the amount collected and sent over was amazing. Yesterday I received the latest shipment--approximately 15 boxes (shown below). Over the past few months, as I have moved each individual box (totaling well over a hundred), I have been humbled by the love and generosity of those who donated so much. Each box contains something that will change a life--from clothes that will cover a newborn baby to backpacks filled with paper, crayons, and pencils that will help a child gain an education. Your donations have made and will continue to make a huge difference for thousands of Afghan children.


So thanks again for your generosity and helping contribute to the “watch Justin move 452 boxes in 452 days” project. Luckily, I only have a few more weeks of box moving left until I make it back home. And what will I do once I make it back home? That’s right, my first item of business is to pack everything I own into boxes and move them back to Fallon!

Day 385: A Truck Full of Medicine

Today we loaded a police truck full of boxes that were filled with medicine. By the time we were done, the boxes were practically falling off the back of the pick up. Although it looks like quite a large amount of medicine, it actually is very little--considering it needs to supply the medication requirement of all of the police in western Afghanistan. Imagine one truck full of medicine needing to satisfy the demand for all police and their families in the state of Utah for several months. When you think of it in that sense, one truck load suddenly becomes much less significant. Regardless, we were happy to get the small amount that we did. For over a year, the Afghans I work with have been unable to obtain any medicine due to their backward and broken logistics system. However, after flying to Kabul ourselves last month, we were finally able to push through some of the barriers that have kept us from getting medications in the past. So there you have it...one small truck full of medicine. It is a small success story I know, but at least things are moving in the right direction. Hopefully by the time my replacement is getting ready to go home next year, they will be able to fill two pick ups full of medicine. Baby steps, right?

Day 380: Frequent Flier Miles

I didn’t realize when I came back from leave, that I would be traveling so much. It seems like every other week I am jumping on a plane to conduct some kind of business. Today started my latest journey as I got into a Sweedish C-130 and headed to Kabul. I wish somehow I could accumulate frequent flier miles for all the trips I’ve been on during this deployment. I’m sure I would have earned enough miles for a free trip to Hawaii or some other exotic destination by now. Just to give you a reminder of some of the flights I have taken, I’ve listed them below.

I’ve flown from...

Utah to San Diego
San Diego to Kansas
Kansas to Salt Lake and back again (three times)
Kansas to Kabul
Kabul to Salt Lake (and back again for leave)
Herat to Bagram, Bagram to Kabul, Kabul to Kandahar, Farah to Herat, and any other combination of Afghan cities you can think of.

All in all, I’m sure I’ve circled this crazy world of ours a few times by now. It’s been a fun ride. I’ve seen a lot of new places and met a lot of new people. I’ve flown on American, Canadian, Italian, Spanish, German, and now Sweedish aircraft. I’ve touched down in Kuwait, Germany, Ireland, Kyrgystan, and of course Afghanistan. It has been quite an adventure.

The best news of all is that this will be the last addition to my frequent flier account until I embark on my final journey--the journey back home. And if you hadn’t heard, it looks like this trip home will arrive just a little sooner than originally anticipated. If all goes as planned, I should be back with Sue and the kids by the last week of July!

Day 376: The Gunner

It isn’t often that I am the guy up in the turret of the Humvee...especially if the weapon on top of it is loaded. Sure, I qualified and learned how to shoot these weapons when I was at Ft. Riley and honestly I wasn’t a half bad shot. However, since Ft. Riley I have spent little time up in the turret. I think the Army realizes that sticking a doctor up in the turret is probably not the wisest use of its assets.

Yesterday afternoon, however, I found myself in enemy territory, up in the turret, watching and waiting for the bad guys to come my way. Alright, I may be dramatizing this story some. I actually was sitting in a very secure compound (the Herat Police Headquarters) and had little to no chance of actually running into any “bad guys”. Honestly, the only reason I even was up there was to relieve the poor guy who had been baking in the sun for the previous few hours. I felt bad for him and figured even the doctor could spend a few minutes up in the hot seat (no pun intended).

Although my time in the turret was uneventful, it was interesting to sit there and just think. I thought about what a horrible thing it would be if someone actually broke through the gate in the distance and I was required to use this weapon in front of me. I reflected on other “gunners”, who on a routine basis, sit in this seat, the most dangerous and exposed in the whole vehicle, to defend themselves, their friends, and their country. I thought of the few who have started a mission sitting in this seat, but have never made it home. I reflected on how blessed I have been that this is as close to the “fight” as I have ever been.

It was a nice few minutes of reflection. And the best part of all was that after about thirty minutes, right when it was starting to get really hot, my relief showed up and I was able to crawl back down to my shaded and softly padded seat below.

Day 372: A Three Thousand Dollar Hospital

How much do you think it costs to build a hospital...$25 million, $100 million, $500 million? Well, actually it can be done with only $3000. That’s right, only $3000 will get you a state of the art Afghan police hospital. We found this out recently as we helped the Afghan police commander build his headquarters “hospital” out of a large empty room he had available. We found a contractor, bought some lumbar, added a few buckets of paint, and before you knew it we had a $3000 “hospital”. It looks pretty good, although it does have one major flaw...it has no plumbing. Yes, this currently is a non-hand washing facility. I know, it is a little unsanitary but hey, when you only have $3000 to spend, you can’t get everything you want. Pictured here is Ghulam Rasool who is one of the medics assigned to the clinic. Also you see a picture of one of the treatment rooms we created.