Ballot Escort

I was asked to assist with Election Ballot escorting. Something I had volunteered for and very much wanted to take part in but had not, until last night, been offered the opportunity to participate in. a Marine friend of mine, CPL Yu, stopped by and asked if I would be the second escort, he being one as well. SURE!!!!! Where to? Jalalabad and Manas. Manas is NOT in Afghanistan so I was a little skeptical about that location. Are you sure its Manas?
“I don’t know, that’s what they said”
“uh hu, ok I’m in!!”


he said we’d rendezvous in the morning and go from there… flight would be soon there after. We would be escorting an Afghan Election worker and the ballots. Neither could leave our sight until properly released.

I opted for my full kit, instead of a lighter ammo-free equipment set… I thought I’m going to more remote, less secure areas… I’ll bring the ammo and equipment! I even got more equipment to be hooah (AKA safer and more responsible, i'm being safe, i promise Julia).

We meet up with our Afghan Election worker and begin our wait. We waited on the flight line…

watching aircraft come in and fly out is better than watching the walls in an A/C’d room.
We waited… then we got word the plane was delayed…
We waited…the plane would be another hour and a half
We waited… talked about how much we loved the Air Force and how reliable they were and how much we owed them for all this waiting

Its Ramazan in Afghanistan (also referred to as Ramadan) a month of fasting…which leaves our poor Afghan Election worker in the smoldering heat, starving all day.
No food or water when the sun is in the sky. Marine and I scarfed down food away from the Election worker as not to be rude. No food for this girl and you will be carrying my withered body around.


Here come the pallets of ballots which have been securely locked away until now. Pallet after Pallet was loaded onto the plane. So many pallets in fact that the crew had to take out the bench seating in the plane to fit everything…

I was invited to the cockpit since I am the camera girl… ahhh the luxuries in life that my camera brings me!!

off we fly to Jalalabad… an easy 20 minute flight.

A hour later we still circling because the flight controller either forgot about us or has no idea how to manage flights coming in… dizziness… we planned on buying some famous J-bad terminal bread! Cinnamon bread from Jalalabad, anyone??
Land in J-bad, FINALLY.
I never really put any thought into standing behind a huge aircraft… luckily I did not need to think, I merely came to the conclusion instantaneously once I stepped out of the aircraft it is one of the hottest places on earth!!! Never been hotter in my life.

Off come the Pallets… J-bad is one of the largest cities/districts in eastern Afghanistan. Like I mentioned before, a lot of pallets!
We were only on the ground maybe 12 minutes to get the pallets off and take off again.

No bread for us.
Stupid air traffic controller and her non-air traffic management killed our timeline. Back to Kabul for us.

More pallets… well not many. We were headed North West next.
Next stop, it was in fact NOT Manas, but Maimanah, a smaller but not insignificant part of North Western Afghanistan. It was a longer flight in which I slept this time. Less pallets, more room. longer flight... time to sleep.

it is a sandy dune area.
beautiful…but sandy with rolling sandy mountain/hills.
Off came the pallets, papers were signed
and we were wings up headed home.

The crew was great they were a hodge podge group from around the states, pilots were on their last mission before they were done with their tour, the crew had been on ground for 6 weeks and has about 6 more months to go.



CPL Yu and I had the opportunity to fly across Afghanistan delivering Election ballots for this
upcoming election. A safer, less corrupt government who will work for the people. This is the goal we are assisting Afghans with. Empowering them to have a better government run but Afghans, for Afghans.