R.I.P.

10/14/2010 1148 PM

Tonight, at approximately 1800, my stepdad traveled into the gates of heaven with much of his family by his side.  It was by far the most touching thing I have ever been a part of, and while I wish we still had him here, I am eternally thankful to God for allowing it to happen as it did.  We held him and held each other as we sang to him, and we can rest easier knowing that he went from our gentle loving hands into the even more gentle loving hands of our Maker.  He went from our songs to His songs.  And even better than that, he went from a damaged body to a perfect body.  We miss you, but we are so happy that you’re in the best of hands now.  Ronald A. Mayo, you are so very well loved. 
More to come soon. 

10/08/2010 9:43 PM

Alright, it’s now 9:43 PM. I’m back home so it’s back to normal people time for a bit. It’s 9:14 AM at my other home. I’m sitting at my mom’s house, gonna sleep on the sofa tonight & tomorrow night. It has been a long time since I’ve slept here. Kinda different but then nothing has been normal today. On my way up here, I realized that I couldn’t find my wallet. Suddenly I remembered that it had been under my leg on the plane. I was holding my book between the wall of the airplane and my leg and it fell at one point. I picked it up and must have knocked my wallet off the chair at the same time. If that’s the case, who knows when it’ll be discovered or beyond that, if it’ll have any of my money left in it. I sure hope I do!


I realized something on this journey while walking around the airport. I do not miss being constantly surrounded and bombarded by “stuff”. We have a little PX at Dwyer and we go in almost every day just to see what’s new. And when I want something, I can go online to get it. I don’t have to pass hundreds of different shirts, watches, shoes, or anything else that can distract easily distractible people such as myself, which is really nice. It really has been a great experience over there so far. I’m lucky, I guess. It’s not the same for everybody. I’ve been listening to people constantly talking about their frustrations and annoyances with the company or with being overseas. What is the point of all that? If you can’t be happy, why not just go home? One of our guys had a wife who broke her arm while he was here. I’m sure he was plenty frustrated about that. Another is sitting there while his wife deals with a bout of breast cancer. He is very unthrilled about that. He and I joined a “cancer f*ing sucks” group the morning I left as we were talking about his wife and my stepdad. He told me that his wife has heart problems too and is on medications for that. The money that he has to spend for her medical issues is the reason that he’s in Afghanistan. Given the expression on his face yesterday, I have no doubt that he’d much rather be home with her but he’s doing something very important to take care of her from a distance. I do not envy that man. It must be awful to be so far away.


I like getting to hear about people’s reasons for being over there. I’m about the only one I know who isn’t doing this primarily for money. I’m not planning out college for kids. I’m not trying to buy a house. I’m not dealing with medical bills. I’m having fun. I wonder if that’s why I have nothing to complain about. Who knows.


So the latest on my stepdad. It was believed that he was coughing up blood last night so they rushed him from the convalescent hospital to the ER. Did a scan and didn’t find anything that could be causing it. He wasn’t eating much but it still coherent and was able to talk to me a bit. I am very glad that I got here when I did. It’s very good to see the family and to be with him right now. I wouldn’t even have begun to expect something like this happening when I left two months ago. Not my stepdad. He was such a healthy man. I think, to put it mildly, this caught a lot of us off-guard.

Anyway, I should get to bed. It’s so weird to be sleeping back here again. The houses mostly look the same, but many of the people inside of them are different. Many of the stores have changed. Restaurants are gone. There are now stop signs where there weren’t before. My bank has changed its name and look since the last time I was in there. But some things are a total time-warp. Some things show absolutely no evidence of 15 years passing since I lived here. What an odd feeling. This sofa? Not an ounce of change. I love it.

