Hi everyone.

I'm still alive but freezing my tail off. We got 8 inches of snow last
week and it reached 5 degrees below zero that night. That's not why I'm
e-mailing though.

You may have heard about a suicide car bomb attack in Kabul last
Thursday. It was at one of our FOB's (Forward Observation Bases) about
27 miles from here.

But the real story is why no one was killed.

We employ several thousand Afghans on our various bases. Not to mention
the economy that is fed by the money these locals are making.
Some are laborers and builders, but some are skilled workers. We even
have one Afghan that just became OSHA qualified, the first ever. Some
are skilled HVAC workers.

Anyway, there is this one Afghan that we call Rambo. We have actually
given him a couple of sets of the new ACU uniforms (the new Army digital
camouflage) with the name tag RAMBO on it. His entire family was killed
by the Taliban and his home was where our base currently resides. So
this guy really had nowhere else to go. He has reached such a level of
trust with US Forces that his job is to stand at the front gate and
basically be the first security screening. Since he can't have a weapon,
he found a big red pipe. So he stands there at the front gate in his US
Army ACU uniform with his red pipe. If a vehicle approaches the gate too
fast or fails to stop he slams his pipe down on their hood. Then once
the gate is lifted the vehicle moves on the 2nd gate where the US Army
MP's are. So he's like the first line of defense. Last Thursday at 0930
hrs a Toyota Corolla packed with explosives and some Jack Ass that
thinks he has 72 Virgins waiting for him approached the gate.

When he saw Rambo he must have recognized him and known the gig was up.

But he needed to get to that 2nd gate to detonate and take American
lives. So he slams his foot on the gas which almost causes the metal
gate to go up but mostly catches on the now broken windshield. Rambo
fearlessly ran to the vehicle, reached thru the window and jerked the
suicide bomber out of the vehicle before he could detonate and commenced
to putting some red pipe to his heathen ass.

He detained the guy until the MP got there.

The vehicle only exploded when they tried to push it off base with a
robot but know one was hurt.

I'm still waiting for someone to give this guy a medal or something.
Nothing less than instant US citizenship or something. A hat was passed
around and a lot of money was given to him in thanks by both soldiers
and civilians that are working over here. I guess I just wanted to share
this because I want people to know that it's working over here. They
have tasted freedom. This makes it worth it to me.

JOHN, CPT , US ARMY

I'm sure that the gesture of thanks that were offered to this hero were
accepted in himility too. I know, too, that the families of every
person who may have been in harms way would have given much, much more,
knowing thier loved ones were safe because of this one brave person.
Your story make me wonder why and how this government would see it any
other way. We, the people, see it your way and happy you could share a
story of real heroism.