The phone call home
May 31st, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
Staff Sgt. Levar Francois, newly stationed at Qalat, spends some time talking to wife before dinner at FOB Lagman.
It’s 4:40am, Still No Sleep
May 30th, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
PMT Viper Staff Sgt. Milo Wurth, from McClean, Ill., gets ready to leave his overwatch position on a night patrol in SW Zabul. It’s shortly after dawn and he still hasn’t slept from the day before.
DC Osprey
May 29th, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Sheila
Thursday, May 28, 2009 – sometime around noon…I was on an assignment with Off Duty editor Jason Watkins in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Quite a few helicopters had already passed by, but the noise from this one was a lot different. What the heck was an Osprey doing flying over the Mall? And why didn’t anyone turn and look at it?
Last Saturday I was outside near the Marine Corps Memorial when I heard an airplane noise that was far different than the normal passenger jets in the area. A B-52 passed overhead, not in the normal Potomac River flight path…am I going loopy?
In the Village of Kadu
May 29th, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
The village of Kadu, at the end of the patrol. As we took up positions overlooking the village, some men took off running. So, the Aghan police spoke with the men of the village – who didn’t explain much. However, they agreed to send some of their men down to the police HQ in the nearest bazaar town in few days – and when the men who had run away were in police custody for questioning, the villagers would return.
I DO!
May 28th, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Sheila
May 22, 2009: At the Naval Academy graduation, a Marine answers his commissioning oath with a boisterous “I DO!”
“At Marine bases all over the globe there are Marines that are waiting for their new lieutenant.”
Lieutenant General Richard S. Kramlich
Director, Marine Corps Staff
Headed South, спасибо!
May 28th, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
PMT Viper (Police Mentoring Team) heads out on a patrol with ANP trucks in southwest Zabul province – going the deepest south they’ve ever been. The trucks have to do some serious off-roading to go a few clicks, often in dried riverbeds – and the some of villages out this way are so remote that they weren’t aware Americans were in the country. In fact, they thought that they were Russians.
The Shura
May 27th, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
Local elders and members of the ANP attend a shura – a weekly meeting of village leadership – at Shari Safa, where the new governor of Zabul province made an appearance for the first time. Let’s just say these sort of things don’t wrap up quickly.
The Refueler
May 23rd, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
Pfc. Andrew Petrossian, 20, from Los Angeles, Ca., a refueler with 282nd Aviation Company at FOB Lagman, watches two medical evac Blackhawks take off at sunset. “It’s awesome,” he said. “This is my first month of twelve, and sometimes it’s even kinda beautiful and peaceful out here. Sure, it’s tiring to work in the sun all day, but you have a real sense of accomplishment – and it’s cool to be able to work in aviation.”
USNA Graduation Day
May 23rd, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Sheila
Naval Academy Midshipmen embrace at their commissioning ceremony on Friday, May 22, 2009, in Annapolis, MD.
Intro to Acronyms 101
May 22nd, 2009 | Photography | Posted by Chris Maddaloni
Spc. Benjamin Miller, from Delta Co., 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry, a National Guard unit from Salem, Illinois – attached for security detail for PRT Zabul – leaves the bunk room to clean truck parts in the late afternoon in Qalat, Afghanistan.
PRT stands Provincial Reconstruction Team, which is sort of an umbrella organization system for USAID, State, DOJ, Agriculture, the military, etc. to work with local governments on rebuilding the country. Some, but not all of them, are under ISAF – International Security Assistance Force – the NATO-led, multi-national security and development mission that is in charge of RC(S) – Regional Command South, which is made up of Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, and Zabul provinces. I will leave out PRDC, QRF (tricky, there are two kinds), CSP, LGP, and CAP for now.