Well, it has been a very interesting past few days.  This is what the Army is all about, getting up at the wee hours of the morning and flying by aircraft for hours on end to make it to this very moment....Afghanistan.  This journey started Sunday night [7 days ago].  We flew through Germany and Turkey and finally landed in Kyrgyzstan, which is a former Russian satellite of the old USSR.  It was interesting to see all of the old Soviet style buildings at the airport and old Russian aircraft kind of parked off to the side...for what appeared to be used for old parts.  Kyrgyzstan, from my brief understanding, is part of the old Steppes from Ghengis Kahn days for there is a good mixture of Russian and Mongolians in the area.  The Mongolians have an exotic, Indo-Chinese appearance and speak the language called Kyrgyz which actually is more related to ancient Persian and Turkish than Mongolian.  They also speak Russian in this area.  After a couple of days hold over we headed to Afghanistan...which was only an hour and forty-five minute flight into Bagram Airfield, which is the Gateway into Afghanistan.  The surrounding mountains are beautiful and are very reminiscient of Ft Irwin, CA.  The area definitely looks different than my last two combat tours of Iraq...maybe with the exception of northern Iraq an the mountains there.  It is warm here, but not overbearing.  Stay tuned for my next blog as I will be at my Outpost...in Afghanistan.