Month 10 Day 12

Notebook entry

15 reports given, comfortable concentration camp?! Needto [illegibl]e so we get it next year, judges leave, can't get out of there on way, doctors award, commanders conference, executive officer meeting, Salim morning, Judge Advocate General.

Journal entry

I learned a bit from Friedan about not overdramatizing my case in my own book.  She describes womens’ lot in 1950s America as a comfortable concentration camp.  This greatly overstates her case and turned me off as a reader.  I think it will be necessary in my own book to draw parallels to things that people understand, but the parallels must be more judicious than this.  It may seem just as preposterous to the American public to think that their military is not entirely selfless as it does to me that being a housewife is anything like being in a concentration camp physically or in social psychology.  My book will also be different from Friedan’s in another way.  I am thinking about the chapter about now.  Maybe it will be called Doubt and Confidence. I am doubting just about everything, my purpose here, my own assessment of the direness of the situation, my very purpose on this planet.  Other people are confident, they may be ignorant, but they are confident. Here is the difference from Friedan’s book.  If she put chapter 13 [up front, then] everyone would put the book down because the claims seem outrageous, but a series of slow, small, steps must allow people to accept the more powerful claims at the end of the book.  Like a frog in water.  I wonder if my book should be different, if just after the stuff solution we hit not resolution, but just doubt.  It is a hell of a let-down, but it is accurate, and it is pretty hard to get more illustrative than that convoy. 

I went to the Lines of Operations sync meeting this morning.  The Colonel himself was there and said that we needed to make sure that we spent all of the money from the Commander’s Emergency Response Program fund so that we can get the same amount next year (if you don’t use it you lose it).  There was not talk of efficacy, just spending umpteen millions.  Local governance has the same problem we do in the ANA I guess.  A bunch of judges just go UA or take very extended leave, there is constant theft, etc.  The Colonel himself said ‘maybe we should just pull everyone out this summer we just can’t get these people to get out of their own way.’

I worked on the Doc’s award.  I’m glad I did I think other guys would have fucked it up.

Salim went to a detainee class in the morning at my behest.  I tried to get him to work on the slide for the commander’s conference, but he said the XO had told him not to use it.  Salim didn’t want to go see the XO because he didn’t have a hat, blouse or boots on, but eventually the XO called him in anyway and he had to go put them on.  I spoke to the XO about the HUMINT money, he said he told General Malouk, but nothing was happening. Sigh.  The Colonel in the meeting this morning was talking about how the HUMINT money was the General’s vacation fund and we need to tell him we are not happy with him stealing it…hmmm sounds like a job for….you, sir.

some of the buildings the contractors were putting up on Camp Garmsir

Another view of the buildings to be built

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 8 Day 17

Notebook entry:
4 reports given, patting ourselves on the back, spending so much money, Garrison Support Unit S1, Teacher numbers, Garrison Support unit Operations Teacher Sup, Executive Officer Meeting, Jabar smokes hash, Lines of Operations Sync Nawa ready-gear, Voice of Religious Tolerance, Qais late, Garrison Support Unit S2 no show, explained cardinal directions, locations on map and the concept of speed.

Journal Entry
It occurred to me that I did not talk about the exuberance with which we spend money. LtCol Paul Shinkman showed up for the leave flight. He even called to make sure that they left so that he could put it in an immediate report to the General. The dollars spent remain the measure of effectiveness.

I spoke to the GSU S1 [Garrison Support Unit Administration], the Teachers, and the GSU S3 [Operations]. The Teachers complained of supplies. I told the GSU 3 [Operations Officer] he needed to have oversight on them. I met with the Bde XO [Brigade Executive officer]. He wanted to know where the HUMINT [Human Intelligence] source money was. I told him that I did not know and I told him what I know about how it is stolen at every level (including ours) and then everyone just points the finger at each other. I also told him that I didn’t think it will get better because high ranking officers have their fingers in the pot. He agreed. He told me that one of my S2 [Intelligence] guys, Jabar, smokes a lot of hash and that the S2 section needs work. The Voice of Religious tolerance (a roadshow for community leaders that will eventually take them to Jordan came to the Bde HQ). I went to a Lines of Operation meeting where a bunch of LtCols talked about how other people were doing things.

