To anyone still listening:

    So much has happened. So much, all for the better, along the path of weird things and strange decisions the right idea will always surface. Finnaly I am home mentally. I had a tought time settling in to the regular army life, and now I will be a civilain on Nov 1st. The whole ride finnaly starts again, everything counts again, sink or swim. Such huge goals and good plans lie ahead, so many things to write about and noone to sensor it. Good things are coming, I have rebuilt the steps to my soapbox, and on my way back to that place. All in due time I promise.

Mushroom Hunts, Casino Trips, and Settling back into America

 

    I remember trying to imagine what home would be like from Afghanistan. My perception was almost as vague about that, as it was earlier about what Afghanistan would be like from home. Just like I thought Afghanistan would be much worse then it was, I thought home would be much better then it is. I guess everything comes full circle in one way or another. I would say I have more stress upon my return then I ever had during my deployment. There are so many things to do, there is never a day without a full to-do list, or a moment without something else I should be doing instead. But I guess that is life, it is all in the balance.

    The book is a much more involved project then it seemed like it would be considering that everything is pretty much already written and simply needs to be assembled properly to tell a story. It was so time consuming just getting everything into a format that could be worked on. Here are a few pictures of the first part of the process.

 

Step one was to buy a printer and print the entire Xanga archive and my journals out so that I could assemble it first in the real world and then go back and make it match on the computer. It sounded like a great idea in the very beginning, at the point I am at now I am beginning to wonder if I should have kept it to one format so that I wouldn’t have to basically do everything twice.

 

Step two was to organize the mess of journals and xanga entries chronologically and any other way to make sense of the stack.

 

Step three was to grab the scissors and cut the fat sort of speak so that I could see what I had that was actually book worthy, and also to get a sense of where I sat in terms of my 100 pages of content. Turns out that I had way more then I needed. This was good for two reasons, I wouldn’t have to stretch for content, and I could cut even more stuff out which will always make what is there better per capita by the page.

 

Step four was organizing all the pages into actual freestanding stories that would be in the book. Some were one page, some two, some three. When it was all said and done I had pretty much figured it out as far as what was going to happen when I started laying it all out. That was about the time I realized that I really hadn’t even started. That was kinda depressing… haha… so that is where I am now. Transferring those pages and ideas onto the computer and then tweaking the layout, and colors, and pictures, and editing for content, and length…and…and…you see my point. I work on it when I can but I really need a week or so to just focus on the book. But I do what I can when I can. It will be done soon enough.

 

 

********************************************************

The Great Mushroom Hunt with the Family.

My brother and I keeping an eye out for any mushrooms on the side of the road, not very fruitful… but just in case. FYI, the mushrooms in question are not the “make you see colors” kind, but the seasonal delicious kind hunted for in the Northern heartland of America.

 

Picture of my little brother… occasional protoge, and occasional idol. (with mushrooms in hand)

 

Picture of the hunted.

 

Pops and I on the hunt. Mushroom hunting is a family tradition. Being that I am 23 years old now I decided it was about time that I figured out how to pilot my own mushroom hunt so that I can take my own kids someday. This was one of the few times I would be following directly behind the master on this trip. Can’t say enough about how fun this trip became or how much I needed something like it after a year in the sand.

 

**********************************************

First Ever Trip to the Casino for Me, and My Little Brother, and His Friends

 

Taking a picture for the possible funeral, in case I never made it back

 

Sweet picture of me and the other Myers taken off of the TV of the conversion van that we rolled at high speed toward the casino in.

 

You can sense the excitement in this picture. How had I never been to a casino before?

 

Long story, hopefully self explanatory.

 

***********************************************

 

Not much commentary in this post be trust me I have plenty of it left in me. Especially on what I perceive to be the somewhat disappointing state of America on my return. Maybe I was just thinking a little to fantastically about the land of the brave when I was gone, but either way I have my opinion about it. It will surface soon, I just had to get this update off of my chest so that I didn’t feel behind. Thanks for reading.

 

-Emerstan

 

 

 

 

I am still here… it is so hard to keep up with this thing when you fall behind. I will have a new post up here within the next 24 hours.

 

   Almost home home in America

 

I leave in less then 8 hours for the drive home for my three weeks of leave. Finally, a year in the making I am finally getting into the car I have been waiting to get and heading up the path north to anything and everything non-military. Monday marks the first real days of book production and after the last two weeks of hard partying here I could really use the down time. If not on leave then when I get back I am going to start posting two or three times a week again and try and put out some stuff I will enjoy coming back here to read in the future. I am off to bed for now though, I have a long drive ahead of me tomorrow.

