Month 12 Day 24

Left Dwyer this morning.

I could really feel the excitement from the new guys about going.
They were ready to get their first taste of combat, and Lt Love kept
talking about combat action ribbons.  I was not feeling the same.  I
just wasn't feeling right about going.  I was worried about a couple
of spots on our route that were pretty useless to go through, and were
dangerous, but the LtCol wanted to go through them anyway.

We went to Marjeh in the morning. It has really hollowed out since the
Marines have left.  They built a massive OCC-D for them, a center
where all of the different security entities can come together, but
there were only about 6 guys in there.  Similar to the CCOC. I dropped
off some IR strobes to the British Legacy guys and let Lt Siegel come
in on a white horse so to speak and deliver them.

We then moved to Fiddler's Green.  The Kandak mentor team had just
returned.  They were trying to move a few of their soldiers around the
battlespace from one position to another.  when the soldiers arrived
at the new postion and found out that there was no A/C, they decided
to just leave and come back to the headquarters and deal with their
upset commanders.

We moved on to Nawa. I saw a couple of fake 'graves' on the side of
the road as we were making our way to the fob, they were clearly
markers for IEDs. We walked through the new combined COC here as well.
 It is a huge artifice, but none of the Afghans are in the giant
offices that we built for them.  It looks great on a tour, but there
is minimal work actually being done here.  They did have one success a
few days ago, the Afghans from one of the PBs snatched up a few
Taliban driving by after they were told by the CF they were coming.
We talked to the kandak mentor team in Nawa.  They were having some
problems with the contracts to build the permanent facility here in
Nawa.  The bricks are low quality, the electrical is fucked, and the
mortar is wrong, but these buildings are far from sub-par by Afghan
standards. By that measure they are great, but some Navy Chief from
Leatherneck wants to pull them all down because they don't look like
American ones.  What do you want American buildings, or buildings
built by Afghans?  This is as good as it gets.  The other funny thing
that came up in conversation was that When the Kandak commander, Gul
Ahmad talked about building the new jail he said
"I only want two rooms one for detainees and one for my soldiers."
I guess this was immediately following an incident where two of his
soldiers dressed up as civilians, tried to shake someone down, but one
of the civilians said
"Hey, why do you have ANA boots on?"
The soldiers fled and the civilian told the battalion commander, to
his credit he locked them up for a couple of weeks.

Had milkshakes at dinner-yum.

20110824B

The day ended with the “Blue Collar Comedy Tour” Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engval, Larry the Cable Guy and one other dude.  It was low brow humor most of the time, but really good natured even with the occasional bodily function joke.   By the end, my cheeks were hurting. 

When I stood up to return the DVD the Major, LtCol and Gunny were behind me and Josh.  Maj Davidson asked me.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“Yes, but I make exceptions”

“This is like vacation, eh?”

“Basically, the chow is better, there is no work to do, there is a huge TV, free stuff and a big gym.  That’s a vacation if I have ever had one.”

Month 12 Day 18

Notebook entry

15 reports given, other conversations, on pussy down, bird in gym goes up, CJ Radin coming over yesterday, why doesn't being hated bother me?

Journal entry

I went to the gym in the morning.  A sparrow, was trapped inside, or
so he thought.  Both doors were wide open, easy enough for two men to
walk through shoulder to shoulder, but the bird was trying desperately
to get out by flying up to the top of the tent, he just kept ramming
into the tent walls, turning, and falling.  His default is to fly up,
it doesn’t matter that the exit is wide open, but down a mere few
feet, he tries to fly up to safety, that is what he is hard-wired to
do, up is the only horizon, the only solution that he knows.  This
struck me as a metaphor of Afghanistan, in two ways the people, all
they have known their entire lives is to be selfish, it is the only
thing that gets them by, the most reliable choice in a world without
an overarching hand to enforce the rules.  The environment has now
changed, but they don’t see it, they can’t fly to the exit, they still
act like they are preprogrammed to.  If they spent their life in the
new environment, then they would understand, but now it’s too late to
change.

So how does the bird make it out, he works himself to death and either
wanders to the exit on the ground because he has exhausted himself, or
someone moves him out of the tent.  This made me think of Amir Dad, my
S2 soldier.  He was able to just go and pick up a bird off of the
ground and it didn’t fly away.  I have never seen a wild bird act like
this.  Every time I tried to approach, it fled, but Amir Dad could go
retrieve it with ease.  I couldn’t help but believe that there was
something fundamentally different about Amir Dad and me.  Amir Dad has
to be one of the most gentle, unassuming and nice boys here.  I asked
him why he became a soldier and he said to me “what’s one to do”
meaning that he had to do something, and this seemed as good as
anything.   He was a farmer back home in his little Hazara community,
but he did something uncommon in leaving and coming here.  That bird
was undoubtedly exhausted when Amir Dad picked it up, but it wouldn’t
go to just anyone, it had to go to someone kind, not like me.  Once
Amir brought it outside, it stayed with him for a while and eventually
flew away.

We were on our way to wake up Munir at 0900. Amir Dad just finished
telling me “it’s not good to wake up people from sleep and then expect
them to work, they will be in a bad mood.”  Such a wonderful and
dutiful Chai boy.
I asked Amir Dad why he became a soldier and I pointed to a small
scrub growing next to the cement pad where the Afghans do ablution.
“Amir Dad, why are you a soldier, if I told you to kill that plant I
don’t think you could do it.”
“If my commander told me to, then I would kill it.” He replied
Sammy, in tow, chimed in. “All Afghans are like this, they will kill
anything if they need to I have seen it with my own eyes, my uncle was
killed in front of me, and believe me, I wanted to fight. For 80,000
Afghanis a man can be killed, for 200,000 a commander, it happened to
my cousin and when I called my uncle to ask why he said that he had no
idea, actually” the last word is a Sammyism that he throws in whenever
he is saying what he believes.
“Where does that come from Sammy, Afghans in America don’t act like
that, yah, we get honor killings of girls wearing western clothes, but
not random deaths for no reason.”
“Actually, I don’t know, sir.”
“Do you think it will ever change.”
“Maybe in 100 years”

So there are the two different views of Afghanistan and I don’t know
what is right, the metaphor of the bird is all screwed up, but the
question is this.  Are there some gentle souls like Amir Dad who are
young and don’t remember the irrational solipsistic reasons to do
things who can live in the new environment of security, or are there
only damaged souls who are only a millimeter away from the exit, but
still choose to act as though they are in chaos.

