Exploding Gecko

So, I’ve been back at FOB WARRIOR (a.k.a Kirkuk Regional Air Base or KRAB) for about a month now, and despite my best intentions I haven’t posted anything in the intervening time.  After some pondering as to why this is I’ve come to the realization that previously (i.e. in Afghanistan) I had more time between missions/call [...]

9 July, 2007
What is a FOB you ask? FOB stands for Forward Operating Base, its Army speak for a smaller base, away from a main base that is used to expand the area that troops control. But wait, there’s more: the PB or Patrol Base, is an even smaller base used, oddly enough, to launch [...]

So many, many moons ago I wrote a post about waiting to find out if I had been promoted followed by another post wherein I announced I had not been promoted and was somewhat bummed.  Well, this past Thursday the Air Force announced the listing of the newest Technical Sergeants and yours truly was on it.  [...]

Hey everyone, it’s that time once again, I have departed my home and family for another rousing adventure in the cradle of civilization.  This time instead of Afghanistan though, I’m in Iraq, so I’ve got that going for me.  At any rate, after a stint in the worlds largest hair dryer (al Udeid AB, Qatar) [...]

Wow, so um, sorry to anybody whose been checking back since my last post, I’ve obviously been remiss! Not that it’s any sort of valid excuse but once I redeployed from Afghanistan things just didn’t slow down like they were supposed to, but I guess that’s the military life. Anyway, the return trip [...]

From AFMAN 91-201 Explosive Safety Standards:
“2.12.4. Do not tumble, drag, drop, throw, roll, or “walk” munitions.”
Now, I realize that the general public doesn’t spend a lot of time reading Air Force publications, but it seems to me that treating any munitions item with care, even one that is over 100 years ago, is common sense. [...]

I was talking to my mom a while ago and I was trying to tell her a bit about what it’s like here in Afghanistan. During the conversation it came up that mom was trying to describe what I do in the military, what I am doing in Afghanistan and why I do it [...]

Hello all, I must apologize for my lengthy absence. It seems that some rather disgruntled individuals running around the Afghan countryside have decided they don’t like the idea of national elections and taken it upon themselves to try and disrupt the elections by blowing people up. My job being what it is I [...]

Brett sent a link to me not too long ago to a page called Mulvaney on Bomb Disposal which got me thinking about EOD humor. Some of the cartoons are a bit dated, they are from WW II after all, but most of the underlying humor remains the same. EOD humor tends towards [...]

Communication is critical in my job. We need to be able to glean as much information from witnesses as possible to help deal with any sort of IED or UXO. This can be difficult, to say the least, when you can’t speak the local language (or languages as the case is in Afghanistan). [...]