Well it’s about time I write again.  Things are good I’m staying busy with school and other assorted activities (productive ones…).  I have just hit a rut with studying for my anatomy test that is in 8ish so hours.  Well it could be worse right?  This post doesn’t really have a theme other than my procrastination and taking care of my shit faced roommate.  It’s funny camera phone to him is spray bottle is to cat.  In his drunken stupor I’ll I have to do is say he’ll be on facebook and then he goes to bed….(it’s more like a 5 or 6 time thing though).  Besides that as of today I have been home for 2 years and working on my 4th semester of college.  I’m involved in Student Senate and play Rugby (If studying allows me time).  After this semester I’ll have 1 prereq class left to take Microbiology (yummy) and apply for the Nursing Program next spring.  I’m still in North Dakota and not in the Twin Cities.  The engagement fell through (mutual decision…but for the best) and I’m just keeping busy.  Well back to the grind stone….Cya Kyle….

Wow last post 2010???  This is getting really crazy…

I don’t know where to really begin or what I should write, but hello seems like a good place to start.  Hello I’m back and I’ll write later….

Well it’s been 10 months since my last post and I’m alive and kicking.  Things are really good, I’m on my second semester of school, since I got out of the Army in March.  I’m glad to be home and everything has worked out.  I’m just wondering why windows word is such a pain and why my printer is always jamming…Damn you Spanish Composition!!!…Cya Kyle….

It’s finally happening…2 weeks and I’m back the States for good…It might be 20 below and blizzarding, but Upstate NY is better than any conflict-ridden, Allah forsaken, resemblance of a country…Cya Kyle…

I don’t know how many of you have read or are familiar with Charles Dickens Great Expectations (The South Park version doesn’t count).  The story of Pip, a blacksmith’s apprentice, who preformed a Samaritan deed to a complete stranger and it changed his course and status in life forever.  There are many themes and undertones in the book that reflect on Dickens time and today.  My focus is my “Great Expectations,” but more like what happens if they don’t pan out.  I’m out of the Army in the spring and I plan on going to college, but if an unknown calamity strikes the Earth or Hell freezes over and I can’t attend…These are my backup/rock bottom plans…

Air Guitar World Champion en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_guitar

In a world of Rock Band and Guitar Hero, anybody and everybody can become a rock star and follow in the fantasy footsteps of the greats Metallica, Aerosmith, Beetles etc.  With these games the competition is getting stiff to become an Air Guitar Great (, with any Joe Shmoe thinking they are up to the task.  With grand prizes as high as $50,000 on the international stage, this will most likely increase with the popularity of music games and people living in their parents basements looking for some easy cash….hhhhmmm run around in spandex for 2-3 minutes pretending to jam like the greats…have a look for yourself…it’s ok if you cry…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ8E-AVgcUw&feature=related

Roshambo US Champion (Paper, Rock, Scissors) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-paper-scissors

Paper, Rock, Scissors I have been playing since I was in diapers.  PRS and get paid??  Bud Light sponsors??  $50,000 grand prize in Las Vegas Tourney??  Am I dreaming…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI3kFUn3Kyk

Reenlistment

More time in the military?  If hell froze over…more like rapture and the coming of Jesus Christ himself…I will live in a van down by the river before I come back…to my last option…

Motivational Speaker

Chris Farley showed me the light…If you can do it living in a van down by the river…Piece of Cake…

It’s a long way to rock bottom, but when you hit the shit and on your back there is only one place to go…Up…What’s your career prospects when you hit rock bottom??  Well Take Care and Leave me some Love…Cya Kyle…

Mail is one of the best things you can recieve while you are deployed.  Letters from friends, family, and lovers, and boxes of goodies of all shapes and sizes.  I was eating a slim jim (I feel my arteries clogging right now) earlier today and it got me thinking of all the great individually wrapped tasty morsels (Green Peace I know what you’re thinkin) that the food industry pops out.  I would have to say my favorites are slim jims, starbursts, and those little butterscotch candies…

What are your favorite bite size candies??  Leave some Love…Cya Kyle…

My two weeks at home was a blast and like all good things end too early.  I’m currently sitting in the Dallas Airport waiting to fly back to Afghan and finish up the last 3 months of my tour.  I’m definitely feeling the senior slump and can’t wait to be out of the Army in March.  The winter is setting in and God willing the end of the fighting season over there.  Well Take Care…Cya Kyle…

Well I’m two plane rides away from the good old USA.  I havn’t seen any true women in 8 months and it’s funny what you miss the most is the auroma of perfume.  Your senses are so highened that you have a nose like a blood hound (I’m trying to make this sound as non-creeperish as possible.  I’m not a creeper).   I realize I’m a little wired, but nothing sooths the soul better than a $20 hour long full body massage from a middle-aged Kyrguzstan Lady with a sense of humor and broken English (Now you can’t find that deal in the States).  Well I’ll be in the North Dakota soon…So Take Care and Leave me some Love…Cya Kyle…

