Things That Go BOOM!!!

(or… “things you don’t tell your wife while you are away”)


9 Mar 09
The things you don’t tell your spouse…. When I was away from Bagram a car bomb went off near the post. It looks like they were attempting to target a convoy coming or going from Bagram. Not a big deal for anyone on the base but a pain in the ass for receipt of cargo and fuel. There has been a great deal of intel on attacks targeting the main gates with car bombs. Most of it is BS. I think a lot of local intel consists of conversations overheard of Afghans sitting around BS’ing about what they’re going to do. Not unlike Americans griping about the commies back in the day, much hot air, not much action.

One night at work we heard a loud, deep, boom. It sounded like a cargo container being dropped. As we wondered if it was a mortar the big voice came on and instructed Bagram that we were at an amber alert. This basically means no moving about base and a 100% muster of all personnel. When we were finally allowed to go back to our berthing area across base we discovered the alert was not being universally managed. We arrived at our berthing compound only to be ushered into a vehicle maintenance tent for another hour and a half. All this inconvenience was the result of a rocket attack. Three rockets were launched at the base. Two landed near isolated guard towers causing no damage. The third, the one we heard, landed on the roof of the prison. The funny thing is that an intel report from the prison indicated an attack would be forthcoming. Looks like they did a poor job of targeting! The base should have issued an immediate local press release claiming the rocket caused massive death and injuries to the prisoners. What the hell, why not have fun with propaganda? Only minor damage was done to the roof. No big deal.

Funny things is, these petty attacks don’t faze me at all. Should they? From my perspective, driving the freeways daily in LA exposes me to more danger. I certainly see more damage and injuries on a day to day basis. I heard about a mortar attack happening on Balad in Iraq the other day. A friend of mine was stationed there and told me how safe it was. This attack was out of the blue, killed 4 and injured a dozen when rounds hit a berthing area.

20 Mar 09
Next week the local bazaar will be closed, our fueling ops will cease and one corner of the base will be temporarily off limits to most personnel. Apparently they recently found a 500 lb bomb next to the base. I’m guessing it was found by the mine clearance team working to clear land for a fuel point by one of our suppliers. Funny how these things hide. The plan is to burn it up, hopefully without detonating it! I haven’t heard but I’m assuming it is an American bomb. We’ve been the only ones with a reason to drop 500lb bombs on Bagram. Funny how karma works.

I’m getting more attuned to the low frequency booms. It catches your attention when something goes off and the big voice hasn’t announced the Ariel Gunnery Range is hot or a controlled detonation is about to take place. That’s when here at Bagram. We heard one when driving around Kabul. You never know if it’s military practice or an IED. For some reason it still doesn’t bother me.

7 April
Every day I sit in on a briefing and one of the slides shows hostile actions throughout the Combined Joint Operating Area (CJOA for short). It’s only April and deaths occur a time or two each week. Not a lot given this is across the entire country. These deaths result from small arms fire, IED’s and indirect attacks (mortars and rockets). Generally the small arms attacks are against patrols in the countryside. The IED’s can be anywhere but are primarily in the south and east. The indirect attacks happen anywhere there is a concentration of military, any nationality, foreign, Afghan, doesn’t matter. These are usually poorly targeted. It’s lucky for us the VC are not running these attacks. As resourceful as the Afghans are they haven’t cracked the code on high trajectory weapons yet. This isn’t to say they don’t occasionally get lucky. But, given the number of drunk drivers on the PCH I’m guessing my odds are even up. Not bad. During one of the briefings last week I found out Bagram had been hit by a few rockets. It was news to me. They hit the Korean compound.

This year the Taliban Militia didn’t retreat across the Pakistan border, instead they went south for the winter. The area around Kandahar has been problematic for the past few months. It will be interesting to see how things change now that the weather is heating up. Spring is when the bad guy’s generally begin acting up in earnest.

2 May
Spring doesn’t just bring flowers in Afghanistan. It’s the beginning of ramped up combat operations by all sides. There were10 fallen comrades yesterday. Three Americans, 2 Latvians and 5 Afghans. The Americans had their farewell parade at Bagram a short while ago. They call it a Fallen Comrade Ceremony. All available personnel line both sides of Disney drive. There are uniforms at attention as for far as you can see. Today three Humvees drove by at a slow walk pace. The back of each held one casket draped with an American flag with members of the fallen soldier’s lining the troop seats on either side. This is how dead soldiers leave Afghanistan.

15 May
A couple of days ago a GI in Iraq went nuts and killed 5 other GIs in a clinic. I just found out that one of the victims was an officer I went to training in South Carolina with. Small world. It was a random event that could have happened nearly anywhere. A guy goes loony tunes and decides to take a few bystanders along for the ride. Unfortunately when someone cracks under stress in a war zone weapons and ammo are readily available and don’t raise any eyebrows where carried about. I don’t know many particulars of the event. I do know that combat stress is taking a significant toll on our armed forces. I read that 17% of the personnel deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have PTSD issues.

3 June
My assistant and I went to the DFAC (modern army term for chow hall) at the North end of Bagram. It’s the only DFAC that specializes. They cook BBQ. We go there every other week or so. It’s located near a bunch of tents used for personnel arriving in theater enroute to other FOBs, a small concession area, a PX and another DFAC. The BBQ DFAC is set up in a tent. It’s the smallest one on post and always has a line.

