Salawm

The training days are getting longer and the responsibility list keeps getting longer. We are averaging 12-14 hour days now as a class. After we get our team goals accomplished for the day my team leader and I get together and hash out the day and plan for tomorrow. We’ve had a few hiccups, but it seems we’re doing better than our sister Air Force team. There still seems to be a lot of storming going on. I’m sure they’ll find a way to move on. That is the key to being successful at the mission we are embarking on.
We are getting to work with a lot of interesting people at this school. Today we worked with a gentleman that goes by the name of “Doc” and he is from Afghanistan. It’s one thing to teach the culture. It’s another to learn it from someone has lived it. And we are slowly being immersed in a way of living that is strange, for lack of a better term, to most of us. We are in the infinite stages of one of the two official languages, Dari. We suck, but everyone still has a really good attitude about sucking.
We did PT in our IBA gear today. We have a psycho Army combat arms guy on our team that is a cross fit junky so he had us out there doing as many pull ups as we could. After our arms were dead we ran 300 meters and started all over again. We did this for 20 minutes, but it felt like a couple days. Actually I was kidding about the psycho comment. He’s a very smart, easy going guy. He pinned on E-8 at his thirteen year mark. He’s about my age and we have a lot in common. He was in Iraq on Election Day on one of his many deployments, so he is a huge asset to our young team. He’s not going with us, so I am learning as much as I possibly can from him. It’s a lot to wrap your brain around at times, but it’s really changed the way I look at the Army.

P.S. Ft Riley is located outside of Manhattan Kansas, they expect us to carry up to five bags and a weapons case, and salawm means hello in dari.