Interesting day today, but let's start with yesterday. Early afternoon yesterday I was sitting at my desk reviewing some POIs when I heard a "boom" and felt the conex shake. (My office is in a converted conex box.) I ran outside and saw two ANA soldiers pointing to the sky above us. They said it was an RPG (rocket propelled grenade). Later I heard that it was an RPG fired at the nearby UN compound. A little excitement, but we all went back to work.

Today I am sitting in my office when we are informed that a vehicle with explosives was just discovered at the front gate to nearby Camp Phoenix. Now I can neither confirm nor deny the following part, but here's what I heard. Guards noticed an unfamiliar vehicle approaching. It appeared to be loaded down and only had one occupant--the driver. They trained their weapons on the driver and demanded that he stop. Now at Camp Phoenix there is an Afghan national that is a story himself. His nickname is Rambo and he lost his family to the Taliban. On a revenge crusade, he has taken it upon himself to assist in the protection of Camp Phoenix. He has a big stick and regularly chases off any loiterers or beggars outside the main entrance. Well, when this vehicle with explosives was stopped outside the gate, Rambo ran to it, pulled the driver through the side window, and began beating him mercilessly. The gate guards rescued the driver from Rambo (no word on how quickly they moved to assist). Upon inspection, they found explosives in the vehicle. Sometime later this afternoon I heard a loud boom that shook my conex box much more vigorously than yesterday. I heard that it was EOD (Explosives Ordnance Disposal) disposing of the aforementioned vehicle. We also heard that yesterday's RPG was in fact a negligent discharge (which means it was one of ours that went off by accident--right).

02/13/07 Edit: Talked to a Navy officer today and the subject of Rambo came up. He heard about him from the internet. I did a Google search for Rambo Afghanistan and sure enough, other bloggers and CNN have written about him. Interesting stuff...

We took off early today in order to take a different route home. Typically we go back down Jalalabad Road right past Camp Phoenix. We took some back roads and I saw some scenery I haven't seen before. People keep telling me there are some "nice" things about Kabul, but I haven't seen them yet. Looks more like prehistoric times to me.

On this new route we go by the airport. There are workers with pick axes and shovels, wearing protective body armor and helmets. Trucks and an ambulance are idling near the street. The workers are clearing an old Soviet minefield. I heard they were workers from India hired to clear the minefield. They are paid $3.75 per cleared mine. Incredible.

We get back to Falcon House without incident. Alex, Kurt & I go to the gym (assaulted by Nebula et al. en route), get some chow, shop the PX, and head back to the house. Another beautiful day in paradise.

Edit: March 9, 2007 - Another news story about Rambo - http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20070308/wl_csm/orambo_1