Friday, June 19, 2009 9:48 PM CDT
National Guard soldier John Farrar uses Facebook to keep his
family back home informed about his deployment to Afghanistan
By ROB STROUD, Staff Writer
rstroud@jg-tc.com
The social networking Web site Facebook provides a way for friends and family to keep each other updated about the events in their day-to-day lives.
For Staff Sgt. John Farrar, these updates includes notes about him encountering an improvised explosive device or firing a warning shot while serving in convoys on Afghanistan’s winding, mountainous roads.
The Coles County native started posting notes on his Facebook page after being sent on a 12-month deployment to Afghanistan with the Illinois Army National Guard’s B Company 1-178 Infantry, based out of Elgin.
After seeing a fellow soldier post venting and comical notes from Afghanistan, Farrar said he decided to put his feelings down in writing as well. Farrar said he wrote a couple of notes, and then his friends started requesting more. He said his friends seem to enjoy seeing the war from the perspective of a soldier who is there.
“I guess that’s what you could say my goal is.... to tell people how it really is here from an individual’s point of view. No media cropping, no third, fourth, fifth person’s point of view, but straight from my keyboard to your screen,” Farrar wrote during an interview via e-mail.
The staff sergeant and his keyboard are currently stationed at a forward operating base in Khost Province, a mountainous area in southeast Afghanistan that shares a border with Pakistan.
“There are over 250,000 (people) in our area, and Khost has the second biggest mosque in Afghanistan, which was a huge deal for Ramadan and Ede (the new year). The population nearly doubled for these events which made convoys difficult considering the traffic,” Farrar said.
Farrar said his work with the International Security Assistance Forces, a NATO project, puts him in contact with local nationals (LNs) in the Afghan border patrol, national army, provincial forces, and national police.
“I have became friends with a few LNs that we work closely with, provided his family with food from gift packages sent by loved ones from home, baby clothes for his new son, and some baby clothes for another LN that we work with that just had a daughter. I have twin girls and a son, so getting clothes was easy,” Farrar said of his and his wife, Celine’s, children.
His typical day consists of getting trucks ready and loaded with equipment and personnel for the day’s mission. Farrar said he is either convoy commander or simply a truck commander in the convoy for these missions.
Farrar, a squad leader, said his platoon’s main mission is to serve as the security force for a Khost Provincial Reconstruction Team that is made up of engineers, U.S. aid and agriculture officials, civil affairs units, NATO personnel, government officials, and “pretty much anything that has to do with governing.”
“We drive them from meeting to meeting, building to building, school to school, road to road... you get my point... it’s pretty boring most of the time but every once in a while we get some excitement. Then we come back to base, and get ready for the next day,” Farrar said.
The “excitement” can include encountering an improvised explosive device like the one Farrar wrote about April 23. His convoy had to stop at a bend in the road after one of their Afghan guards spotted the device ahead. They could not go forward or back up, so they waited for 20 hours until a disposal team arrived and detonated the device.
Farrar wrote that he suspects insurgents had intended to spring a trap there but were deterred by the convoy’s arsenal of two chain-fed grenade launchers, six .50-caliber mounted machine guns, and many other weapons, “So, yeah, we roll heavy!”
At another time, Farrar wrote that his convoy had to stop after seeing six bags on the side of a curving road adjacent to steep terrain. While investigating the possibility of an explosive, Farrar had to fire warning shot to alert an Afghan driver with an noisy exhaust system who nearly barreled around the corner and into the convoy.
“See, it could have been a car bomb... you think about all the possibilities in a situation like this. IED (Improvised explosive device), choke point, no where to go, great place to throw a VBIED at ya ( vehicle born IED). Right? However, we got to a good spot to get a better look at the bags, no IED was there. Continue mission,” Farrar wrote.
His mother, Marianne Farrar, has posted on his page that sometimes the notes about such dangerous situations are a little more than a worrying mom wants to know. Still, she is grateful to have a means of keeping tabs on how her son is doing when he is so far from home.
“My son is very dear to me, I love him more then life itself,” Marianne Farrar said. “Thinking of what people had to go through during World War II, having to wait for letters months at the time, e-mail and Facebook have certainly come in handy.”
Asked how posting notes on Facebook has helped him during his deployment, Farrar responded it, “Keeps me sane! Plain and simple.”
“I complain sometimes, I cry sometimes, and I laugh sometimes when I’m writing ... helps get my emotions out there. I have had nothing but support from those friends and family, most being from Mattoon and Charleston, that read my notes. They all care, they all pray for me, and that’s what’s bringing me home. Thank you to all!,” Farrar said, adding he is set to return home in late July.
Contact Rob Stroud at rstroud@jg-tc.com or 238-6861.
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jd50 wrote on Jun 20, 2009 12:25 PM: