The (other) Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Hello again from beautiful Bagram! MARCH MADNESS is upon us!! Even though I would much rather be at a sports bar with a dozen games at one time, I am still excited for the NCAA tourney and will settle for catching one game at a time when I am able. Unfortunately I had to miss the last game of UL basketball in Freedom Hall, but I was excited to hear of their victory over Syracuse! Life is going well on this side of the ocean, just doing the battle captain gig 8 hours a day with the once a week flight. I finally broke 30 hours in the AO (area of operation) just a few nights ago! Yay for me! While that may seem like a lot trust me when I say it's not a lot at all (my peers from flight school in flight positions are nearing 150 hours or more!), but at this rate I am taking what I can! We just added another battle captain to our group and hopefully I will be able to get out of the TOC twice a week now as opposed to just once. In other news there has been no more snow and I am pretty sure there won't be any at least up until its nearly time for me to leave afghanistan for good later this year. The temperatures have been up near the 70s during the daytime, still a little chilly in the night but overall pleasant.

The days continue to tick away and I am blown away at how quickly February disappeared, but by no means am I complaining of the time going by fast! Not much exciting has happened lately in Bagram, but the latest news on some soldiers' minds is the upcoming closings of our finer restaurants here at BAF, namely Burger King, Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and Popeyes. Per higher, these establishments will be closed here in the near future so we can focus more on the war effort and not the "comforts" of these eateries. Given I've only been to pizza hut twice and dairy queen once, I won't be missing them.

Today saw history in the making as the Afghan National Army Air Corps (yes they have their own air corps!) conducted its first air assault with Afghan Army troops! While it was only a training mission it goes to show that there are some signs of progress with Afghanistan's forces. Below are some pics I snapped of their helicopters shutting down after their mission. Consider you are looking at a third (i believe) of their air corps, as they only have a total of 6 Mi-17 helicopters. I guess they gotta start somewhere! Enjoy the pics and enjoy the most wonderful month of sports (in this man's opinion) over the next few weeks! GO CARDS!!!!