A few last pics

Worship service - Camp Clark.

The monkey who thought I wanted his 'fruit leather' and tried to rip my eye out. Course, those fruit leathers are pretty good.

The 'castle' on the border and an outstanding Denali medic.

More Photos

A Sniper finds his range - less than a click from Pakistan. The Taliban need to get their estates in order if they intend to try and over-run here.

A great platoon sergeant in his new castle.

A rare episode of personal hygiene . . . just kidding jamie.

A high ranking commander of ground forces meets with our Scouts before they leave to take over a volatile piece of geography.

A Few Photos

Been a while since I was able to post any photos - here are a few dating from early November until just a few days ago.

One of our great 13Foxes at the top of a tough climb.

Matt M. on the way up another mountain. I think we will all miss the mountains the most . . . no, really.

This joyful and kind man had just been released from a 7 year term in a Pakistani prison. He, like many others we have met here, was an exceptionally welcoming and generous host.

Think he was hoping I had some candy to offer.

Worship service in Camp Clark. Finally a FOB with some amenities - but the telephones are horrid.

Late December

It is good to be clear of November and well on our way to finishing out 10 months in Afghanistan. Funny how little impact the annual calendar has on Denali Families these days - it is all about the deployment calendar. Both are drawing to a finish - finally.
I am sorry to have been so quiet during the last several weeks. We have transitioned, as most of you know, to Kowst Province - and the change has created more for all of our Warriors to accomplish before we leave. Not only are we learning to operate in a new geography - but really in a very different realm. Our paratroopers are now partnered with Afghan National Army Soldiers and serve to train them, evaluate them, and improve their capabilities. It is a daunting task - but one that is absolutely essential if we are to someday cease work in this country.
Of course - it is a difficult transition to make for us all. Certainly we have been working alongside the ANA for sometime - but this is very different - it is a very complete kind of partnering, and at every level. Just a few weeks ago some of the more high-ranking US Commanders in Afghanistan visited our FOB to see how the Denali Squadron has set out to accomplish this mission. They were decidedly impressed, pleased, and hopeful - I think, that what is happening here will be replicated elsewhere.
Our Commander would be the first to tell you that the credit for our successes at this new mission belongs to every Soldier in the Squadron. The work is difficult, sometimes very frustrating, but must be done with the end in mind. None of us wants to be back here in five years - and so the foundations must be laid with diligence.
So - we are sprinting until the end of this thing. You know, I expect that most of us will be running so much that the day of our departure arrive as something of a surprise. Maybe that is not the case at home right now. Lots of snow, we hear. Not too many hours of daylight. Wow. We really are living different realities right now aren't we? Still - in just a few months we will have been home for a while, and deployment memories will have already grown more distant, hazy.
We are looking forward to seeing you all again soon! Guys are getting ready for PCSs', for leave - they are talking about snowboarding and King Salmon season. Mostly its just going to be nice to see our families again.
Oh yeah, your Squadron Chaplain was scratched beneath the eye by a hungry and defensive monkey at an Afghan National Police station today. I will leave you with that. I guess you were expecting something inspirational - maybe scripture based. Guess I'm not on my A game all the time. :-)

Grace and peace to you all today! Live gladly.
denali shepherd

October 25th

Well, I am figuring that we are somewhere under 100 days to go on this deployment! Please do not accept that as gospel (or authoritative) - I am not writing this on behalf of the command, nor do I know the exact day of our departure. You may accept it as gospel (in the sense that it is good news!) - which is what the biblical word means - as, 100 days - give or take a few, is doable I think.

I understand from other Paratroopers, and from Facebook, and from my wife (who gets right to the point from time to time), that 100 days doesn't necessarily feel like good news right now. I definitely get it. With eight + months down - everyone seems to be feeling the cumulative weight of separation. For all of you who follow this blog from home (FT Rich) - know that we feel it too. Still, Jamie reminds me that it is more intense on your end. We leave, and life becomes entirely different. The sites, sounds, certainly smells, everything - for a year of our lives, have changed. Sometimes, in the course of things here, I find that it is very difficult to spend much time thinking about home. As I have explained it to Jamie before, it is just too hard trying to live in two places at the same time - emotionally then, I begin to disconnect in some ways. I certainly care deeply about what is happening back home and am anxious to hear about it, but my living has to be done here, in the company of soldiers.

I understand that for a soldier's wife it just is not that way. A soldier leaves, and the family just goes on - with much the same routine . . . minus one. Many of the things that were done as a family are still done, and the absence of the one is keenly felt. That must be very hard.

