Though on Monday finally I managed to get outside of the wire (not that I told Mom about it ahead of time, I'm not crazy!). I was released from my duties for a day to take part in a convoy to a nearby ANA (Afghan National Army) base that has a range we use for heavy weaponry target practice. My role was as the gunner in truck number two of our convoy.
The route was pretty tame as far as threats go, with car bombs being our biggest threat for the route as opposed to bombs that are buried in the road or ambushes. The convoy patrolled through part of the nearby town as part of our route, which is pretty friendly towards us.
No enemy contact was encountered during our patrol, despite some issues that left us sitting still in the middle of a very crowded city street for a while. As crazy as the stories I had heard sounded I found out that they are true, about how the locals react.
The kids come up to the vehicles trying to sell us local foodstuffs or other things that I couldn't identify and we have to tell them and make gestures for them to get back. They do, only to go to the next truck. A lot of the kids wave and give us the thumbs up gesture (because this area is friendly to us, other areas they won't even come near us because they do not like us) and the adults just go on about their business.
These are just a few pictures I snapped. I had my camera with me but as a gunner in an open turret my attention was not really focused on being a tourist. There were alot of moments that I felt uneasy, but I'll give that over to just it being my first time out of the wire.
The views near the river were nice, even though this is still the desert part of the country.
Going to try and upload a video with this. Just under 6mb so it (hopefully) won't take forever.
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