Month 9 Day 8

Notebook Entry
Cipher from the Ministry of Defense, cell phone, Qandahar Vehicle-borne Improvised Explosive device and threat empty. Use of Blue Force Tracker. Keeping Nice things from Aghans. Remain-over-night Qalat.

Journal Entry
Went to the 215th corps HQ Unis got a cipher from the Corps HQ but it did not say what it needed to. It said that 17 pax [people] and 4 vics [vehicles] needed to be supported with chow on the way to kabul, it made no mention of fuel, maint, or any other useful thing that they might need nor did it mak any mention of the 500pax that were coming back down and the 130 vics that they would be bringing with them. I was not happy. The major and I went back to speak to the ANA [Afghan National Army]  OpsO [Operations Officer] about it and they promised that there would be a new cipher. The we also got the corps guys on it so they will be tracking when it is appropriate.

On the way out they told us to let 3rd brigade know that we were coming through their ao [Area of Operations] on the way by so they could provide support. Really, guys these are your subordinates and you are standing five feet from your coc [Combat Operations Center] and they all have cell phones and so do you. You shoud call your own guys. Unis forgot his cell phone on the way out and we had to hold up the convoy to get it.

The tripswent pretty well . it was pretty fast traveling with a small convoy and on blacktop we tried to keep it going at about 40 Mph.

The only hiccups were in qandahar we got a tip from the ana [Afghan National Army] that some bad hit had one down in Qandahar the day before, so I sent a BFT [Blue Force Tracker] message back to the rear. They confirmed that there had been 7 simultaneous attacks the day prior. When we got to qandahar there was a major roadblock on the way in. Gunny, my gunner heard 1 shot of SAF [Small Arms Fire] but couldn’t PID [Positively Identify] we found out why once the army directed us around. There were two ieds that they had just found about 100m away from an engagement spot. I could tell because the army actually uses the bft and puts enemy on there as well as friendly, nice idea. They blew one in place about 150m from us and shredded the back of a little hatchback then let us through. I saw a mass of vics [Vehicles] on hwy one on the bft up ahead I asked for clarification from the army guys. They said that they were in the middle of a firefight and that commandos were clearing the building. I asked for permission and then took us one street over. The place was really reminiscence of Haiti, the small open sewers. The little bit of greenery bravely holding on to the brown soil. It was really odd to drive through there. The entire city was dead. All of the shops were closed the only people on the street were cops and military.

Once we made it out of qandahar and started to hook up the eastern side of the hindu kush things started to look a lot better. There was natural greenery. The peoples houses didn’t all look like shit. In fact with the mountains in the background it looked down right bucolic and nice.

As we moved to the edge of zabul the buildings changed we started to see some of the old ghaznavid architecture. Some of the little towns though smaller than they once were were clearly maintained much better than the stuff further south. Once we made it into qalat the buildings actually started to look decent, not like the run-down stuff in the south.

When we made it to eagle/apache the ana had a little trouble getting on, but the army 1stSgt in charge of billeting told me that they had already unpartnered one ana kandak and that the whole base we are staying on is about to be taken over by the 2/205

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this is possible. I wonder what makes this different than helmand.

The 215th Corps Headquarters building, they lived better than the Marines, as it should.

Month 7 Day 27

Notebook Entry
None

Journal Entry
I woke up and ran to the gym. I went to the shower and decided to track down the guys from the new corps adviser team. The Gunny and Capt Brawny managed to finagle a truck from the LNO [Liaison Officer] which made the journey more easy. Camp Tombstone is still the best camp that I have ever seen.