Then, 0f course, there are the typical hard things - like a house full of sick kids! As I am writing tonight, my wife and both kids are sick - all together; and I am asking the Lord for a fast healing for at least one of them! Last time this happened our son recovered first, as I recall, and was summarily called upon to heat soup, refill glasses of Gatorade, and generally become a servant. At the end of the day, my wife and I were glad for the experience on his behalf, and proud of the way that he rose to the occasion. Perhaps this time the result will be again to the development of a Christ-like spirit. Of course, I am getting of track - and the point was, that this is an especially difficult time - chiefly at home.

Encourage one another at least with this thought - no Airman, now arriving in Afghanistan, will complete his tour before Task Force Denali returns home! It took us a long time to arrive at this point - but we are finally there! I probably should not so often give voice or text to my Air Force envy - surely the scriptures address such a poor spirit but sometimes I just can't help it. I spent three years in Panama - most of it in the jungle - while my Air Force neighbor was home by four-thirty every work day (of which I think there were relatively few!) :-) Too often I came home filthy, frustrated, exhausted to Jamie's first words of greeting - why didn't you join the Air Force?

At any rate - we are not too far off now! Many of us will have been home a month before the Iditarod gets started. That is worth celebrating. Truly, that is good news.

Below (or above - now sure how this thing will format) - you will find some pictures from Sunday Service (today's) with the guys from B Troop. Perhaps you will see someone you recognize! If you don't - and you were supposed to (like - if the soldier you're looking for is in B Troop) please tell him to go to church! It is good for him! - and that his chaplain, but most especially his God - loves him!

Alright - enough for tonight, I suppose.

Grace and peace to you all, from our Lord Jesus -

chaplain matthew

Note - Can't get the Images to upload correctly right now - will try again later, I promise.

Hello Again . . . finally

I am sure some of you have been wondering whether or not I would ever return to this blog. There were times when I wondered myself. A series of discouraging episodes with the internet kind of sucked the life out of me for a while - but I have been on Environmental Morale Leave and am mostly better now.

My intent will be to renew the postings here at least every other week for the remainder of the deployment - but I guess we will see how it goes. I have intended lots of things over the years.



We left August in pretty good spirits, I think - all things considered. While a couple of other Battalions in our Brigade took some pretty hard hits, and not a few casualties - we were very glad to have a few injuries but no lost soldiers during the violent days surrounding the Afghan elections. Not to say that our Denali paratroopers were removed from the fight - in many places they were right in the thick. Sometimes there is just no accounting (on this end of eternity, I suppose) for the way a battle turns. We have been very sorry though, to hear of the loss of several of our Brigade brothers during that same period.



I took leave at the end of September, as I have indicated. It was super to be with Jamie and the kids for a few days - really nice. Went fishing with a dear friend who is also an Army chaplain, and the District Superintendent for the Church of the Nazarene in Alaska. He is an incredible man, who is quite possibly the most down to earth Senior Church leader that I have ever met. Not that those are rare, I doubt that they are - he is just strikingly real and sincere in faith. I cannot imagine a better Superintendent (and he does not read this blog - so that cannot be misconstrued as flattery).



Gets me to thinking about myself when I am around folks like that - and how I want much more to be transparent, and at the same time more faithful. Those who know me well know how inadequate I have often felt as any sort of Christian leader. (Please do NOT respond to this with comments to the contrary - that is not my purpose!!! - just an attempt at greater transparency.) I think too, that I have wasted much time in wishing to be much more than I am - on some grander scale - and failing to be consistent in smaller things. Things like, routine - daily time with God in prayer and the scriptures, daily prayer with my family (when I am home). I suppose if I could name just two things that are so needful for me - those are the two.



I was looking at some old pictures with my dad the other morning (before catching a flight out of Dallas) - one was the living room of his family home in Laredo, Texas. His father and mother spent more than thirty years in one Salvation Army Corps in Laredo - how common is that these days? Anyway, he told me that his family spent most every morning in prayer together in that living room. How simple, and what a profound influence that must have had on the whole family.



Lord, shape that kind of consistency into my life - for the sake of my wife and children, for my own, and especially that You would be pleased and glorified in me. Shape us around the little consistencies that add up to a grand life with You.



Sorry this is short - but I will be told any moment now, "computer 17, your time is up."



matthew

Tuesday Morning

Began at 0400, which is not so typical for me – but is for a good percentage of our men.  Matt M., who has been back on station for about a week, woke me and we began the gearing up process   Getting all of that gear on always reminds me of my Dad’s regular riverside quote preparing for a day of fly-fishing, “what a production.”  By that he means the whole thing of tucking pants into socks, pulling on waders, folding rock-guards over boots, hooking up chest-packs, camel-backs, connecting four pieces of rod, cutting and tying tippet, selecting flies, etc. . . . yep, he’s right – it’s a “production.”  The tough part for me is, by the time we actually get to the water (after at least one trip back to the house to get the gear my dad forgot . . . can you believe that we met in New Mexico once to fish the San Juan tailwater, and my dad forgot to pack his reel?) anyway, by the time we get on the water – I am so anxious to get a line wet, that I tend to rush through the “production” and skip a guide stringing line on the rod, or tie too short a leader, or something.  Always gets me into trouble later, costs extra time spent riverside – sitting on some rock re-rigging, watching someone else fight fish.

