A break from regularly-scheduled programing to bring you "Uncle Si's Quick but Heartfelt Thanksgiving Message"

From inside a bread cornucopia in a chow hall on Fabulous Bagram, Uncle Si wishes all his peoples a happy happy HAPPY Thanksgiving! Oh yeah, and he also wishes he could carve him some fruit like whoever it was that carved up these melons!

Safely out of the latrine without being seen, Uncle Si is back on his journey around Fabulous Bagram, hoping to avoid any other latrines he might come across. Just in front of a place with a sign hanging above the door that says "USO," he finds a little garden area with flowers and a painted wooden structure. With the sunlight shining through Si thinks this could very well be one of the prettiest places on Fabulous Bagram. He has no idea where exactly he is on Fabulous Bagram, but he realizes while standing awhile in that garden, that everywhere he's been he can hear airplanes taking off and landing.

Not far from the USO, Si runs across more concrete wall paintings, the difference between these and the others he's seen so far is that these paintings are huge and cover three or four sections of T-wall and seem like they are a hundred feet tall, at least.

Uncle Si stands admiring the second painting of a Uniform for a few minutes, and then heads away from the paintings and the USO, having made two quick decisions: First, he needs to get up on a roof, like he did in Kandahar, to see what else he's missed from the ground. And second, with the sun  getting lower in the sky, he knows darkness is coming pretty soon and he will need to find a place to spend the night. 

So he finds the tallest building he can find and starts up the stairs in hopes of finding his way onto a roof. With every stair as tall as Uncle Si, by the time he gets all the way to the top he is tired, for sure, but excited about the possibilities of what he might see. 

Uncle Si's explorations of Fabulous Bagram continue: painted walls, trees and bathroom signs

After narrowly escaping from the PX (a Non-uniform had picked Uncle Si up and looked him over like she wanted to buy him but put him back on the shelf next to the calendar of the old guy with the beard), Uncle Si continues, carefully, on his way, seeing what there is to see. He stops for a moment in front of another painted concrete wall...

... then climbs on top of a pole to see if there's anything more to see from up there, which there wasn't. Except, of course, for the trees. This is the first time Uncle Si has seen trees since coming to Afghanistan, and he never knew how exciting something as a tree could be!

Not too far from where he stands on top of the pole is a small building with no fences or barbed wire around it to keep people out and Uncle Si decides to have a look inside. Once there, he knows exactly where he is and wishes immediately he wasn't.

Until now, standing on the smelly floor of one, Si didn't know that there were other latrines (as the Uniforms call them) on Fabulous Bagram aside from the little green houses he's already seen and tried to avoid. As soon as he realizes where he is, he turns to head back Outside but has to stop. Footsteps in the rocks mean someone else is coming, and not wanting to be seen, Uncle Si picks the nearest toilet stall and hides. Luckily, the Uniform chooses a different stall and as soon as the Uniform's business is done, Uncle Si runs out wondering how a guy his size, four inches tall, would ever be able to reach the toilet if he wasn't able to stand on the seat?

Si continues to find cool things at Fabulous Bagram

In all his travels around Fabulous Bagram, Uncle Si begins to come across interesting sites, sounds, people and things.  Like this bumper sticker, stuck to the window of a bus stop the Uniforms and Non-uniforms use to get around Fabulous Bagram, which Si knows from experience is a huge place, especially for a man of his stature. Judging by the mountains Si can see all around him, Afghanistan really does seem like the perfect place to do a little skiing, even though Uncle Si has never been skiing and doesn't even really know what that entails. As long as it's something he can do with his glass of tea and plastic legs, he figures he's up for giving it a try.

Not far from the bus stop with the ski sticker, Si stumbles by pure luck into the PX. This is his first time in a PX, but he already knows all about the store because he'd heard the Uniforms talk daily about going there for soap or candy or pillows or Palpitation H (which must be some kind of heart medicine, Si thinks). While wandering the aisles, he comes across a calendar with a photo of a fellow with a long beard and a camo hat, and Uncle Si thinks there's something strangely familiar about the old guy, but can't quite put his finger on what it is.

Si finds even more shades of tan and brown and gray at Fabulous Bagram

And so Si keeps wandering and looking for those splashes of color, quickly learning that for all the colors he's seen so far, Fabulous Bagram has many, many, many more shades of drab, like this yellowish tan behind him...

...or this yellower-tan, than any other color. Even though these are the same colors he wears every single day, when he pictured Outside while living beneath that computer screen, he always thought there would be so many more colors than the brown and tan and gray and the occasional green that he keeps seeing everywhere he goes. 

