March 13-14, 2010
Dear friends:
Greetings from Forward Operating Base
Sharana in Paktika Province! Since my
all-too-brief visit home in February things have significantly changed. But before I write about the changes, I
would like to thank all those who hosted me over my rest and relaxation period
or offered me reassurance of their prayers for me and the troops during this
deployment.
So what has changed? It not only took five days to get from
Afghanistan to California but it also took five days to get from California to
Afghanistan. While I was waiting at the
base chapel in the mega-base of Bagram for my flight “home” to Jalalabad, the
division chaplain for 82nd Airborne Division, in charge of Eastern
Afghanistan (I always refer to him as “the big boss”), met me briefly and
informed me that I was going to be transferred to the brigade south of my
original area. The switch was
necessitated by the arrival of a new unit priest to my original brigade, giving
us three priests while the brigade to the south had two who were shortly
leaving the country.
While the logic of moving a priest from a
brigade with three to a brigade with none was unassailable, it still was a
difficult order to accept. The move had
to be quick as the two priests to the south were departing soon, so I had five
days (originally it was to be only three days) to say goodbye to the three
Jalalabad bases, wrap up a number of administrative and sacramental tasks, and
pack. There was no time to visit the
other bases I had tended to for seven months.
A few Catholics on the outlying bases received emails from me but most
would find out once a new priest started visiting their bases with news of my
transfer. So goes life as a military
priest. I was fortunate that there was
a meeting of the Protestant chaplains in the brigade during my last days in
Jalalabad, so I had the opportunity to say goodbye to these junior chaplains
who were generous in offering their friendship and concrete support to the “new
guy” in Task Force Mountain Warrior as soon as I arrived in July. I hope that some of them might be stopping
by San Jose in the years ahead.
For some strange reason most long-range
military travel seems to occur at night.
Most of the international legs of my trips during this deployment began
at some ungodly hour (well after midnight) and my trip to Sharana was the
same. There are no direct flights
between Jalalabad and Sharana, so my assistant and I had to return to Bagram
once again to make our connection to Sharana.
You can think of Bagram as the Afghan equivalent of Atlanta or O’Hare
airports: it is the air “hub” through
which most “spokes” here connect. After
one night in Bagram where our flight was cancelled about midnight my assistant
and I finally caught a flight the following night “Space-A” as the military
would say, or “on standby” in the civilian world, about 1 in the morning. While relieved to finally leave the “big
city” of Bagram the downside was that we arrived about 2:30 at a fog-shrouded
base we had never seen before and with the base chaplains having no idea that
we had landed. We had been warned that
the terminal was far from the main part of the base and this proved to be the
case. While the terminal staff pointed
out the road to the base the thought of walking with our gear in the pitch
darkness of a strange base did not strike us as a smart idea, so we slept
fitfully in the terminal and watched the tail end of “Avatar.”
In the morning one of the base doctors
came to the terminal to pick up a visitor, took pity on us, and dropped us off
at the base chapel. Thus began a day of
nonstop activity every military member has upon arriving at a new unit: checking in with various offices, meeting
certain senior officers, getting a basic layout of the base, and being assigned
billeting. Add to this learning about
my new job by the departing priest while not having slept much in the previous
two days and one can understand why arriving at a new unit is a particularly
stressful event in the life of a service member.
The priest I was relieving was departing in conjunction with his
brigade. The incoming brigade is part
of the Army’s famed 101st Airborne Division (the “Screaming
Eagles”). This brigade, Task Force
Rakkasan, has an interesting history, which reads more like a Marine Corps unit
than a stereotypical Army unit. They
had World War Two service in the Pacific and Japan, were in Korea alongside the
Marines, and served multiple tours in Vietnam.
This particular brigade was with (or as my assistant says, behind) the
Marines going into Baghdad during the 2003 invasion. The unusual name comes from the Japanese for “falling down
umbrella men,” which is how they were described when they first parachuted into
Japan immediately after the Japanese surrender in World War Two. Mountain Warrior’s area of operations had
both desert and mountains, but this brigade’s area is much higher in altitude,
far more mountainous, and is generally more primitive than the area around
Jalalabad. While violent, it has been
less so recently than the area from which I came. Right now the snow-covered mountains have ended the fighting
season: we’ll see what Spring brings
us.
In any case, this brigade did not have a
priest assigned to it: yet another tale
stemming from the chronic priest shortage in the military. The outgoing brigade had one assigned priest
and a “loaner” from 82nd Airborne Division like myself. The loaner’s story is particularly
striking: he was a 70 year old
Franciscan priest called out of military retirement to serve two years straight
(!) in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now with
24 months in Middle East he gets to return to the United States. I could only hope for God to give me half of
his energy when I’m 72!
Much like my time in Jalalabad I travel
most days. Unlike Jalalabad where I
often had day trips, out here trips are always several days and cancelled
flights due to poor weather are the norm.
For example, last week I planned to visit five bases: I made it to one base on the itinerary,
missed the other four, and ended up on a base I had not planned to visit until
April before I arrived back in Sharana.
Sharana reminds me of a Mexican
town: built around the original
stone-walled base we call “Town Center,” many buildings have a tan color and
adobe look one often finds south of the border. The mud roads with beat-up cars and trucks certainly add to the
atmosphere. It is a rapidly-expanding
base and so the facilities are inadequate for the number of Soldiers here
despite the constant building by military engineers. I have given up on the always-packed gym, preferring to jog and
do calisthenics in the 7,000 foot altitude.
Let’s just say that I’m not setting any speed records while running
around the base! The MWR recreation
center is mobbed at all hours as well, making it difficult for me to access
those of you using the priest.com email account. But the Soldiers, most of them new to Afghanistan, are generally
optimistic and friendly on this remote and secure base, whereas on FOB Fenty in
Jalalabad the stress of living in a very active warzone and on a base subject
to occasional rocket and mortar attacks made the base mood more grim.
Hopefully next month I will have the
opportunity to write a more interesting letter than this one. May we all have a blessed Lent and joyful
celebration of Our Lord’s Resurrection at Easter!
Yours in Christ,
Fr.
Michael