Captain Brian Roehl Class of 1999 Hey everyone and greetings from beautiful and exotic Afghanistan, I realize that I’ve been awful about keeping everyone up to speed on my latest deployment but I make no apologies as we’ve been very busy since arriving here at Bagram Airfield.  I do, however, promise to be a little timelier with updates and stories from the front. J I hope this message finds you all happy and well! Leaving my family and Ft. Bragg was more difficult this time around but the mystery of deployment wasn’t hanging over my head since the experience was sure to be similar to my deployment to Iraq.  The unit met at our aircraft hangar to load up our gear, issue weapons, and say our final good-byes to family and friends.  Everything went as expected but this time I was the Company Commander getting ready to take my troopers out the door and it weighed heavily on my heart.  We’d prepared day in and day out for this but I still found myself questioning all the events that culminated in that day’s deployment.  I knew we were ready, and the unit is proving that every day here in country, but the experience was new for me.  I took command while in Iraq so I hadn’t experienced the emotion of taking Soldiers away from their homes.  Ashley and Ian were there along with all the other families and loved ones; it was hard to load those busses and drive off into the night. My trip took me from Pope Air Force Base to Bangor, Maine, Adana, Turkey, (Can’t remember the city), Kazakhstan, Manus, Kirghizstan, and finally into Bagram, Afghanistan.  Almost 8,000 miles of planet earth between us and the United States, in the span of about four days I found myself in a time zone 9 and ½ hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas and boy was it cold!  Bagram isn’t as developed as Camp Anaconda/Balad, Iraq is, but it is still very comfortable as far as deployments go.  Again, one of the perks of being with an Aviation unit is that we generally don’t stage out of very austere environments.  Bagram lies in the middle of a bowl, surrounded on all sides by mountains.  It’s quite a site to see and a slight burden on the lungs as we are at just over 4,600 feet in elevation.  The peaks around us top out at around 16,000 feet!  Flying via helicopter is an eye-opening experience because we can be at 8,000-10,000 feet and still have earth above us. I’ve attached some pictures from my first three months here in country.  At lot has happened since arriving so I’ll have to save many of the details for another time, maybe over a beer?  To summarize, we took over the mission from 3-10 General Support Aviation Battalion (part of the 10th Mountain Division) on 3 February 2007.  We’ve taken part in several deliberate combat operations to deal with Taliban/Al Qaeda; I relinquished command of HHC after 20 months in command; I visited with some Mujahadeen (Northern Alliance and others – been fighting since before the Soviets invaded) and saw the Lion of Panjshir’s Tomb (Ahmad Shah Masoud) and spoke with some of his former inner circle; I’ve flown over 50 hours in UH-60s and CH-47s all over Afghanistan; I turned 30 (Ashley, Steve J., and my parents sent a bunch of party stuff so the guys here could surprise me – thank you!); and I’ve been working as the Task Force Intelligence Officer – again – trying to keep these pilots out of harms way and bring the might of the US Armed Forces to bear on the bad guys…whew!  I’ve left out so many details, but I would be happy to answer any questions anyone may have or just to hear a hello/how are you from all of you!  Thanks so much for all your continued support and I look forward to hearing from you.  More updates to follow… Love, Brian

Tim Reinhart

Class of 1993

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