There are, however, two great things about all the low key colors around him here at Fabulous Bagram: First, Uncle Si blends right into his surroundings and can go almost anywhere without being seen by the Uniforms and Non-uniforms. And second, when he does finally run across another bright splash of color or something to contrast with all the light tan, like the bright white at the top of the mountains way off in the distance or a red and white pole, it makes him smile beneath his tiny plastic mustache!

Si starts exploring Fabulous Bagram

The concrete wall is pretty high for a man of plastic who stands four inches tall, but Uncle Si really isn't able to see much from up there other than concrete, buildings, tents and a whole lot of brown and gray. Anxious to start seeing what else there is to see in Fabulous Bagram, he goes down the T-wall the same way he climbed up and starts on his way, taking care to watch where he's going since being so small in such a big world can be hazardous. At first, the only color Si sees matches the tan on his camo hat, but the more he keeps wandering, the more colors he starts to notice.

He sees various shades of sandbags on top of and all around bunkers similar to those he walked through in Kandahar his first night Outside. But Si also finds here and there colors that contrast brightly with the surrounding browns and tans, like yellow painted around the opening of some of the bunkers.

Or the blue of this big metal shipping container.

Or the green of these little houses that Si sees regularly as he walks around Fabulous Bagram. Si remembers hearing Uniforms talk about these when he was living beneath the computer screen and knows what they are and therefore chooses to not get any closer (He knows what the Uniforms call the tiny houses but prefers not to say the name since this is a family blog and such words would not go over well with parents!). 

Or the bright red of this road barrier. Once he gets past all the drabness of the dominant hue and tries to find other colors, his eyes are opened to just how many different colors there are here in Fabulous Bagram, and he can't stop seeing them. And what's more, seeing one bright color among all the light tan only makes him want to find more.

Uncle Si lands in...

Uncle Si doesn't know how much time goes by as he waits in that pouch, but after what feels like days, Uncle Si is jostled around. When he's finally able to peek out of the pouch, he's outside. It's dark now, but he recognizes that they are going through the exact gate he'd thought about bypassing earlier that evening, and they are heading for the very plane he'd stood there watched.

When the Uniform whose pouch he's taken up residence in sits down, Si can't see anything because he's wedged between the Uniform's side and the seat. After quite a bit of commotion and noise, Si feels the plane lurch forward. The lights go out, except for a few dim green ones, and now all Si can do is sit and wait and enjoy the ride.

But it's hard to enjoy a plane ride with so many turns and quick ups and downs, especially from inside a pouch, and Uncle Si quickly begins to feel a little sick and though the flight turns out to be pretty short, he's glad it's over once they land. As everyone gets off the plane in the darkness and heads toward lights in the distance, Si gets more and more excited even though there's nothing much to see.

When the Uniform finally drops his bags and heaves his vest up and over his head and drops it to the ground with Si still hanging out in the side pouch, he knows now might be his only chance to get out. As soon as he thinks no one is looking, he climbs out and runs away from the group of Uniforms he came here with, keeping to the shadows. Once he's sure no one has seen him or is after him, Uncle Si finds a safe place to wait for morning.



As soon as the sun is up, Si decides he needs to get a better view of his surroundings to figure out where he is and where he wants to go next. He sees that the big building he spent the night next to is actually a giant tent and though it would a perfect place from which to scope out the surroundings, there is no way to climb to the top of it. Not far from the big tent Si spots another good option for an observation point in the form of a T-wall, which he recognizes from things he'd heard the Uniforms say back when he was living beneath that computer screen.

As Si gets closer to the concrete wall, he sees something written or painted on it and before he starts to climb up the crack between the sections of T-wall, which is just the right size for climbing, Uncle Si is happy to learn that he has come to Fabulous Bagram. 

We take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to remember Veterans Day

Uncle Si's story will begin again next time, but today he wishes to pause for a moment and remember all his veteran friends their families and wish them a happy Veterans Day from Afghanistan. In these pictures he is holding the small American flag that one of his Uniform friends has carried with him everyday now for three deployments.

Uncle Si gets through security, waits four hours, and then waits some more

Si gets as comfortable as he can in the Uniform's pouch, with only his eyes and the top of his camo hat visible to the outside. A few minutes later, the Uniforms come out of the building and Si gets a little worried upon hearing them talk about the hassles of going through security. He heard a lot about flying and security from listening to the Uniforms when he lived beneath the computer screen, and he begins to wonder whether he should stay hidden or get out and try to find some other way to the plane. Before Uncle Si makes up his mind, a loud voice announces it's time for everyone to go through security. As the Uniform lifts his vest up and over his head and grabs all his other bags, Si knows he will have to stay where he is and hope for the best.

