This was sent to my by my friend, Ann Ricard, who is a local Blue Star Mom from Gilbert:
To the Blue Star Mothers Group,
In the end of January 2009, I was leaving Camp McCrady in South Carolina on my way to Afghanistan. It was a huge surprise to hear everyone cheering for us when the door to the hanger opened. Since I was part of the baggage loading crew, I was only in the warmth of the hanger for a few minutes. While I was in the hanger, I did pick up a couple of items, one of which was one of your "Military Personnel Survival Kits" with several items including a "shiny penny" at the bottom of the list.
At first I was thinking, "Great, something else I have to carry," but
when I read the story about each piece, I thought it was a great idea. I was looking at the penny during the flight and I realized that I managed to get rid of all of my coins before I left, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a lucky penny in my pocket and dropped it in. Well, it seems that my lucky penny has come through for me several times, so I figured I should drop your group a message to say "Thank You" and let you know how your gift has helped me here in the war zone.
Right after I arrived in theater here in Kabul, I was put on a team that
was responsible for counting every weapon donated to the Country of
Afghanistan. We were taken to the warehouse on an armored bus and we saw what we had awaiting us. The entire yard was lined with shipping containers containing almost 80,000 weapons of various types. We had to count them all and it ended up being a 12 hour a day inventory fest. We called out over 900,000 serial numbers and when we hit the end of the second week, we were seeing double. On the next to last day, we were just about finished and people were telling me to "take a break and we could finish up tomorrow." I had a weird feeling and told everyone we should just push through and knock it out. We stayed a little later that day and finished the rest of the count. Since we were finished, the convoy out the next day was cancelled. I was following message traffic the next afternoon and found a message concerning the arrest of an insurgent found along the road to the warehouse armed with an RPG launcher. The insurgent said he was waiting for a bus that had passed on the road at the same time each day for the last two weeks. An RPG
hit on the bus would have put many people in harms way, so the fact that we had finished a day early was literally a life saver.
In May, I was out driving in one of our vehicles and when I finished, I
handed the keys over to one of the ladies in our office. She left to go
out on a mission and on the way out of town, her vehicle was hit by an IED. The lady that sat behind me and another person from our office were both killed in the attack, but I was driving the vehicle right
before she left, so I consider my lucky to be alive.
In June, I finally got my first four day pass (my first days off) since
starting in January. On my way to and from the pass location in Qatar, I had to pass through Bagram Airfield. On the way back, I was number 106 on the waiting list to get a flight back to Kabul. While we were waiting, we went over to an area of camp that had a Dairy Queen to get a milkshake. We sat at a table in front of the Dairy Queen and discussed coming back the next day if we didn't get a flight out. We don't have a DQ at our base in Kabul, so our first milkshake only made us want more. We left and were told by the air crew that the next flight out was after 2:45 pm the next day. At breakfast in the morning, we took a chance and checked with the airport to see if anything changed. Lucky for us, there was a new flight that had been added to the schedule and was leaving at 10 am. Only people who were sitting there ready to go at 10 am could get on the flight, so we were hoping that no one else would show up. Our luck held and they blew through the first 50 names with no takers. We held our breath and sure enough, our names were called and we made the flight back to Kabul. That night, Bagram Airfield was attacked with rockets and a rocket landed right on the table we were sitting at enjoying our milkshakes. Who knows if we would have been sitting there enjoying a milkshake awaiting a flight out? The penny came though again.
The one that really made me a believer is when I was down in the
southern area of Kabul at a base that was once the big Russian base.
When I arrived, someone told me of two French soldiers who were off the main road when the first guy stepped on an old mine and it exploded. His battle buddy was with him and was so impacted by watching his buddy get blown up, he just sat down. Unfortunately, he sat down on another mine and the explosion killed him. While I was there, I was out on patrol in the back area of camp and at the top of a hill, I stepped on an old land mine. The mine turned out to be a dud and I didn't even know what a bad position I had been in until one of the guys in my group pointed out that I just stepped on a mine. The penny came though again.
Today was lively because an SVBIED exploded just outside our camp. I don't know if our camp was the primary target, but the suicide bomber ignited himself far enough away from our camp that we didn't sustain any damage. The explosion did shake all the buildings, but no one at our camp was injured.
I am hoping that I don't have to test the penny again, but I know that
with almost six months of duty still ahead of me, I will have that penny
in my pocket at all times. I hope my story doesn't bore you too much. I just wanted to let you know how your little gift has impacted me time and time again. Thanks again for all the support you give to the
countless troops passing through your area!
Very Respectfully,
LT Steven Deputy
Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan (CSTC-A) CJ2 Kabul,
Afghanistan
Web: www.cstc-a.com
