my ankle is Fyffed

Another gate OP, another hour of pure paranoia. That was last night, but the hour went by quickly. Through my night vision I could see the halo of a car approaching from the south. It parked, I heard a door shut and minutes later a fire burning just over the wall where the biggest threat is assumed to present itself. I thought forsure I was getting shot at in the minutes that ensued. I had it all planned out, however it would have not been pretty. You see, earlier in the day I Fyffed it and rolled my ankle on a stone jutting out of the road we were building a fence on. I immediately started sweating and got light headed for a few minutes. It wasn't until later last night when it stiffened up, I realized how bad it was. At any rate, I'll get it wrapped and carry on. So my plan was, once the bullets started flying, to fall to the ground, and roll over to a chunk of wall offering protection. There would be no running in this scenario. But, thankfully the bullets never flew and my shift ended without incident.

We've accomplished a lot over the last few days. If the engineers aren't on patrol we've been hammering away at various projects around the platoon house. The gravel has finally arrived and now we are waiting on heavy equipment to spread it for us. The fence we built offers a bit of stand off in the event of a suicide bomber driving into our walls. This is a serious threat right now. While we were building it, the local kids were perched on the side of the road saying "Breitawalla." So I started saying it back in an exagerated tone and it went back and forth like that for the rest of the build, tongues rolling and everything. I asked the interpreter what it meant to which he replied "moustache." Hahaha.... They were saying other more slanderous remarks to the other guys providing security for us but I won't get into that.

It's the four of us right now. Dorner, Rediger, Maddin is what we've diminished to because of HLTA and ole Hawks demised ankle. I talked to him yesterday and he's eager to get back out with us. It looks like that will happen in mid Feb as he's going home in late Jan. His ankle should be back together by then. Riley is off to Thailand, Blencowe (Stink) is going back home, as well as Bergeron. We should all be back by mid March.

The patrolling continues and the kilometers are adding up. We spend all day roaming the streets and checking things out. The other day we came across an Afghani scared shitless. Not of anything other than our presence. We questioned him and his buddies were making excuses for him. This, after we had credible int. that there were Taliban in the area and were equipped with an RCIED ( remote control). I never have seen an Afghan sweat like this guy was. He was biting and fidgeting with his fingers and I thought forsure we had one of them. Well, it turns out, the powers that were on this particular patrol decided not to GSR him and let him carry on his daily routine. I hope I get a chance to see this guy again. I snapped a pic of him and we moved on. Rediger and Maddin are out on patrol as I type this. We started calling Maddin "Dis­co" because he always has his earphones in and I guess we've envisioned him bobbin his head and groovin when he's sweeping for mines/IEDs. Maddins a tall, lanky fella who enjoys the heavy bass beat of dance music and such, so I reckon its a fitting name for him. Rediger has proved himself invaluable to the section. His construction background is a huge boost when framing structure and in planning future builds. We call him Red, aptly.
Dorner and I venture out sometime later and lets just say we'll be packing our warm kit. Gonna be one of those again. *&^%. Oh yeah, I guess I should mention Dorners nickname. JTDollah. I dunno.
I should throw out a big thank you to the ANA. The guys were all sandbaggin yesterday and probably really tired of it by completion of a wall. Then the ANA, out of nowhere came screaming into our wall in their Ford Ranger. There goes the wall, there goes the piss point, here comes more sandbagging. Apparently, they were teaching one of their new guys to drive, and evidently the training circuit ran threw one of our walls. Again, thank you idiot. Relations with the crew next door are spotty at best thus far. They have refused to patrol with us until we provide them with power. Needless to say, we've been patrolling without them. It's up to their chain of command to provide them with basic necessities. For the most part they are good to go, or I should say whenever Mohammed wills them to go. At times they become somewhat of a liability, for example, starting a huge bonfire in known Taliban territory at 0300 in the a.m. in the middle of an open field. Uhhhhhh.... not cool? At any rate, they're learning but stubborn.
Today is pretty quiet for me. Nice to sit on my arse for a change and rest this daft ankle. Later, I reckon I'll be asking the guy up top for a little strength to push me forward and guide my feet. Til the next....peace