Month 11 Day 19

Notebook entry

13 reports given, Carambul game, class to Qais and Najib good, terrain analysis, class with Tawoos afternoon, military a combined obstacle overlay 18 month burn, Elton John Flack under uniform, general paranoid soldiers killed, Corps you're not lying.

Journal entry

My stomach has really been bothering me, and that soured most of my morning.  

I went to see the S2 and talked about the Military Decision making process.  After I spoke with him, I went to the COC.  I found the Afghans in there playing a game that resembles pool very closely called Carambool.  I took a picture.  Capt Nowak was sitting in there just watching, there was a time when he would have been pissed and stormed around, but he's just exhausted and he's given up.   I met up with Qais and Najib in the morning on terrain analysis.  I put them in competition with one another.  I had them race to find the areas on the map, and the first guy who did the correct cardinal directions got a point.  I had them into it, they were fully participating in class.  By the end Qais came up to me and told me 'you are a good teacher and I will make sure I always come to your classes from now on." I was really stoked about this, but I am trying to not get my hopes up. As I walked out of the class Capt Nowak was playing Carambool, stood up and yelled America because he had just won. 

I took the terps to chow, and they we all had fun saying what a pain-in-the-ass my guys were, how they didn't learn properly, and they were altogether too careless.  

In the afternoon the net kept cutting in and out.  I tried to make it work, but I ended up giving up and working mostly on the job and Master's degree stuff.  

I waited to teach a class to Bernie at 1530, but he didn't show.  I found him sitting outside with the General, they were about to drink tea.   The General kindly allowed him to go to class after I told the story of how he killed the most dangerous Talib in the AO a few days prior (he was a 3 in mouse). 

The class went well and Bernie was engaged. we talked about trends in the AO. 

In the evenin meeting a few interesting things came up.  First, elton John, the GSU S3, wears an flak vest under his uniform because he's afraid he'll be shot.  Second the General is using the shooting of Karzai's brother as the fodder to claim he needs a private shower, he's scared for his life.  Whatever. and 18mo old girl 'ran into' a pot of boiling oil and burned her lower extremities.  I hate these people.  the Major reported that the Corps has finally realized that we are not bullshiting them about how fucked up the ANA are, they finally realize admitted that the MoD-14 process is broken and that sending the body of a dead ANA soldier to the wrong house is sub-par performance. Finally one soldier straight up killed another soldier today in Nawa after an arguement, this could be the source of some of the paranoia. 

hhhhh

Month 10 Day 13

Notebook entry

Seven reports given, work giver of self and creator of self-identity? Awards, Salim regarding the country guys, no party, Dinar's sentiments, general flowers, Salim class comments.

Journal entry

I made it almost to the end of Friedan.  She made an extraordinary claim.  “Work is the giver of self and the creator of self-identity.”  This is why she was so distraught that women were culturally discouraged from working outside of the home in the 1950s. That is similar to what I heard Rick Warren say in the TED talked that I watched a couple of days before that. The problem is, I’m just not sure if it is true.  I have a job, I work for pay, I make a lot of cash, my job is very respected by society, I walk around all day and people call me ‘sir’  this should in theory bolster my self-worth, identity and tie me to the broader world.  I thought it would too when I started it. Maybe it will someday, but I have to wonder if this isn’t an Americanism too.  There are a lot of Afghans here who don’t give a shit about work, they would happily steal their way to the top and live in the lap of luxury, maybe Friedan was part of a bigger culture that glorified careers.  I certainly have trouble with the universality of her claims. 

I worke on Awards for both docs most of the morning.  The Gunny went on a tirade about them at lunch he said that only one person, GySgt Young, rated one.  He also said that HM1 was self seeking.  I told him he had omni-directionaly hatred.  He seems to be really unhappy.  I think this is because he has destroyed his marriage, barely knows his daughters, and has been rejected the Marine Corps that he ostensibly did it for. 

I tried to work with Salim, but he was tasked with getting a list of all of the ANA soldiers who had family members who lived outside of Afghanistan. I E-mailed a list for him again a capability he will never have…

At noon I thought that we were going to do the party that the Public Affairs officer had talked about, but no party happened.  Dinar said this is just bullshit that people say.  Times have changed in Afghanistan. I did get a bunch of plastic flowers from the general they were cheap, but it was nice. 

I had a class with Salim in the Afternoon.  I was trying to teach him about water flow in the AO.  It is important because all the people are farmers. He said ‘fuck all of these peoples mothers, I don’t care if they starve’  he wasn’t serious, but would you say that if you thought about these people as ‘us.’

I got into with Fareed because, he wanted to talk to his family at 1500, he claimed he had to meet with maj Davidson, I confirmed that he did not need to meet with him, I tried to get Fareed and he said he wanted to talk to his family.  I had a heart to hear with him and here were some of his remarks

‘I NEED to go to the MWR’

‘when the Marines give me the sat phone they always give me phone 2, it doesn’t work right’

‘it is not my responsibility to pay for the wiFi in the tents the marines should pay for it for me’

‘I can’t wake up at 0400, I have to go to the MWR at night’

The quick sense of entitlement around here is amazing.

The General Presenting me flowers for my promotion

Myself and Dinar (The general is the photographer)

Month 10 Day 7

Notebook entry

15 reports given, computer recovery morning and early afternoon, intelligence preparation of the battle space, leave flight cost, AC broken, flatscreen up on the wall, sign in roster, contractor ownership.

Journal entry

The morning was a waste.  I went to try to help salim reinstall the operating system on his computer, but GySgt Young had not prepped the comm guys properly.  They didn’t have all of the stuff they needed, so it took two hours out of my day for nothing. I had to cajole the ANA communication section into helping, get everything going only to find that the reimages were not there.  GySgt K got the stuff that he needed and updated it in the early afternoon. 

