It's all about the fort

        I'm pretty spoiled.   The last time I was in Afghanistan, I posted up at Green Village, which is as luxurious as Afghanistan gets - your own room, temperature controlled, your own bathroom, bath and shower (and unlike on base, I could control the water temperature there), AFN TV, DVD player, carpeted, daily maid and laundry service, indoor pool - the list goes on.  It was not hardship duty, but yes, I did get the hardship uplift.  Then I came back to Afghanistan this go around.  I knew living on base would be a very different experience, but even though I kind of knew what to expect, as I said before, when I was taken to my bunk I did look, pause and ask, "Is this, ummm, my permanent billet?"  Why yes, yes it was.

     There are a few types of places where you will lay your head down at the end of a day here at the lovely resort we call Bagram, but all of those fort making skills practiced in your youth will pay off if you should ever find yourself here.  At the zero star level, there is the transient tent - meant for those who are going to spend a few nights or those who are waiting for permanent billeting.  The beds are bunk beds, and the bottom bunk is much preferred.  Who wants to climb down that ladder in the middle of the night to go outside to pee?  Certainly not me.  The transient tent has a few squatters - they have made it their home and don't want to move out.  Go figure.  Garnering a half a star would be permanent tent billeting.  It is all temperature controlled, so it is icy cold in the summer and toasty warm in the winter, but you are still in bunk beds.  The biggest disadvantage to tent living is when there is incoming, you have to leave the tent and hole up in a bunker until you hear the 'All clear, all clear, resume normal ops' from Big Voice.  Moving up the the shaky one star level (don't think you'll see this on Trip Advisor) are the infamous B-Hut's, one step up from a tent, but not by much.  It's

Inside my old B-Hut

short for Barracks Hut and the term came from the British Army way back in once upon time time, and it was meant for temporary living.  Well, 10 years later here in Afghanistan, they're still standing, but just barely.  I had 28 snoring, farting roommate's stewing in their man juice in my B-Hut, and I considered myself fortunate because I had a bottom bunk.  For about 3 weeks, I had no top bunker and there was dread every day I came  home.  I'd key the cypher lock, then open the inside door, cracking it slowly to see if there was some stranger with their gear on the top bunk.  For three weeks, the unpleasant anticipation was met with exquisite relief - no top bunker.  Then one day, someone's gear appeared on the wall locker next to mine.  Fortunately for me, my incredible run of luck continued.  He was a top rate top bunker - older, like me, quiet, went to sleep early, woke up early and bonus of bonuses, he didn't snore.  For some reason, a B-Hut is considered a 'hardened structure' and when we get hit, you don 't have to wait it out in the bunkers.  As you can see, there is very little room to be shared by two grown human beings.  I'm certain a new Yoga pose will come from living like this - Pelican hopping twist, or something like that, from the gyrations you engage in whilst getting dressed in the morning.  Excellent.  Now repeat on the other side for balance.  It will be all the rage.

My bottom bunk cell block inside B-Hut. 
Note the fort like privacy curtain.

     I just moved into the next level of housing - concrete building with no real name yet other than Phase V and VI.  I'm sure that contractors will give it a more amusing name other than the bland Phase I - VI.   This living situation is a vast improvement over the B-Hut.  I'll now have a total of 8 guys in my room (4 on each side with doors at the end of the walkway) and wonder of wonders, no one above me.  A real bed.  No chance that anyone will move on top of me.  No more daily dread.  It's funny how quickly one acclimates to life here, because my new living quarters seem palatial and private - 50 square feet.  I'm thinking of subletting out some of the space for storage, I just don't know what to do with the surplus area. 

    At the tippy top of the food chain is the dry and wet CHU, both garnering a Bagram 4 star rating.  CHU is an acronym for Containerized Housing Unit.  The dry CHU means you have to go out side to get to a toilet, like the rest of us schlubs and the Holy Grail of housing in theater is the wet CHU - a toilet and shower inside of your dwelling.  Unthinkable.  Yet a few of these rare birds do exist.

    

CHU living

     If you are in any type of billet besides a CHU, then it's really all about the fort.  As a wee lad growing up, give me a blanket, a few cushions, or a cardboard box, and I'd whip up a serviceable fort.  And that's what everyone does here, creating a faux sense of privacy, but it helps us sleep at night.  I pity the young fools who don't have good fort making skills - they must look at the empty space with thumbs twitching involuntarily.  No, my young friends, there is no video game console.  Get to work and make yourself a fort.

     And after you've made your fort and done your time, then you get ready to leave - we all leave here someday.  When someone announces their departure, there is first the insincere, "I'm sad to see you go," followed by the very sincere, "What are you selling?" The more experienced and talented among us manage to get both phrases in without taking a breath.  Then you hear the hushed, excited twitter amongst colleagues of, "Will that free up a bottom bunk?"  Yes, it's come down to that.  Will that free up a bottom bunk.  I've broken free of the shackles of being a bottom bunker or a top bunker, I feel as if I've evolved to stand upright.  But tomorrow, I think I'll stroll down to the billeting office to see just where I am on the OML list for a CHU...