30 days through Afghanistan...

{OF}Eaglerapids · 02-07-2010, 04:26 PM

30 Days Through Afghanistan

My youngest son, Nathan, has been in Afghanistan since October. He's Air Force in Public Relations. He writes and is a photographer and a friend of his and he came up with this idea, got the necessary permissions and they start their trip pretty soon. a couple hours, actually. He's set this site up in the last few weeks and these guys would appreciate all the feedback they can get. Nathan mentioned one time that it would be terrible if they took off and nobody showed any interest. If you look in the photos section you can see a lot of his work to date and they have a forum going where they hope lively discussions occur.

This thread explains pretty well what they hope to accomplish:
30 Days Forum • Login

Heck, the local news here even interviewed them about this last week:-).

I'm proud as hell of this guy and his brother who is also in the Air Force but to tell the truth I want him back home. The way things are going, though, as soon as he gets back they'll ship Josh out. They both are gung ho and volunteer for this stuff but it's making an old man out of me.

{OF}Flying_Dutchman · 02-08-2010, 06:44 PM

Very kewl site ER. Nice pics too, gives you a much better feeling for what it is like out there.

[DvT]UY · Yesterday, 08:51 PM

My son just got back from there. Marines, recon. Seen 4 of his friends blown up. For what? What defines victory there?

Then, after being back, he gets called in to command and asked if he is the only son. This, cause considering further deployment, they have a policy of trying not to send the only on into harm's way. Yes, he is my only son..... so why did they send him the first time?

Yeah, i'm a bit jaded over the whole mess.

[DvT]UY · Yesterday, 08:53 PM

And I'll pray for you son's safety. Sorry....didn't mean to jack the thread around.

{OF}Eaglerapids · Yesterday, 09:40 PM

UY, I know exactly how you feel, no need for an apology. Being in the Air Force, Nathan isn't in the thick of it nearly as much as your son but this is his 5th deployment and it's starting to wear on me.
If you read through his site you can get a good idea of how he feels about all this. I used to be pretty idealistic like he is now and he believes in what we're doing but I wonder how in the world we're gonna pay for all this, not to mention the loss of life and the wounded. We've had some pretty good discussions, though:-).
These guys wanted to show a different viewpoint from what we usually see and in this I think they've succeeded. I know much more about the common Afghany people than I knew before but the more I know about them the more I wonder if we can really help them or do we basicly have to prop them up for however long. I don't think there is any doubt that those people have gotten the short end of the stick for a long time, though. We should thank our lucky stars for everything we have.