It's good 2 be back in the 1st world country!

[powerhungryv8s10guy]

As some of you know, I'm in the National Guard as a mechanic in an MP company. The Missori national guard is currently rotating thru Hatti doing a health and welfare mission based on funding that actor Sean Penn (commy bastard) gathered from Hollywood actors and actresses thru donations. Anywho, Our company was selected because of 1. we are not in a deployed status and 2. The company's reputation as a leader in the MP field thru various missions to kosovo, boarder patrol, not to mention Iraq, Kuwait, and Afganistan along with various State of emergency duties in LA for hurricane katrina, and gustoff.

That being said we were not there on an earthquake relief mission becuase that is all but done, although I'm sure there's some rebuilding going on there that I'm not aware of and didn't see on my trip there. But I do believe the funds were raised in direct response to the world turning an eye to Hatti because of the earthquake.

We left St Louis on what turned out to be the 9th of July when we were supposed to depart on the 8th due to our plane breaking down in FL and they had to find another jet. I just got back home today around 3:30PM CST.

The cool part for me was that I got to do the duties of an MP, while not being qualified to hold that title, they labled me as a "security guard" and I got to carry a loaded 9mm handgun the whole time I was there. I had 15 rounds in the clip but could only chamber a round if my life, the mission equipment was in jepardy, of the life of other agencies were in harms way. Those other agencies were the UN (MINUSTA, made up mostly of the Argentinian millitary) And Inerpol, which was a multi-national group. We saw Indonesian, chinese, and lebonese. The MINUSTA had more authority to use force than we did, and we were only there as "backup" for them. Don't think we were there as a bunch of pussies with no power, but more like we were/are there as keeping integrity and honesty of the appropriation of funds to see that the money went where it was supposed to go becuase Hitti's govt is corrupt at best.

I got to go because our company already had a prior mission to Italy consisting of ONLY MP's and are now deployed there so they needed to fill slots for a security mission and had no pool of MP's to pull from other than the few MP's we had attatched to us from the 1137th,1138th, and the 1139th MP companies that wern't currently deployed to Afganistan with our battalion the 205th. So hence my role as a security guard. Basicly, I got to play MP because they didn't have enough real MP's to fill all the slots.

I was there for 2 weeks with a total deployment of 2-1/2 weeks. I had a blast! Hatti is an absolutly beautiful contry with mountain ranges and aqua blue waters at it's coastline, but when you see all the poverty and a country with no infrastructure, or order it's not exactly on the top 10 list of vacation spot the world has to offer, in fact I don't think the country was much better off before the quake. We jokingly refered to it as "the Haition vacation".

I have a few stories and experiences to share if anyone is interested, and I have lots of pictures to show to give you an insite as to how a 3rd world country lives.

[chevy355s10]

damn it powerhungry....you have all the fun.

[powerhungryv8s10guy]

he he. Thanks. I forgot to mention I got to fly to and from the med site by Blackhawk almost every day!!

[excaliber]

cool trip, seems like all we do is go to Iraq, bet we did get selected for a different mission finally, Afghanistan Oct 2011. ya!

[powerhungryv8s10guy]

Yeah we were supposed to go to Alabama for AT but it got cancled due to the Haiti mission. Good thing cause we would have been on the beach picking up tarballs for sure.

[powerhungryv8s10guy]

here are some pic's of my trip.


Here is a tent city in port au prince. there where alot of them, and I think these where here before the quake.


This is the scene coming out of the walled off area at the airport. It was imedeate culture shock.

[powerhungryv8s10guy]

more tent city life


The coastline was beautiful.


the view from a hum-vee on the way to our duty station. The medical site.


tent city under an old texaco gas station.


I think you get the picture. Everyone lives in tents.


This was our pool at the FOB (forward operating base) The water was 85 degree and felt amazing in the 95-110 degree temps and the 130 degree heat index.


This is the gate at the med site which was a school we took over for a couple of weeks.


The MINUSTA (Argentina military) did crouwd control and this guy was rookin! the aviator glasses! He looks like Poncharela from the 70's show ChIPS for those of you old enough to have seen that show.


some of the line to get into the med site to see a doc.


Me packin a side arm watching the natives

[powerhungryv8s10guy]

coastline


Hum-vee's


A UN armored vehicle.


These pic's of the lines don't show the magnitude of the people that were there every day.




This is half the people. Imagine the same amount of people behind the camera going the other way.




The other way, but you can't see the whole line.


My ride to wrk every other day.


A blue crab that came out when it rained. He was just haging out in the tent area of the FOB.


These are vust a few of the 1000's of pic's I have that I cherry picked, and these aren't even the pic's I took. When I get more uploaded to photobucket I'll share more.

[speeder]

nice pics!

[TNFrank]

Some of those pics look like South Central L.A., LOL. Heck, a couple more years under Obama and we'll BE a 3rd World Country. Anyway, glad you made it back safe and sound, thanks for serving and for the great pics.

[Easymoney]

Thanks for sharing. Places like that make me apreciate the good ol USA!

[zz top]

Thanks for sharing man! Welcome back home! And thanks for serving our country!

[powerhungryv8s10guy]

Ok. Ifinally got some free time. Here are some more pic's.

The first one is for superbee...and it took me untill the last day to get this pic! I tried and tried but I just kept missing it. Stupid digital camera with it's lag in snap time! But here ya go.


Just look at the people outside the airport! the police being there was just a coincidense. This was my first look at Haition life. Talk about culture shock


This is what a ford ranger (yuck) looks like in a 3rd world country. They had a ford "everest" to the left of the pic but I didn;t get a pic of it. It had the same front end but was a ford explorer version of the same ranger in the shot.


Just look at all the people selling there wares.


This pic was for the guy dragging the donkey. Classic 3rd world country stuff, but in the background it a couple of "tap taps" which are taxies, and you can see the people on top of their goods going to market to sell. These were the the bigger of the "tap taps" most were mini trucks but all of them had the huge brush gaurd front bumpers because the drivers are CRAZY and drive like maniacs! And you think grid lock is bad!


Rolling up "hyway 1" we had beutiful montain ranges on one side and


coastline on the other


See what I mean about beutiful contryside?

This was a piss break stop outside of Gonives halfway into a 4 hour trip to the medical site we were charged with protecting. I just added it because it was a cool shot of the convoy of 6 military trucks, altho this is only half of them.


This is the sh!tter we had to use at the med site before our porta-johns showed up 2 days later!! You had to hover to avoid getting the "smears" on you!!


The very weird looking cactus trees. real bark trunks with cactus "leaves" with thorns on them.


Haitions were outside the wire selling stuff to us. In the photo you can see jewlery boxes, wooden vases, and in the lower right....yup those are real Cuban cigars. I smoked 1 on my birthday down there the last night in Hatti!


I hope this shot turns out well. I stood in 1 spot for a half hour tring to get a pic of the cool lightning strikes that were hapening that night and I caught this meager shot. There were many more bigger shots,,I just missed them all.


My ride to work again


The crew chief again only in a better shot. Kinda looks like darth vader. "Luke.. I am your father"

[powerhungryv8s10guy]

Oh yeah and there was this. I took it before we got on the plane. A big ol flag in the air national gaurd hanger. God bless America!!!!!!

[zz top]

Man, thanks again for sharing!