 

 

Home at last in America

 

  Not much time to post right now, busy busy trying to do everything at once. I get the internet in my room very soon and I will put every bit as much work into my Xanga then as I did in Afghanistan. I am extremely busy lining up all the cards for the book and it is coming together. I will update more later when I have a second. Here is a quick picture update about what is going on…

 

The ride home

 

 

The final thesis in production

 

The new car

 

Still here….In Afghanistan

 

   Just to clarify….I may have accidentally been a touch misleading on the last post. Only the journey home has begun…not the actual flight. There are several stops along the way to get from where I was, in the middle of nowhere to where I am going (home). The point is that the ball is rolling downhill and I will hopefully be back in the states before a new month begins. But then again….who knows? Life here isn’t that bad, Burger King and a massage parlor…that about says it all.

   Thanks for everyone’s kind comments and especially for your interest in the book. Right now it looks like a 50 page full color picture book with Xanga entries and some correspondences and my a few of my personal journal entries. Something of a collage of sorts to represent my year here. I am self publishing so far unless the literary agent thing goes through so I will put my link to the online storage front up in about a month or so when everything is done and I am sure that it is worth the price of admission – sort of speak. I am also trying to find enough great pictures for a calendar and maybe a few posters. One of my pictures got published at http://www.hellofayetteville.com so check it out in the artist section. Sometimes it loads on the main page. It is called BigBird.

http://www.hellometro.com/Art_Files/1515file_9922.Jpg

   Thanks to everyone that has subscribed, and reads the site. I do read and feel like I kind of know many of you, despite the fact that I am unable to comment back most of the time. When I get home I will be in touch at least once with all the people that stopped by my site throughout the year. 

 

 

Anyone that has any good ideas about how to get some free publicity for the book or any advice to help me tie it all together when I get home please feel free to email me or comment and I will be in touch ASAP.

 

En Route to Home in Afghanistan

And then there was a big bird, with wings that would spin instead of flap. It flew low and on a direct course through the mountains, it lurched slowly onto the ground kicking up dust and rocks in every direction, I quickly crept inside with all my things. Then at once it leapt back into the air and took off, to take me home…and it was good.

Oh the time is finally here, the trip home begins not in days, but in hours. I spent the entire deployment looking at this ridiculous and depressing little program on Excel that shows our remaining time on a pie chart. I remember when the whole thing was red, I would stare at it everyday, and think to myself it would never move. And it didn’t for a long time. I remember being excited about the fact that an entire month was gone. I remember when I was just halfway through, and asked everyone on Xanga to throw an online party for me. I remember when I thought I would never make it home. And now, well now the red is almost gone. Only the tiniest little piece of red pie remains, and a weird sense of inevitability is setting in: “I am coming home”

The strange thing is, this is the first time in the last 2 weeks that I have been excited about that. I have more anxiety about coming home then I did about coming here. At least when I came here I had no idea what to expect. That is at least exiting, I know exactly what to expect from home and some of it I look forward to but most of it I don’t. If I had it my way I would go on leave and come strait back this country, this base, this office. It is a strange thing to complain about, having too much time. Waking up in the morning and spending your whole day trying to occupy yourself. Having the time to learn whatever you want, and do whatever you want. Any knowledge or skill is just a book away. An abundance of time, something most people will never know. I never thought I would say this, but something I will miss. I have read over 40 some books since I have been here, over 20 textbooks on specific topics, learned magic tricks, gotten better at poker, learned to write, watched 100′s of movies, spent hours in the gym, ran hundreds of miles for exercise, and still always had free time to pursue whatever caught my attention. Now I face returning to life, a harsh reality where you maybe have a few extra hours every night to knock out a few things on your to-do list. Anything else you want to do, comes off of the top of your 8 hours sleep.

Even having said that, I can’t wait for so many of the simple things about home, that I will take for granted again as soon as I get home. But I will never forget how valuable they seemed to me for at least one year in my life. Just to be able to walk around, without looking at the ground. I haven’t walked on anything flat or smooth since I have been here, everywhere I do walk is like hiking. I can’t wait to just stroll out of a restaurant, oh a restaurant, the food! There is so many simple things I am looking forward to, commercials on TV, the sight of women, driving, taking a decent shower, clean clothes, clean anything really, being full on Burger King, the taste of beer, a kiss, a hug, any music other then one of Crane’s 5 CDs, a new cell phone, cologne, playing with my dog, being full on Taco Bell, and mostly, the feeling you get whenever the “weekend” officially starts. All good things come to those who wait…

Lastly this….

