Month 4 Day 28

Notebook Entry
Eight reports to Afghan national Army, one report from the Afghan national Army, BATS [Biometric Automated Tool Set], Joint Tactical Operations Center Binder, Afghan National Army [ANA] Assault Support Request, and Communications Individual Subscriber Directory.

Journal Entry
I BATed all day. It was a bit of a skull-drag in the afternoon. The Brigade afghans are a bunch of princesses, they claim that they are always too busy to do anything, but when you go see them they are always mysteriously unoccupied. I was told by the S-1 [administration] officer that it was not the job of the administration section to keep track of personnel. I am like, you are the fucking personnel officer, if your job is not to keep track of people, what the fuck is your job?

I wrote up my monthly report on the status of intel yesterday. I came into the CoC tent, and the Major Valquist was like ‘you need to tone this down a little bit.’ Meaning, he felt like my report was too scathing. How can it be too scathing when I am at 13% manning, I just have one S2 guy who actually works, and he just wants to be James Bond? That coupled with the outright kleptocratic behavior of the Afghan Intel officers and you have a recipe for disaster. I was told that I am ‘too young to be that cynical.’ My progress with Samir on the Mission Essential Task list (a group of standards that I don’t even agree with) was minimal, yet I was told, ‘there is too much red on here’ (referring to the green-yellow-red color code I applied to each level of progress). This was not the response last month. Last month they laughed and said, yah that’s about right, but post the General Paul Watson ‘the advisors are failing’ meeting in LNK [Marine higher headquarters], I think I know what the game is. Just lie about the ANA’s progress so we can look good. That is fucking bullshit. I am not going to lie about their progress, that is not going to help any of the higher-ups make good decisions. I am not here to advance anyone’s fucking career, or make some commander feel like he ‘made a difference.’ If he wants to really make a difference maybe General Paul Watson should actually spend time with the ANA rather than calling the mentor team frantically a few days before Christmas and urgently asking what the S-4 [Logistics] mentor what General Malouk’s boot size is (incidentally that is basically a stupid question that reveals how America-centric he is, in a country where everyone runs around barefoot and in sandals, their feet are so wide that almost no boots will fit, that coupled with the fact that culturally they have to take them off every time they go into a building and boots are a pretty retarded thing to give, maybe you’d know that if you bothered to spend some time with the ANA…) I am a here to train the ANA If you want me to do something else, then fine, I will do whatever task I am told to do, but don’t tell me to lie.