Posts Tagged ‘army’

Soldiers work long hours. Ofter 12 or 14 hours a day, 6.5 days per week (they get Sunday mornings off).
So it’s not surprising that they occasionally want to relax a bit.
Unfortunately, there aren’t a whole lot of leisure activities on the base. Of course there’s Echo’s, the Dutch “bar” where you can get something to [...]

While we were still in Afghanistan, we posted a video of the inside of the Afghan bakery on the base (you can see that here).
Now that we’re back, we finally found the time to edit the interview we did with one of the bakers (I won’t even attempt to spell his name). You can listen [...]

This week on Curious Orange (the radio show)…
It’s part three of our Dutch in Afghanistan series - On-Base, but Off-Duty.
We’ll take you for breakfast at the Afghan bakery, a portable lunch on the road, and, a little later on, a (non-alcoholic!) drink at Echo’s bar. And then it’s the weekend - with salsa lessons on [...]

I’ve seen some of his work, and, if you ask me, Gerben van Es is a great photographer.
My personal favorite is a picture of soldiers out on patrol in Afghanistan. To the left is a high mud wall; the soldiers walk towards the camera in the center of the photograph. They are serious and watchful. [...]

Lou Cuypers is a Dutch entrepreneur working in Uruzgan. He is not affiliated with the army and he likes to keep it that way. Basically, he works with local farmers in Southern Afghanistan… and they aren’t too keen to have army trucks showing up at their door - that might get Taliban attention, and that’s [...]

Obviously, Dutch forces in Uruzgan have many encounters with Afghans. These encounters could involve the interrogation of a captured insurgent, a friendly meeting with a tribal leader, or a session teaching local police officers investigation techniques.
Of course, there aren’t too many Dutch people that speak local Afghan languages… and there aren’t [...]

This week on Curious Orange (the radio show)…
It’s part two of our series on the Dutch in Afghanistan - “Just Doing My Job”.
We’ll hear stories of soldiers working, fighting, and rebuilding in Afghanistan… including the guy who walks in front of the trucks - scanning for road-side bombs, a police officer who volunteered to go [...]

General Tom Middendorp and Civilian Representative Joep Wijnands share control of the TFU - Task Force Uruzgan (you’ll get used to all the acronyms, I promise). As you might imagine, the General is more or less in charge of the military side of things while the Civ Rep (that’s what they call him) is in [...]

This week on Curious Orange (the radio show)…
We’ve got the first in a 4-part series of Dutch-in-Afghanistan shows. This week we’ll stick with the basics and “Define the Mission” - we’ll tell you why the Dutch are there and what civilians, soldiers, and politicians think about it.
We’ll also tell you what the Dutch doing, how [...]

It’s been A Very Busy Week for us here on Curious Orange… and I’m afraid the blog has been lagging behind.
Sorry everybody!!
And, looking at my calendar, I’m afraid that it’s not going to be any better next week.
Double-sorry!!
But after that I promise things will get back to normal.
And in the mean time I’ll do my [...]