Charlie Banner

Carl McClafferty

Mike:

Sorry I didn't get to the reunion this year, I've been in Afghanistan since November teaching the Afghan Border Police and, health permitting, I will be here till January or February.

Best to everyone

Carl McClafferty

Mike:

Things here in Afghanistan aren't much different than Vietnam. I've got some photos from my recent trip, I'll send when I get back to our ABP Compound.

Our job here is train up the Afghan Border Police to start securing their borders. There are eight of us attached to the ABP in four regions, training about 100 every 21 days in pretty remote areas, which is never boring. We carry and train the ABP with AMD65s (AKs), which is good as the ammo is abundant in this country. The enemy uses Russian arms, PRGs, AKs, NSV 12.7s and fire 107 Russian rockets and mortars. Things change and they remain the same. The morale among the American, ISAF and Afghan forces is extremely high which is quite gratifying regardless of the political wrangling back Stateside. Sound familiar? I've attached a picture. I'll be the tall one.

Carl

These are pictures of our tracking and patrolling exercise today through the desert, over a river and up a cliff. With it being 125 degrees, it was hard not to jump in.