Happy New Year!

All the sleep books say a schedule is the most important thing for the baby, so despite the appeal of battling drunkards on the streets of Northampton in near-zero degree weather, we chose to stay in this year and celebrate 2014 in our little apartment while Truman slept in accordance to his seven o’clock bedtime.

We made some finger foods and watched The Hobbit. April had fun remembering which parts Truman had kicked her during our viewing last Christmas. (We've adopted, and enjoyed, the tradition of Chinese food and a movie for two years now. We did it again this year, but, like New Year’s Eve, we stayed in, ordering takeout.)

This was the first time in a long time we didn't go out for the evening. Every year prior, April and I did something for the New Year, even if it meant watching my parents fall asleep at half past ten.

Ten years ago I was celebrating the arrival of 2004 in Gardez, Afghanistan. In the military, Thanksgiving and Christmas are celebrated in specific ways. The brass get behind the counter and serve the enlisted men and women their holiday meals. This is what we did on the firebase. On Christmas the commander of our firebase, a lieutenant colonel who we didn’t like much, dressed up in a Santa outfit and dished out sizable helpings of ham, turkey, potatoes, and I took a slice of pumpkin pie and a slice cheesecake. For what it is, it’s an enjoyable time.

New Years in Afghanistan lacked any similar planning. No food, no count down, no fireworks (at least none planned). So it was up to us enlisted to plan an impromptu celebration.

It had snowed for most of the week. Enough snow to keep us from doing anything more than taking the main road into town on short missions. We had spent most the time on the firebase. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Humvees don’t do great in the snow. So I think many had a case of cabin fever. Adding to the feeling of being trapped, a weather system had moved in and socked us with low clouds and icy rain. It was like walking through fog spiked with tiny biting pellets of ice. The worst thing about the shitty weather was it kept the supply helicopters  from coming in, which meant no mail, and no mail meant Christmas care packages.

We lacked good weather. We lacked any good mission tempo. We lacked the snack food and sweets our families sent us for the holidays. What we didn’t lack for was a good supply of booze. One of the benefits of being out on a firebase was you could get away with things that wouldn't fly at the larger Air Force Bases in Kandahar and Bagram. Drinking was prohibited by General Order One Alpha, which included prohibition of porn, pets, sex, and entering a mosque. I can safely say none of us entered any mosques. At least not on purpose.

We made regular trips to the capital city of Kabul for booze runs. Despite alcohol being illegal in the country, international soldiers and civilians could drink. There was a liquor store in the international zone outside of the embassy. (I’m pretty sure this is where it was, though my memory of its exact location is hazy, like an icy fog.) My team frequented the establishment, never going overboard, just picking a bottle of Beam for ourselves and any requests made by those who couldn’t make the trip. Usually vodka and wine. On a firebase in rural Afghanistan you had to little to choose from in the way of mixers, so you had to drink your liquor straight or have something versatile enough that you could use what you found in the chow hall (juice boxes) to mix it with.

So most of us had started drinking after chow and collectively managed to find ourselves just outside the gate to our section of the fire base. In Gardez the firebase had two parts, the Provincial Reconstruction Team, headed by Civil Affairs, and the ODB, a company of Special Forces teams and their command element. I was part of the former. Between the two sections was a dirt road with a small wall on one side. It was at this wall where we gathered.

Cold night, frosty fog, lots of boozed up soldiers with loaded weapons. What could go wrong? Well, luckily for us, not much. We shot off a lot of rounds. The intelligence team fired off their M4s, which are fully automatic, emptying entire mags into the night. Someone loaded a flare into the grenade launcher of the M203 tube on their rifle, shooting off the round into the sky with a thunk. He didn’t aim high enough for its parachute to open. It ignited in the field, sputtered, and died. The next one caught the wind, sending an orange orb into the fog. I shot one of the interpreter’s AK 47s. I hadn’t drunk enough to not be rattled by the recoil. Over at the SF base they were shooting Soviet antiaircraft machine guns, the tracers cutting green streaks into the clouds.

The night came to a climax when someone (senior enlisted, from what I recall) in his drunk wisdom decided to attempt to fire an AT4. AT stands for Anti Tank. A bazooka, in other words. When I first arrived at the firebase, I was surprised by how many of these were just lying around, one in our truck, a couple in the room we slept. Just there. Ready to take out a tank. The AT4 has a series of safeties that make it impossible to fire by accident. As it turns out, this also makes it too difficult to fire while inebriated. The two soldiers, after a couple of tries, yelling out “back-blast area clear!” on each attempt, gave up when they got nothing out of the weapon except for a flaccid click.

Needless to say, I left shortly after this, and retreated back to our house in the corner of the firebase. I don’t think there was much of a countdown. There was drinking. There was celebration. (When we went into town the next day the locals were worried that we had been overrun in a big battle.) But no countdown. No kisses. No Auld Lang Syne. Other than the change of the year on the calendar, there wasn’t a whole lot to celebrate.

This year was the best new years I’ve had.  Good food and a good family, a fun movie and, best of all, no hangover the next day. I’m figuring 2024 will be the first year Truman will be able to stay up late enough to celebrate with us. I look forward to it.