Life in a box... day 9

Shelter in place, that’s the order.

In Afghanistan I was confined to a 8’ x 8’ plywood box with a busted air mattress. No internet, no books because I hate to read, no real association to anyone because I was an outsider. I did however pickup art, for which I

am not that good at.

I’d been given orders to ship out on a Thursday, leaving on Monday to a foreign land with no training and time to acclimate.

Now, I didn’t have kids with me while I was there, but I did have a full time job working in the main shipping and receiving warehouse for all medical supplies supporting Afghanistan and parts of Iraq. On a daily basis I would drive a 15k forklift unloading C-130’s on an airfield in Bagram. They were 10’ x 10’ double stacked skids. While I wasn’t on that job I was pulling guard duty.

Guard duty was the worst, it involved 6 hour on/off shifts of different tasks for a week. Partly standing at the guard shack letting people in and out of the hospital on base, I also had pickup visitors from outside the wire to see loved ones. That’s not even remotely excited when you are in a foreign country and English is not the main language. It was even worse because I had to stay with the visitors while they visited kids and adults that major life threatening injury’s from AKA rounds, car bombs, land mines, and a multitude of other injuries.

Luckily though, I was both tasked and volunteered to take in the mission of finding outside truck drivers to deliver supplies all around the country. This was difficult because there was no set protocol and the drivers were not literate or English speaking. All the reasons you can imagine going 1 mile outside of the base with no protection, alone, to find a person you don’t know, etc.

Then we’re a few times at night that the the Taliban or whomever would attack the base with old Russian ordinance. It would be randomly shot off from the surrounding mountains. 2 things about this: 1. It was scary. 2. If you’ve never seen an Apache helicopter send a hail fire storm of ammunition into a mountain when it’s pitch black then you haven’t lived.

I was blessed to have an amazing memory that can recall details. Some of those details involved the process of bringing in the trucks to base. On occasion they find, drugs, bombs, or weapons. And one terrible occasion they were too late to find a vehicle with explosives that detonated after I had gotten back inside the wire. But, never will I forget that.

When an inmate would escape they would sound the alarm and we have to search for them. When the alarm sounded and the bombs were inbound we would have shelter in place, hunkering down in our bomb shelter.

I’ve been a leader my whole life, never scared to take the lead and be able to call those shots. Those decisions come with consequences though. Everyone questions you, your can only ever be 50/50 right and wrong.

I can honestly say, I would not want to be the one calling the big shots right now. This is crazy time and no one, no one knows what to do, you can only make a choice and hope that choice is the right one. But, the only way to know is see what happens afterwards.

CEO’s, presidents, governors, and parents. All making sound decisions right now hoping it will be the right one.

Good luck!