Friday morning

On my way to drop off my laundry, not much else to do right now but
find new pictures to take from around Camp Phoenix, and with the
scenery around here sunrises and sunsets are always good candidates.
I have never felt as close to being an inmate in a correctional
facility as I do now, trapped in a compound with high walls and
concertina wire and guard shacks, very limited activities available,
spending most of my time on my bunk doing what an inmate might do,
listen to music, read, play games, and that's about it. Oh, I could
also spend 1 hour a day working out as an inmate would but I live out
of my seabags right now until we finally make it to Herat (scheduled
for sunday) so I don't want to unpack and get more dirty laundry than
I have to. The only consolation is that the days spent here count
towards my boots on ground counter but if I am as bored as I am now
it'll be a very looooong 9 months!
Anyway, here are some more pictures (another way to spend my quality
time here).

departure for Herat

Our departure for Herat has been delayed by two days to Sunday 2
March, 2008. This is most likely due to the unavailability of air
assets, not that I mind staying in Camp Phoenix a little longer as I
have nothing to do here yet my days spent here count towards my boots
on ground counter. I added a 270 day countdown to a calendar I have
and Day 270 falls on 20 November, 2008. It's never too early to look
at the end, but as you can imagine the happiness factor right now is
fairly low. What is the happiness factor you ask? You divide the
number of days already spent on deployment by the number of days
remaining on deployment, it starts at 0 and goes to infinity. As it
gets higher, I will be happier until I become ecstatic, not quite the
case right now!

the newspaper that never gets old

We've been carrying this paper around to take pictures in as many
places as possible (look at the headline)

camp phoenix sunrise

I woke up this morning and was on my way to answer nature's call when
I saw a few people taking pictures of the sky. I looked in the
direction they were shooting and went back to get my camera, nature
could wait a little longer. The problem with nature calls is that
because of the elevation here, if I don't stay hydrated I get this
painful headaches. Luckily there is free bottled water (tap water is
not safe for human consumption) readily available throughout the
camp. The only negative aspect is having to wake up a few times in
the night. Luckily the weather is quite pleasant and I am able to
walk outside in shorts and a t-shirt. And it is even nicer during the
day, sunny with blue skies, temperatures in the 60's.
Link to the sunrise:

http://flickr.com/photos/ericbeta/sets/72157603997801688/

greetings from camp phoenix, kabul, afghanistan

I arrived here on Tuesday after a comfortable ride in a C-17, a
fairly lengthy length at the airport, and a short ride in a bus right
out of Mad Max. Kabul is surrounded by humongous mountains, and there
is very little vegetation. Other than that, I haven't seen too much
of Kabul and I am leaving on Friday for Herat, near the Iranian border.
I have included a link below to pictures I have uploaded on flickr.
What you'll see are pictures of the sunrise from Manas, our luxurious
plane ride to Kabul International airport (flying in a windowless is
an interesting experience, and as you'll see the lights turned red
when to indicate we entered Afghan airspace and had to remain in our
seats, the landing was also interesting and fun), the bus that took
us to Camp Phoenix from the airport (a 15 min ride), and a few
pictures from Camp Phoenix.
Internet in Herat will be near dial-up speeds so it might be a while
before I can share more pictures. Like I said, you'll want to jump on
the first flight to Afghanistan after seeing the pictures, or you can
join the Navy reserves!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericbeta/sets/72157603998505359/

Note: blog update sent via e-mail, you might have to highlight the
link and paste it in your favorite browser.

Moving on to Kabul

We woke up around 0430 to load our bags on palettes that will go onto our military flight to Kabul, then offload them to reload them again. Such is the military way I am accustomed to by now. We are scheduled to depart Manas around 1000 and should arrive in Kabul a couple hours later. Manas isn't all that exciting, landscape is fairly impressive though, flat to the north with huge mountains to the south, part of the Himalayas I believe.
Anyway, more to follow from Kabul and/or Herat, where I am scheduled to be.

journey to manas

The link below includes a few pictures taken between Topeka, Kansas and Manas, Kyrgyzstan, with a layover in Leipzig, Germany for fuel, crew change-out and beers.
What you'll see is us leaving a wintry Kansas, flying over one of the great lakes (Lake Michigan?) with some ice partially covering said lake, spending a few hours in Leipzig sipping the aforementioned beer, having a bad view of the sunrise as it was right in front of us, seeing many mountains and weird landscapes, tracking the shadow of the plane as we landed, and a few shots from the air base and sunset.

pictures

greetings from Leipzig

We arrived here around midnight local time, about 9 hours after departing Kansas, for some fuel and crew change-out, and beer. I thought we'd be stopping in Ireland but the beer in Germany is just as good no matter what time it is. The flight so far has been pretty smooth, every one of us had two seats to spread out and try and make ourselves as comfortable as possible. I saw a couple movies, the one with The Rock as a quarterback who takes custody of some little girl ( a disney movie so not that great) and one with Juliette Binoche and Steve Carrell, not bad. Food was your typical airline food with plenty of seconds for anyone who desired some, plenty to drink but no alcoholic beverages (but I am having a few at the airport!).
We have another 3000 miles to go before we reach Kyrgystan and we should get there around lunchtime. The plan once we get there is to wait around for a military flight into Kabul, probably a couple days at most.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get another beer!