If it is the latter, then how long will be have to hold the security
blanket on before the find the exit?  How long does it take to change
their programming?  Do they have to be completely exhausted and fall
to the ground first?   Can it be done in a lifetime?  Can some kind
soul like Amir Dad lead them out of their self-imposed prison?  If so,
then who is that man?  I think Karzai is still in his own
cage-of-the-possible. Can we, can they sense that we are here to help?
 Will they come when they are exhausted?

One thing is certain; it seems that the Afghans don’t believe it is
possible, even the gentlest soul will say that he can kill at a whim.
Does their belief comport with reality?  Does their belief matter?  I
find it personally convincing that it does.

One thing I forgot to mention from yesterday.   Chuck CJ Radin came over
and didn’t bring a linguist.  He must have thought he could force my
hand by just showing up.  When I reiterated to him that I could not
give him a linguist because I had been ordered not to, he came up with
the brilliant suggestion
“Why don’t you act as my linguist.”
“Really, you want me to violate the spirit of my commander’s orders if
not the letter.”
I handed him my Persian-English dictionary and said
“Good luck.”
He did come back successful because Munir knows enough English to
understand that he was telling him that he was going to be briefing
these slides.

That was really the reason that I was bound to see Munir in the
morning.  The RCT had made his slides for him and wanted me to show
them to him so he knew what to brief.  I complied.  I showed him the
slides and talked to him about the different between written and oral
communication (they normally just stand up and read their reports
aloud).  I then transitioned into a basic IPB class.   When I started
to show him all of the areas the ‘Dueshman’ come from he asked me:
“Why don’t we have troops there?”
“We don’t have enough Marines to put there in that spot in
Afghanistan, we have a limited number mandated by our congress.”
When I started talking about weapons flowing North out of Pakistan and
drugs flowing south, the same things that Gretchin Peters talks about,
but naming the specific locations he asked me.
“Why don’t Marines go there?”
Such a child-like question, I felt bad for him.
“Brother, my country cares about you, but if we go there, then we
would be at war with a country with 100,000,000 people.  We care about
you, but we can’t do that.  The best we can do is try to stop them as
they come.  We even have a special Marine unit down there that is
protecting your whole brigade from the deushman, without them, a lot
more of your soldiers would die.”
He nodded, but I don’t know if he really understood.  Would I
understand if I were him?  If some alien came to me from outer space
and said.
“We are here to show you a new way of living, we need your help, but
we have certain constraints put on us buy our alien form of government
in a place that you can’t even imagine.  Trust me though, we are doing
all we can to help you, and we are doing the best we can.”
If I believed him, I don’t think I’d understand.  I might even get
pissed at the aliens.

I finished my class with Munir, he went to the combined Ops-Intel
meeting.  I met up with Qais for class.  We reviewed the symbols, the
map locations, cardinal directions.  He is getting very proficient.  I
am proud of him.  He asked me, “why don’t you give me that notebook
that you make me take notes in so I can study?”
“Because I have given you notebooks in the past and you always lose
them, maybe your next mentor will be willing to give you another
chance.”
“When are you leaving, I want you to take pictures and you need to
print them and we can hang them and remember you.”
It's kind of nice, but even when they are trying to be nice, they are
asking for something.

In the afternoon nothing amazing happened.  I worked I what I hope
will be the last command Chronology, and worked on putting together a
binder for turnover.

The other guys stayed up late waiting for a leave flight that didn't
end up coming.  The LtCol mercifully let me go to be early rather than
subject me to a 2100 meeting and the requisite "Call on Me" video.

Month 12 Day 10

Notebook entry

18 reports given, Munir maps, Salim not in drivers, Ministry of Defense form 14, $250,000 Darrell, zero parts.

Journal entry

I went to the gym this morning .  I am growing thankful for every additional day that I get in there.  The MWSS guys are going to be taking all of the gym equipment with them when they leave.  The trouble for me is that they don't actually own any of it.  A bunch of it was here before they arrived.  Fair enough a bunch of it was shipped in about a week and a half ago by them, but a lot of the rest of it has been here for over a year, and they said that they promised some of it to other people on camp.  I'm like cool, so I can promise a public part to someone now.  anyway  the reason that I bring it up is not because it is especially annnoying, but because it is emblematic of the difference between the ANA and the US military.  even using the USAF Red Horse showers is a big dela they think these are 'our' showeres.  Obviously that is bullshit the American taxparyer didn't earmark money for the USAF in Afghanistan, nor did they earmark certain fuel trucks or certain water trucks to carry water for them, but they take ownership of their stuff.  Even when an NCO walks into a room he starts using the possessive, he'll say to a  yound Marine 'get me my trashcan' even if it is just sitting there and it is a classroom.  The Afghans don't do this.  they don't have personal weapons, they don't have take ownership of their tents, their showers or their facilities.  They will generaally just run it into the ground and ask for someone else to come fix it.  Tragedy of the commons problems are rampant here.  If everyone has access toa  resource and they can gain some marginal utility form it suse, then they will use the hell out of it well, that's what these guys do.  For most people these problems are solved by and external fore like a government taxing and restricitng use or dealing with upkeep, like in public parks.  But even in the more hierarchical organizations, like the Afghan military the leadership does not step up to this responsibility, and the underlings do not want them to.  The attitude is like Col Mustaga and the Ablutions buildings.  "I know you will find a way to secure my buidlings for me and stop my soldiers from pooping in them."  That is what happens when you have no sense of common identity, common claim, or common heritage.  

