Nephew to Afghanistan

My nephew Jean Luce is part of the Deployment Task Force in the Dutch Army. He's was sent out to Uruzgan in Afghanistan today. They're part of a ISAF peacekeeping mission to help rebuild the region. The DTF will be building 3 basecamps for the 1200 Dutch troops that will be stationed there for 2 years. Dutch special forces will be assisting in clearing the roads of any explosives. He will stay there for 3 to 11 weeks. A serious situation and our thoughts and prayers are with him.

His sister maintains a Dutch blog about his mission.

After reading a blog from Colonel Henk Morsink, the commander of the DTF, who was sent out with the first batch of DTF personnel a month ago, I was astonished about Halliburton's subsidiary KBR, which was building a mall right next to the Dutch camp, complete with Burger King and Pizza Hut! He was describing how they were taking shelter from a rocket attack in a bunker right next to the Burger King! And in 6 day's time they had 4 Ramp ceremonies (photo). Needless to say, the contrasts are big.