on our way

As I finally get to leave Kansas tonight I thought I'd reflect on the past few months. This all started on 17 October, 2007, had it started a couple weeks earlier things could be a little different.
I happened to be on vacation in Europe after quitting my first post-Navy job and before starting my second, so I was technically unemployed and would have hated to find out what would have happened had I reported to my new employer on 10 October with the news that I had to report shortly back to the Navy for a period of one year! Instead, I had been at my new job for one whole week, one I was looking forward to doing (as opposed to my first job) and where my co-workers were young (most around my age, and I am still young!) and fun to be around (as opposed to my first job), when during lunchtime on 17 October I received that ill-fated phone call. It went something like "Is this LT Betanoff? This is PS1 Mammana to inform you you have been tagged for involuntary recall. You must report to NAS Andrews in 4 weeks."
After some confusion (what does tagged mean, was I recalled or not?), it became apparent to me that as the person on the other end of the line was going through a bevy of questions (do you need a will, how about household good storage, medical, dental), yes, I had been recalled.
And so I reported to Andrews the week of Thanksgiving during which time I took care of medical and dental issues. I had four crowns installed in my mouth and let me tell you, worse pain I have yet to feel. I just about jumped out of the chair when the dentist pressed the crowns unto the exposed nerve of my teeth. How I did not faint is beyond me and I will definitely request to be numbed in the future and not try to play it tough.
The week of 26 November I was in San Diego, sunny but rather chilly. Nothing much happened there other than taking care of admin and medical issues, I was almost declared not physically qualified because of some headaches I have on occasion but I figured that I had made all these preparation to be gone for one year and wasn't going to let the Navy send me back after a couple weeks. I was so busy during that week that I had time to go see Shamu, and get wet, and eat at In 'n Out burger on a couple occasions.
I then showed up at Fort Riley, smack dab in the middle of beautiful and exciting Kansas, for our Army training that would prepare us to mentor the Afghan National Army. That was meant to be our mission but things have since changed and what we'll be doing over in Afghanistan is a mystery to all of us. Anyway, we learned to shoot various weapons, drive humvees, learn some basic Dari, identify IEDs, and some other training that wasn't too exciting and pretty much worthless. We also had to endure one of the alleged coldest winters Kansas has experienced in quite some years, to include an ice storm which was quite cold but made for great pictures.
I spent two weeks around Christmas and New Year's thawing out in Miami with my parents and younger brother, and was quite grateful for that time, then back to frigid and boring Kansas for more training. I went back to the DC area for Martin Luther King, Jr week-end and spent President's Day week-end in Austin, TX. We completed training a few days ago, it seems that the 60 days of training could have been compressed into probably 30, and that would have been a lot better because even with only one day off a week there is literally nothing to do for entertainment in Manhattan, KS, the town outside Fort Riley.
So now we are off later tonight, drawing our weapons around midnight then mustering in a building where we'll wait for busses to take us to the airport. The chartered plane (North American airlines) is scheduled to leave Topeka, KS at 0530 on Sunday, possibly stop in Gandor, New Foundland for fuel, definitely stop in Ireland for more fuel (and some beers!) then on to Manas air base, Kyrgystan. After a few day there we'll fly a military plane down to Kabul, spend a few more days there before being sent out to various bases around Afghanistan. I am slated to go to Herat, in the western part, but anything could change at any time.
Anyway, a new exciting part to my life begins. I will be looking to save up as much money as possible to buy me a home when I get back to Virginia, and I should have a few rugs to put in it!

my team

we trained together while in Kansas, will we remain together in Afghanistan?

packing my bags

all sea bags look alike so to differentiate them my team came up with our own markings...

i will not miss the weather...

then again there is very little i will miss from kansas!

that's like -20 degrees Celsius!!!

austin, tx

from austin to kansas city

with a stop in dallas...

landing at love field

the plane flies right by downtown dallas...

last free week-end

I spent this past week-end, President's Day week-end, in Austin, TX. We finished our training the thursday before, were off from thursday afternoon 'till tuesday morning, so I thought I'd go visit my old roommate from my submarine days down in Austin, TX. Why not go back to Miami? That is a topic better left alone, and besides there is nothing that can be done about it now!
Anyway, what I did while in Austin consists of drinking one too many Mexican martinis friday night (and eating pretty much a whole hot pepper), seeing In Bruges and Esther's Follies on saturday (the first is a movie with midgets, prostitutes and guns, so a pretty good movie, filmed in Bruges, Belgium, and the second is a bunch of comedy skits centered on current news items and politicians, and being from Austin the current president was a prime target), and finally sight-seeing around Austin (went to the Capitol and saw a portrait of our current president back when he was governor) and roller derby sunday night.

So it was a pretty good week-end, I highly recommend Austin to anyone who's never been to Texas and is afraid of doing so because of Texans, and I'd like to thank my roommate Derrin and his wife Jolene for hosting me over the week-end, and Lani also, and lest I forget about Casey and Cloey (however it is spelled!)

on this most beautiful of days... February 14th

last training day

Me enjoying my MRE bread with MRE spread cheese before commencing our last training evolution, driving around the base through mock villages where we assisted the locals and got shot at here and there, and we returned fire.
I also found out that we are finally departing Fort Riley, KS on Feb 24th at 0530. The flight will be leaving from Topeka, KS at the aforementioned time, and this means that we will all have to muster around midnight on the 23rd. I have a feeling that this process will make TSA look like a breeze, but then again we will also be traveling with weapons. Try doing that with TSA!

a tree at dusk

I always wanted to get a shot of this tree, and as our time here is coming to an end (finally!) I thought now would be a good time. The temperature being near 5F with the wind chill I almost got frostbite on my right index finger from removing my glove to take a few snaps. Whatever happened to global warming, it's not happening fast enough!

the fluctuating weather

56F one day, snow the next!