I met up with the new G2 advisor. Major James Blitz, he had a lot of ideas, none of them founded in reality. I pointed him to some of my reports and started talking to him about what was really going on in the Brigade. I had tried to send them to him earlier, but I guess his mailbox rejected them because they were oversized. He was under the impression that intel was actually functioning at my level and that only his level was broken. He really needs to do a battlefield circulation. Lt David Guttenfelder had just arrived back. He was out playing rifleman in Nad Ali, he seemed to be having a ball with all of that. He told me that rather than get out and accept career designation he was going to take the embassy supervision duty (basically flying all aournd Africa and checking up on the embassy security guards-a really easy and fun gig if you are single). Major James Blitz is a bit of a squat man with a frenetic mouth. He flits from this to that to then next in really short order. I had hoped to hang out at tombstone a while longer to get on their MWR [Morale Welfare and Recreation tent] there, but he wanted to talk, but oddly enough his ADD prevented us from talking about intel at my level. I showed him where my tent was and told him he could contact me there if he wanted to talk about any of my reports. Right now it looks like we are going to be stuck here for a few days (until day 29). before we make it back to Dwyer. This base is getting pretty out of control it is so big that it takes you a half-hour to walk anywhere. I mused about the efficiency of all the walking if the cost of fuel and of giving junior officers more vehicles would make sense because we are basically making $20 per hour regardless of what we are doing. I also saw Lt Mashal Usman in the intel section up here, he seems to be doing well hangning out with probably 100 other intel bubbas at this level. It was funny I walked into the topographic section and for all of their great technology I looked at one of there maps and told them it was wrong. They had put an Observation balloon in a place that it was not. After telling them that they didn't doubt the map, they doubted me. I told them I had been in the place where it was and the place where it was not a couple of weeks ago and they suggested that my info was dated...hmmmm they don't move the thing in 6 mo and then all of a sudden move it with no planning, odd. This is just after Maj James Blitz is talking to me about the need for data links and high-granularity of what is going on in the AO. hmm, look how well we do with all that info...I also saw my platoon commander from OCS Srs there. He was an 0203 capt when I saw him and was now a major. I think he identified himself as an infantryman when I was at OCS. So another bastard child.

Month 7 Day 1

Notebook Entry
No reports given, Rafi PowerPoint, and Google Maps training, Regimental Combat Team here for class, Decision not to fill sustainment, Black Hole Presentation General

Journal Entry
Had CCOC [Combine Combat Operations Center] watch in the morning. Rafi worked the day prior in my absence and tried to come up with a good presentation that in his mind mimicked the one that he had seen me do for the General. He had clearly worked hard on it, but it looked like something that a second grader had come up with, lots of squiggles and bright colors. He knew that it wasn’t really up to standard, and wanted my help-VICTORY. I told him that it was fantastic and that would be more than happy to help him. I gave him a copy of my presentation, he said he would plot the SigActs on it. The internet is currently down for the Afghans because MEF [Marine Expeditionary Force] tightened up the firewall and they have basically kicked the Afghans back off the network. I showed Rafi how to use Google Maps on my computer. He found his house. He went into a long speech about where he lived, how close it was to the river that separates Afghanistan from Tajikistan, he showed me the village just north of him where Ahmad Shah Massoud, a legendary figure in Afghanistan was killed. He showed me an old castle, a hill were he would go to ‘drink whiskey’ on hot summer nights, the small Islands in the Amu Daria, where the smugglers transport drugs from Afghanistan and alcohol in. All the while he was learning how to navigate the map. All of Google's tools are so intuitive that just like an American he figured it out quickly. Thank you Google. The gunny then decided to play a joke on him while I was gone and tell him that the volcano in our AO [Area of Operations] (Rafi oddly thought it was a tornado, or maybe Dr Noori screwed this up) was actually a black hole, a singularity from which no light could escape. Dr Noori, the linguist a real piece of work an Afghan ‘doctor’ who worked as a pharmacist in the US and uses more English words when speaking in Dari than I do acted like he knew exactly what the Gunny was talking about. Salim and I went to the General to tell him what we did in Nawa. Salim came in and said we went on a couple of patrols, taught a couple of classes, it was no big deal. I’m like dude, really, I just briefed you about what to say and you get stage fright from this pompous little Mongol. Ah well, I told him what we really did and how we would appreciate his help pushing the kandak commanders to do patrol debriefs.



