Month 12 Day 1

Notebook entry

16 reports given “holiday” to airport, map renaming, conference call three participants, call Tawoos, command chronology, Naikpai peer Pressure.

Journal entry
The First day of Ramadan (Ramazan is how it's pronounced here).

I ran to the gym in the morning as I normally do and for once there
were no Afghans starting at my uncovered legs.

I ran the MoD delegation to the airstrip, the ANA couldn't even get a
truck for them on time.  They almost missed the cut off time.  If I
had not driven almost 60MPH down the gravel roads, they would have
missed it.  I dont think the Cols had ever seen someone drive like
that, they were hanging on tight.

I came back and tried to work with Munir in the morning.  He informed
me that it was a holiday (none of the kandaks knew about it, and it
isn't on a calendar, but it was supposedly a holiday).  I worked with
him on his map I read off a lot of the words in english and he wrote
them in Dari.  By the end I was parched.  We are not bringing water
with us when we go over there so that we don't upset them, but I
understood how after a couple of hours they would not be worth a shit.
 I brought munir to our MWR and we did a conference call.  Three of
the kandaks showed up.  A pretty good turnout.  I went with munir and
spoke to Tawoos on the Satphone.  I managed to get about 3 hours of
work out of them.

I tried and eventually succeeded in taking Capt LaFranchi to noon chow.
 Gunny Casanova really pissed him off with his omnidirectional hatred.
Gunny Casanova didn't say sir, after speaking to him, and was all heated
and annoyed when Capt LaFranchi corrected him.  Howard and I had a
conversation about how there was nothing that anyone could do to him,
and what a poor example he was setting.

I came back and worked on the command Chronology, this Gazette article
that I am meant to publish, and corrected some of Maj James Blitz's
stupidness.

Month 11 Day 4

Notebook entry

Seven reports given, one draft intelligence information report, antivirus installed Qias review and conference call preparation.

Journal entry

Happy Independence day.

In the morning GySgt K worked with Qais on the S2 computer.  He
updated the antivirus software.  I went over and tried to work with
Qais to try to get him to call the S2 officer.  I was trying to get
him to get guidance from the S2 on what to talk about at the weekly
teleconference.  Capt Fareed from 2nd Kandak was there in all of his
moustachioed glory.  I invited him to the conference as well.  I tried
to review with Qais some of the things that we had worked on before I
left.  He still doesn't know his cardinal directions, but his grasp of
the different places within the AO is getting much better.  It really
was a review for most of it and not a reteaching session as I had
feared.

I went to lunch with Sammy.  That was pretty fun.  I told him about
the history of his tribe that I had learned from Wikipedia, and he was
pretty interested.  He helped me out on some of the Dari problems that
I was having too. We talked about missing our loved ones.  I am not
sure if it would be worse to do one giant two-year deployment or two
smaller ones.  If I had the choice, then I think I'd do it all at
once, then you can skip the hardest bits (saying goodbye) get into a
rhythm, and you would have to deal with the readjustment when you come
back.

In the afternoon I allowed myself my 14:30 of LinkedIn time.  I see
how people get addicted to this stuff, and I am determined not to.

I tried to go to the Contracting Office and get my Assistant
Contracting Officer Representative Qualification that I need to
oversee the literacy program, but the damn thing was closed.  They
said that they had a day off on account of the 4th.  I'm like what? I
haven't had a fucking day off since we got here to include christmas,
but you guys are taking a day off for the 4th?  This really is turning
into a garrison base, and we are turning into an occupation force.  We
need to get out.

I came back in time to set up the conference call for the S2 guys.
While we were doing it Capt CJ Radin told me the great idea that he and
Maj Kraus had.  He told me that they had decided that we should
start giving basically all of the intel reporting the Afghans are
allowed to have/see to them. I said 'great, but who's going to
translate it.'  'that's a good question'
I then said "You can do that if you want" deliberately not committing
myself to the task that they were basically trying to delegate to me.
"I've already given them over 1100 reports, and they don't do anything
that remotely relates to analysis, they just want the answer, they
don't want to actually piece together the puzzle.  I have been trying
to get them to just look at the reporting, put a little thought into
it, start linking together some of the key figures with string, pins
and using regular old folders, and they have not been willing to do
it.  They just want me to give them the right answer. Reporting is not
the choke point, they need to learn to use what they have before we
start throwing more at them."  Then I translated a bit of the report
that Qais was getting on the telephone from first kandak 'now he's
telling him the number of enemy groups, now he's telling him the
'commanders' (none of which match ours' now he's telling him the
number of pkm, rockets, rpgs, pistols, now hes reporting the number of
friendly posts.' 'a lot of that is ops stuff' CJ Radin said. 'Yah I know,
but the problem is that they are asked to report these numbers by
their higher HQ, and the commanders and XOs are the only people who
don't have a phase progression.  The General was a Muj and has no idea
what he is supposed to expect, so a bunch of it falls to the XO, who
just spouts the same shit the Soviets told him to get, it is
completely worthless, but the 'general' is a 'general' and you can't
teach him because he is too proud, or that is the assumption at
least-a reasonable one in my opinion, at least to start off with.
'That is why I was so excited about the Major coming over here,
bringing Tawoos to the General with his new list of PIRs and talking
about how important they are, because it is the only way that I can
teach him without appearing to teach him (outside of deliberately
doing my classes in the combined briefing room which adjoins to the
General's sleeping quarters, and I know he can and does listen in
because he has commented on my classes).  CJ Radin gave me his glassy-eyed
stare clearly not comprehending anything that I said.  It was by now
the 2nd Kandak S2's time to brief, he had just finished up having
Sammy do the addition of all of the enemy in his AO because he lacked
the ability to add.  He proceeded to slowly read his entire report
line-by-line to Qais and 1st Kandak, 'The following are the
achievements of 2nd Kandak, we have captured the following number of
Dragunov rounds...'  he was done.  He handed the report to Qais who
dutifully signed for it in the log, put it in a manila envelope, and
no doubt would never look at it again.  He was very proud of himself
when he was done, and he assured me that in his report he had already
given the weather to Qais, so there was no need for him to get it from
me.  "It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter" he said
confidently.  While true, it lacked the level of detail that one hopes
for from an intelligence officer...

I went to dinner, the chow hall workers had carved a 5 foot tall
helicopter out of foam and a statue of liberty out of foam.  We ate
steamship beef, steak, shrimp creole, mashed potatoes, candied yams,
salad, and 'holiday cake' which looked mysteriously like Army birthday
cake.  Are we still in a war zone?

I came back and the meeting had been postponed because the Maj and
LtCol wanted to play volleyball with the ANA.  None of the Capts want
to play because the LtCol is hypercompetative, that's not all bad if
you have a chance at winning, but when the Afghans wipe the floor with
you every single stinking game it's no fun because he gets all pissed
off and starts trying to play every position.

So here I lie, on my bed typing this out, just killing time waiting
for this damnable meeting, whenever it may be.  I'm trying to download
an audio book.  I don't know how much longer this 30 day internet plan
is going to last.  A bunch of the other guys were complaining that
theirs just conked out this morning, so mine is not far behind.  In
need to get the downloads while the downloading's good and it seems to
work best when you are working on something else for some reason.

That's about all for now I suppose.

From Left to right, Yours truly, Capt Brawney, Capt Arthur

Month 10 Day 20

Notebook entry

Morning combined combat operations center, analysis, Salim map reading, :-), map creation, free trucks, petroleum oil and lubricants.

Journal entry

I went to the Combined COC in the morning.  I tried to describe to the S2 what we are hoping he will be able to do every morning.  That is, look at the Significant activity from the day prior and make some assessment of what they enemy are up to, planning, etc.  After I showed the s-2 he wanted me to show Salim as well.  It was a bit of a pain.  Salim has really been stepping-up of late and the same things happen to them as happen to us in the USMC.  Competence is a curse, so Salim is told that he needs to drive everyone over to the commander's conference.  Anyway.  I went back to the CCOC a second time to teach Salim the same stuff for a second time. 

In the midst of writing this.  I just caught a rat in the COC.  I put the trap out for him earlier, he has been screwing with me for the last three days.  He is 13 inches long from head to tail and 7 inches long from nose to the end of his body.  I had to smash the trap a second time because it didn't kill him right the first time.  That wasn't nice. 

Anyway,  so I taught salim that stuff and I also showed him how to pull up maps on Google maps.  If they every get the internet that could be a good resource for them since they can't give it viruses. 

The ANA brought two brand new firetrucks down yesterday Ford F-550s, with a really nice rig on the back.  I can only imagine how expensive they are.  I took a couple pictures of one of them.  The ANA had hoisted it up by the grill-guard, breaking that, and the tow truck they were using was gushing spurting hydralic fluid when they removed the wheel support.  These guys aren't new, they are from 5th kandak and have been around for a year and a half.

I gave the weather to salim, but I was so sick that I had to lay down.  When I woke up Brian was watching young frankenstein on his computer.  The only thing that struck me as odd was the way they dealt with rape, twice in the movie it was a punch-line, and the woman was totally good after the fact, smoking a cigarette with the Creature.  I don't think that would happen in modern movies, but when I think back to the Shakespearian era jokes about cutting off maiden heads, or to the decameron where the punch line of one of the stories was a guy going into another guys house and accidentally sleeping with his wife because she was in the wrong bed.  Mores have changed, I wonder where they are going?

In the meeting they talked about depending on the ANA for Petrolium, Oil and Lubricants (POL) they switched over contractors.  The old one used to fix the ANA's stuff for them, the new one is supposed to train the ANA.  Shock, the ANA supply system is not dependable and we are now looking into how we can buy oil, fuels, etc. for them with Field Ordering Officer money because it is an emergency and we are worried that they will just keep driving their trucks until the motors blow up.