I received this email from a friend of mine currently posted to the Multinational Brigade Headquarters at Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan. He's on his first overseas deployment.
Mogz (real name is obviously not Mogz)
Hey buddy hows life treating ya? Sorry its taken me so long to write but we've been hella busy since we touched down in ghan. Flight in was hell I barely got any sleep on the trip in from camp mirage. It was great to finally get on a computer and see an email from you and my parents. Were set up in a pretty shitty way right now buddy. The camp is overflowing with troops from Canada the US and Britain and there running out of places to house us. The engineers are building some new shacks for us but they wont be ready for another week or so. Right now im sharing a piece of mod with some medics and a few ammo techs. The camp got mortared the other night. We had to scramble out to our defensive and lay there for an hour while the QRF cleared the perimeter. As you probably already know things are pretty heated over here right now. That shit with Lt Green is pretty fucked eh brother? I was out on patrol yesterday and man my nerves were gittery. It felt like i'd had a dozen cups of coffee. I guess I dont need to be telling you that though do I? I ran in to Sgt (name censored) when I first got here. He says hi and wishes you were over here with us. At least that way wed have someone to be the beer bitch ha ha. Kidding . So whats with all this shit that im hearing from home? About how its bad were here and how people want us to pull out. Thats fucking bullshit man. Do people even fucking know what their talkin about? This place is chaos man. These people dont have anything and were their only hope. If we leave now their dead because you and I both know the taliban will come back and own this place again. Im just a dumb soldier but even I know that isnt good for Canada. Shit like this bugs me man, especially when our troops have died over here. Why the fuck should we just pack up and come home when theres so much more to do here. Why the hell did those guys die? I swear some times the only people in Canada that have a fucking clue are the soldiers. Anyway I dont want to get all fucking worked up over this shit. I know some people support us. I liked how you tossed in that post from that lineman guy on that forum you hang out on. Good to know that at least one person is behind us eh bud? Oh yeah (name censored) and (name censored) say hey. (name censored) wants you to drop by and check on trish when you get a chance. Hes worried about her. Well bud I should get going. I dont have much time left and I want to email Jess before I get booted off of here. Tell the guys we left behind that we wish they were here and that were doin ok. Also see if you can get some timmys coffee sent over in the next package from the unit. We have nothing but crap to drink here. Talk to you later killer.
Matrix (that's his actual nickname)