Today was a reason to celebrate for my team and I. Our replacements arrived last night to Marmal Air Base. First thing this morning we did one of our largest convoys, 7 vehicles, to drive to Marmal and pick up the guys who will hopefully continue what we've been doing right. Hopefully they also find a way to avoid making the same mistakes and growing pains.
Something that is unique compared to my other two deployments is we did not have to move out of our rooms to make space for the new guys. They are moving into a set of connexes recently built by the Croatian contigent, here on Camp Mike Spann. Not having to live out of a duffle bag for the next two weeks while we conduct our hand over training will make life a lot easier.
It was fun, after dropping off the new guys at their rooms, observing their amazement at taking in all of their new surrounding. Kind of like getting dropped off at your first dorm in college, a good deal of excitement was on their faces. I took my counterpart and a couple other guys on a brief 'nickle tour' of our small base. At the end I gave them a couple boxes of care supplies which I had received to help get them settled in.
The next we will try and teach them everything we've learned over the past nine months. First impression is that they have a pretty descent crew, and should do fine. Several members have prior deployment experience, which should help ease their transition.
2 comments:
Thank you for your blog. I haven't read all, but am very interested because my brother is one of your replacements who just arrived! So thanks for your insight.
From Croatian ministery of defence site:
Members of the 3rd Combined Multinational Operational Mentoring Liaison Team (CS MN OMLT) with the members of the 1st Brigade of the 209th Corps of the Afghan National Army (ANA) visited a shelter for abandoned children "Bibi Fatemah" in Afghanistan, where they handover gift packs with school supplies and educational and other social games.
3rd CS MN OMLT is composed of members of the Croatian Armed Forces and the U.S. Armed Forces from the composition of the Minnesota National Guard, and the organizer of this humanitarian visit was a member of the team Captain Marc L. Rassler. During their stay in the ISAF mission, besides conducting their regular tasks, OMLT team had several humanitarian projects, thus continuing the tradition of CAF participation in humanitarian activities in ISAF mission in Afghanistan.
"Bibi Fatemah" orphanage acts as a shelter for abandoned children, and is located in the village of Ali Chopan, in the eastern suburb of the city of Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan. The orphanage is currently home for more than 100 children of various ages.
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