Month 6 Day 27

Notebook Entry
Presentation to the Afghan National army staff, Rafi Sleep-in, Rafi not at class, Salim resistant to five Ws.

Journal Entry
The morning was overcast and my mood also lacked even a hint of sunshine. I presented an example of what an intelligence update should look like to the entirety of the ANA [Afghan National Army] staff. Because making it with Marine tools would not prove anything, I restricted myself to using only the tools that the ANA S2 had at their disposal. The presentation went pretty well, but one of the things that I typed in Dari was messed up and the General got confused, I had to apologize for that. Rafi refused to roust himself out of bed to go to the CCOC [Combined Combat Operations Center]. Salim went in his stead. Rafi did not get out of bed to go to the meeting either. The SgtMaj went to retrieve him, and was unable to do so, the General’s aide, a tall, princely Hazara Lt had to kick him out of bed. He came in, poignantly, when I was giving the intelligence update. The General stopped and yelled at him for about 5 minutes saying that if he has these issues again that he will be kicked off of the base. Rafi’s position is in an interregnum, he knows he will be transferred, but the time is unclear, his behavior reflect his belief that the General cannot make his life hell for too long and his generally bad attitude. I tried to find him in the morning and afternoon to teach him a class, but he was nowhere to be found, this happened the last time the General yelled at him too. I went to the Combined COC to work with Salim. He was watching a movie on one of the linguists computers when I came in. We sat down to work on the SIGact tracker/database. All this requires is verbatim copying (not even typing most of the time as I have created drop-down menus for most of the cells) of information posted on the wall and looking at the tacks in the wall. He started saying, yah I know how to do it. I said ok, well show me how you do it, when he started typing the events in it became clear that he did not understand, but he quickly remembered what we worked on before we left. He seemed to want to rush to get through it, accuracy be damned. He seemed particularly distressed by the fact that he had to get out of his seat, look at the numbered pin in the map 7 feet away and then return. He basically quit after about 25 minutes of actual activity. He complained of the reports he had to write the briefs he needed to prepare. In truth he has no such duties while on CCOC watch, that is why he was watching a movie when I came in.

Finding peoples motivations for things and helping them reach them can be a powerful tool. Some people want money, prestige, power, influence, to be correct, but some people are only motivated by a life of ease, devoid or work, full of sleep and food, how do you motivate them? They don’t care about their country, their people, their army, their pay remains the same.