10/07/10 1820 local time

I am currently sitting in the airport in Dubai. I’m frustrated that there’s no internet connection. I have a sneaky suspicion that I’m not going to have much communication with the outside world until I get back home. Of course that would happen when I most need it, right? So I decided yesterday morning that it was time to go home to see my stepdad. He’s been diagnosed with cancer in the time that I’ve been gone. I can’t see what’s going on there, and I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that this was a good time to get home since the fire department isn’t up & running yet and I should probably take advantage of it while I still can. Besides, if anything goes terribly awry and I need to get home quickly, there is no guarantee that it’ll be doable. Juli will be going on vacation next month and this just seemed like the right time. I sure do hope it is. I went in to the chiefs yesterday morning telling them that I needed to get home, thought it would still be a few days, but everything turned into the usual whirlwind that it is around there and off I went. We headed to HR inquire about what it would take and they said that they could get me onto the flight going out that day. I had to rush back to the station and pack, with the help of my dear Juli. She managed to keep my head on straight somehow. Handing over stuff that I needed… luggage locks, small toothpaste, baggies, even a couple reminders of my temporary home there. I didn’t have a clue how much I was going to miss it. Miss the people! If I’m like this after a few weeks with those guys, how am I going to be after a year?!? This can’t be good. I had to fly back to KAF yesterday and go through the usual out-processing there before I could head on. This morning, I was having breakfast with our fire liaison that I got to spend a lot of time with the first time I was there, and as we were going through the lunch line, I realized how much Dwyer has gotten to me. The omelet maker at KAF wasn’t nearly as sweet and charming as the one at Dwyer. And I missed my little cutie that always gives me the bacon or sausage or pancakes or French toast. That man has got to have the sweetest smile ever! I don’t know what it is about him but if I’m not careful, one of these days, I’m gonna climb over the counter and get a hug. I’ll have to get a picture with him so you can all see what I’m talking about. Trust me, you’ll know. And the one at the end of the breakfast line that always knows that I’ll want syrup. He always looks so crushed when they’re out and I express any disappointment. Seriously, that is a very good place to work. I really do enjoy it there.


Alright, I’m back on the plane and using a napkin to write. I’m flying over a beautiful mountain range right now. Wish I knew which one it is but I don’t have a clue how long I’ve been flying so I can’t even begin to guess where I am. All I know is I’ve watched two TV shows and one movie, not to mention quite a bit of reading. The movie for this trip was Toy Story 3. Yep, I cried. At least 3 times. What is it with Disney? What is it with toys?


Ya know, this trip has definitely not been easy. I go from deciding to go home to suddenly going home in a couple of hours. I pack, I say goodbye to people I care more about than I ever thought I would. I take a flight to Bastion. Another flight to KAF. Stayed overnight and went through out-processing the next day. Flew to Dubai. Flew to Kuwait. Flew to D.C. Flying to San Diego. That is just about 10 more hours more flying than I want. It was about a total of 22 hours. The 13 hour was definitely the worst part but I had a very charming companion the whole way. Natalia. She was in Kuwait teaching. Lasted 2 weeks before getting fired. She was so thankful for that fact. She had never been more miserable in her life. She was told she’d be teaching at an American girl’s school. What she wasn’t told was that there were no American girls. They didn’t teach the truth. The children had no respect at all. She was at a major disadvantage from the get-go. Very glad to be going home. San Francisco area. She actually cheered and clapped when the plane touched. It was quite adorable.


Okay, my dear friends, I’m going to put this napkin I’m writing on away and go back to my book. I’ll be in touch soon. Wish me luck and send major prayers toward my family. Especially my stepdad. He needs it the most.


Much love,
D

09/27/2010 1345

Well this has certainly taken longer than planned.  I apologize for that, especially to those of you who keep asking when the next installment of me is going to be here.  I can’t exactly say that I’ve been inundated with work, but I have been trying to keep as busy as possible.  As I said before, I’m going to have to give you all an idea of what the day-to-day stuff is like around here.  It’s definitely not what I thought I’d be getting into.  It’s another world entirely.  Some good, some not so much.

Let’s start with the house.  I’m living in a plywood rectangle.  Everything inside the large plywood rectangle is another smaller one.  My room, the training room, the day room, the offices, all of the firefighter’s rooms… everything is plywood and everything is rectangular.  At least it’s visually appealing.  And when we go outside, everything is tan.  Tan tents, tan buildings, tan sand… I thought that I’d take as many pictures of colorful stuff as possible before I left so I could have my screen saver to remind me of all that I miss.  That was one good idea.  It really stands out in the monotony of tan.  I was pretty amused the other day when I saw a guy washing his truck.  Really?  Here?  It’ll be tan again in minutes. 

I know a few of you are watching the weather here.  Lemme tell you, it ain’t what it appears to be.  I just saw my online weather for Kandahar as 63º.  Not a chance, kids.  Not a chance.  It’s not even 9 am and it’s already rather toasty-good.  I went for a walk two days ago with my darling roomie.  When we took off at 1500, it was 96.8.  When we got back around 1730, it was about 93.  Granted, while we were out, the dust obscured the sun a few times for us, but for the most part, it was a warm walk!  I saw clouds the other day.  That was really big news for us.  Quite a few people, me included, went out to take pictures.  There have been some impressive sunsets & sunrises.  I woke up the other morning and started laughing to myself.  I saw the beautiful sky and thought, “red sky in the morning, sailors take warning” then wondered who is supposed to take warning when there’s nothing on which to sail.  Does that warning still count for us when we’re completely landlocked?  What is a red sky here trying to tell us? 