The Ministry of Defense in their wisdom has decided not to fill any of our supply requests. They will only field gear for new units, not existing ones, even though we were only created last year and are not up to Tashkil on equipment. Thanks. Its not like my guys break stuff at the cyclic rate (we just had an electrical fire yesterday that burned out the fuse box because they were plugging space-heaters into the sockets and leaving the doors open). This shit is all Magic to them. They have no idea how anything works. They are fucked when we leave.

That's 210 thousand liters of diesel fuel in one bag.  Wow, I can't imagine the gas bill.

The nascent Afghan National Air Force.  Terrifying, simply terrifying for all who fly it. 

Month 6 Day 22

Notebook Entry

Dan Gar to Spin Gar, another patrol to investigate shooting

Journal Entry
PB [Patrol Base] Dan Gar to Spin Gar in the early morning with Echo Mobile.  Hopped on a patrol going to see if the locals knew of the shooting of the contractors.  Sgt Salim did his class first.  I spoke to the ANA company XO.  He was a piece of shit, excuse, excuse, excuse.  He did say one poignent thing "unless the reports come from Marines, no one cares."  I think he's probably right.  On patrol, found on land mine buried to fuck up marines on patrol.  Control det of that.  It rained on us and all of the ANA [Afghan National Army] and the Marines went internal. It was a 5 hour patrol, but it wasn't a death march and I had been on patrol the two previous days, it wasn't that bad.  Gave and intel overview in the CoC.  The 1stSgt came in the middle, I stopped out of respect and honestly asked if there was anything that he needed.  He thought I was challenging his presence there and said he was more important than I was.  Whatever.  I guess the guy was some former recon operator (you could tell because he had kneepads, a Secret service earpiece, a throat mic in addition to all the regular kit.  This is why they don't put combat arms guys in combat arms units as 1stSgts, that's not their job.  On patrol he tried to run the thing even though his Sgt was nominally in charge.  He personally investigated every bulge in the side of a path by sweeping the dirt aside at a suicidal pace.  His own Marines even commented on how he dug up IED, he didn't uncover enough to reveal what it was and then call EOD.  This is what some Marines are, thrill seekers, reckless dick measures.  This may not be the war for them.  Salim and Neckpai were both dead and racked out at 1800 in the hooch.  The hooches there are much nicer than the ones that we have higher up, they are wooden quansit huts, nice to sleep in.  In fact every one of the positions that I stayed at at the platoon and company level was better than the crap that I have to live in for a year.  I guess there is an assumption that higher is always living better, but I don't think that's accurate.  The chow is better at Dwyer, but then again we don't have stand alone grills and BBQs every night either.  hell Mintz [my friend] had his own computer connected to the net in his room in addition to the SIPR and NIPR drops that sit next to his bed.  I am more than a little bit jealous.

A view of the countryside from the base

A vehicle checkpoint

We stop every type of vehicle

The fat useless XO on the right.

Ruins of a fort from Alexander the Great's time here...we're not the first.

Month 4 Day 12

Notebook Entry

Convoy back, date for intel shura, some names for Talonview training, shura agenda, Intelligence preparation of the battlespace tomorrow. Get all classes and later posted, Marine Expeditionary Force considered turning off fuel, 10 soldiers HMMWV course

Journal Entry
combined patrol back, equally heinous, the ANA have trouble understanding that they need to stay in the path of the mine roller. It was a productive day with Samir. I got a date for the intel shura—[redacted for identification]. Sweet, I love being in a muslim country. Got some names for Talonview, worked on the Shura agenda and Samir agreed to practice the IPB in the morning and give it to the general in the afternoon. I posted all of the classes tht I worked on and had translated only to have the guys at Division say, oh yah we have a bunch of intel doctrine and classes from MoD on a CD—don’t you think I might want that, you fucking retards. In a stroke of true idiocy MEF [Marine Expeditionary Force] wanted to stop giving all of the ANA in Helmand province fuel. They are disconnected from reality. The entire ANA would shut down, and probably freeze to death. The brilliance of those on the top. The regiment to its credit, did not comply with the order.