Frustration.

After a year in Afghanistan, I feel like not much has been accomplished. But, one big but, is that nobody back home really reports on the real Afghanistan. It's nice to see shows like the "Today" show here in Afghanistan; its not really the "real" Afghanistan. They interviewed a bunch of people in Kabul, Kabul isn't like the rest of the country. People in Kabul have money, food and housing for the most part. Out here, I guess they have a lot of things, but it's not like Kabul.

I keep having dreams about blowing up too. Like... RPGs, IEDs, anything. It's odd though. I mean, I die all the time. For some reason it doesn't freak me out. Last night I had a dream about RPGs, or what I thought in the dream that were RPGs. But, clearly, as soon as I woke up, I was like wtf, that sounded like an arty sim (for those of you not in the Army, that's an artillery simulator, used in training to sound like some sort of artillery, makes a whistling sound). Real rockets don't sound like what you'd think. The first rocket I heard sounded like somebody ripping nylon. Like, "Ziiiiing!" I can't explain it, there are toys that make the same sound. Actual artillery sounds nothing like an arty sim either. Sounds like you might expect, the air breaking above you, like swinging a yo yo around your head. I only say that because somebody was doing that and it got close to my head... A while back, I had a dream about an IED on the FOB of all places. It was located in a metal pipe that for some reason was on the FOB. I looked in it and saw what looked like a bomb of some sort. Then I got blown up. The odd thing was that when I woke up (because I always wake up when I die in my dreams, I don't know what that says about hell but...), my arm and shoulder were asleep. That's where I got blown up. I suppose most of my left side was blown off in the dream. Morbid as hell. Think if I actually got hurt in this war how bad the dreams could be? Ridiculous. Writing all this crap down helps though.

When I was on leave I was a little messed up too. I don't know why really. I haven't been out really that much, but I think that might have something to do with it. I haven't had the time to get comfortable out with the people. Anytime you're in a crowd over here, it's a scary situation. The bad guys don't care who they blow up. They'll put a suicide bomber in a crowd just to blow up as many of us as possible. The few patrols I've been on have been in places that haven't been real crowded. It's been so long since I've been in say the mall or Walmart. I know I haven't really been shot at before or even been IED'd, but just fearing for your life so often gets to you. When you're actually out there, you don't fear for your life, it's more like after effects. When you're doing your thing out there among the people, you don't have time to worry about your life, you have time and capacity to do your job, not much else. After the fact, you're like "shit, that could have been bad." When in New Zealand, probably one of the safest places on Earth, I was hearing shots, thinking about the fastest way out of the building, just a little more than a little bit paranoid. Not sure if that's PTSD, but it made me feel like a psycho. I'm sure as time passes, I'll relax a bit more.

This place is so sterilized; there's not even a couch to sit down on. Take that back, there is a couch, it's in the chapel. So one couch on the FOB. You can't live a normal life, watch normal TV (the Armed Forces Network or AFN is all that's around and they censor all the movies to make them PG essentially), wear normal clothes. Speaking of which, my skin is dying. I can't believe how dry it's gotten in the past few weeks since I ran out of my good lotion... Oh! Take a normal shower is on that list... The showers here are small as hell! At least we have them, I suppose. The showers that I use now almost always have hot water too! At least I smell good most of the time. :) I can't complain that much.