Thank you so much for anyone that has read my Xanga for a long time and always been there to comment and just to read. It has made the entire experience easier on me just to have people out there to relate to. Your attention made my life seem interesting rather then boring and I thank you all for it. Thanks also for everyone that I knew personally that took alot of there own time to make my life better, either sending packages, or an entire class fulls of letter from kids, I can never thank you guys enough. Biggest thanks to NYCJOYCE, I am finishing a book about this year complete with pictures and a few Xanga entries, and it never would have happened if it weren’t for your relentless compliments about the quality of my writing. I still don’t think I fill the shoes of your compliments yet, but then again that wasn’t really the point was it? I will make sure that you get a free copy. Anyone else that is interested let me know, there will be much more to come about the future of this book as it is about to come out.

-Emerstan out

 

 

War with the Flies, a New Base, and Cheena in Afghanistan

 

      Cheena is a 5-7 week old little baby puppy. The interpreters here gave her to me until we leave so that I could train her a little bit, and  also because they could tell I wanted her. She is the tiniest little thing I have ever seen, I am pretty sure that if she is old enough to be away from her mother, she isn’t so by very much. Apparently she is a Chinese fighting dog. That’s where she go her name… for any linguists, you know that Cheena (the pronunciation not the spelling) is Spanish for China. Alot of the Afghans only keep dogs to fight them, and from what the terps told me she is pretty much a pure breed.  She is expensive for anything around here, let alone a dog. She should grow up to have the body similar to a pit bull or other stocky little creature, if she is ever to become a fighting dog she has a long way to go.

 

This is her practicing her jaw strength on a toy sent by Queen bea, thanks Bea.
Notice her collar, it used to be my wristband as you can see in other pictures.

If you look really close you can see her little milk mustache. She likes nonfat milk best.

 

   I have only had her for two days and she already knows “stay”, “come”, and to bark to be let outside. She is extremely intelligent, I was impressed.  I wish I had gotten her early on in the deployment so that I could do something cool like train her to be a bomb dog for the ANA or something with the help of the dog team here. Unfortunately when I leave here she stays. It could cost thousands and take months to get her back home, and seeing how I live in the barracks, after all that I wouldn’t even be able to keep her myself. So there will be no Green Card for Cheena, fortunately she doesn’t seem to mind much, she likes it here.

*********************************************

 

    So close to coming home, however of course the Army has 1 more mission for us before we come home, so once again I packed up all my stuff and moved to another base. I was actually glad because now that the heat was coming back, this was the scene at the other base.

This was my the area above my bed

 

   I am sure that you can guess why we have flytraps hanging everywhere like they were party favors at Christmas without needing to many attempts. It was getting insane there, and at this point in my deployment, my mind is on some kind of fragile alert system where all the creeping insanities have been set aside due to the impending return trip to home. Flies however, were threatening that balance with their incessant desire to land on my face and eyes while sleeping, and land everywhere when I was awake. These are flies apparently trained by the Taliban…they live only to harass you and they have no regard for their own safety in doing so. At one point I killed just under 100 flies in less then a hour. The result of many failed attempts at tanning in peace. Luckily whenever my sanity is threatened by flies, I have an obvious outlet for my anger. Hence the obvious overkill on the flytraps.

   Now that we are at this new base, there are SO many things I would love to talk about surrounding the conditions at this base, however now that the Army doesn’t censor everything I write, I have to do it myself. There will be a time…(4 weeks or so) when I can talk all about it and put the pictures up that I have from here, but that time is not now. Sorry. Lets just say that it is very interesting here, we have alot to do all of the sudden, we live with the ANA on base for now (imagine that one), the food is good, there is wireless Internet, and Cheena makes for a good time. That is all I really need to say for now.

   I had an conversation with some of the terps from here, about their European satellite dish, America, Afghanistan, how much they Like bush(or so they say), the war,  how to attract girls in America (by request), and many other interesting things. I am going to do a more thoughtful post about that conversation here soon, it was rich with interesting things and things Americans would be really surprised to hear the locals say. Basically, if I was a reporter it would be a good story.  Thanks to everyone that comments.

 

 

4 Weeks from Home in Afghanistan 

 

   Not much to post about, I cannot stop myself from constantly neglecting this site and the few people who still read it. It would seem the only thing that kept me churning out decent posts before was my own vanity. I just read through some of my old posts, the ones that I am proud of that involve actual social commentary and quality perspective. I noticed the quality of the post is directly proportional to the amount of comments the previous post had fetched from fellow Xangans. I used to regard this site as a reoccurring article and think of things to write about and posts to create. Lately all I do is apologize for the last few posts and accept my mediocrity. I plan to come up with a few things here soon that should be read-worthy if for no other reason then to have a piece of my pre-re-deployment perspective survive this strange time in my life. Plus it felt damn good to go back and read some of the quality stuff I had on here from before, and I feel like I am cheating myself by not doing the same thing with some of the thoughts that I have right now.

