Month 10 Day 6

Notebook entry

Garmsir governor no vote, leave flight, unauthorized absence rates, liaison officer, continue with old aid, Lieut. Col. Valquist reporting, Salim didn't show up, teleconference, roster, drivers course 33, instructor cadre, $100 million facilities regional command Southwest

Journal entry

One thing I forgot to mention from the last journal entry was that the Garmsir district governor is from a well-connected family in Kabul and is too young to vote in the elections which will bring him into office. 

Capt Arthur told me at lunch that the leave flights came up in the daily operations and intelligence meetings.  They brought up the fact that the UA rate had actually increased, not decreased, and the CO Col Schmitt then said, ‘this kind of shoots a hole in my theory that if we give them regular leave that they will come back on time.’ He then launched into some odd logic about how we need to make sure that they are getting back onto the flight, talked about establishing an additional LNO up in Kabul to make sure that they get there.  It was all a little bit stupid.  Because they already have a roster, what is an LNPO going to do?  Go to their house and force them to get onto the flight.  LtCol Valquist was also resistant to the date that I graphed for him on UA rates, when it didn’t show what he wanted he blamed the leave flights moving back by a few days and the guys leaving.  He also said that it was a result of him leaning on Col Kareem to stop overstating the number of guys present so they can get extra chow money.  Sigh, it’s another example of wanting to believe something and finding facts to support your case.

In the morning I worked on fixing the roster to get the perstats for ANSF. Perstats that are really now pointless because I know that the data is going to be ignored.

I told Salim to show up at 1400 for class.  I found him in his room still asleep at 1445.  We had a teleconference at 1500, that was all kinds of fucked up, only two kandaks showed, we only had the one SVOIP phone because Maj B converted the other one to a NIPR so that ended up coming off late.  CJ Radin came over, he is a lot easier to deal with now that I am a Capt, he seems a lot more relaxed.

Maj Kraus came back in the evening and said that RC(SW) is going to invest 900,000,000 in facilities for the ANA.  Awesome.

River City, Marine in N Marjeh stepped on an IED, why?  What for? For all this?