Hello LT Miller December 7 2006

Hello all from Afghanistan. Sorry for the long delay in updates. Believe it or not this past month has really flown by. First off I would like to thank all of you that sent school supplies and winter coats for the children. I really enjoyed passing them out. We picked the 2 poorest villages around here and they were really appreciative. I have lots of projects going on and I am still working with training
the Afghan Army. The weather has really changed and winter is here. Hard to believe that it was 120F on Halloween and 40F on Thanksgiving. The mountains are now capped with snow and it really brightens up the desert landscape.

The heavy rains for 2 weeks really knocked the dust down and provided for some greenery. It also filled up the dam. So for all you dam skeptics out there it held. You can see the high water mark in the attached picture. We have a hole in the bottom to drain it out since it is not quite finished and we want to get it done by Jan 1. Honestly I was pretty worried listening to a fierce thunderstorm and pouring rain one night thinking that it would wash the dam away. We really were not expecting that much rain and that soon. We received 10 inches of rain in those 2 weeks, the most in 12 years. They received only a half inch of rain all of last year. Since the ground is so hard most of it runs off, so lots of flash floods for the villages along the valleys. The Afghans proved they could build using old techniques. We had some professionally engineered dams fail in the area so we are kind of proud. Thanksgiving turned out to be a workday for me. We had to travel a few hours South to survey 3 school sites and 3 well sites. At first I think we were a little upset because it was supposed to be a day off but it actually turned out O.K. In the attached picture of Thanksgiving lunch we found a place outside of a village to have a meal. I will tell you that eating an imitation pork MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) for Thanksgiving sure makes one thankful for what we have back home. By the way can someone please tell me what the heck imitation pork is? What could possible be used as a cheaper alternative to pork? We had 2 chicken MRE's so our 2 interpreters got to choose from those since they cannot have pork (even though it was imitation pork). Shortly after we started our meal some children came by from the village. Looking at their bare feet (remember it was 40F) and torn clothes we realized that our life is pretty darn good. I actually am glad that we did not have the day off since sharing a meal with those children was a great experience. By the time we got back to base we thought we had missed dinner. As I approached our hut I started to smell something grilling. Thanks to our buddies who went to a local village and bought some live turkeys we had a great meal. From the sound of it I missed a pretty funny event with the guys running around trying to catch the turkeys and then preparing them. Although I missed my family dearly and wished I was home it was a much better day than I was expecting and one which I shall always remember.

Besides the schools and wells I was also working on demolishing 4 old buildings and building 10 others. I learned a valuable lesson in demolition about supervising Afghans. After 3 days of demolition without an incident I thought I could take a 15-minute break and be O.K., as Murphy's Law would have it in those 15 minutes they managed to topple a brick wall onto a building that was not supposed to be torn down. As in typical Afghan fashion the Afghan leading the charge said "These
things happen". When the guy responsible for the building returned he asked what happened and when told guess what he said, "These things happen". The wall has been repaired and all is well again. Finally in honor of the Navy's big football win over Army I present to you the attached picture Navy over Army.

Take care and keep in touch.
LT John Miller US NARMY