A Past Life:

A past life for me? It's 2002 and I'm in Afghanistan just about to start the process for awarding the first mobile phone license

That's me on the left. Next to me is the chap I wanted to be the next Information minister - he was killed a little while later. Next to him, holding out the envelope was the then current information minister. He was a really good guy - he gave up a good job in the States to go home and work for $40 a month.

Anyway, it was an interesting time - got shot at, bombed and came home with Hepatitis A following a two day flight delay while they tried to find a couple of guys hiding near the airport with a Stinger missile. Life is fun!
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DonP said:
A past life for me? It's 2002 and I'm in Afghanistan just about to start the process for awarding the first mobile phone license

That's me on the left. Next to me is the chap I wanted to be the next Information minister - he was killed a little while later. Next to him, holding out the envelope was the then current information minister. He was a really good guy - he gave up a good job in the States to go home and work for $40 a month.

Anyway, it was an interesting time - got shot at, bombed and came home with Hepatitis A following a two day flight delay while they tried to find a couple of guys hiding near the airport with a Stinger missile. Life is fun!
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Man, I have a boring life !
 
DonP said:
A past life for me? It's 2002 and I'm in Afghanistan just about to start the process for awarding the first mobile phone license

That's me on the left. Next to me is the chap I wanted to be the next Information minister - he was killed a little while later. Next to him, holding out the envelope was the then current information minister. He was a really good guy - he gave up a good job in the States to go home and work for $40 a month.

Anyway, it was an interesting time - got shot at, bombed and came home with Hepatitis A following a two day flight delay while they tried to find a couple of guys hiding near the airport with a Stinger missile. Life is fun!
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Wow!
 
Robert Herndon said:
Do tell!!!!
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OK - briefly. Skiing at Crans Montana in 1984 - or rather not skiing. It hadn't let up snowing for four days and none of the lifts were running. There were several feet of snow in the car park and all the cars were buried. At last a plough had got through and cleared the empty half of the car park, and the driver said that if we could all remove enough snow from our cars that he could see where they were, he would cut a path through the rest to let us get out.
So, the next morning I was out there at about 9 am with a plastic scraper digging snow. The weather was not great, and I had a hood up against the wind. Anyway, the wind suddenly got loud and then my car wasn't there any more and nor was the ground. It all stopped a while later and there was just enough of me out of the snow to struggle clear. Amazingly there was my car - but it wasn't really car-shaped any more.
Lots of things hurt, but I started climbing to get back to the car park - I remember I was just feeling indignant. I got probably fifty yards from the top before the first rescue guys came down from a helicopter. They put a rope round me to start hauling, at which point I used words I didn't think I knew. So they stopped, and I climbed the rest of the way to the spot where I could climb into the helicopter.
And that was it. I had six broken ribs, a collapsed lung, dislocated shoulder and severe concussion. I was in hospital down the valley in Sierre for a week, and the pneumonia lasted another four.

Apparently it was quite a big avalanche, and by the time it hit me it was going fast, and contained a load of trees and concrete blocks from the buildings you can see in the picture. And my flight took me through a forest below the car park. It was probably hitting a tree that did the damage.
 
DonP said:
OK - briefly. Skiing at Crans Montana in 1984 - or rather not skiing. It hadn't let up snowing for four days and none of the lifts were running. There were several feet of snow in the car park and all the cars were buried. At last a plough had got through and cleared the empty half of the car park, and the driver said that if we could all remove enough snow from our cars that he could see where they were, he would cut a path through the rest to let us get out.
So, the next morning I was out there at about 9 am with a plastic scraper digging snow. The weather was not great, and I had a hood up against the wind. Anyway, the wind suddenly got loud and then my car wasn't there any more and nor was the ground. It all stopped a while later and there was just enough of me out of the snow to struggle clear. Amazingly there was my car - but it wasn't really car-shaped any more.
Lots of things hurt, but I started climbing to get back to the car park - I remember I was just feeling indignant. I got probably fifty yards from the top before the first rescue guys came down from a helicopter. They put a rope round me to start hauling, at which point I used words I didn't think I knew. So they stopped, and I climbed the rest of the way to the spot where I could climb into the helicopter.
And that was it. I had six broken ribs, a collapsed lung, dislocated shoulder and severe concussion. I was in hospital down the valley in Sierre for a week, and the pneumonia lasted another four.

Apparently it was quite a big avalanche, and by the time it hit me it was going fast, and contained a load of trees and concrete blocks from the buildings you can see in the picture. And my flight took me through a forest below the car park. It was probably hitting a tree that did the damage.
Click to expand...

You are blessed to be alive!!!!
 
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