My christmas in Afghanistan

my christmas in Afghanistan

Well it was far from a normal christmas but we made the best of it. we were sitting in a spot where we hadnt showered in a week and it was fairly hard to have a good birdbath plus we were eating rations like usual (ive been eating rations for almost a month now and will be till february).
So anyways christmas eve was a typical day except they were so kind to bring out mail (bills of course,lol) and packages. Sorry Garnette, no i havent gotten your yet. I was lucky enough to get a package though (everyone did in our tank) and it was from Linda, Mikes mom! I thought it was very sweet of her. She never really got a good chance to get to know me yet shes always been very sweet and I'd try and keep in touch if it didnt feel inapropriate considering the circumstances. Anyways we heard there was a surprise and it was easy to guess what it was. We already knew that the wives back home had sent out a pile of packages for us all. In the morning,(of course it was pissing down rain) It was kind of funny (i took pics but somehow when i went to transfer them on my computer they werent there!grrrrrr) there was a pitiful soggy tree with presents around it. so we got kraft dinner (a gormet meal out here anyways!lol) and lots of other goodies! plus my friend beth (who is a medic) sent me out what i liked to call a stocking! yeah, the piss jug that i laugh about, well apparently the medics have a bunch. so she gave me a piss jug with a bunch of goodies in it!lol and of course a candy cane over the side! (she insisted she only peed in it once!lol) so that kind of made my christmas, besides all the candy i shoveled in my mouth!
The sgt major had one more surprise for us though, we had a fresh and hot (most fresh meals weve had was cold, lol i love steak but a big fatty cold steak isnt very apealing!)meal! turkey with patatos and cranberry sauce. it was pretty good. In my 'stocking' there was some pretty good instant coffee (better than whats in the rations thats for sure) so i had a good cup of coffee as well!
something i thought was extremely amusing, was when i was washing up. like i said, it was raining so to stay out of the rain i decided to hide underneath the turret. well theres cracks all along the turret that was full of dirt. so as i was washing up i had splashes of mud falling on me!lol so it didnt take long before i said "f#@k this" and stood out in the rain. I was scrambling to get where it was warm after that of course.
Another thing that made my christmas, is that we had sat phones that we everyone got to use. It was about 2 am alberta time so i tried calling garnette and aunty jan ( at least i was able to leave messages and let them know i everything was good) but I was lucky when i caught my dad just before he was going to bed. sounded like things were pretty good, i wish i would of gotten a chance to send out my gifts though. I was telling him about how i hadn't showered in quite a while and said "but ive got clean underwear on!" lol i dont think he found that quite as amusing as i did!lol! lol just like the other day when my OC walks into the room and asked how things were going, i said " good, just waiting for a shower, as you could probably smell" ( by that time it was about 8 days with out a shower) lol yeah i was the only one laughing at that one. so anyways going back to christmas, it was as good as it could possibly of been considering the circumstances.
by this time we entertain eachother with cheap amusements (kind of like my smart ass comments,lol), lol when you sit back and watch everyone, you notice the jokes getting dumber and dumber!
There are several people that are getting bitter about things. Earlier in my career i learned to 'throw things' over my should and just dig my nose into things and of course to just ignore the politics. So my moral isnt doing too bad. I've got my friend beth to amuse me anyways. Shes just as animate about things as i am, so we get together and you could hear us cacking a mile away,lol!
anyways thats my life right now, dont worry if you guys dont get calls from me these days, i am able to check my email about once a week if that, so instead of making a million calls, I send out one big email out to everyone. Anyways take care guys,
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!
l