Aggie Muster in Jalalabad

As some know, I went to Texas A&M (much to the chagrin of many of my friends in the Greater Austin area). We Aggies have a tradition called Muster that is commemorated every April 21st. For the uninitiated, think of it as Aggie Memorial Day. Its a very solemn occassion where we honor the passing of all current and former students since the previous Muster.

Admittedly, I haven't exactly been the most active Former Student. I haven't been to a football game in years and I've been remis in keeping in touch with my local alumni club, but yesterday I rather fortuitously ran into a fellow Aggie here - with all the Aggies in the military, it happens but no so much way out here in far eastern Afghanistan. We decided to get together today to commemorate Muster and he even had a flag that he brings with him on every deployment! We took this picture to send back to fellow Aggies back home.

A Visit to Osama's House

The last place Osama Bin Laden was ever seen in public was at his home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Well, technically its just a bit out of town. Conveniently on the way to his commute to Tora Bora down in the Pachir Wa Agam district just two hours drive south. Well, the other day our team finally got around to going by and "paying our [dis]respects".

Granted, its not in keeping with the usual spirit of my website, but I'm not a big fan of sociopathic mass murderers, so we thought we'd leave a little message on behalf of the people of New York. I've got it on video too. Heh.

American Generosity

I am truly honored to have recently played a part in a very thoughtful and generous gesture of kindness and empathy for strangers. A couple of months ago I received an email from one of our unit officer's spouses in Phoenix, AZ who told me of a second-grade boy named Payton who wanted to participate in our humanitarian efforts here in a very personal way. Having outgrown his baby blanket, Payton asked if he could give it away to an Afghan child in need. Yesterday, while visiting a local refugee camp, we asked an elder to help us find a child to give it to. We presented it yesterday to a little gilr on behalf of Payton.

It was my sincere honor to play a part in this generous act of giving. Many of our fellow Americans could take a lesson from Payton. If everyone took an interest in the wellbeing and comfort of their fellow human beings and offered even a small portion of their personal possessions toward easing their suffering the world would be a much, much better place to live for all of us.Thank you, Payton.

Operation Flintstone Provides Vitamins to 2,000 Afghan Children

UPDATED: Added more pics to the Operation Flintstone site from recent MedCAPs.

Just added a bunch of new pics to the Operation Flintstone sub-site! We've recently held some Medical and Veternary Civil Actions (MedCAPs/VetCAPs) in the rural communities here in Nangarhar and were able to distribute a month's supply of children's chewable vitamins to over 2,000 children so far...and we still have a few more MedCAPs coming up soon.

For those who don't know, Operation Flintstone was a project that my mother started to supply nutritional supplements to the children of Afghanistan as a way to give the folks back home a way of directly helping in our efforts here.