I flew for the first time yesterday. It was just a training mission for about 3 hours but is was really awesome. It was also extremely cold up flying at around 9,000ft above sea level. This picture to the left is out of the right side of the blackhawk I was flying with. The silhouette is the door gunner/crew chief. I went out with two Warrant Officers named Mr. Pankey from Alabama and Mr. Easterwood. The landscape here is truly beautiful with rolling brown foot hills which look like sand dunes from far away with a back drop of jutting mountains with snowcaps. There are little clay houses all over the place with a clay wall surrounding each property. Mr. Pankey said that during the night the families bring in all the pigs, chickens, and other animals into the house to sleep so they do not freeze. It is weird to see all the houses because when I flew in to FOB Shank at night there were no lights or signs of habitation. There is little to no electricity. Peppering the villages are random huge bright houses that stick out like a sore thumb. They are westernized houses, two stories, and usually painted a really bright color like red or blue. There is very little greenery in the area but it looks like that a lot of the land is farmed and maintained.