Patriot's Day

I'm down to my last few days in Afghanistan, and I have limited computer time, which is going to make writing a blog even more difficult than normal. But I'm going to try to keep some daily updates here the next few days as we prepare to ramp out of here. Let's see if I can actually do it!

A couple of weeks ago was September 11, the tenth anniversary of the attacks that resulted in our invasion of Afghanistan and the conflict we're currently fighting over here. There was a commemorative ceremony here at Kandahar Air Field, with speeches by various people giving their thoughts on the occasion. One of the officers in our battalion spoke about his memories of that day--at the time, he was assigned to the Pentagon and was inside the building when it was hit. Naturally, we all thought about where we were and how the news of that day has impacted our lives. (Perhaps I'll write about that in a future entry.)

The band was part of the ceremony as well, and our small group of remaining instruments (2 trombones, trumpet, clarinet, tuba, saxophone, and drums) made for an electic but effective ensemble. This also marked the final performance of the 10th Mountain Division Band for this deployment, as we had to pack up our instruments the next day to prepare them for shipping back to the United States. It brought a sense of closure to play our final performance in Afghanistan on the anniversary of the attacks that had led us all to be here. Now we could start getting ready to go home!