Environment within the Airfield Compound
Heroes Remember
One of my things that I would do every Sunday morning
is I would walk around the airfield and it was like a seven-mile walk.
And it was so filled all of your senses from the smells and the dust
and you'd walk by these different compounds.
The compounds were maybe the Australians would have their compound
and it would have their flag flying and just things from home,
from their home that would make it obviously their space.
Folks driving by, the Afghans walking often with no footwear
but they were workers on the base let's say
and it was such a vibrant community
and yet so dusty and so smelly but you just,
it was like a city in effect
because when I left there were 14,000 people there.
But once again, the contractors would be in a compound
in these double high trailers and then you know
the American space and the Brit space
and the Canadian space and all of these.
It was just carved up into these little communities
and some of them you couldn't go into
but folks were always coming and going in vehicles
and dust and once again just the smell.
We had what we called a “poo pond”
and if I close my eyes I can still smell that poo pond.
It was... lots of activity, like just people,
always people moving somewhere like big vehicles,
big operational vehicles moving out of the gate,
people in small vehicles, people walking with weapons,
people just like you could not,
there was just something happening all the time.
And this constant flurry of aircraft landing and taking off.
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