Last Night

Today was the last night in Aibak for 9 of us. Some are rotating back to Finland soon, and a few others switch to different duties elsewhere. For the people who were about to leave the day’s agenda was mostly equipment maintenance and packing. Everyone was also supposed to clean their own accommodation, but some are more adept at such things than others. The ones who are not going anywhere yet performed a thorough weapons maintenance, as everyone’s personal weapons as well as the team weapons were dirty and dusty from yesterday’s live fire exercise.

In the evening we had a set dinner with roast beef, ratatouille and fried potatoes. I had bought a case of Beck’s, which was not enough for everyone, but at least the rotating personnel got a can each. For dessert our chefs had baked fresh pulla and brewed coffee. Everyone gathered in the dining hall. I said a few words and handed out locally handcrafted pocket knives to all who were leaving. A couple of guys got something extra for good performances. As a going-away present the PO staff gave me an unique, hand-made shield with a tube of genuine Afghan dust. The Swedish MOT gave me the Commander’s Coin of FS19.

Late at night the guard’s second in command wanted to talk with me about something. One of the guards had come late for work and on top of that he had been disrespectful towards the second in command. This was the third time that I have heard negative feedback about the man in question. Tomorrow I’ll sit down and have a chat with him (just like I did about 5 months ago). Our problems with the electric of the main building continued. We started having a statistic about power cuts on the white-board in the main briefing room – the power fell out 46 times between 0600 and 1800.