Greetings All,
I am writing from Kandahar, Afghanistan, where we just met up with the other band (from Robins, AFB) to do a NATO ceremony. We combined to make a ceremonial band and then I was able to sit in and play with their jazz combo for the after ceremony in the Kandahar Int'l Airport- every participating NATO member as well as Afghans were there and it was very cool. We are off tomorrow for our next location.
Since my last message, we played a show up at a FOB in northern Iraq called Q-West,- a very remote but appreciative army audience. We got there in the dark of night- a completely blacked out base that just suffered a casualty. They treated us great and I even had a TV in my room. We then flew down to Tallil in southern Iraq where the temperature was 120+ the whole time. The next day, we convoyed up to a very small FOB that has never received entertainment- another great crowd. More on the convoy later.
We played a gig at Camp Adder and then Ali Air Base before returning to our "home" of Al Udeid to await a flight over to our present location. The flight here was absolutely miserable... we boarded a fully packed C-130 in the middle of the night and sat in the plane for 2 hours- sweating to the point of pure saturation- think south Louisiana multiplied by ten. Al Udeid is on the gulf and wow, can it get humid. We landed here, ate, rehearsed, and then showered before heading to the gig.
Back to the convoy- the soldiers that took us up there were true professionals and took pride in getting us there safely. We loaded our gear on a truck with an armored cab and then assumed our seats in up-armored humvee gun trucks- I road in the front vehicle, full body armor, helmet, loaded weapon, etc and a gunner on top with a 50 caliber machine gun. It was surreal going outside the wire and heading up past Bedouins, old Iraqi gun emplacements, burnt out vehicles from previous IED's, and a few stray donkeys and dogs. Sitting in that humvee was the hottest I've ever been- only competing with last night's/this morning's flight.
The return convoy was less hot, being early in the morning, and again, the soldiers were true professionals, fast drivers, and confident in their ability to get oncoming vehicles to yield the road. So, things to have done in life I really didn't want to do- riding in a convoy in Iraq...check.
Our gigs at Camp Adder was good, but our gig at Ali AB was awesome- a fantastic crowd!
This place (Kandahar) smells awful, but has mountains and cooler evenings. We took a picture in the site of the Taliban's last stand- a room where 90 or so were holed up until a U.S. J-DAM came through the roof. None of this registers while you are here... hopefully on my return I can reflect.
A great opportunity while at Tallil was visiting the ancient city of Ur, the Ziggerat (sp), and Abraham's (THE Abraham) home. An amazing place- I am not exactly a bible scholar, but was able to appreciate the ancient ruins, history, and the caretaker's stories despite the heat and dust. I'll send out pics when I return.
There's more to all of the stories above but finding internet access is tough, not to mention internet allowing blog posts.
I'm doing well- just trying to sleep whenever I can and beat this stomach bug that has been troubling me.
More adventures in our future- I'll write when I can.
By the way- congrats to Vince and Holly on the wedding- Tracy forwarded me the pics and Holly, you looked beautiful! Go guitar hero!
Catch you later, everyone-
J-
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