End of Week 1...

I wasn't sure whether to title this the "End of Week 1" or the start of my first full week...I've been told that the days are long here but the weeks are short, so I've decided to follow in the footsteps of my colleague Lt Col Todd Hirneisen who just got home after his 6-months in Afghanistan and use the end of the week as my benchmark!

So, my week consisted of stops at Manas AB, Kyrgyzstan; Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan; and ultimately Forward Operating Base (FOB) Leatherneck, Afghanistan - my new home for the next 6-months. After a whirl-wind turnover with my predecessor, Maj Pete Keegan, I took the reins of Air Force Facility Engineer Team (FET) officially on Saturday. Pete is an outstanding officer and leader and left fairly large size 11 boots for me to fill...Offically, I am assigned to the 777 Expeditionary Prime BEEF Squadron, which is an Air Force Civil Engineer unit, based out of Kandahar. However, this squadron has been tasked to support numerous outlying FOBs, with Leatherneck being one of them. I'll be leading a team of 7 Air Force civil engineers in the execution of construction projects for FOB Leatherneck and all of the outlying FOBs that fall under Leatherneck's responsibility. FOB Leatherneck is in southern Afghanistan and is the home of the US Marine Corps presence in country. If you Google Leatherneck, you will probably learn lots of useful and not so useful information about our mission here.

Below is a picture of me at Manas...and yes that is snow on the ground.

Below is a picture of the Hindu Kush mountain range, which is visible on a clear day from Leatherneck. This mountain range has a long history and has been the site of several historical battles in our current War on Terrorism.

I have been taking some pictures of my living conditions and the general environment on Leatherneck that I will post some time this week in an "off-cycle" update. Merritt and Campbell are very interested to see what my "tent" looks like. I am fortunate to have my own space within a tent called a "Smalled Shelter System". Unfortunately, the moon dust that is the ground surface here gets into and on everything inside the tent b/c it isn't really a sealed environment. I've been told that after a month or so, you just give up the battle of trying to keep things clean and learn to become one with the dust! The weather has been pretty good here so far. Highs in the 60s, lows in the 30s. Supposedly we are due for some rain pretty soon, which makes travel here very difficult b/c there is no where for the rain water to go and the "moon dust" turns into a very sticky mud.

I appreciate everyone's continued prayers as I settle in and as the girls adjust to me being gone. Right now, I don't have any specific needs here...although we are setting up a new work office and the team is looking for a gaming system that we can play in the evenings or during our Saturday movie nights. So if anyone has a gently used Wii (or similar system) that they would like to donate to a most worthy cause, let me know. There are lots of airmen and marines w/ whom I work that would get a lot of enjoyment out of it.

For those who have been asking, here is my mailing address:

MAJ TODD M. GRAHAM
777 EPBS-LNK
FPO, AE 09372

Until next time...