102212 Group Pic, Power Outage and Contractors drinking...

102212 Group Pic, Power Outage and Contractors drinking...

 

Yesterday we did a group pic.  Why we did so, I have no idea.  Someone said it was needed.  Of the 13 people in the pic I'm the second oldest and the youngest is 27.  Of the 13 people, 11 are prior military (7 Army, 2 AF, 1 Navy (me) and 1 USMC).  Of the 13, 4 are either never married and/or don't have any kids.  All of us are contractors and as you can see the 'average' contractor is pretty much someone you'd see on the street in any anytown, USA. 

Today we also had a power outage.  In Kabul (and on ALL bases here in AF) power comes from big diesel generators which are loud.  Kabul as a city periodically has brown-outs (like Mexico City, Manilla, Cairo, etc.).  Unfortunately when the generator 'went' the backup generator didn't go online so we were in the dark for about an hour.  In Iraq, it was a daily occurrence for the generators to trip once a day or so but the backup would be up in minutes.  Things are just different here.

I've been asked a few times if I worked for Jorge Scientific.  Uh, no.  In all my time in Iraq and Afghanistan I've never seen anything remotely like what is portrayed in the link below.

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/video-shows-contractors-drunk-high-in-afghanistan-1.193608

But if I had, I'm not sure what I would have done either.  Doing the right thing would have meant no employment. I have no idea where these guys are in Afghanistan but I'm sure they're gone now. 

R/Chris