I worked with Salim on IPB again.  He is getting pretty good at remembering the three main areas, but now I am asking him for tougher smaller areas and he is having trouble.  I had him draw a map and label it as opposed to just going off of the powerpoint.  We’ll see tomorrow if that helps.  The A/C in the COC broke while I was there.  Being the resident magic-bringer I was asked to fix it.  I could not.  When I told the duty officer to talk to the GSU engineers about it he said if you tell them to fix it, it will take a week. I said ‘if you don’t tell them to fix it it will take a week from whenever you do.’ He just shrugged and said the guy might do it tomorrow.  That’s work ethic. This place is going to fall apart after we leave.

I also found out a little bit about the structure of the contracting companies. Many are nominally headed by Afghans so they can get more contracts from the government, but the board is all made up of American businessmen.  There is always a way for those who want to be entrepreneurial.

We are winning the war in the combined COC.  The Afghans now have  a big flat screen that they can write sigevents on.  Not sure how that’s better than a dry erase markers, but it sure is more expensive and complicated.  Brave New World anyone?

I found out how they cheat the sign-in roster, their signatures are basically scribbles and they basically write directly over the small marks that the S-1 puts in there to count them UA.

On the bright side.  I did some regressions on the leave flight and it looks like it actually does save the US money.  That doesn’t compare it against a more effective and consistent convoy schedule, but with what happened before.

Month 9 Day 2

Notebook Entry
Yesterday missed class with Qais, Concept of operations all morning. Fear of Afghan National Army from Regimental Combat Team. Qais missed class today, Munir our yesterday, Afghan National Army Quick Reaction force. Provisional rifles.

Journal Entry
I worked on the ConOps [Concept of Operations-plan] all morning. I am so happy that Lekic is basically on autopilot when it comes to the roster. Though he did really annoy me with some of his data-entry, it took me almost an hour to fix some of his mistakes yestday on the spreadsheet.

The RCT s-2 [Regimental Combat Team Intelligence Officer] called about their teleconference, they didn’t know how to set it up, wanted to do it over there because it is more convenient. Capt CJ Radin nickname No Impact No Idea-CJ RADIN is a real genuine idiot. Not good for an intel guy. He wanted to know why I couldn’t come at three and I’m like dude, why can’t you come here at three. Whatever.

Capt Nowak got pissed at me again because I relayed a message from Maj Valquist about setting up billeting at LNK [Camp Leatherneck]. I said could you set up billeting at LNK? Started with a Sir and ended with a V/R,. He was annoyed because he thought I was tasking him. I wrote him back that I would try not to hurt his feelings. The guy is really hyper-emotional.

I found out that Monir, the GSU S2 [Garrison Support Unit Intelligence Officer] who has been here for 2 months went on leave yesterday. Fuck.

I am getting annoyed about the assignments that the RCT does for the new kandaks coming in. They are treating all of them engineers, recon, etc as provisional riflemen. What a waste. I pushed back, and was told by Maj Valquist that they were not attached to me. Capt Arthur says that he was there when the Maj brought this up with the RCT and was shot down, I have also heard the Maj speak on the phone about how dumb this is. Oh well, we don’t have the power.

The cherry on top was that Qais didn’t come to class. I wonder if me telling him I couldn’t do the class at Garmsir, but could at the Combine COC had anything to do with it.

All this just to get more stuff and people from Kabul.

Month 9 Day 1

Notebook Entry
E-mail Major Kraus, Updated Global Unique Identifier, Lines of Operation Synchronization, Concept of Operations, Turnover: Major Davidson

Journal Entry
I spent basically the entire day in the CCOC [Combined Combat Operations Center] again working on the ConOps [Concept of Operations] and trying to get caught up. It has been like pulling teeth to get basic information about friendly forces on the route of March. I even called up one of the Regional Commands and they told me, you need to do a better turnover. I’m like turnover with who? You are one who is listed in the IJC [International Joint Command] frago [Fragmentary order] as the POC [Point of Contact] if you are tired of Lts and Capts calling and asking you the same questions, then why don’t you submit someone else as the POC, or you build and perhaps save the information that everyone is looking for.

Ah well. I got Hesco’s thrice. First, I was over there because “I don’t want to mess with Centrix down here.” Second he sent me an E-mail asking me for the POCs at the FOBs [Forward Operating Bases] on the route. I told him this was an RFI [Request for Information] that had been turned into a task. Third, I’m in the middle of working on the stuff for the trip and one of the guys from the COC wants to come in and use the only SIPR to teach the class. Hesco is like, why don’t you get off there so he can teach a class. I’m like dude why doesn’t he grab his computer that is 15 feet away and bring it in here. Whatever.

I turned over a bunch of stuff with Maj Davidson. Sweet, one less thing in my pack.

Second Journal Entry

One thing that I forgot to mention was about Qais and doing a class with him. I have him trained to show up for class at 1500 every day. This convoy has taken up all of my time, and I only have a finite amount, so if it gets allocated somewhere else, then I don’t have it to mentor. They did a VTC in the afternoon and Qais came to the CCOC afterward asking about the class. I told him that he should stay in the CCOC, do the class, and then I could take him back to Camp Garmsir. He said that he was really busy and that he wasn’t able to. I was secretly glad because I wanted to work on the ConOps.

This is a major problem. I have become like everyone else. I have lost sight of the goal, become wrapped up in work, and started neglecting my Afghans. 

Edited to Add:
The reference to  “I don’t want to mess with Centrix down here.” was because the Major didn't want to get this computer system (the only one that communicated with our allies) installed on our side of the camp. It was lazy and shortsighted and forced us to commute to use a computer.