PS…MPs need to lighten up and have a sense of humor…

I returned from the mountains 2 days ago and I’m just tore up.  From walkin the thin red line, endless fighting in the Afghan Highlands, dealings and politics of the Nuristani Hill Billies, the reports of rigged elections, I don’t have a fucking clue as to what the fuck we are doing.  And you know what I don’t care…I’m alive, my teams alive, and I’m going home…

I got 11 days until I’m on that golden chopper to greener pastures.  I’m taken the time to hit the Gym and try to recover some of the 25 lbs I lost over here.  I look like an Ethiopian without the inflamed stomach.  Oh and lots of ice cream I have like 2 bowls a day so far I have had chocolate and vanilla (Root Beer Float).  I can’t wait for some Cold Stone…

So even though I’m pretty much going home with no plans I have my obligations to my family.  I’m gonna see my Grandparents, my new baby cousin Zachary (I think this is the start of the baby boom in my family), my siblings, and going to tour the local Universities (University of North Dakota, North Dakota State University, and Concordia in Moorhead) with my little sister because we are gonna be freshmen at the same time…damn…I’m still living in Indiana but if I have to go home North Dakota gives instate tuition to veterans…hell yah…

Zachary the newest edition to the clan…

I guess I do have some kind of plans…everyone in my crew is now 21 so its gonna be interesting and me and Mike are going to beat Halo: ODST when it comes out…

That was one of a few thoughts that ran through my mind that night.  It was a normal mission trying to intercept Taliban fighters whom had been attacking and harassing coalition forces.  We had been working in the area a while and learned the patterns of life for the local civilians and wildlife, but had no luck detering or finding our quarry.

It was a dark night, the kind where people with sight feel blind.  So dark, night vision gave us no advantage.  We sat in a cluster of boulders, listening and watching terraced fields of maze with thermal sights.  The night was unusually quiet with the exception of occasional ass bellowing across the valley.  The bare fields we watched were absent of ferral dogs and coyotes that hunted and roamed during noctural hours.  The canines didn’t sing to one another, the heavens, or the lonely yellow moon.  All you heard was the wind and mosquitoes obsessed with flying in your ears.

((Not actual image from event but placed as example))

After a couple hours of watching and scanning a white “hot” silhouette appeared on in front of us 200m out.  It wasn’t a man, and didn’t move like a dog.  The animal stayed low to the ground and slowly slinked across the field with its long tail swaying behind it.  It jumped off the terrace and into the next field out of sight.  Ten minutes later to our right, another white “hot” silhoutte came moving toward us down an irrigation ditch 150m out.  The silhouette stopped and popped its head up every 30m out of the ditch.  I couldn’t make it out other than a heat signature because the brush around the trench, so I raised my rifle and followed the silhoutte as it moved.   I didn’t know if it was an animal or someone trying to sneak up on us.  50m away from our position the silhouette disappeared, maybe the trench got deeper or it just stopped moving.  I looked over at my teammate and then back to the trench and sitting above the ditch 20m from us was a mountain lion watching.   It moved with out a sound up the ditch and sat there silently staring like a statue.  I switched my rifle from safe to fire ready to shoot if it came any closer, but hesitant to shoot because I didn’t want to compromise our position.  After a 5 minute staredown it lost interest and jumped off the trench wall and disappeared into the field.  A short time later out of the corn on our left another lion walked 15m infront of us stopped and stared.  I don’t know how long it was there but eventually it disappeared back into the corn field.

When we returned to the local outpost, we talked about the mountain lions being so low in the valley.  Came to two conclusions, that the summer was so dry they had to climb out of the mountains to look for food since it was so scarce.  The second they were drawn by the presents of food (trash, goats, anything smaller than them) and the dogs that were shot to stop the spread of disease.

I have heard stories of guys seeing mountain lions in Afghanistan and about them sneaking up on them.  This is the first time I have seen one that close and not through bars.  The event sparked my curiousity so I decided to do some research.  I was amazed to find out (if my assumption is correct from my the research I did online) that what we saw that night was probably an endangered snow leopard (if you now of any over big cats that roam afghanistan let me know).  But to see 2 off them when there is only an estimated 100 to 200 in the country…heck yah.  But when I found out they could jump up to 14m I kind of cringed. Thinking about it afterwards US soldiers killing Snow Leopards wouldn’t sit well with PETA, World Wildlife Fund, or the international community.  Especially after watching the Discovery Channel Special “Planet Earth” Snow Leopards look so cool. Regardless I’m an avid hunter and outdoorsmen and the thought of lion burgers and a new rug did cross my mind.  But in retrospect had I shot the cats I would felt like a total jackass and I’m sure PETA would put a hit out on me.  But I wasn’t planning on becoming dinner either…

I can’t spend an hour writing about Snow Leopards and not help out the cause… for more information on conservation and protecting majestic creatures like these go to….

World Wildlife Fund  http://www.wwf.org/

Big Cat Rescue  http://www.bigcatrescue.org/

Snow Leopard Info  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_leopard

Leave me some Love…Cya Kyle…