I came back and CJ Radin wanted to come by early to work with them on their slides.   That was a good idea because we are solow on terps because of the drivers course-main effort.  HE worked with them and ten rolled aroudn and I still didn't have a linguist I came over and started to work with Munir and my sergeants were like "what about our class"  I kind of smiled and I said, lets do some review.  We did and it was pretty good.  I was proud that they asked.  Salim has been kicked out of the drivers course so he's around now.  I worked with Munir on three more map requests.  He did pretty good on the subsequent iterations.  I was pretty proud of him.  He then wanted to work on getting supplies.  I sent the Sergeants on a search for the CD that I had burned them with all of the supply information on it.  They found it.  I gave him a quick run-through told him to take a stab, and that I'd help him the next day.  Again I was pretty proud that he wanted to work on stuff.  Salim wanted me to uninstall "Windows Black" an iranian pirated version of windows from his computer.  I talked to the assistant code officer, and they gave it a try and failed.  At least they are trying. 

I had lunch with the LtCol and told him about the Semi-successful map requests which were then deflected by Corps saying that there is some other type of special form that no one can seem to find a copy of that we need. He said "it's almost done, it's a shitty way to look at it, but it is almost done."  He told me to go have a look at the Generals new toilet, the plumbing is just a pipe that runs through a small cinder-block wall between the buildings.  The feces will travel three feet and sit on the ground or he'll tell his soldier to clean it up.  all so that he doesn't have to shit with his soldiers.  Awesome. 

I worked on the Gazetter article in the afternoon.  To my surprise the LtCol didn't tone it down he increased the tone.  He is so good at hiding how he really feels about this place. 

The only other thing of note that happened today was with our communications maintenance contractor.  There are basically no repair parts in the country for ANA radios, and the pre-fab repair shops which are like pop-up trailers (about 90 of them) were all stolen in Kabul before they could make it to this level.  So we not have a contractor living on our camp with no ability to do his job making over 200K per year.  Awesome. 

Month 12 Day 5

Notebook entry

26 reports given, taking car, water and sprinkler hose.

Journal entry

had my sleep in, cut my hair, talked to Suzan on Skype until her camera went nuts, and then left to get a picture taken with the other officers (the SD card died last time).  One thing that struck me as odd.  The Colonel asked the combat camera Sgt "is the memory card working this time" about half of the officers laughed, the careerists.  They laughed not because it was funny, but because the Col said it.  Wow how I don't want to be like them. 

After the pic came back picked up Brawny from the CCOC, ate lunch at DFAC 2, that was nice.  Came back and read the news.  I didn't do a ton of work on career stuff, or MBA stuff.  My brain was pretty dead. 

I watched Bruce Almighty.  Jim Kerry get's God's powers for a little while and antics ensue.  Not high-brow, but good for a few laughs.  Jennifer anniston still looks great, I don't think she ages. 

I cleaned my weapon and went to chow.

Capt Nowak flipped out on one of the Afghans for taking water from out new water box.  to be fair it wasn't marked, but a logical inferrence could have told you that this was not the right one to use to clean your hand after wiping your ass given that it is the only one on the camp and immediatly in front of the Marine compound.

Capt Arthur asked me to put the ANA well antics into the book.  On the 4th some soldiers broke into the well house, took out the new hose, sprayed out their vehicles and then slashed holes in the side of the hose and used it as a sprinkler the run through.  Capt Arthur was irate and wanted to restrict their water use for two days.  Not because they are wasting water in the middle of the desert, but for fear of the system.  The LtCol was not on board.  Capt Arthur's fear was that the pump would burn out.  Since this is not a gravity fed system, the pump is the only thing that provides pressure, and the pump can burn out.  The Afghan contractor who built the thing was too stupid to realize that you can't just put in a series of pumps and hope the water flows perfectly.   Capt Arthur wants to restrict their water to ensure they are water independant from the USMC.  That's the trick though, if you control all of their decisions, then are they really independant?  We are trying to wean them off of bottled water, so Capt Arthur is afraid of a setback WRT that, if the pump burns out the LtCol will be pissed, Capt Arthur will be ordered to repair it (the Afghans don't have the knowledge), and the bottled water will have to come back on, but the LtCol doesn't want to control their actions to get them weaned off of it.  These 'problems of extraction' are endemic, how are we ever going to get out of here?

The General has been taking to getting a ride from the road by his office to the new 'mosque' about 100 meters away.  He can figure out how to do that.  

Month 12 Day 4

Notebook entry

12 reports given, Gingley combined staff meeting, brother song.

Journal entry

I went to pick up Tony to go talk with the Afghans and there was an
interesting song playing on the Terp's TV.  It was a Tajik guy singing
in a Hazara accent about how Qanahari's and Mazari's shoudl all be
brothers.  The name of the song was "Brothers."  In the background
there were computer generated rebuildings of the Bamyan Buddahs and a
phoenix flying along.  An obviously ardent attempt to make one nation
where there has never been one.  The odd thing about it was hearing
Dinar's response.  He said "Don't ever learn to speak like that, It's
Naikpai's language." In truth it was not a different language, and I
could understand the guy fine, he just had a different accent.  I said
"it seems to be a pretty nice song, about bringing everyone in
Afghanistan together."
"Yah that's what it's about, but he's only singing it because he's the
spokesman for Roshan [a big Afghan cell phone company] he's don't it
because of business, in Afghanistan everything is about business.  I
don' know whether to draw hope from the thought that commerce can knit
together disparate peoples like in Europe, or to be sorry that
commerce is going to collapse after we leave.

