Month 6 Day 25

Notebook Entry
To bastion, Salim has hash on him, struggles with US Air Force, Salim Rip It

Journal Entry
Back from Geronimo to Dwyer. I had to fly north to Bastion/LNK/Shorabak first, then back down. The ‘joint/Combined’ passenger terminal is bullshit. I tried to get on an earlier USAF [US Air Force] flight. They were throwing up walls of red tape about bringing Neckpai and Salim along. They said they needed a letter of Authorization to get him on, but the order they were looking at was from 2009 and didn’t even mention the ANA [Afghan National Army]. It seems the farther that you get from the front lines the more bureaucratized the war gets these two USAF SSgts and Tec Sgts (incidentally the billets that these two E-6 and E-7s were filling are exactly the same as those that the E-3 Marines immediately adjacent to them were filling). At the platoon level there are two separate tents for ANA and Marines, Company, tents separated by HESCO, Battalion/Regiment, two separate Camps, Division, to separate bases. Only the guys on the ground are actually partnered with the Afghans. Part of this has to do with the fact that we have no intel sharing agreement with the Afghans, so they can’t do everything with us. Part of it is just laziness/difficulty, if you legitimately worked out of the same office as your Afghan you would need to learn about him, his language, culture etc.

Salim was a bit funny. He brought some Hashish with him on the trip and only decided to tell me about it then. I’m like, ‘dude there are a shit ton of drug dogs around here, you need to get rid of that’ on the topic of selective sins I asked him why he was so concerned about eating pork, but not smoking hash. He says ‘it’s medicine.’ I asked him what sickness he was afflicted with and he couldn’t give me an answer. He was also a bit funny because he drank a Rip-It ennerjy (energy) drink the night before, he wasn’t able to go to sleep and instead started passing out on the way back.

A view of some of the mountains from Bastion.  It was amazing to see anything more than a hill.