Afghanistan Bound

For the second time in about two and a half months, I am heading back to Afghanistan. I am teaming up with USA TODAY reporter Gregg Zoroya to embed with the U.S. Army.

I really didn’t unpack completely from the last trip in August. I have been seriously meaning to pack for the past three days. As usual, I put off the most intense packing until the very last minute only going at it first thing this morning.

Around 8am, I worked at sorting the gear in the garage I would need for this assignment. Having a 17-month-old wanting to help is fun but a bit challenging too. I want to get things done but it is just too much fun watching her explore all the pockets and zippers.

The only real change from the August trip in preparing differently is the weather. It is going to be much colder this time of year. I had to pack more weight and take up more space with warm clothing. Surprisingly, my bags from August all weighed the same as they do now for this trip.

Stopping briefly in my day long packing only to chase Maddie down the hall after she ran off with this cord or that boot, I finally had all my bags weighed in around forty-five pounds each as well as my backpack for the camera gear. It weighed in at about thirty-five pounds. Finished packing around 5pm in plenty of time for my 10:10pm flight from Dulles to Dubai. Hopefully in two days, I should make it to Afghanistan following a layover in Dubai.

I am heading to Bagram first. There is a very large military base known as BAF there. After doing the initial check in, we probably will be heading for a base  which sits right around 8,000 feet in elevation and it is definitely not going to be summer temps.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Blog, On Assignment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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