But all Si's worries are for nothing, he quickly realizes. Being made of plastic has its advantages during security checks if you have no metal parts and aren't stuffed with explosive devices or heroin. After a quick ride through an x-ray machine, Uncle Si happily keeps still while the Uniform puts on his vest and grabs all his stuff again and makes his way upstairs to the passenger waiting area.

Once in the waiting area, the Uniform Si is hitchhiking with, and all the other Uniforms and Non-uniforms waiting for the same plane put their gear down in piles of camouflage and green. Soon they all pull out headphones or  books or phones or tablets or go to sleep on the floor. Uncle Si knows from what he's heard that the plane isn't leaving for a long time and his curiosity tells him that now is his chance to do a little exploring. He climbs out of the pouch and comes to another set of stairs leading down and Outside. Above the stairs is a metal beam decorated with stickers that Si climbs up on when he hears someone coming. None of the Uniforms or Non-uniforms see him as they pass beneath. Once he's sure the way is clear, Si jumps off the bean and goes down the stairs as fast as his tiny legs can take him.

Once he gets downstairs and Outside, he realizes he's closer than ever to getting onto an airplane. He wants to run out onto the airfield and climb aboard, but decides against it. He can't imagine what kind of deadly force the Uniforms might use to stop a little plastic man from running up to and boarding one of their planes. After looking for a few minutes, getting more and more excited at the thought of flying soon, Uncle Si thinks it's probably time to get back upstairs. 

Once there, he hangs out for a while in one of the waiting area chairs but quickly realizes that the pouch on the side of the Uniform's vest he came here in, filled with gloves and flashlights and other things, is much more comfortable than the metal seats. Having satisfied, for now, his curiosity, Uncle Si climbs back into the pouch on the side of the vest he came in on and waits. And waits. And waits some more.

Uncle Si decides to take a leap

As Uncle Si stands on the edge of the big building watching planes take off, he decides he's going to take a leap. Not off the side of the building, because something like that might hurt a little man made of plastic, but an even more crazy leap. He doesn't know how he's going to make it happen, but Si is going to get on one of those planes.

Making his way toward the airfield, Uncle Si passes the Boardwalk. He recognizes the place because of everything the Uniforms said about it back when he stood all those months underneath that computer screen. If there is one thing Si learned to do during his time in the office with the fluorescent lights, it is listen, and that skill is really coming in handy now that he is on his own. 

At the Boardwalk he finds a sign pointing directions and giving distances to so many places he could go and wonders which, of all places in the whole Outside, is the place he will end up. Will the plane he gets on take him to Frisco, TX? UAE? Belgium? Panguitch? The thought that he could get on a plane and end up anywhere is exciting, especially to someone who has never really been anywhere. 

As Si watches a group of Uniforms playing football on a plastic green field at the Boardwalk (with green workout clothes and shorty-shorts, they must be Marines, Si thinks), he hears other Uniforms behind him talking about how they will have to hurry to make it to the air passenger terminal on time. They are each wearing full combat gear and carrying three bags and lumbering along slow enough that Si is able to follow them and keep up, even with his little plastic legs.

When the Uniforms get to the terminal, they drop their bags and their protective vests and go into a building. By the time they return, they have no idea that Uncle Si has found a pouch on the side of one of the their vests and climbed in. 

They have no idea that instead of three, the Uniforms are now traveling as a party of four.

Uncle Si sees just how big the Outside really is

When morning comes, Si wanders around in amazement, finally able to see, taking everything in. The night had been windy and dusty, but the day is clear and bright and Uncle Si can see almost, it seems, forever. That is, he probably could have seen that far if everything around him weren't so big. The Outside is so much bigger in real life than he thought it would be.

Uncle Si didn't even know the Navy had trucks! 

The trucks and blast walls and fences and wire and roads and barriers are all so big that Uncle Si feels like he just might be the tiniest person in Afghanistan. 

He crosses what seem like miles of gravel fields with stones the size of his head. This, he thinks, is the kind of place a guy his size could really get lost!

Or perhaps the kind of place where a guy his size could get accidentally locked up in a shipping container only to find himself somewhere he didn't want to go like Madagascar. Or Canada. Or somewhere really out there, like Panguitch. Of all the places he'd heard the Uniforms talk about over the months, Panguitch is the place that sounds the most remote. 

But Uncle Si isn't scared of how big everything is, he just didn't know until now how big the Outside really is.  As he stands taking in all he can see in the huge Outside, Si doesn't see himself as small, just that everything else is so big!

After wandering around a while longer, Uncle Si figures that in order to really get a good view of what is out there, he will have to get higher than everything else. And doing that, he knows, will require climbing. A lot of climbing. So he finds a ladder to the top of one of the tallest buildings he can see and starts up. Climbing with a cup of tea in one hand is certainly not an easy thing to do, but after grunting and groaning and sometimes leaping for the next step, Si makes it to the roof without spilling even one drop. He walks to the edge of roof to see what he can see.