The Afghan's 'got Ginglied' meaning Maj Hesco yelled at them this
morning.  They didn't have the slides ready for the combined
presentation in the morning.  Gunny K was called in to fix the problem
on the COC computers that Maj Hesco couldn't fix (although he was
yelling at the Battle Captain for being stupid and not being able to
do anything right even though he couldn't do it himself)  He was
smashing his fist into the table and slapped the CD drive shut on the
desktop.  With that kind of TLC, no wonder it doesn't work right.
Anyway.  I'm glad that I only saw him for a moment.

The combined staff meeting went OK, I hear.  I worked with the Sgts on
Operational Terms and Graphics, really a military dictionary.  They
accused me of 'hiding' it in their office filing cabinet for the last
few months (what a great hiding spot, they don't do any work, so they
don't know where it is).  They said this despite the fact that I have
pulled it out and worked with them on it about five times.  My class
was basically on how to use a reference book, what the table of
contents is for, how to search for the information you need.  By the
end I think they were getting it.

I came back and worked on a statement about CWO2 Soltz's award.  I
guess they want witness statements about his actions after his truck
hit an IED.

I tried to work on a bunch of other stuff, but the internet was being
pretty unreliable, so I basically just got frustrated with it.

Month 12 Day 3

Notebook entry

20 reports given CJ Radin here, Afghan national Army directing construction, post-deployment health assessment, picture, communications read tip class.

Journal entry

I checked with the ANA in the morning and they were not amenable to CJ Radin coming at 2130.  Apparently, the DOMEX terp did not want to work in the morning because he was fasting.  Great, so our terps do?  You are making over $200,000 per year.  Suck it the fuck up and do your job. Ah well.  Anyway.  Capt CJ Radin came over and worked with the guys.  Well he really just sat in their office with Dinar and had Dinar translate everything.  They decided to make their own weather slide even though it took months for the ANA to larn how to use the one they had, and then he didn’t think to convert from Imperial to Metric.  The partnering is amazing. 

I went from there an checked on the teachers.  They have seen better days. 

After that I came back and the Bde Xo and the GSU were just caught trying to direct the ANA to build them new buildings.  Specifically, they wanted a new mosque.  The building that they took over was not satisfactory in their estimation, so they were trying to order around the construction workers to build them a new mosque.  The construction workers were kind of at fault for this.  They had allowed the ANA to push their way into the old mosque, so the ANA had learned that they could intimidate them into action.  They were sitting there saying yes to everything, they could build a new mosque (the funding for this would not be allowed it would have to be a cultural center or some bullshit), when they had no idea what goes into the contracting for this.  The LtCol went over and tried to stifle it this time, but it would have been better to avoid it entirely. 

At midday I went for my Post-Deployment Health Assessment (we’ve still got a month left, but whatever). 

After that I ran to get my picture taken for my Official Military Personnel File and pay LaFranchi money for the officer’s dues (basically a fund to give the Col a big present after he leaves). 

I came back and worked on Yale Applications, job applications, and that’s about it. 

The nightly meeting was nice.  We had two of the advon guys with us.  I gave them a big welcome, it is the beginning of the end.

Month 11 Day 28

Notebook entry

13 reports given, general declares Ramadan early, dinar wacky statistics $100,000 house, class with noncommissioned officers, Qais late, combined staff meeting, write Congress?, Class with officers, illegal occupation, ditch poop Russians.

Journal entry

I forgot to say that the day prior to this the General tried to change the date for the start of Ramadan.  Now that is really overstepping your bounds.  No matter how powerful you think you are, you can't change the weather.  I hate this guy.  Also on the day prior Dinar told us and Bash confirmed that a bunch of those mud huts that are climing the hills in Kabul are worth $100,000 a piece.  Talk about the inflation that we have created in this place.

In the morning I tried to have the class with the NCOs at 0900.  Qais did not show up on time.  Munir had to go find him and kick him in the butt.  He claimed that he didn't know even though both of the other guys told him.  I did something new in the class.  I gave them folders with paper and had them take notes.  I took Qais' folder back because he already lost one, but I let Najib keep his.  It was a decent class, but I had to cut it short because the ANA were confused about the meeting time with the RCT. 

At lunch I wrote the questions for the Congressional delegation that is coming here. 

In the afternoon I did a class with the officers, the new GSU CI guy and Munir.  I talked about what the hell intel is, what their job is, and about the intel cycle. 

In the evening meeting we believe that we solved the ditch-poop problem.  We are going to too eight more port-a-johns in more convienient locations so the soldiers don't crap in the ditch.  The XO blamed this on the Russians.  He said the Russians would just shit wherever they wanted.  He didn't explain how 20 year olds remembered what Russians did 25 years ago. 

The Afghans also occupied one of the buildings before it was completed and decided to make it a Mosque.  The forced the contractors to open it for them and installed a speaker system on top.  Now they have basically voided any warranty on the contract.  If anything is wrong with the building, they cannot ask Unity to fix it.  It doesn't even have A/C yet, but they said they didn't care.  Whatever.  

Month 11 Day 13

Notebook entry

14 reports given, trip to patrol bases and back, when 128°, Afghan national Army medical brief, Corps logistics officer leave, Lashkar Gah, manicure and pedicure.

Journal entry
I got up went to work out in the little gym in the MWR here, did my 3
S's and caught up with the S2 for breakfast.  The guy, Capt Reagles,
is really not on board with partnering.  He is taking the position
that until they have permanent personnel he is not going to train
them.  I said 'yah I know it's frustrating' he said 'no it's not
frustrating because I'm not doing anything until you get me some
people.' I can see where he is coming from in some regards, but still,
you're not teaching them to be rocket scientists, even if you train
someone who is ultimately transferred to operations, then you might
have made them just that much more capable.  I said 'this place is
going to turn over whether their intel section is ready or not, we
just need to make sure that they can stand when we go'  he said 'we
are going no matter what' I was not so sure.  Thus ended our
discussion on high-politics.

We left and went to two brand new patrol bases in Trek Nawa.  Both
were part of Bad company, we first stopped at the company CP, and then
we went to one of the new platoon CPs. It was good that we stopped at
the company CP first because they were actually traking on the
location of the platoon CP.  The Bn COC was not.  This is really
disconcerting because they are supposed to know where all friendly
forces are so that they don't drop arty or a Hellfire on them.  Oh
well.  The platoon position was really austere, but it was a little
piece of heaven.  There were socks with water bottles in them being
soaked to cool them down, the piss tubes were up and running.  The
marines were camped out under ponchos.  They had radio batteries
recharging on solar panels.  The best part for them was that I nearly
rolled my MRAP about 4 times trying to get to them.  That means that
no one is going to come out and bother them, it will just be them and
at peace in the desert, there aren't even any generators, so it will
be awesome.

We drove back to Geronimo, and I had two delicious milkshakes for
lunch. I love this chow hall. I had two milkshakes because the TCN
couldn't understand english, and poured me a full second one.  That
was not so good.

the General wanted to go to Ainak, up in northern Nawa, but we think
he was just trying to get up there so he could slip out to the Bost
Airfield and onto leave for Ramadan.  There was no other reason to go
there.

While we were on the drive back it hit 128 degrees.  The truck handles
were so hot that I burned my hand when I tried to dismount.  At 1900
Naikpai the weights in our prison yard gym were so hot that naikpai
still had to wear gloves.

in the nightly meeting it came up that all of the logistics in the
entire core had stopped because one guy, the Corps G4 had left.  He is
really secretive and locks his logbooks in his personal room, so the
entire Corps (all of Helmand and Nimruz Provinces) have to wait until
he is back to get any of their supplies.

On the bright side I guess there is a Manicure/Pedicure place going in
on mainside somewhere.  We need to leave.

The General (Left), and Tawoos right climb to the top of a building in the new position

One of our newest positions

roll out solar panels to charge batteries

Month 10 Day 28

Notebook entry

Eight reports given, ground poppy eradication strongest tribe, musical chairs, literacy Narallah addition class VI, lunch KGB, duty, priority intelligence requirements with major Kraus, fire, didn't want weather.

Journal entry

I continued to listen to 'Decent into chaos.'  They talked about how ground poppy eradication was done by the strongest tribe.  I wonder to myself, seeing all of the conspicuously undestroyed poppy fields alongside of destroyed ones, if we are just creating another strong tribe...The musical chairs syndrome that we see in the Afghan officer corps (no one gets fired, everyone just gets transferred) starts at the Top, Mullah Omar wanted Karzai to work as the ambassador to the UN under the TB.  Marshall Fahim, didn't get fired when he tried to turn the army into a Panshiri-dominated organization, they all just play musical chairs. 

I went to a literacy class in the morning.  Nasrallah and the new Chai boy Amir were both in there learning.  The teacher was explaining the concept of multiplication through showing them iterations of addition.  There were only six guys in the class, and half of them came late. 

Tawoos was on duty and I couldn't find him in the morning. 

At lunch I talked to the linguists.  Apparently Dinar told them that if they signed up for the internet through sniper hill that I was going to have to search their computers every night, and that all of their traffic was going to be monitored. This is total bullshit.  I explained to them how Intel cannot work on American persons, but I don't think they believed me.  I am not the KGB.  If I work with these guys this long and they still think I'm the KGB, will I ever be able to break the thought process in my Afghans?

Maj Kraus came over and just as he got here we had two of the Afghan tents catch fire.  We all scrambled over there and I started spraying it with the greywater truck and getting the afghans to not look at the tents that were burning but at the adjacent tent to make sure they didn't burn down.  We managed to isolate it, and it was pretty well in hand by the time the mainside fire department showed up and started dowsing it.  It was started by faulty wiring.  Throughout the whole thing, the brand new ANA firetruck that we gave them last week did not move from its origincal position.  The Unity contractors were more responsive than the ANA fire station.

Maj Kraus worked with Bernie on PIRs.  He came back and said that Bernie was already trying to play the rank game.  He thinks that I won't give him things because I can't.  To some extent that is true.  I can't give him a container, humint source money, or anything like that, but for the most part he still hasn't figured out that I will not give him stuff because he has to learn how to do it himself.

I was told in the meeting that I didn't give Bernie any information.  This is laughable, I give him reports every day, but I don't give him the answer.  His job is to think.  Me taking that away is like putting all of the Afghan supplies on USMC equipment for the logistics officer. 

Month 10 Day 26

Notebook entry

Five reports given, intelligence cycle, link analysis, Corps priority intelligence requirements, afternoon acetate, weather, torn brake line in truck, one Afghan national Army soldier killed in action rollover, container, broke into ablution, refuse combined combat operations center.

Journal entry

I met up with bernie in the morning.  

I was really pissed off at him initially because I had really hoped that he would do some work the night prior.  He told me that he wanted to know the population of all of his districts and that he was and who the key commanders were in each of the districts.  I told him that if he did the work, that I would tell him if his information matched what I had.  I did the research, found the information, etc.  He called up the Lecay teams and asked for the information.  The Legacy teams are Human intelligence collectors, they are supposed to put out spies and find out about enemy activity, not population statistics.  This is distinctly different than what he told me he was going to do (i.e. ask someone on the district council). I got pissed off with him and told him I am not going to give him and information unless he does the work.  I think that he is starting to understand our relationship.  I sat down with him and we talked about link analysis and other things for about an hour. 