After waiting in line for five or ten minutes we were finally inside at the counter. Suddenly a deep whump sounded. MSG as I looked at each other and noted that there was no announcement over the big voice of a pending controlled detonation. A few seconds later there was another deep whump, then another, five in all by the time it finished. We were wondering if these were incoming or outgoing. I’ve never seen any indirect fire weapons here at Bagram.

We asked around later and were told that inbound mortars are not that uncommon at the north end of the post. They don’t announce them to avoid panic. I am amazed that as resourceful as the Afghans are they are so poor at aiming mortars. It’s a good thing they aren’t Vietnamese!

June 6th?
Sitting at a new DFAC we found on the East side of the base. It’s the cleanest galley we’ve eaten in here at bagram. A tent galley like I used to run back in Pohang, Korea but with vinyl floors. The food’s not bad, furniture is new, it’s in the middle of a tent city for the surge. So, we sit there eating when suddenly a loud WHUMP, the tent pushes in on itself, we feel the concussion and shortly after smell cordite. It definitely got our attention! We sat talking about the blast and waiting for another or an announcement, something, anything…. nothing happened. When we finished eating we asked a couple soldiers walking by if they knew what happened. They said it was a controlled detonation by the EOD team. Seemed odd as it was unannounced and the mine clearance activities on post are a good 1/8 mile away at the closest. Never a dull moment!

June 11th?
Tried to drive down to the BBQ DFAC again but traffic on Disney drive was insane. It just sat. So after putting up with that for about 10 minutes we turned around and ate at another DFAC. After lunch the traffic was just the same, stopped heading north as far as you could see. It remained that way for the entire day, one long line of stopped vehicles. No announcements. Later in the afternoon we had business at one of the Entry Control Points (ECP) and asked the officer in charge of the ECP if he knew what was happening. He told us he knew but couldn’t provide any details. But he did say he was hoping the standoff would be resolved peacefully? The next morning a white 747 with no markings except for a tail number and a white C130 with no markings at all were at Bagram. These were gone by that night.

Father’s Day June 21st 01:50
Woke up to an odd noise, it sounded like a shot and a ricochet followed by another shot. Just sharp pop sounds and that odd sing of metal thru air. I waited and listened but just heard a few voices through the wall of my Chu. About 15 minutes later I heard the Big Voice faintly in the distance. We don’t have speakers close to our berthing. So, I lay there trying to hear what the hell is being announced. Eventually I heard the personnel from AECOM walking around with bullhorns announcing an Amber Alert. I lay there debating weather to run through the drill. I decided not to be an ass, got up and dressed and went out for muster still not knowing precisely what had happened. To my surprise they sounded the all clear in about a half hour so I went back to my Chu and bed. The following morning we were off to Jalalabad for a site visit early and didn’t find out what had happened until we returned that afternoon. Apparently four 107 mm rockets were fired at Bagram. One hit off base. One was a dud and hit a fuel line at one of our fuel farms breaking the line but causing no other damage. Two landed near some B Huts killing two soldiers and wounding six (2 civilians, 4 military). Life at Bagram, interesting as always, but this time not in a good way.

June 25th
Another day another rocket attack. This one hit the fuel facility outside the base. Initial reports didn’t indicate any damage. The interesting part is that the rockets appeared to have flown completely across the base only to impact by the fuel farm. Thank god these dumbasses are such poor shots!

10 July 09
Last night as we slept the Commander who runs the Bagram Defense Reutilizationa dn marketing Organization or DRMO (essentially the base junk yard) was making coffee at about 3:30 AM. He suddenly heard a very strange noise outside his office. When he went outside to investigate he found a 107mm rocket motor still sputtering. EOD was called and they realized this rocket was missing its warhead. As far as I know they haven’t located the warhead yet. Back at our office we speculated that perhaps the Taliban knew the rocket was defective and were mearly attempting to turn it in to DRMO… makes sense to me!

12 July 09
Another night of funny noises. I was sleeping lightly and woke up by the big voice. I lay there trying to discern what it said. There aren’t any speakers in the compound I sleep in so it comes across faintly. Anyway I was laying there when the all too recognizable boom followed by the singing of shrapnel split the air. I lay waiting and 3 or 4 seconds later the second boom hit. No announcement, no alert, just silence for a time. Eventually the jets began spooling up engines as they worked on them. Apparently the rockets hit off-post. A 107 mm rocket makes a pretty distinct sound when it hits. I don’t imagine I’ll ever forget that noise.

It occurs to me that given the lack of understanding of these rockets by the dumb asses firing them we could easily thwart these attacks. One method would entail simply having a predator drone loiter over Bagram at night. A rocket launch would be easy to pick out on infrared. This would allow you to nail down the location of the launch and possibly catch the perpetrators. A more effective method would be to but a large quantity of Chinese or Russian 107 mm rockets and booby trap them. Then filter them back out into the local supply in Pakistan. After loosing a number of dumb asses who would then accidentally blow themselves up trying to set them up for launch would cause them to suspect all rockets. This brings two big bonuses. First you are guaranteed to kill dumb asses engaged in an act of war without endangering civilians. Second you see a drop in the number of rocket attacks as they come to understand they are unreliable and not worth the losses.