Month 11 Day 18

Notebook entry 13 reports given, Najib and Major in Garmsir, Qais class, Garrison support unit counter intelligence, teleconference one showed up.

Journal entry

Felt a little bad this morning about not going on the convoy.  It is odd, I don't actually like putting my life in danger, but I still have that feeling inside me that wants to go out there and do it because there are other Marines there.  The reason I didn't go on this one was ostensibly because I was not feeling well, but in truth, Capt Nowak wanted to go, and there could not be two lead-vehicle commanders, so he left me off the roster.  Oh well, a day to work on GMAT/jobs/Book.  Especially since the SIPR has been down all morning and the Fiber somehow got cut over by RedHorse, so we are about to go down on everything.  I guess is it God telling me that he doesn't want me to work.

I tried to go track down  Najib and Qais, but Najib had gone to Garmsir with the Major.  This has really got to be pissing Qais off.  I gave a class to Qais and the GSU CI, just a basic IPB review (mostly, because I refuse to advance until Qais gets it) the GSU CI said that it was not basic, and he too was having trouble with the cardinal directions, he is a 2ndLt and we were just going over the places in the AO.  The Marine CI also came to help him out.

I spent a good portion of time after the class looking for jobs, doing a costing of the MBA, and finding out more about the GMAT. 

In the afternoon the RCT came over and we did the teleconference, Qais was 20 min late, only the GSU CI and 1st Kandak showed up (he was also late).  No reports exchanged.  Resounding success.

The guys made it back from Garmsir at about 1530, NSTR. 

I went to dinner last night pretty tired.  For the first time in a long time I had worked almost an entire day on stuff that was challenging.

After the evening meeting, we discovered why our tent stunk and it didn't have anything to do with my upset stomach as we had thought, there was another foot-long rat caught in one of the old-school traps under my bed, I had not noticed him.  I threw him in the tiger-trap (the giant hole that has been excavated for the water tank for the shower that is months overdue), when I did, we saw that there was another one down there, apparently one that Josh had caught the other night had resurrected himself, so we killed him too, I'm quire certain that it is permanent this time, it was the most excitement we've had in a long time. I hate rats.  

I came back and worked on the book proposal and watched a TED about human rights abuse and giving cameras to people around the world so they can film the acts of abusers.  

What happens when you drill a well in the desert?  The local soldiers decide to use HESCO barriers as flower pots. 

Month 9 Day 24

Notebook entry

marine search, Afghan national army fuel and chow, knocked Jersey barrier, improvised explosive device.