After that I came back and worked on some reports.  I went to the RCT picked up some clamps and talk to the S2 guys over there.  I got certified on yet another of the million intel programs that I am expected to know.  

I came back and helped bernie put acetate over his map.  He didn't know how to use binder clamps and he made the comment that 'we are all like Jalaluddin, to them' Jalaluddin is a character in a popular tv show who came down from the mountains to Kabul and have to figure out how to live in the big city.  That is what he feels like all the time.  I think he's probably right, but that is mostly our fault too. After I helped him.  We stepped outside.  I wanted to talk to him about the General.  The general is a Mujaheddin fighter, really has no military experience and that makes him a poor brigade commander.  He doesn't know what he is supposed to do.   Anyway, while we were out there, and while I was feeling pretty proud of Bernie for how hard he worked on learning to do the weather, putting up the acetate, etc. he tells me.  "it is really important that I get a container" I have lots of secret things to talk about and I need a container to do that.  I told him they cost $230,000 and that if he wants one he should talk to his XO.  No, he doesn't think that will work, he wants the Americans to bring him one...sigh.   

One of the ANA from 4th kandak was killed in a vehicle rollover.  The General couldn't understand how he was braindead and yet still breathing.  He was expecting the American doctors to work some type of magic to bring him back. 

The Afghans broke into the new ablution facility where they are supposed to wash for pray one of them decided to take a shit in the middle of it.  Awesome.  Col Mustafa's response.  "you'll find a way to secure it for me."

On a final happy note.  One of the decent officers we have the Tachnique, is getting burnt out as he is the only officer in the S-4 at this time.  He says he is never coming back to the Combined COC where he was a permanent watch-stander.  The LtCol is ready to cut off their fuel and water over this...He also says if they don't figure it out, that we just won't talk to them for 24 hours.  this is childish, but on the bright side...day off. 

Month 10 Day 8

Notebook entry

11 reports given, one report from the Afghans, want to believe, work with Salim on presentation, John Soltz's award, Salim weather, CJ Radin

Journal entry

All of the guys at the RCT were stoked about the numbers that I was able to come up with for the leave flights.  It is really funny that no one gave a shit about the numbers when they thought they didn’t say what they wanted, but when they said what they wanted, then they cared.  I hope that I don’t become like that.   I fought the natural human tendency when I was making the numbers to believe that they were wrong because they did not confirm my preconceived notions.  I always want to be open enough to an idea that I can see the facts and make a rational decision.  I feel like (though I do not have statistics to support this, but merely anecdotal evidence), that most of the guys around here make decisions based on what they feel and what they want to believe, not on actual evidence.  The METLs help, but they don’t go far enough.

I worked with Salim in the morning on the presentation for the commander’s conference.  He is really getting pretty good at PowerPoint.  I am proud of him.  We sat down and banged out some things that he thought were important to present to the commanders.

Most of the midday I worked on John Soltz’s award.  He had copied what Capt Nowak had written about me and made some changes.  It needed a couple of hours work to make it up to snuff, but I was happy to help, the guy has a high-school education even though he is technically an officer.

I worked with Salim on the weather in the afternoon.  I rolled into his room to wake him up, and it was absolutely rank, he doesn’t have any AC, he doesn’t shower with soap, and he doesn’t wash his uniform.  He sleeps in the middle of the afternoon when it is hottest, so when he wakes up he is covered in sweat.  It was so powerful that I couldn’t even go into the room with him.

Chuck CJ Radin came over to help him with his slides for the combined ops/intel.

Month 9 Day 31

Notebook entry

meet teachers and Garrison support unit operations officer, five guys at class, meet with executive officer implicate operations officer, corps intelligence officer and general.

Journal entry

I met up with the teachers in the morning. There are two inspectors here from Kabul.  I tried to find Salim, but he was no where in sight.  In the morning.  I did take the headmaster to see the GSU OpsO.  He is a bit of a weak sister.  To hear him tell the story, he is living in squalor and the Afghans are treating him horribly, but when you go speak to the GSU OpsO with him the story becomes more clear.  The GSU only has 10 out of the about 50 tents on camp.  They have already dedicated one for the teachers, half of which is a classroom and half of which is their living quarters.  The headmaster also complains that they refused him water, but in fact they merely asked him to carry his own bottled water from the truck to his tent. He was unwilling to do this, he wanted a soldier assigned to carry his water for him.  I think he was born into quite a priviledged Kabuli family.  He probably had servants at home, and was certainly rich enough to go to college.  His expectations of how he should live, he wants his own shower, a container, running water, are simply beyond what is available. 

Three of our most capable officers have been selected to work in the Combined CoC, the Tachnique [Mechanic], the Malweni Mohabra [deputy communications/radio], and the Amer Engineeri [head of engineering].  Robbing peter to pay Paul.  It will look decent, but will it do anything, and will it help them with their jobs after we leave?

At 1400 I went to speak to the XO about the HUMINT source money.  I showed him the forms that Razaq supposedly signed while he was purportedly sick in India.  He claimed that they were merely backdated.  He fingered the S-3, the Corps G-2 and the General as culprits.  He said that the General took at least 60,000 Afghani himself and then told Razaq to sign for it.  I told him my concerns about band-aiding the problem.  He agreed, but he said if you think there is corruption now, wait till the Americans leave.

In the afternoon I went out to inspect their class and there were only 5 students.  The supervisors from Kabul were there and they did an on-the-spot inspection of some of the students, they could not do basic subtraction nor could they reliably put together words.  The inspectors said they were doing worse than the guys in Kabul and the Police they had seen in Lashkar Gah.  They believed this was not entirely the teachers fault, that the extended leave periods also set back literacy progress. 

