Month 8 Day 17

Notebook entry:
4 reports given, patting ourselves on the back, spending so much money, Garrison Support Unit S1, Teacher numbers, Garrison Support unit Operations Teacher Sup, Executive Officer Meeting, Jabar smokes hash, Lines of Operations Sync Nawa ready-gear, Voice of Religious Tolerance, Qais late, Garrison Support Unit S2 no show, explained cardinal directions, locations on map and the concept of speed.

Journal Entry
It occurred to me that I did not talk about the exuberance with which we spend money. LtCol Paul Shinkman showed up for the leave flight. He even called to make sure that they left so that he could put it in an immediate report to the General. The dollars spent remain the measure of effectiveness.

I spoke to the GSU S1 [Garrison Support Unit Administration], the Teachers, and the GSU S3 [Operations]. The Teachers complained of supplies. I told the GSU 3 [Operations Officer] he needed to have oversight on them. I met with the Bde XO [Brigade Executive officer]. He wanted to know where the HUMINT [Human Intelligence] source money was. I told him that I did not know and I told him what I know about how it is stolen at every level (including ours) and then everyone just points the finger at each other. I also told him that I didn’t think it will get better because high ranking officers have their fingers in the pot. He agreed. He told me that one of my S2 [Intelligence] guys, Jabar, smokes a lot of hash and that the S2 section needs work. The Voice of Religious tolerance (a roadshow for community leaders that will eventually take them to Jordan came to the Bde HQ). I went to a Lines of Operation meeting where a bunch of LtCols talked about how other people were doing things.

Came back and taught another class on exactly the same material to my guys. We had to again try to find Marjeh, Nawa, and Garmsir on a maps, we also tried to find ourselves on a few maps. We had to go over the cardinal directions, they didn’t know their own words for North-Chamal, East-Shark, South-Junube, and West-grarb. Most frustrating I had to explain their own metric system to them, and the concept of speed. They literally had no idea what a speedometer on a truck was for. I was exhausted.

I did some more work on my book proposal and I went to bed happy