The days, right now, aren’t terribly exciting.  We wake up, go to roll call, & go to breakfast.  Honestly, I think that’s the best meal of the day here.  Not only do the guys who work the breakfast line always brighten my day, it’s also the best food.  After breakfast, we head back then try to figure out what we’re going to do with our day.  Laundry?  Work out?  Hit up the PX?  Get ready for being operational?  Oh the choices are so plentiful.  But we manage.  Sometime around lunch, we get lunch.  Now you’ve got to understand that we need to find a way to confine our hunger and food needs to certain hours of the day.  The DFACs aren’t open all hours, though we do have a sandwich bar open 24 hours a day… but that’s a bit more of a walk.  There are 5 DFACs on this camp and all taste the same.  Actually the food in them tastes the same.  But it’s food.  Some of the FOBs over here don’t even have that much.  Either they eat MREs or food from the PX.  Not my idea of a nutritional existence!  We actually really do have it good.  Sometimes we try different DFACs just to vary it up a bit.  Whatever works, right? 

After lunch is often much the same as after breakfast, only now we’re more off the radar.  There’s more time to clean our rooms, organize stuff, play around a little bit… that’s when I usually work out.  Either a walk around the camp, which is really quite nice, or soccer, or the gym.  We’ve got two of those.  Sort of.  One is split in two, so I guess it could technically count as three, but that one in two is still mostly one.  Just cardio in one tent and weights in the other.  The other has both together.  Either way, it’s nice to have those available to us!  There are a few MWR tents around here as well, but I’ve only been into one of them.  It’s probably really lacking for the military men & women, because they don’t typically have as much stuff over here to keep themselves entertained as we do, but it’s still something.  Again, I think we’re all on the lookout for diversions. 

Sometime after our afternoon, we go eat dinner.  It often looks, tastes, and smells suspiciously like lunch.  Sometimes it is lunch… just at a slightly different time of the day.  I don’t quite get it.  After dinner, we chill.  Just because that’s all we have left to do.  Games, talking, playing on our computers, reading… it’s really not too exciting at all, but we look for smiles where we can.  Some people have nice, elaborate sound systems in their tiny rooms.  Some have video games.  Some have their music.  That’s why I bought a keyboard.  It’s a great option to help pass the time.  Monday through Sunday is always the same mostly, but Sundays are technically down days.  It’s a relaxing non-work day.  Those are nice. 

So that’s pretty much my day to day life right now.  As I think of new stuff, I will definitely let you know.  If I can pull this off the right way, I’ll start writing things to you all as they happen so hopefully there’ll be more shorter entries.  But who knows what tomorrow brings!  

Thanks for reading, my dear friends.  I miss you all.  I am definitely having a great time here, but you are all still in my heart.  Hope all is well for everybody.  

09/13/2010 2200

It is a very strange feeling to know that the place you were staying one week ago was hit by The Enemy. So many times I’d wonder why things were going at the pace they were, but I knew that it was all for a reason. Why did I have to sit in Kuwait so long? Maybe it was to keep from getting hit while I was in Kandahar. Why did I get out of Kandahar so quickly when some of my buds are still there? Maybe it was to keep me alive. This world is so finely tuned, so perfectly run. We wonder all these things but it’s really not up to us. Nobody got hit in that particular attack, but what if…? And when people do get hurt, that’s always for a reason too. Boy do we understand very little about the big picture!

So these past few days have been a lot of fun. I had my first birthday truly away from home and everybody that I know and love, but I didn’t feel any less love at all.

The present with the most amazing use of duct tape
I've ever seen.  Cutest bow ever!

My roomie bought me some awesome socks (that I really needed) and some fireballs that will likely get me through the rest of the year. I love these things so much and was really excited to see them in the PX here. She actually bought all but two packages of them and only left those because she figured someone might want them.

Socks & fireballs. I'm set!

The entire station sang to me on my birthday morning. It was priceless. They all signed a card and though I’ve only been here for a week now, I really do feel like I’m a part of the family. There are caring people here, and I like that a lot. Drama, of course, but I guess that can happen anywhere. Especially when there are three crews in a station, all of whom live together day after day after day… It’s bad enough when crews have to see each other at shift change. This “constant companion” business is a totally different world! But now, and for the next 11 months, it is my world. I had better get used to it.