Tried to work with Salim, but he was in bad shape, he had a tooth pulled and was in a lot of pain.  I suspect they didn’t use anesthetic.

Month 9 Day 19

Notebook Entry

None

Journal Entry

I got up or watch at 0500 completely wrecked. I had no idea that I had watch and I was totally out of it.  I got a chance t speak t Suzan for a while and that was really great.  I was exhausted but I decided to go run, shit shower and shave.

I was still wrecked when it was all done but we went t Shorabak for a meeting with the ANA. They basically shut down the ‘friendship gate’ onto the an aide because there was some indirect fire that hit the base this morning.  Even though the fire did not originate from the ANA camp the standard clamp-down reaction made moving difficult.

I got word that the SSgt who was driving the Major’s vic when it was hit by an IED was now complaining of headaches and neck pain, so he would not be making the rest of the trip. That seems like an aweful lotof bullshit. He wasn’t complaining about shit before. Well I guess if you are going to complain of something its best to wait until you can make it to a place where the complaint is actually going to make a difference.

We had a meeting with the ana to include the Deputy CG.  Just prior to the meeting I see the fat XO from 4^th tolai of 1^st kandak, the one who I had tried to teach the 5ws and reporting to.  The same one who the Marines had truancy problems with and the same guy who was resistant to basic intel.  Well he is going to be the new Reconnaissance Company commander, fuck.  I asked him who took his old job and he shrugged and said that he did not know.  What a turd. They had no idea what the plan was for the fielding of their kandak.  Maj Valquist explained it to them. Then the deputy CG said that he wanted the brie on paper and because it was a combined operation the USMC should provide the plan to him.  Of course its combined, which in his mind was a shortcut for American do all my work for me.  After the meeting I explained to the ANA kadak commander and his staff where we are and how, how wer were going to get were we were going and the distances between their positions (they didn’t know how to tell distance from the map).  I also had a stroll through the Corps CoC almost all of the positions that they had listed for our brigade on their map were incorrect. This would be understandableif they were not getting the information from the brigades, but even information that they had such as the name change of 2/2/215 to 6/1/215 was not correct.  It basically looked as though their map had not been updated in over a year. How are you supposed to plan operations when you don’t know where your own people are?

They also wanted some extra bottled water from us because they had filled one of their fuel tankers with water, the soldiers drank from it and now had diarrhea. 

I met up with Maj James Blitz, had lunch in the Tombstone chow hall with him and the Corps G2A (the G2 is on leave). he was a nice old fellow, he seemed to have a lot of energy, be open to a lot of ideas, but he was pretty noncommittal. I asked him to tell my guys what he wants them to report on (PIRs).  Demand quality from my guys (the 5Ws). Most of all I asked for his help with the manning issues.  He said they would be solved in a week when the new S2 came. Apparently my guy has been transferred to Kabul.

We went back to his room with Maj James Blitz it was really nice and comfortable.  He flipped on some Russian channel that had a sequence of ‘reality’ shows that basically showed soft core porn.  Three nerdy guys would rate Russian girls on their legs, faces, how they looked in bathing suits.  In another show some dude was in an ‘elevator’ with two chicks and they stopped at each ‘floor’ and would be given something by someone that would be used in a sexually suggestive manner (e.g. a bowl of ice cream that was then licked off of the guy.  There was another one where a parade of unattractive dudes were rated and picked out by some hot chicks to go out on a date.  Needless to say the plots were thin, but having field goggles on seeing Russian girls in bikinis was distracting as hell.  Oh well it was all good muslim fun because they weren’t Afghans.

I was also distracted because Maj James Blitz wasn’t talking business. He was just talking to his guy.  He just made it back from Eleave and really has not spent much time here, so he is just getting his feet under him.

I met up with Capt Kim Sengupta the British 3^rd brigade mentor for chow.  He seemed like a nice guy and said ‘at least it isn’t just me’ when I told him about some of my problems.

I got a copy of the next iteration of HUMINT source money Form Bs it looks like either my guy came to Shorabak to steal the money while still ‘sick’ or someone forged his signature.  Another 230,000 Afghani, pilfered. 

Month 9 Day 18

Notebook Entry

Three Towed vehicles, no fuel, burned out clutch, flat tire, no troops and no contacts, Push to ramrod no return, escorts, improvised explosive device, airstrike, light machine gun, two vehicles return, doctors comments, no card no fuel.

Journal entry

The day actually started with a wake up call at 2300 on the 12^th after a sleeping pill and four hours of sleep

We prepped the trucks without incedent tried to head to the Afghan camp but were prevented from usin the gateby the local national rent-a-cops that were guarding Lidnsay.  None of them spoke English, so I spoke to the in dari and told them to call the mericans, they were not able to do that either, they tried to call the Afghan COG by this time I was fed up and went to the BDOC. They admitted that the security guys were a problem, no shit.

We get to the ANA the Major wants  them in two sticks, the fast one with the Amry and the slow mechanical trouble prone ones with the Marines.  We make it so.  Shock despite avin 14 hours with the fuel truck they have nt fueled everything up. They had a couple of negligent discharages to include a SAW going off. They also managed to slip in three vehicles that were being towed despite explicit instructions o trailor them back. We get about a mile down the road wih the second stick and two trucks reak down. One is a dump truck with a burnt out clutch, the other one was a dump truck as wel but it required a wreker to pull it back.

We aren’t even to our first turn in Kandahar when the ANGLICOCO vic says it has a tire puncture that the CTIS can’t keep up with. They turn back.  I try to contact the battlespace owner and they tell me they have no contacts at Qandahar airfield, they had just done a RIP an apparently all institutiona memory is lokst for them during a RIP, our guy are basically one their own.

