Month 4 Day 6

Notebook entry
S-2 Assigned-unassigned. Meeting with Captain Nowak. Taliban treat.

Journal Entry
Yesterday I met with Capt Nowak and his mentee, Col Kareem. They have a really messed up relationship mostly because Capt Nowak treats him like a Colonel, not like a half-witted ANA soldier. That is, if Kareem asks Capt Nowak to bring him something, then he does, even if Kareem is just being a little bitch. Kareem tried to assign a new guy to the S-2 yesterday while we were in there. I spoke to the guy a little bit later and he simply didn’t want to be in S-2. I wasn’t going to fuck with yet another guy who doesn’t want to be in S-2, so I told him OK, we will not have him reassigned.

I also gave a final look at the Mission Essential Task list. It is pretty stupid. We got these half-baked goals from Division that don’t align with reality, and then we were asked to make subtasks. No one really bothered to ask the obvious question: are these even the right goals. They are right in the sense that they came down from Division, but if we complete them will the Afghans be ready? Sadly, no. But this is how we train back in the states, so this is how we must train Afghans here…

Edited to Add:
It is funny what things end up being important.  These goals of the Mission Essential Task list would later be something that we obsessed about weekly, but again, we didn't ask the obvious question were these the correct goals.  They were merely a cut-and-paste of what was expected of an American regiment.  Because this was what I was supposed to teach the Afghans, this is what I taught them, but I don't think it got them much closer to independence.