Back at Pasab

12 3 11 Hi Everyone!

I got back from Hutal yesterday morning. Time is distorted here...we got up at 0530 to get breakfast at the Hutal COP and it wasn't ready, by the time it was ready we were getting our briefing for the mission (a briefing happens before any troops move anywhere...sometimes I think they have them to plan trips to the bathroom!...that is an exaggeration, but not by much). Anyway, the DFAC's have food ready all of the time, it might be as simple as my breakfast of coffee, kiwis and a muffin...topped off by a couple of packages of roasted sunflower seeds just before we got into the vehicles. We were on 'blackout' for all but the first day I was in Hutal so I have to try to remember what the highlights of the trip were.... I was asked to go take a look at the wadi (a dry gully that fills rapidly with water during the short rainy season here) and evaluate it for the potential of having a check dam installed. There are several Army Corps of Engineers and other competent officers involved too, so it wasn't my show, I'm just being used for my non-military point of view and occasional flashes of insight. The 'local engineers' proposed a dirt dike at a cost of nearly $300,000. We all agreed that was too expensive and that something else should happen. These check dams have several functions: to reduce the flash flooding that happens every year, to retain water for irrigation, and to help recharge the local aquifer. Now the real problem deals with the scale of the project...the wadi is 15' deep and 1200' wide! We need to retain water and have the thing last. An effort last year using the "Hescos" (wire cages with a cloth inner liner usually used to protect a military site...they are assembled and then filled with dirt to make protective walls and are all over the place...two problems- they have no top or bottom and the dirt in a canal or wadi washes them empty and the locals will come in during the dry season and take them apart to be reused for fencing and animal cages.
We have a number of solutions on the board...several of them from me that involve the use of digging a retaining pond upstream and using a combination of new concrete, t-walls and earth from the site. I'll let you know what happens...

While at Hutal I lived in "the House" a concrete building with individual dorm-like rooms for one person. It was nice and quiet. The permanent resident was a Special Forces Major that teaches survival, evasion and escape skills. We traded techniques on stuff like fire starting and he let us 'play' with the escape part of his teaching aids...as a result I can now pick the locks on a set of hand cuffs, break free from duct taped wrists and cut through the 'flexi-cuffs' those zip-tie cuffs used around the world. I have to send him a flint and steel kit in exchange...

We also got to visit with Willie Kruger, the South African civilian farmer that runs the local model farm and agriculture center just off the COP. Willie is a big bearded guy and has a lot of good things going on. His main claim to fame is proving that planting in rows (crops like corn and wheat) produces a greater yield...he has the space to do side by side comparisons. He also brought in seed from his native country and has, for the most part, had much better production from his fields than the locally available seed. I took the hint and wrote about 15 US seed companies and asked for their 'surplus' for around 20 different seed varieties. We'll see what happens. Willie has an interesting schedule...he works for 2 1/2 months and then goes home to his own farm in S. Africa for 3 weeks and so on... The only 120v water pump for the model farm just burned out and he's running the place on a 'borrowed' pump. My next 'mission' is to try to get him a new pump donated from a US manufacturer...any suggestions? I'm also writing to the Lorentz Pump Company in Germany to see if I can get some solar pumps donated to the various local medical clinics for solar powered installations...My skills as a moocher continue to live on here in Afghanistan!

Stihl Chainsaws continues to reject my letters asking for a donation of a 'rescue' chainsaw (heavy duty with a carbide blade) for one of the COPs I visited that is having trouble with snipers in trees...if any reader has another recommendation or you want to write to the Stihl Company on the soldier's behalf I would appreciate it! So would the soldiers! I even came up with justification...they spend more on one model in an ad than they would giving 50 soldiers who would pose for free with their chainsaw..."Stihl, helping to eliminate the Taliban one tree at a time!" or Stihl, another tool in the arsenal against terrorism!" Yes, I can lay it on a bit thick!

Anyway, it looks like I will be at Pasab for a while. My main job is getting the walls removed at the Vo-tech training center at the local bazaar...frames to build, walls to knock down, masonry to install...all in a good job!

My sister, Barbara, came through with 4 HUGE boxes of supplies for the birthing kits and local medical clinics (I've toured three clinics here, so far, and most of you have more and better supplies in your home's bathroom!). GO Barb! We are taking donations to repay her for the shipping costs she's incurred doing this big favor for the people of Afghanistan and the US Army!

All for now! Love, -Jim-