The stakes are a little higher here, so Matt and I spend a little extra time making sure things are right; right uniform (the flame retardant variety), right equipment, plenty of water, fresh batteries, whatever the mission requires.  Just the two of us is easy.  The team leaders and squad leaders go through the “production” with each of their guys – its called PCCs’ / PCIs’ (pre combat checks / pre combat inspections).  After that, we all meet for the mission brief, talk through rehearsals, pray, load up.

Tuesday’s mission was a slow drive up the wadi (river-bed), before dismounting and clearing to several small villages.  ‘Clearing’ is exactly what it sounds like – walking in front of the vehicles looking for wires that might run to mines, pressure plates, anything to indicate an IED in the road.  Our paratroopers find them frequently, but you would never find one from the relative safety of the truck. 

We didn’t find any mines, but we sure did talk to a lot of locals.  The wheat harvest is on right now – and the wadis’ are lined with crops.  Fields terrace the hillsides; hand-dug canals channel the water through the fields before emptying back into the stream.  I walked with the LT along the hard-packed hump of earth, built up to contain the flowing waters.  We stopped near a Mosque to talk with a local man about the upcoming elections.  Even in these remote places, the folks here are surprisingly well informed.  This man knew that the elections were just around the corner and offered some advice toward increasing voter turnout. 

While the LT continued to talk with a gathering crowd, I slipped back toward the wadi to check on Matt.  On the way I startled a group of young girls driving their goats toward the water.  They ranged in age from about four to maybe eleven (the girls, not the goats . . . I have no idea how old the goats were).  The oldest of them quickly covered their faces with their scarves, just as they had been taught I am sure; all were smiles and waves, at least after the initial shock of the encounter.   

I confess that, in several ways, I envy the families here.  They all work together for the good of the family, the good of the community.  I’ll bet that most times children are much too tired to back talk their moms and dads!  On this morning, those children who were not tending to the animals were working in the fields.  It was about 6 am when we  made our way through that particular village, and the families were fully engaged in the harvest.  Moms and Dads bent low, sickles working, piles of stalks in their wake, children feverishly gathering, bundling, and strapping those bundles to donkeys for transport.  Some of these kids could not have been more than two or three years old.  It is something to see.

It was apparently a great year, the big heads of grain called to mind the descriptions in Pharaoh’s dream – about the seven years of plenty.  We walked right along the edges of the fields – and the smell of the wheat reminded me of Ann Buckner’s pantry, or Sarah Holley’s kitchen– where there is always fresh ground wheat bread baking.  I owe them a tremendous debt, as they are the gals most responsible for Jamie’s own affection for making fresh bread.  We have tossed around the idea of leaving the military someday and opening a Great Harvest Bakery somewhere in Chattanooga.  Sounds good, but not sure I could work in that environment all day without gaining substantial weight. 

As Lieutenant M and I rounded a corner of one of the fields, we scared one poor little afghan girl half to death.  She looked to be between two and three years old, not a parent in site.  The little girl ran bawling into the wheat fields, and our interpreter followed to tell her it was ok, that we were not as bad as we looked in all of that gear!  It was an absolutely vain effort, she wouldn’t believe it, just ran faster in the direction of her family Qalat.  I can’t blame her.

It was a very quiet day, and I think, a productive one.  Just maintaining contact with locals is part of the campaign here.  Reminding them that we are a far cry from the Taliban, or the foreign Islamic fundamentalist invaders whose primary goal is the continuance of chaos.  Sounds like another well-known villain – the one whose chief end, our Lord says, is to steal, kill, destroy.  It is doubtless that Satan is the force behind the terror here.  Not something so simple as religious or political ideology.  Someone will say, how are those simple?  Have not politics and religion been the source of wars and rumors of wars for millennia?  In so far as they are used to advance greed, lust for control of others, certainly.  But directed toward those ends, they are tools, and someone has to wield them.  Therefore, the folks engaged in jihad here have prostituted themselves, sold their allegiance and service to the “prince of the power of the air” as Paul refers to him.

At any rate – the politics and the religion of Christ are so completely unique, that many don’t like to refer to Him in those terms at all.  Maybe that is safer; given the mixed-up images those words conjure.  Jesus, the suffering servant; what an incredible manner of introduction to the world!  How different too, His ideology, His manner of living, loving, giving Himself.  Living here makes the contrast between Christ and every other ‘god’ all the more clear.  Then, the call is for us too, to live in contrast to the world, to make the difference that is in Christ clear, to make his praise glorious.

For we are His workmanship!  Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand so that we would walk in them.   – Ephesians 2:10