More Pictures

I have some free time waiting for my flight to Manas Airbase in Kyrgyztan so I went through my pictures and picked out a few more to share with you all.

I snapped this on my flight from Manas to Bagram when I first arrived in country. We are flying over the Hindu Kush.

This stuff grows pretty well out here. This was taken in Oruzgan province near Tarin Kowt. This was the only plant in the area. In Kandahar Province, there are orchards with acres of this stuff!

The above picture shows what I recounted in my post titled Afghan Automobile Association.

The authorities wanted to salvage the hull of this downed T-55 tank for scrap but the local villagers protested. They wanted to keep it around as a monument because they were the ones who took the tank down. A turret from another T-55 was less than 100 meters away.

Here I am on my first mission. I helped with administering the deworming meds. On subsequent missions the ANA did most of the wrangling and medicating.

This was my last mission in Oruzgan province before I went home on R&R leave. We were doing a ground breaking for a new bridge to cross the Helmand River in the Deh Rawud district. I am in the center and Kerry Greene, the USAID rep is on my right and Richard “Ruff” Reiter, the State Department FSO, is on my left.

Here I am as the mission commander for a big mega shura that we facilitated in Kandahar City. We flew Dr. Mojadeddi, the national director of Program Takhim-E Sol (the national reconciliation program), to the governor’s compound. The man to my left is one of Dr. Mojadeddi’s aides.

We are getting ready to move out. I am manning one of the air sentry positions in the back of a Bison.

I am standing on top of one of the buildings in the governor’s compound in Kandahar City.

Sergeant, is that MAJ Innis over there conducting an Information Operation? Sir, I believe he is but he must really tone it down a bit.

SSG Raley of the Mobile Public Affairs Detachment is to my right. He pointed out that every time he went on a mission with me he is always miserable. He is smiling in this picture so he can’t possibly be miserable. To my right is Maj “Q” Quentin Innis, my boss at TF Aegis. On the far right is Sgt Lee Baldry.

Hope you like them.

CIAO’
CPT Thomas C. Nield aka “NightHawk”