Journal entry

We got up at 0400 because, even though this was about the 5^th time we had done this we knew that the ANA were not going to be ready.  They were not.  They didn’t have fuel, nor did they have chow for the journey.  So we were leaving the parking lot an hour late. We get to the friendship gate and the Marines wanted to search every ANA vic, the Major went to unfuck that one and we pushed out the south of the base.  One of the Tractor Trailors hit a cement Jersey barriers and had that stuck underneath it so he couldn’t get out of the gate, another hour lost.  It was now 0900, the time Maj Hesco predicted we were going to be in North Marjeh, fucking idiot.  Anyway we push through the open desert for the first time and I start getting hate mail on my BFT from the range control at leatherneck “you are in our ranges.” Motherfucker, I sent UMCC my route, how the fuck am I supposed to know where your ranges are, also there are about 1 million tire tracks here, if I am in your ranges everyone else must be too.  We had a couple of trucks get stuck in the desert that took us up to about 1400. CLB had a truck spring an air leak, so they turned around and went back to LNK, that is OK because they were useless anyway.  We continued to press on down the road, I start to see farm fields smack in the middle of the desert, who the fuck plants out here I think to myself.  Apparently someone, anyway, I go around so as not to make an enemy out of some farmer, turn right on the original direction of travel and then I see a flash, a bunch of dust and feel the blast.  I called around and everyone in my truck was ok.  The Afghans, doing what they always do, just moving around as they see fit, come up and kick what remains of the IED that hit my truck. It was a 5 gallon yellow oil jug that the Afghans put cooking oil in.  When they kick it about half of the home made explosives come out of the thing, if they had been smarter the blast would have been bigger.  I think that the pressure plate that my mine roller hit was actually rigged to hit a truck coming from the other direction, so the blast didn’t hit my rig, or my roller, just a big blast, bunch of dust and stopped my truck.  That ANA didn’t find anything useful in the house, I reported it up to the regiment and we rolled on.  Again, more trucks were getting stuck.  We were running out of time I was approaching the most dangerous area of the AO, the place where a bunch of the locals had been given their land by the Taliban and thus were effectively squatters, they were not happy to see Americans or Afghans, I had to face the prospect of moving through this area at night if the ANA didn’t get moving, this was especially discomforting because there were a shit-ton of those fields that just allow you enough room to drive through like the one I got blown up on earlier.  I prayed and for the second time in the trip I was really scared.  I found some local trails and out 15 mile long convoy snaked through.  We crossed into northern Marjeh just before dark, sweet.  We dropped off the recon company at FOB Marjeh with no incedent and then pushed on to Fiddlers Green.  We got up there, dropped off our other two companies and then the Major wanted to push back home.  Just before we moved the Major pulled me aside and said some encouraging words to me he said ‘I don’t often complement snot-nosed Lts but you have done a hell of a job on this trip, I know you did basically everything to plan this before we left and the routes that you have been able to find have been great.  I don’t think that there is anyone else on the team who could have done what you did. Well done.’ It was now 2100 and we had been up since 0400 driving since 0600.  I didn’t like the call, but he wanted to puch on because we were ‘close.’ We ended up getting caught in our own dust cloud on the way back and that slowed us a lot.  I tried to tack somewhat against the wind and that made the next 35 km or so a little more tolerable.  The last 3 km we terrible LCpl Zach Rausnitz was ‘smelling the barn and didn’t know where the semi-improved surface was to get to the gate, he was driving really badly, but he was really tired and anxious to get there, we all were.  We were bouncing everywhere cutting across tracks, it was awful.  I apologized to the guys once we made it to the ECP.  The major says over the radio, ‘you are only as good as your last leg’ and Capt Nowak says ‘not so easy without roads’ 1460miles and the last 3 km is what everyone are going to remember.

These look like river-rocks, but there has never been water here, they were shaped by the wind over thousands of years. 

Moving South through Marjeh

the last bits of our Afghans deposited. 

From Left to Right Steve Nowak, GySgt Casanova, CWO2 Soltz

Month 9 Day 9

Notebook Entry
Trees, Afghan National Army tanker. Year round work, eves on buildings. Lone Hill. No Tree shot holes. Poles Area of operations equals shot holes.

Journal Entry
We moved from Qalat to Ghazni today

The thing that struck me as we moved through the counryside were the trees. There were orchards and rows of lovely trees. I am nor arbor day fanatic, but they seemed odd. I also noticed that where there were trees there were no holes in the road from where IEDs had gone off. I wonder if trees would be a good metric for success in this campaign, they are a tenure crop that basically says, I am going to be here for a while, I will have buy-in with the community, work hard etc. I also wonder if people are idle for less of the time if they plant trees . so many of the problems that we have in helmand are the result of idle hands. There are [migrant] workers who come in an work feverishly for the poppy harvest, ther are almost no sigacts [significant activity] during this time, and after the poppy harvest is done, then the sigacts shoot back up. needless to say there were no trees in helmand or qandahar. Along with the trees I noticed an architectural feature called a ‘Nawa’ it sounds kind of like the city. Basically it is an eave. It keeps rainfall from running down the entire mud wall and damaging it. I started to see these in qalat, toward the end of the day they petered out. As did the orchards. As soon as they did I started to see tons of shot holes in the road. We were constantly vering around them or using the dirt on the side of the road because they had blown up a culvert.

I asked the linguists about it they said it was because the people in that part of the country are just lazy and they don’t give a shit. They said at the Kabul zoo they have a [sign] thatasays don’t feed the animals at the Qandahar zoo they have a sign that says don’t fuck the animals at the Helmand zoo they have a sign that says don’t eat animal food. This is what they think of their countrymen.

I can’t help but think that it is something deeper than that. People with no hope or thought for the future.