Came back and taught another class on exactly the same material to my guys. We had to again try to find Marjeh, Nawa, and Garmsir on a maps, we also tried to find ourselves on a few maps. We had to go over the cardinal directions, they didn’t know their own words for North-Chamal, East-Shark, South-Junube, and West-grarb. Most frustrating I had to explain their own metric system to them, and the concept of speed. They literally had no idea what a speedometer on a truck was for. I was exhausted.

I did some more work on my book proposal and I went to bed happy

Month 8 Day 16

Notebook Entry
Loyalties, God, Country, and Corps, Leave Flight and calc, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlespace and Cardinal Directions, Ablution Hookup.

Journal Entry
Our power went out in the morn and I spent time working on my book proposal. I came back and had to deal with the leave flight. I did some calculations. We are basically saying that the Afghans are worth $100 per hour. It took three guys three full days in Kabul to pull off the flight. It took twelve of us basically the entire four hours to pull off the flight. By my calculations this adds up to just over 100 man-hours. We save the Afghans a grand total of 3 hours driving to Shorabak where they already have leave flights. We sent 105 pax and got 95 back. This means that we probably had about a 2hour return for every hour marines invested. Add to this the $20,000 flight, means that for every man-hour we spent about $100. That is a high-paid Afghan indeed.

I had to stop two of the officers from getting on the flight because I cross-referenced the roster with their names they already had 64 and 69 days respectively since Dec. The Major brought me into the room with the General when he openly mocked him and starting clapping when the general ‘proved’ (by pulling out the sign-in roster that they had been here for the last two months. Despite the policy he just signed he said that these two guys deserve leave because they had been here for two months. Clearly the Major had not gotten any buy-in for the new leave policy.

It occurred to me that the prologue of the book should talk about God: Country and Corps. This is supposed to be the hierarchy that we recognize. If writing this book makes me ‘betray’ the Corps, then I am still doing my duty, I am just doing it to a higher ideal.

In the afternoon I work with the S2 [Intelligence] guys again. Jabar remembered none of the 5 slides I showed him previously. I did try to teach them cardinal direction, and where they were in Afghanistan, and what cities are in their area of responsibility. Sigh.

Month 8 Day 10

Notebook Entry
Counterinsurgency reflex for Afghan National Army, Lines of Operation Sync, “maybe the district Governor knows his people” Intelligence officer late. Counterintelligence no-show Asadullah 20 minutes Qais class good MoD-14 Major Omar. Drivers course starts.

Journal Entry
I wondered to myself in the morning if the impulse to give the ANA [Afghan National Army] stuff was really a reflex COIN [Counterinsurgency] action. So often when marines deal with the locals now, they try to use the ‘stuff’ solution. They try to buy loyalty and support. I wonder if they think that they can establish good will with the ANA in the same way? I also wonder if giving civilians stuff is just as effective as giving the ANA stuff, that is to say, not effective at all. They are just going to want more and keep asking you for it once you give it to them the first time.

I went to a painful Lines of Operation sync meeting. The most interesting thing that came out of it was about the district governor of one of the districts in our AO [Area of Operations]. The Marines were talking about GIRoA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan]-led eradication. The Marines thought that its was going to be a big deal for the locals, then DG [district governor] said that it would not be a major issue. The DG turned out to be right and the comment from the Marine was that ‘maybe this guy actually knows his people’-no shit. The dumb-ass from the state department mr Muhammad Ehsan, (he gave himself the call sign ‘Civ-Razor’) kept bringing up stupid shit, wanting to take the poppy directly from the farmers, saying that everyone in the middle of some project are squatters. I am glad to see that the DoS sends their best and brightest.

