Travels to the Hinterland

ANP graduation; Gardez RTC, Paktia Province, Afghanistan.

Russian Mi-8 helicopter.

With one of my teammates, Donny, on the flight to Gardez aboard the Mi-8 helicopter.

All photos courtesy of S.O./mslamotor16@gmail.com.

There is a regional training center (RTC) near the city of Gardez in the province of Paktia, south of Kabul. My office made a trip there yesterday for some work. We flew in the helicopter shown above. It is a Russian Mi-8, part of our company's private air team. They are ugly birds, but very tough. Unfortunately, shortly after it let us out, it had to make an emergency landing in the mountains (blizzard conditions) and it became disabled. Everyone was fine and taken care of by some U.S. forces living out in the hills.

While we were at Gardez, we were fortunate enough to be invited to the graduation ceremonies of an ANP (Afghanistan National Police) class. It is a proud moment for the students/new policemen and also for my program.

We departed Gardez and made the trip back to Kabul, by road this time. The drive took us through some beautiful countryside and across some very high roads--one of the passes was over 9,600 feet. It's good to be home.