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So, the strawberry plants I've been writing about have died. No one watered them the week of the airshow.

Pete's Place

***** It's Tuesday. Nine days after I wrote the bit below. I will be working on my follow through. *****

I'm sitting on the boardwalk at Pete's Place. This is the social hub of the Transit Center at Manas - for both service members stationed here and those traveling into or coming home from Afghanistan. It's a mellow night being a Sunday, and I'm doing the thing I detest the most: taking up an entire table to use my laptop while being anti-social. Supposedly Nate and Mike will be swinging by so we can have our beer. We're allowed two daily here - one of the deployment perks here in Kyrgyzstan.

It's named Pete's place in honor of Peter J. Ganci, Jr., a firefighter who died in the WTC attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Three months later the Transit Center opened to support Coalition Forces and Americans on their way to Afghanistan - then it was named Ganci Air Base and shortly after that it was named Manas Air Base and now we're the Transit Center at Manas.

I'm looking at the outside mural of Peter Ganci with the WTC towers engulfed in flames and smoke. I've seen this same image on posters in many work centers here with the words "That's Why." I want one.