Within my first few days, I got involved in a very entertaining, very frustrating project that took my roomie and I all over the camp… a few times. That was how we got our ride the other day, and that also gave us a chance to see the water bottling facility here. I had no idea how cool it was! We were just going around looking at buildings when we started chatting with the people at the facility. He asked if we needed to see inside, and we told him that we didn’t need to on for any professional reasons, but it would be cool to see if he was offering it in a civilian way. Juli and I were totally impressed. The bottles start off as something that looks like a test tube then it gets blown up and shaped, then the water goes in, the blue light of death purifies it even more, then it gets capped, labeled, and sent out for packaging. Then we got to see the water purification area. It was all so neat! We totally had a new appreciation for the water we’d been guzzling for the past few days. Who knew they could do something so cool in the middle of the desert?!? The whole time we were seeing this, I kept thinking that Mr. Rogers should have had something like this in his show! Maybe he did and I just missed that episode.


The weather has been sweltering hot. It was pretty rough to be out in it all day, during the heat of the day, with very little relief from the sun. We went into one building and the guy said it was only 100 outside. We told him that we saw a thermometer that said 120 and he said that was only in the sun. We pointed out that we, too, were in the sun. We were a good, comfortable 120. Well, we were 120. Not sure how good and comfortable it was. But we had a blast being out. You’re looking at two “dispatchers” who are paid to sit for 12 hours at a time, neither of which enjoys sitting at all. Being out and doing things all day was completely thrilling to us! We got to see real people, cool sights, feel the sand and rocks beneath our feet… Oh, and speaking of sand. Whew. This deserves another paragraph of its own.

Yesterday morning, I woke up early and had to make a trip outside. I feel like a dog—being sent outside to do… business. :) Anyway, I was a little confused with the morning sky. The sun was out but something wasn’t quite right, but that early in the morning, nobody can really tell what’s what. About an hour later, Juli headed outside and just stood at the door. That’s when I realized that the surreal sky was, in fact, sand. Yes, my dear friends, I got my first Afghanistan sand. Wow. So we had to brave the day a couple of times, but we had a day “off” so we didn’t have to be out walking in it for hours on end. Part way through the day, things calmed down a bit. Today was a different story. Wow again! Not only was the wind blowing harder and the sand thicker, it was also chilly because the sun was so obscured. The good news is that I came somewhat prepared for sand storms. Not too big a deal. I’ve grappled in the sand, and am no stranger to the feeling of sand in the ears, eyes, up the nose, all over the skin, inside clothes, on everything… but this stuff is vastly different from normal sand. It isn’t even visible on the skin, but you can sure feel it! When I went to shower tonight (somewhat pointless given the fact that by the time I got back to the station, I was completely covered in sand again), I untucked my shirt and just laughed at the difference in the color between what was tucked and what was exposed. I pointed that out to my chief a bit later and he checked his too. Sure enough, the tucked part of his shirt was rather white. The rest was definitely yellow. Once again, it’s a different world here!

Oh, for those who are interested, since it looks like I’m stayin’, I’ve got an address for you all to use.
Dana Veca
Dyncorp Fire Dept.
FOB Dwyer
FPO/AE 09373
Letters will be answered in the order they’re received, and any and all correspondences will be so appreciated!

Alright my friends, once again, it’s bedtime. I wanted to write so much more, but I’m a tired bunny today. These long days are great and they’re really helping me sleep well at night… eventually. I’m at that eventually. I’ll try to write more soon and give you a clue of what things are really like. The daily stuff. It’s so much fun. At least by my standards. I have to laugh at the guys who whine about this from our company. We all asked for it! What is there to complain about? The military has every right in the world to complain about their conditions. I’d say about 75% of the time, they don’t even really want to be here. Us? We signed up. Hardly seems a fair balance, does it? Heh, speaking of the military, I saw a guy today in the DFAC who used to work in the same building I did at Pendleton. What are the chances of that??? I’m actually somewhat surprised that I haven’t found more that I know here, but I may before the year is out.

Happy Monday to all of you at home. I hope it is as delightful as mine was.

09/07/2010 2315

Now this was officially one fun day. It started out inconspicuously enough. We got up, started the day with roll call, did the usual stuff. Then Juli & I had a visitor. It was more stuff about the mapping system. There are quite a few people involved in this, which make sense… it does affect the entire Camp, after all. We ended up meeting a few people yesterday, one of whom was from Long Beach and knows a few people that I know. I’ve been looking for one of those people for ages and he thinks he can get me in touch with him. Great news! Then I got onto my computer and found a message from a long lost friend of mine. Awesome! And then we found out that our request for a ride around the Camp was going to be granted. We got to go on a convoy around here to see the different areas and buildings. We had to wear our PPE, of course, and were in an MRAP. It was nothing short of awesome. It was really neat to see that side of things. There’s so much more to this camp than I’d ever have guessed. It’s amazing! After our ride, we came back, had dinner, and relaxed for the rest of the evening on our little “veranda” with the delicious beverages I’m going to refer to as beeries. It’s near beer, and all that we’re allowed here… but when you’ve got a good enough imagination, it’ll do. In fact, if you concentrate hard enough, you can feel the gentle cool breeze just off the ocean right behind the station. Sometimes you can even hear the waves crashing into the rocks. Seriously! It’s all about the imagination. Some of the guys think we’re nuts, some come to join us for a bit. I guess when you’re going to be here in this situation for a while, you may as well learn to accept it.