Uncle Si is amazed at the view. He sees buildings and tents and empty spaces and lots of dirt and big trucks and Uniforms walking here and there and helicopters in the sky and airplanes landing. Everything that once had looked so huge, looks quite a bit smaller from up on that roof. Even the mountains, which he knows are bigger than anything he's seen that day, look small and easily climbable in the distance. Si realizes that there is just so much more to see, more than he will be able to in one lifetime, and so he stands there enjoying the view feeling both small and big at the same time. 

Si's first night Outside continues

Uncle Si walks down the road happily stomping the mud from his boots as he goes. He has no idea where exactly he's going which is both a little scary and quite exciting. He's never been anywhere before so everywhere he goes is somewhere he's never been! Along the way to nowhere-in-particular, he notices a particularly bright glow way off in the distance and decides that going toward that bright glow is as good a choice as any other.

But getting to that light is not an easy journey. Jumping ditches and walking over fields of gravel and crossing roads and avoiding cars and big trucks is particularly challenging for Uncle Si, who is only four inches tall on his tippy toes. When he comes to a chain link fence, he tries to slip through one of the diamond shaped holes but his big head gets stuck and he has to wiggle out backwards and try to find another way to where he was going. After walking for quite a distance away from the fence but still toward the glow, he comes to a group of concrete walls formed into something like a big (everything is BIG when you're four inches tall!) shelter, covered with a concrete roof.

As he walks slowly inside, Si immediately knows what this is. He heard many Uniforms talk about running to the bunkers during rocket attacks and having to stay there until what the they called the "Big Voice in the Sky" came over the loudspeakers proclaiming it was safe to come out. He always thought it sounded exciting to run to the bunkers, and looked forward to his chance to see them and maybe hang out inside one, but going into one in the dark, with only a small stream of light from a nearby building, is actually a little spooky, so Si keeps going, perhaps a little faster now, through the bunker, knowing he was almost to where he wanted to go.

Finally he gets to the big glow he's been heading toward all night, which tuns out to be a courtyard at the entrance to the biggest building he's ever seen. In front of that building are two flags: the U.S. flag and the Afghanistan flag. Uncle Si knows the red, white and blue one is the American flag, and has since he was a young toy. He knew the other was the Afghanistan flag in the same way he'd come to know about bunkers, from listening to the Uniforms. Looking at the flags fluttering a little in the light, Si thinks this will be a great place to find a cozy corner to sit and wait for morning. 

Uncle Si gets his first look at Outside

Uncle Si stands below the exit sign for only a moment. He realizes this is it. He's about to see Outside for the first time since coming to Afghanistan. He leans on the door and it budges just enough to get through and as it closes behind him, he's in near complete darkness. Si had been standing for so long beneath the computer screen that any idea or sense of time he might have once had, was totally gone. It hadn't even crossed his mind until that moment that it might be dark Outside. Time had almost ceased to exist for him during the time he stood at his perch under the computer screen. The fluorescent lights in the cubicle world never turn off and he'd almost forgotten there was even a thing called darkness. 

So Si just stands there, hoping he will be able to see enough to explore. He's not about to let a little darkness slow him down. It takes a few minutes for Si's eyes to fully adjust to the absence of light, and eventually he can see pretty well. Even so, he still has to make his way carefully. There seem to be obstacles everywhere. Rocks. Cement walls.  Lumpy dirt. Roads. Barbed wire. Fences.There are lights on poles, placed here and there, that put out bright circles of light, enough to help Si see for the most part. But with the way light plays off Si's glasses, these lights also make seeing even more difficult at times.

So difficult, in fact, that he doesn't even notice, until his feel become squishy, that he's walked right into another kind of obstacle: a puddle of water and mud. 

In the very first hour of his first day Outside, Si wandered into darkness and now his boots were slowly soaking up muddy rainwater. Uncle Si remembers hearing thunder a day or two before he jumped off that desk but never had to worry until this very moment about how it can rain enough in the desert to leave patches of water for days, reflecting sun, moon and every other kind of light.

A puddle's-eye view of Uncle Si's dirty, muddy, smelly little boots.

After getting out of that mud puddle with just a couple muddy boots, Uncle Si stands next to a dusty street wondering where to go next. He's pretty sure he doesn't want to accidentally find any more puddles, though he does feel a strange enjoyment as he stomps the mud from his boots. After all, it was the first time he'd ever stumbled into a rain puddle. In the dark. Outside. In Afghanistan.