  Good news: The I spent before online I now spend in the gym…I gained almost ten pounds in the last month. In comparison before last month I had gained about 5 pounds in the last 7 years. If the Ranger packet goes through I will be ready…physically if not mentally.

 

(love the hat)

 

 

Excerpt from many months ago that I like:

“I was that man, one of the few that ran the edge so unervingly well for a few years, that there is never a day I don’t wonder how I managed to figure out exactly where it is. Apparently the “edge” for me was a 20 foot patch of black ice. Now I sit at a terminal in the middle of nowhere willing to trade almost anything for something that noone else thinks I can do. The funny thing about the razor’s edge, is being that it is a razor. There can be no jumping up and pulling yourself up onto it after you fall. You have to wait for one of those unique times in life when a challenge causes you to sprint the gauntlet, with no alternative to success. Freedom and love at the other side, and nothing but failure and despair in between. And only when that situation finds you, and finds you prepared, will you find your razor. And be alive. And for those who will never face a situation with stakes like that…you never really lived at all”   Emerstan 05′

 

    Well summer is almost back. The clouds are starting to disappear and the sun is starting to rule the day again. Before I get into all that I thought I would throw in some pictures before they are outdated.

 

*****************************

    This is us lifting the guns again and preparing to move from the last base to this one. I am gonna miss Kitty but nothing else, every step now is another step closer to home.

 

One of the first priorities of setting ourselves up at the new base, was to hang our flag on the poles outside. We are not located with the rest of the Americans on this base so this was even more important for that reason. Only problem, was that there was no string on the middle pole. I am no expert on flag etiquette but I do know that it is not ok to hang the US flag on one of the lower poles, plus I am a sucker for symmetry anyway.

 

    And this began the process of going up and down the flag poles no less then eight or nine times. Getting the rope down from the pole on the left was no problem. Not only is removing the string from the pulley a lot easier then putting it through, but the left and right flag poles were a lot more sturdy and didn’t feel nearly as high because of this. As it turns out, despite our well meaning intentions, somehow both myself and the LT had somehow made it through life without being confronted with the knowledge of how a flag pole actually works. If you do know how one works then you know what I mean by this. After about the fifth time up the pull the entire thing started to feel much more dangerous then anything else, climbing to the top is the easy part, it is letting go with one hand at the top that is scary. After a few times up and down we figured out what was going wrong and fixed the rope to fit our flag so that it would fly right and not embarrass us, or the US.

 

     After the flag was flying properly we both took cheesy pictures displaying way to much pride and sense of accomplishment for doing something as simple as flying the American flag.

*********************************

 

    We have been at this new base almost 3 weeks or more already, the date of our “scheduled” redeployment gets days closer every few hours. To try and explain how that feels let me try an example…If you can remember being a kid, and waiting for Christmas. Waiting all winter for it to come, so excited for a single day, and then right before Christmas did come… alongside the excitement and joy was a hint of disappointment because looking forward to something is just less then half the fun.

   Most of the deployment I have spent the days bored looking for something to do. And now that I have fallen into a productive groove we start talking about home. I put in a packet to go to Ranger school when I get back so I HAVE to spend about 4 hours a day training for that. I have finally started tearing through the books that I bought and there is never enough time in the day for that, and I just ordered two expensive cycles of Mass Stack and have to set aside at least two hours a day to lift and try to take advantage of that and put on 10 or 20 pounds before Ranger school. So long story short, all of the sudden here at the end of the deployment all of the sudden there isn’t enough hours in the day or days in the week before I go back to the “real world”.

     Also strange is the thought, that soon I will have been here for a year. In that first post of the year, I asked myself, “how do you quantify a year in terms that you can actually relate to”? … well now I know how. I remember watching the Super Bowl last year just before or on our last weekend to go nuts before we deployed, as I sat watching the Super Bowl this year, I thought “damn…so that’s a year…”. When you are home and follow the same routine month by month it is hard if not impossible to step back and see a week for what it is. At the end of the year you can stop and go “damn that year went fast”, or “I remember doing this last year and it seems like yesterday”. But to actually attempt to quantify what took place that year or try and gather a sense of time is nearly impossible. Sitting here high in the mountains this year gave me a wicked perspective on the subject of time, and after watching the seasons roll by I can almost see what a year is, and it is scary to think that I may only have 50 or so of these left. The time is now, every passing moment is another opportunity to turn the whole thing around. (trust me)

 

 

What a difference between comments when I used to respond back to everyone, and now, when can’t respond to almost anyone. About a difference of 80 comments a day to about 4 or 5. Oh and for those 4 or 5 a day, sorry that I don’t respond (haha). But I DO read and appreciate all my comments…and WOULD respond if it didn’t take 3 mins per page and 3 loads to complete a return comment.