I sure hope I get to finish this before the internet craps out. The last few days we've gone through a lot of c-4. It seems as though a lot of our searches have contributed to the local nationals dumping their munitions in and around our AO. We've been working quite closely with the ANA, and they've started to take the lead on patrols. I can sense that they are quite nervous about the IED threat, but we all are, so it's nothing new. The other day, myself and Dorner went out with the infantry and found quite a few mortars and blew em all to pieces. Higher is concerned with collateral damage so we've got to be careful when destroying these ordnance. I mean, its not like we can move these UXO's (unexploded ordnance) into a field and BIP em there, so most of the time we push out a cordon and blow it right where we found it. In some cases its in somebody's "garden" or backyard. We have a pretty good idea of where the fragmentation will fly, so we can get away with it. There was somewhat of an exception the other day, when we blew a mortar casing up, alongside a 82mm mortar in a wadi. Turns out the casing flew over 300m and ended up landing less than 50' from the infantry guys. They said they thought it was a chopper flying overhead. Whoops... We did not expect it to kick up and out of the wadi it was in. At any rate, all okay and we continued on.

The day after, I guess the 27th, Maddin and I went out for a presence patrol in a neighboring village. It's like night and day from where we regularly patrol. There were kids everywhere chirping Kalum, Kalum, Kalum.... This means pen in Pashto and they all want pens. I think we could actually end the war for future generations if we just airdropped a 747's worth of bic pens in every Afghan town and center. Well, they were crowding around which is okay, because the threat level decreases when civilians are around, but they get a little too close, and when you have blcoks of c-4 hanging off your pack, you tend to get a little nervous about little kids touching your kit. I finally lost my shit and told the interpreter to get these kids outta my space and to quit shadowing me. I'm not sure whether there is a huge rivalry between these towns, but they all say the same thing. The other towns are Taliban, and we are the good guys. Where we are, they neither confirm nor deny Taliban occupation. They just stare, and look depressed. Hopefully we can turn that around over the next little while.

So today I was out yet again. We got a tip from a local national that they found a weapons cache further down south. Dorner and I ( its just Dorner, Maddin and me right now) went patrolling to check it out. The ANA showed up on time for once and we kicked off at around 1000. We didn't get very far before they called the engineers up. A farmer told them he had found an RPG in his fields. Sure enough, there it was so we hauled out the c-4. I got one of the ANA to set the charge and had the interpreterguide the fella into blowing the rpg up. Looks like the net is messed up... gotta get ready for a busy few days. We're hoping for no rain, but we'll see.........til teh next......out