Had class at 1500. Qais taught about rout analysis. It was pretty good, all the better because he was teaching it. I explained that we would now need to take a step back and actually collect the data for them to analyze. Asadullah was 20 min late. GSU S2 [Garrison Support Unit Intelligence] didn’t show. I spent the next hour trying to teach the GSU S1 and the Bde S1 [Administration sections] Mod 14s [supply request forms]. Both of these guys are Colonels in their 50s. They don’t know and don’t want to learn computers. I told them that I taught my father how to use a computer when he was there age after he had been a farmer his whole life. That actually brought them around. We worked on it together. The Bde S1 said that he would be teaching the other guys what he knew the next day.

Finally, I had gotten a call about this the night prior, but I we dealt with it on the 10th. Maj Omar, the Corps Liaison officer in Kabul who has been wrangling up all of the guys for the leave flight directly to Dwyer, told one of our linguists that he was going to have to pay a $150 bribe to get on the flight. The USMC pays $20,000 per flight and it cost Maj Omar nothing. Fareed said he was an ETT linguist, Maj Omar shrugged and said so what. It make you wonder how much our soldiers are paying to go on leave. The really surprising things was not that it happened, but that the Gunny was surprised. I guess he has had minimal contact with the ANA so it makes more sense, but if guys who live on the camp with the ANA don’e realize the corruption that underlies this system, it makes me wonder what the rest of the military, newsmedia, or American public know.

Month 8 Day 8

Notebook Entry
Nine Reports given. Morning, report writing. Weigh-in, weather, meeting cancelled, Hancock.

Journal Entry
I slept in till six yesterday as it is the only day that I don’t have watch starting at 0400. I got a chance to speak to Suzan briefly as she was heading to a girl’s night out, but I got a lovely picture of her, so it made it ok. I wrote reports for the rest of the morning.

I sent Maj Valquist one of the reports. I highlighted in yellow all of the times that I had to go to meetings/duty, it was about 40% of my usable time with my Afghans. I was hoping that he would make the sane decision and say “deuce” why don’t you cut back on this meeting or that meeting so you can go mentor your four sections. Instead, I happened to be in the room, and he got an E-mail from LtCol Paul Shinkman so he said ‘hey deuce, the S-1 [administration] is going to go the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] working group, so why don’t you go there too?’ It wasn’t really a question, it was an order. Aye, sir. I got another E-mail later that night confirming the order.

In the afternoon we lost 28 man-hours because of a required urinalysis and weigh in.

All this leads me to the question. Do people even think about the cost-benefit of meetings in terms of lost productivity. Capt Arthur, as he so often does, brought up the most poignant piece of info. He said, of course not, the reason why every section has an Alpha [assistants] is so that they can do the work, everyone else spends their days in an unending string of meetings. I’m glad the RCT [Regimental Combat Team] is taking a greater interest in ANA [Afghan National Army] training, but these guys only really work from about 0930-1100 and 1400-1600. I can’t be in two places at once. Do you want me to have a meeting about why things aren’t progressing, or do you actually want me to progress them. The function of ANSF is to deal with the reporting requirements and meetings, pulling the teachers (us) into every meeting is counterproductive.

No one bothers to think about these things though.

On the bright side, Maj Valquist took off last night, so Capt Brawny, being the senior man, did what has not been done in almost 8 months. He cancelled the evening meeting. Good call. We went to the good chow hall and had our Friday night surf-and turf. We talked about how we all still think this is hopeless. Capt Brawny said “you can’t dwell on it, or it takes you to a bad place” Capt Arthur said “yah, its hopeless but you’ve got to act like it will actually work, you still draw a paycheck, after all. That is what I hate about the Gunny, he said it was hopeless in month two and just gave up.”

I tried to watch Hancock, but was interrupted by NCIS [Naval Criminal Ivestigative Services] and one other phone call. Can’t a brother get a little peace?