The Army takes a wrong turn in Qandahar  not a huge deal because it is still early.  I make one wrong turn, try todo a u turn ad the Afghans behid me get ou of their trucks start wandering around an lok exasperated.  I screamed at them in Dari to get back int their trucks, like the could do beer, whatever.

WE passed a couple of major engagements, one with army helos swooping like black flies over some enemy position and destroying it about 2 km south of the road. There wer also a bunh of liht machine  guns marked along th rout on the BFT, it was not a nice morning.

We make it to ramrod ad the second set of escorts are nt ready, we tell the that th Afghans already took off and they bettermake sure they are not shot to hell.  We asked the previous set of escorts to rtrn to pick up our Marine ics in Qandaharo that we could meet the minimum ic requirement.  Their higher told them no.  The major tol the wide-eyed army guys that we weremoving no matter who we pis off with the two vics we have.

Logically this didn’t make much sense the two vics on the othe side of Qandahar could just as easily have ome to us as we go to them, pick them up and return. I realized as much and my Doc said as much. I snapped at the doc and told him that this is what leaders of mries d, there is no way that Maj Valquist was going to let his guys see danger without him being around.  Besides we would get two more chances to dance with the TB.  He quietly said he didn’t want to dance with theTB.  Despit the fear I felt a couple days before, on this occasion, I was excited to go bac, as was the Gunny and so was the major.  This was real bravery.  Going through a wild city wth half the vics you are supposed to have in the middle of the day with no support.  As we moved along though I started to wonder if it was just reckless. Especially driving as we were at 50MPH staying tight on the ass of an ana convoy o foring some vics off the road.

We made It throughgenerally without incedent, just a few more marks on the BFT.

We madeit toKAF and the guys were just getig finished with the trucks, we ried to get fuel for the return, but we didn’t have a fuel card, so they gave me shit and I had to go ccall an army sgt first clas to get JP-8.  Really how disconnected are you from the war when atruck full of stinky Marines roll up in and MRAP askng for gas ad you question their credentials.  The contractors were just doig their jobs, I understand, but if there were less contractors to try to steal fue, then thi wouldn’t be an issue

We had a fantastic lunch at the Movi chow hall sutited up and did th third trip across Qandahar for the day.  Arrived in LNK almost without incedent

our long convoy lined up on the road between Qandahar and Lashkar Gah/Leatherneck

I was told this was a line for job applications

Qandahar streets

The road out of Qandahar to the west

Month 9 Day 12B-13

Notebook Entry 20110513

30km long convoy, kandak commander sleeping, theory of constraints, Ministry of Interior guy traveling with us.

Journal Entry

The croats trained our guys on artillery and on some of the eastern block weapons.

We tried to leave at 2200.  The staff from CFC came out to try to pursh them out of the gate. We were half-way through kabul before all of them came out, and all of theway outside of the provice before three vics decided to leave and try to catch up with us.

Our escorts were ok, but they were regular army guys, they weren’t very proficient at using their BFTs Maj Valquist continued to be the convoy commander and I continued to lead convoy.

There was some drama getting out of the gate Maj Valquist got into it with the kandak S-3.

While we were all traveling together the convoy extended to 30 km. once the sections broke apart, the lead element was over 30 miles away from th trail. A few of theAfghans got off track in the city and went their own way.  The army guys went to chase them up and eventually got them back on track.

We had several mechanical problems throughou the trip. One of theHMMWV drivers fell asleep and ran into the back of aninternational truck.  That blew his radiator and added another 30 min to our already hour-long maitenance stop. Yunis the escort commander from5th kandak punched the Lt who was in command of the vic in the face.

We kept trying to shuffle thekandak along, but they were stopping for chow, randomly stopping to rest and just generally uncooperative.  The trail element was in particularly bad shape by theend because the Afghans will pass any slow vehicle, to include ones in their own convoy. At the end of theconvoy we had th dump trucks towing otherdmp trucks the towed HMMWVs the rangers towing rangers. I brought this up with the major and suggested that we could never really exceed the speed of our slowest vic, so there was no point in racing ahead at 25MPH when there werevics in the back thatcouldn’t keep up. We would ulitimately need to stop and wait for them to catch up.  He said this was not the ditch that we are going to die in and moved on.  This is actually a pretty major problem, when the trail element gets that far away from the lead, there is no way to support them. The Afghans in the rangers up front didn’t give a shit.  They just knew that they wanted to go, and to go fast. I snapped some pics of the kuhi nomads and some of the sleeping afghans on the way.

I also saw another suspicious suv traveling with us.  I approached the car with my cover man, asked who he was andhe showed me his paperwork he was with the ministry of the interior (the cops) driving in an armored land cruiser, and had hopped in the the convoy to travel in our security bubble.  The kandak commander told him it was fine, but he didn’t bother to tell us.  We are not just providing security for the ANA anymore, now we are providing  it for the whole of the Afghan government.

Once we made it to Ghazni we had to deal with the Brigade XO for this brigade.  This guy had an orer in hand saying that he was supposed to support this kandak with all of the fuel, water, food, and maintenance that they needed.  He said that food would not be a problem, but that fuel was going to be an issue, he claimed that they only had 5000l of fuel total and that the 11000l that I calculated we were going to need was simply not there.  He promised that he would give 100l to the big trucks and 30l to the small ones. We left at after that. 

We  went to the polish base, ate some chow and almost everyone passed out.

Probably one of the few bits of green I saw in this country. Maybe this is what Babur loved

The head of our long convoy, Army 'escorts' behind me

Kuchi Nomad's Tent

Exhausted Afghan Soldiers sleeping in the back of their trucks 

It seems like others had fought and left before...maybe there's a lesson there.