New Job and Address

After almost 4 months of training and time away from work, I finally started my new job about a week and half ago. I am working at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan with the NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan (NTM-A) (www.ntm-a.com). We are the guys in charge of mentoring the Afghans to take over their own training of Army and National Police personnel. We have mentors at various training sites around the country working to transition the sites for our eventual withdraw. I am the communications officer for the eastern region, managing communications (computers, radios and satellite base stations) for our headquarters and remote sites. The job is right up my ally because I am always on the move and not really stuck in the office much.

I am falling in on an awesome NCO that is coming to the end of his tour the 1st of April. We have been cross-training since I hit the ground and it is going quite well. Here is an article that sort of describes what my section does. SFC Fowler, in the photo under the dish, is the NCO I am working with: http://ntm-a.com/wordpress2/archives/9783.

Some of you might be wondering, what happened to mentoring Afghans? Well, with us transitioning sites to the Afghans, that position went away and they re-missioned me to the HQ where they were  short a communications officer, which is my job in the military. This job will keep me a little more busy as I work from 8AM to 8PM. Don't let that fool you, we take about 1 hour for lunch and dinner, work out in the middle of the day and take care of any other personal business we need to during that time as well. You pretty much just go to your room to sleep though. This position will allow me to travel more around the country to different sites via air (helicopter) and convoy.

As a matter of fact, I went on a convoy this past week to one of our sites to drop off some equipment. It was fun and enlightening. I will elaborate in another post with pictures, but for know, just know that Afghan life here is very different to what we are used to.

I don't really like to post without pictures, but wanted to let everyone know what I was up too before I got too far into my work. I promise my next post will have some pics of my road trip, room, and whatever else I can come up with.

For those that want it, here is my address:

CPT Travis Fuerst
RSC-East, CJTF-1
Bagram Air Field
APO, AE 09354
United States

If you want to send care packages, feel free to send whatever. We share stuff in the office, so not much goes to waste. I see granola bars, girl scout cookies, oreos, nutter butters, popcorn, tea, baby wipes,  candy, and all that good stuff. Trader Joe's goodies (like nuts, trail mix, salted peanut butter pretzels, etc...) would be cool.  Cannot go wrong with TJs. If you want to send a box and don't know what to send, just send what you would like to have. We are good on all the personal hygiene stuff, no real need for that.

I have to throw in that I am deeply disappointed in the Colts releasing Payton. If he ends up in Seattle, I might actually dawn a Seahawks jersey! Cross your fingers Hawk lovers!

Well, that is all for now. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers, I can really feel them.

Going to talk with Christine and Carter now. Until next time, TTFN.