Month 5 Day 19

Notebook Entry
No reports to the ANA [Afghan National Army]. Rafi to the Regimental Combat Team, Mission Analysis class. Samir stayed, Annayatullah comes to visit Rafi, accuses Razaq of taking all the cash. Samir didn’t update the weather, Lock himself int room, Psychological Operations Materials for Kandaks.

Journal Entries
Went to the RCT [Marine Regimental Combat Team] yesterday morning. I saw the new CoC with the computers, charts etc in there. Samir said he was really busy and couldn’t go. Rafi went instead, Rafi did OK for being a complete retard. LtCol Walcott tried to teach a class about Mission Analysis. The class went ok, and it was good to sit the Afghans down, but I don’t think they really got much out of it. In intel school we did a two hour class after over a year of training, then prac-apps multiple times and a test. The Afghans have none of that experience, got a two hour class and it took over twice as long because of the translation. The Afghans don’t really learn well like this. They need hands on, you can give them a class but you have to immediately prac-app it, then prac app it again, and again. It look me over a week to explain and generate Priority Intelligence Requirements, basically just a list of questions. What I am worried about is that the Marine staff is going to say ‘we partnered’ we trained them all up, now how come the ETT isn’t helping them produce? They just haven’t spent enough time over here to understand that this is not something productive. They act like the Afghans are just untrained Marines, not completely different people, with completely different experiences.

The afternoon was pretty useless. I tried to talk to Samir. He said he was really busy, so I decided to wait him out in his office. I just sat there and read for two hours. He came in and out with papers, and looked pretty busy for the first little while, but after that I didn’t see him for about an hour. Rafi came in and I gave him the weather. He dimed out the S2 [intelligence] officer who remains in India as having stolen a bunch of his money, and said that the guy Samir wants to transfer to the S2 in 2nd kandak is corrupt, the word I also got from the ETT [Embedded Training Team] there, sweet. So when we are done Rafi motions to me and tells me to follow him to Samirs room, it is locked from the outside with a pad lock, Rafi tells me to stand further down the Pway [Hallway] so that I can’t be seen when he opens the door. He pulls out a key and opens the door and Samir is in there, and gets some papers. That mother fucker had someone else lock him in his room so it appeared as though he wasn’t in there so he could talk to his girlfriend. If he put as much thought into intel as he did into trying to avoid working then we could get somewhere. I was pissed, I waited about ten minutes, then I came back into the building, jumped up and grabbed the top of the wall and did a pull-up so I could see over. I said to Samir, who looked a little bewildered ‘Che gap ast’ (what’s going on). He told me he didn’t want to tlak to me, so I told the ANA XO. He will be at the training tomorrow. At least it is better than him talking to his girlfriend all day.