DAY 5: Welcome to Afghanistan

Wed, 31 August 2005

Shaka Zulu?
Zulu time is a military term that’s synonymous with Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Basically, it’s a single time zone utilized to synchronize global operations. What’s interesting is that the base we’re at operates strictly on zulu time. And since Afghanistan operates on a ½ hour advance of the +4 hour time zone, we are therefore zulu +4.5 hours. Thus, at 04z it is 0830 local time – yes, this confuses everyone upon arrival, but you get somewhat used to it after a couple of days. I’ve worked with zulu in my younger days as a weather observer and forecaster – all of our observations and forecasts were based in zulu times. But to operate strictly in zulu leaves most of us totally discombobulated trying to perform random time calculations of local and home station times. So, I head to the BX and purchase a dual-time watch to straighten things out. The big analog hands are on local time, while the digital part is in zulu – just like my good ‘ol weather days. Now the brain is no longer confused and I’m happy with this new order!

Chalk 1 Arrives
Around midday, the Chalk 1 folks finally arrive. The Chalk 2 folks are rested – we all crashed hard, slept well, and reset our body’s circadian rhythm. The Chalk 1 folks slept a little at Manas then had to get up early to depart for Afghanistan. You could see it in their eyes the exhaustion of our long journey. What a difference a day makes.

Loggie overboard
We immediately start to work and interface with the folks that will soon be departing. Only one problem: there is no loggie. So, I’m a little baffled as to the situation. One of the maintenance troops is prepping and loading up the cargo. Only problem is that he doesn’t know how to develop a load plan. A load plan is a systematic plan that determines the optimal placement of cargo based upon its weight, dimensions and center of balance. Even worse, the loggie at home station sent a load plan from an older system no longer accepted by the Army. Okay, so now I’m witnessing a bad situation that starts getting worse by the minute…

Cool Stuff
As soon as we arrived on station, there was a fast-paced transition for our unit to assume the alert mission from the departing folks. As much as I wish I could share the operational details with you, OPSEC rules dictate that I cannot discuss this information. Thus, most of the discussions going forward will be centered around my daily routines and basic observations. Keep in mind this will just be a small slice of what’s going on around me.