A New (Old) Direction

This will be my very last post on this blog.

It’s taken a lot of phone calls, arm twisting, late nights, cold beers, reactivation of an old network and a dozen meetings with lawyers and accountants but it’s finally here. I’ve re-opened the business I was running with two great mates (and thorough professionals) before the GFC blew into town and blew us all out onto individual contracts. It’s a gamble but I figure why work my butt off for someone else when I can do the same for myself – it’s a no-brainer really.

We don’t profess to be one of the ‘Big Boys’ and don’t expect to ever threaten their business but we were doing some great work in a smaller niche and getting great responses from our clients. We believe we can do that again. We’ve got the talent and the drive to make it work (again) so I figured ‘why the hell not?’ and here we are.

You can check us out here and view our ‘Re-Launch Announcement’, old and future blog posts here. I hope we can provide you with something of interest in the Blog and, of course, we’re always ready to assist if you need our services.

To all of my readers here at Kandahar Diary: Thanks for your support and being part of the journey. Stay safe.

Centurion.

Moving On (to God knows where)

Two days ago I resigned from my contract.

There are so many reasons I did that – personal and professional – but it finally boiled down to the fact that my heart wasn’t in it anymore and a realisation that , while I felt (and still feel) a sense of duty and responsibility to the company, I felt a higher duty to my family. I had been posted from my operational role to one in Plans and that didn’t really ‘float my boat’ so I did some major soul-searching while on leave. You have to be committed to what you do to justify the risk and the separation from the family. I just didn’t feel that commitment anymore. So, it looks like I won’t be making that ‘Year in Afghanistan’ after all.

I’m job-hunting now and I’ll stay on The Circuit. I’m sure, some time soon, I’ll be off to another place in another role. I’m still hoping to find that cushy fly in – fly out security consultancy role!

I plan to re-badge this blog to make it more about life on The Circuit more generally and keep you up to date on the various assignments that take me wherever they may so, for now, it might be slim pickings here but keep me bookmarked. Until then, it’s time to catch up on all the chores around the house that have needed a man’s touch for too long and time to reconnect with my family and with the ancient art of beer drinking.

If you’re a contractor somewhere out there, stay ready and be safe. To paraphrase Orwell and Churchill, if you’re at home and sleeping peacefully tonight, spare a thought for all those rough men out here who stand ready to do violence on your behalf.

Thanks for being part of the journey.

Centurion Stands Down

This time tomorrow night I’ll have a cold beer in my hand and a crisp, green, garden salad big enough to choke a horse, in front of me.Today was as different a picture to that as could possibly be.

Tanker roll-over, two ambushes, one of my guards shot and killed at close range driving through Kandahar City, meeting the grieving families of my recent KIA (these people give a whole new meaning to the term ‘stoic’), grilled by a commercial compliance desk-jockey from the client’s Dubai office (“why do you stop some of the convoy in an ambush?” “well, ma’am, mostly it’s because there is a crater in the road from the initiating IED but dead tanker and escort drivers also have something to do with it…” {Jesus wept!} ), and all wrapped up with one tanker and a guard team brassed up by the ANA outside of a FOB to the west of here.  After shooting up the tanker and my guys, the ANA then had the front to confiscate their weapons and demand ‘compensation’.  Remember: this is the very same ANA Karzai is insisting is ready to step up and guarantee the security of this place and the vital fuel convoys that traverse it.

Two Mirages again doing their thing in the dusk sky over KAF, the Muezzin’s song and fat little sparrows chirping in the razor wire as the crickets chirruped, made this evening’s smoke a peaceful few minutes to end another hectic day in Kandahar

Back in a little over three weeks.  All callsigns, this is Centurion. Out.