Alright, I apologize for the short entry, but I’m going to go ahead and pass out in a minute. I hope. Still having a rough time getting onto this time zone. Maybe. I’m not even sure what it is. I used to absolutely require at least 7 hours of sleep a night. Now I’m averaging 5 and surviving. Worse yet, I get this second wind each night, but I still have to wake up early! No fun. I hope it’s just the newness of it all. I guess we’ll know in a few more weeks.

09/06/2010 2222

I've gotten a lot of inquiries about what things are like over here for me now that I'm at a semi-permanent location.  And I say semi because there's still a possibility that I may move again, but hopefully I'll know soon enough.  I want to start getting mail!  Plus I'm thinking that I'll need some warmer clothes pretty soon.  The nights are already getting cool.  Of course comparing that to days, 80 could feel cool.  I was walking with the other dispatcher here, Juli, to a few places today and she glanced up at a thermometer and said, "No wonder it feels warm."  It was 120.  Yep.  Comfy.  And for some reason, we thought it wise to walk back to the station quickly.  Where was the logic in that?
So where to start?  I arrived, uneventfully, by helo.  It was a neat ride.  Just under an hour or so.  I got a bit of a nap.  Having a kevlar helmet on really helped cushion the movement and noise.  Of course there was a brief moment where I dreamed that I was in a washing machine, but it was quick.  The process for checking in here was even less impressive than at the other places.  Plus I was tired & getting a bit on the irritable side.  Being shuffled like cattle can do that to a person.  After a short wait, the assistant chief & one of the firefighters came to pick me and my luggage up and take me to my home.  And a pretty home it is. 
My room is a shared room, pretty good sized right now but the more people move in there, the smaller it'll get.  The beds are solid as rocks.  I'm okay with that with one little exception.  The edges can actually bruise us if we happen to hit 'em wrong.  No bed should cause bruises.  At least not the mattress!  But it's better than a cot!  Better than a lot of things. 
Things will be very odd for a while.  At least compared to what I thought I'd be doing.  That's totally okay though.  I'm up for whatever they throw my way.  I'm on an adventure (any references to Candy Mountain are intentional) and that's a part of it.  See, I thought I was coming over here to dispatch.  That was the job title & description.  Only there is no dispatch center so I get to help make one.  Juli has a lot of dispatching experience, as do I, and we're both smart little cookies, so we can really make good things happen.  Besides, we get along well.  No egos, just a good plan.  It's cool.  The guys here are great too.  All have been very kind and welcoming.  I feel like I just got adopted into a very fun family.  They even got me to play soccer with 'em.  Good times. 
As far as the daily routine, we have roll call at 0730, do whatever work they need for us to do, find some work for us to do, then have our time.  We have a bit of a walk to the DFAC, the PX, most of the Camp.  We have showers that are a bit away (not bad at all, just not down the hall), a real bathroom near the showers, and port-o-potties outside the station.  None of this is a big deal now, but in a few months, I'm already sure I'll have a few miserable moments.  Times when I'd rather suffer than go outside in the middle of the night (the middle of the cold) to use the bathroom.  When I'd rather have to get my sheets washed an extra time than shower and have to walk in the cold all the way back to the station... I'm sure it'll get brutal but I knew that when I signed up, right?  No complaining.  I'll just have to try to find a way to get sympathy out of you all. 
The Camp here is pretty cool.  It's a nice set-up but it's all close enough that it feels small without being cramped.  It is definitely a desert though!  These dust devils I've seen are downright tornadoes!  They're neat to see when they're just starting to form.  Very cool. I'm going to try to get some good pictures of that too.  I want to go camera happy out there!  Actually, I really want to go sit at the air field for a while and just watch.  I could do that for hours!  Really, there isn't much to do here, but that's okay.  We can always find something. 
What else?  People have asked about my schedule.  When the department is up & running, we'll likely be doing two during the day, one at night.  The dispatch center is in the station and all parties live here so we should get meal/bathroom breaks.  I hope so because there really isn't much to cook around here.