I'm here.

Made it safely to my new home for the next 9 or so month of Camp Mike Spann this past Saturday. Mike Spann is on the southwest side of Mazar-e-Shariff, in the Northern part of Afghanistan. It has been surprisingly warm since we got here, at least compared to what I was experiencing while training in Germany. Germany seemed like it rained 80% of the time that we were there. I still have yet to be able to find a working phone in order to call my family, and it took me about three days to find internet access just to email them. Thus far I have been training with the LT that I am replacing to learn his job, the main thing that he has been passing along is to have patience.I have met my Afghan counterpart a couple times, and haven't really developed an initial impression of him yet. My one impression is that I grossly overestimated this base. There is no PX here in which to purchase basic necessities, so I'm going to have to rely on my family to supplies I might need. The base has more than 4 or 5 times the population than what our team had when they arrived, I would estimate more than a 1,000 people here including 10th Mountain Brigade headquarters, a Brigade Support Battalion, several different European OMLT teams including our combined team, plus numerous civilian contractors. As you can imagine it is a little tight living here. Currently I'm living, with my team, in a tent waiting for the team we are replacing to move out of our future quarters. The first night that we got here, there was a tremendous rain/thunder/lighting storm. The base the next day had turned into a giant mud-pit. Fortunately because of the heat, the ground has been drying out quickly. I'm looking forward to getting to work with my Afghan counterparts, and blogging about my adventures. More updates hopefully to follow soon.