Marrying The Army In Roseville, Minnesota...

YouTube embed with thanks to Megan Goodmundson,
blog post by John Hoff

So, after a 15 year break in military service, and in the midst of an economy so tough that dozens of random individuals are walking around right now with my sold-away blood plasma coursing through their veins, I enlisted in the army National Guard in February of 2010.

Swearing in to the American military is a little bit like getting married...

Coming Back To The Army After A 15-Year Break In Service...

Photo, blog post by John Hoff

Telling the story of my recent deployment to Afghanistan, I can't really START in Afghanistan. I suppose if I were to tell everything, I'd have to begin with my father at the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941, and how his own military career influenced me.

But that's too far back...

The short story is that I joined the army in 1990, right after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. I never deployed overseas but, after training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina and Fort Sam Houston, Texas, I was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. I was there until 1994, working on a military psychiatric ward.

I say again, WORKING on a military psychiatric ward, but there's an old joke:

What's the difference between a psych tech and a psych patient?

Answer...

Home In One Piece, Thank God...

Photo, blog post by John Hoff


Finally, I am home from Afghanistan with thousands of pictures and stories, not all of which I can publish or tell while our soldiers are fighting overseas. But many of the pictures can be published, many of the stories can be told, and will be in the coming days, weeks, months...and possibly years.

Pictured above, "de-mobilizing" soldiers at Camp Shelby, Mississippi have arrived back from Afghanistan. They will need several days to get medical and dental checkups, to fill out numerous forms, to turn in all their issued equipment, to get briefings on the various benefits they now enjoy as combat veterans including the Post-911 GI Bill to pay for schooling. Not all the soldiers will leave Camp Shelby for home. A significant number (more than usual with demobilizing units) will need medical attention for issues aggravated by their service, everything from torn tendons to rabies shots. For this, they will go to "MTUs" (Medical Transition Units) to heal up or get discharged as disabled vets. With a limited amount of MTU space, many will end up many hundreds, even thousands of miles from their homes.

But that comes later. At the end of each long day of "demob" at Camp Shelby many soldiers board an "MWR" bus. (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) They are only allowed to...

Gone Fishing (In A Landlocked Country, Relatively Free Of Standing Water)

Photo by John Hoff, Pashto folk art on a trash trailer

Heaven knows I don't get a chance to blog very often (I've been pulling a lot of sentry duty at the front gate of our FOB) but in the next few weeks or months I will, most likely, not have many opportunities to access the internet. I'm leaving Paktya Province in a few hours and heading to a base that's much more primitive. Therefore, I'm hanging out the virtual "Gone Fishing" sign.

Christmas Eve will most likely find me looking out the windows of a Chinook helicopter, trying to spot Santa Claus.

In Afghanistan, American Trash Is Third World Treasure...

Photo and blog post by John Hoff

Always conscious of OPSEC (Operational Security) I haven't actually said, online, where the heck I am in Afghanistan except "Paktiya Province." Tomorrow, a week from now, or months from now I will be somewhere else in Afghanistan. I know exactly where and approximately when. I know it won't be as nice there as here.

But I won't say more. Even with land-based forces, loose lips sink ships.

When American soldiers prepare for movement (and, in "hurry up and wait" fashion, we prepare far in advance, which is why I haven't blogged for so long) stuff gets throw away.

Well, even in America, one man's trash is another man's treasure. So imagine how American trash is regarded in the one of the poorest nations on earth.

It is amazing to see the...

Don't Worry About Things You Read/ US Troops Have All The Supplies We Need!

Morale-building barbeque hosted by base chaplain, photo and blog post by John Hoff

My friend Megan in Minneapolis sent me a message, worried about whether troops at my Forward Operating Base (FOB) had enough supplies in light of Pakistan cutting off the overland routes after a serious incident on the border, click here for news story....

I can only speak about my own FOB and FOBs nearby, but I assume the situation isn't much different elsewhere...

Watching Rambo III In Afghanistan Gives The Movie A Whole New Flavor...

Photo and blog post by John Hoff

In Rambo III, arguably the most unbelievable of the not-terribly-believable-in-the-first-place Rambo movies, former Green Beret John Rambo enters Afghanistan to rescue his former commander who has fallen into the hands of the Soviets.

I recently watched a badly-pirated copy of Rambo III at "Kabul Fried Chicken," an Afghan restaurant located on my Forward Operating Base which sells delicious kabobs and features a  "bottomless cup" of free green tea...unless somebody makes off with the urn and takes it to another shop.

I say the movie was "badly pirated" because...