One thing I noticed about a lot of the old villages what that they almost all have a lone high-hill with I evidence of some fortification on top once or currently. I am sure these would have been ideal stops for the caravans, but it lets you know what an isoloated and war-torn country this was even then

We traveled into the polish battlespace. We are actually staying on a polish base. There are always a few Americans around I got connected with an army MSGT and she set us up with a decent place to stay

I had a run around base and on this ‘small’ army FOB I nearly got lost.

Had a decent dinner in the chow hall until the indirect fire warning went off. Then I spent the next hour in an air raid shelter with an army SgtMaj and an air fore retiree. They told me that the polish owned this battlespace, but that the us army was here to mentor them. So the americans are mentoring the poles who are mentoring the ANA. They complained about a lot of the same issues that we have to deal with. Stealing, ineffetive chain of command, little regard for human life. It looks good on paper to have the polish running their own battlespace, but in fact I am starting to see why there were so many shot holes in the road.

What is old is new again, an old fort re-purposed as a new fort.

An old minaret outside Ghazni

One of the innumerable 'jingle trucks' so named because of the jingling decorations that festoon them.

If only the Russians could see it now, Polish Hinds ready to fly air support for us.

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 9 Day 7

Notebook Entry
Movement to Leatherneck

Journal Entry
I got up late because someone decided to be nice and not make the guys who were going on the convoy stand watch. That was really considerate, but it nearly put me into a panic in the morning because there were things that I really wanted to get done, and I was not able to, such as call Suzan on our anniversary.

The load up for the convoy went fine, so did the order. The ANA [Afghan National Army] predictably showed up late. The move went pretty smoothly, I got us well out of the high-traffic areas and we cruised at aout 30Mph through the mostly open desert. The ANA stopped once for a lost fuel can which became an impromptu prayer time. Everything went pretty well until right outside of Leatheneck. Though my conops [Concept of Operations plan] got approved by UMCC [Unified Movement Control Center] we were set to go straight through a couple of ranges. I saw this as th lead vic, steered us around the first one, then we were on the second one and my gunner said, I think we are in an impact area. I told my driver to make a b-line for the base fence.

A few minutes later I get an angry BFT [Blue Force Tracker computer] message telling me that four ranges have been closed down because of me. I told them that the conops had been approved by their UMCC.

New forcepro [Force Protection measures] made getting onto base much harder, they had redone the entrances. It took us a three tries to find the correct entrance. Being turned away first by the USMC then by the ANA commandos then finally we made it.

Once on base I had to chase around to find the order that said that the ANA were supposed to go get their new kandak and that they rated fuel wate[r], and maintenance from all the other corps en-route. Naturally the corps had no idea what we were talking about. I cornered the brigadeer general chief of staff and he promised that by 2000 we would have the order, but right now he needed to attend a very important VTC [Video teleconference] with the MoD [Ministry of Defense]. Nothing changes at this level. I am too busy to support my subordinates, I need to use the fancy american stuff.

Our impromptu prayer stop in the desert.

Month 8 Day 30

Notebook Entry
Convoy Garmsir, Afghan National Security Forces meeting and video teleconference, Afghan National Army dump trash.

Journal Entry
Went on a convoy to PB [Patrol Base] Amir in Garmsir. Nothing really significant happened. We were slowed up by a report of an IED on the road and the sweep team. It turned out to be nothing.

The morning was a bit rough two MRAPs [Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected Vehicles] went down. We switched to MATVs [MRAP All terain Vehicles]. The ride itself was OK. My new driver is good. Major Valquist is a bit of a pain, he doesn’t like the dust, so he wants to drive on hard-stuff, but hard stuff is hard on the vehicles when the ruts run counter to the direction of travel. We broke two shocks yesterday. You have to make tradeoffs do you want something easy on the vics, hard on the eyes, or what. You can’t have it all. The other disappointing thing is that the ANA [Afghan National Army]were throwing trash out into the canal and all over the place the entire trip. Its like guys, this is your country. WTF?

I guess yesterday was another botched day in the rear. The ANA didn’t show up to the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] meeting, they just stopped following Capt Arthur. They showed up for a VTC [Video Teleconference], but it was just a test VTC. They are getting the idea that they need to test stuff, but it is all Marine equipment, so they just pissed off the Marines.