Day 28 - First Accident

O.K. so I know I criticized the Army's driver's training just two days ago... Well, we got in our first accident today. There are some extenuating factors though. I wasn't riding with any of the NMAA team, AND, I wasn't driving. Just an innocent passenger sitting in the back seat.

The folks from the English Language development section picked me up this morning to go to KMTC to help set up their language lab there. One of the things I jumped on early after arriving, was setting up and configuring all the software in NMAA's language lab. I came up with a few innovations and things worked out well, so the staff folks that provided us the equipment asked me to help install some other labs around Kabul.

We got to KMTC around 0930 and started work. After a break for lunch at the Alamo (see last post), we finished most of the physical set up (desk builds, computer cabling, etc.) around 1700. I'll need to go back one more time to finish all the network, server, and software configuration. On the way back to KAIA, the lead vehicle, which I was in (and not driving), stopped abruptly, and the second vehicle creamed into the back of us. Nobody was hurt. We were driving up armored Ford Expeditions, and the knarly hitch on the back of ours pierced the radiator and power steering pump of the trail vehicle. It pretty much "bled" to death right there in the road. Luckily, we were already back on KAIA (inside the wire), so they were able to leave the poor dead Ford on the side of the road until a tow truck can come and get it tomorrow morning. Pretty ugly stuff. Sorry, no pictures. Perhaps tomorrow.

Long story short, after contacting the base MP's (the Greeks fill this roll here) and the clean up of the "hazardous material" (aka radiator fluid), I called the NMAA team in our Land Cruisers to help escort the folks from Camp Egger's back before night fall since they were down one vehicle. The whole ordeal capped off what was actually a pretty good day. Such is the fog and friction of war...