Month 12 Day 22

Notebook entry

20 reports given, teleconference, class with sergeants, one last request.

Journal entry

In the morning I woke up and did my normal routine.  Siegel didn’t wake up at the same time.  He woke up at 0600 and decided to go running with me, and to the gym, etc.  I felt bad because I didn’t tell him not to bring his uniform with him, but it ended up working out in the end because he didn’t have any chow for the morning, and he would not have been able to go into the chow hall in just PT gear.

I turned over the classified Material Custodian job at 0730.  That’s one thing off of my plate.  We then rolled into getting him set up on his SIPR and NIPR workstations and me walking him through everything that he needed to know about how I organized my files.

The connection to the network was extraordinarily slow.  Come to find out, that was because the built a hangar in between the microwave shots.  Gunny called comm and their response was, uh, well we’ll get to it, but probably not today.  We are like really?  You didn’t forsee this problem. 

We had pretty good participation from the Brigade on the teleconference this morning.  They actually called and reminded the kandaks to show up because I told them to, so we had pretty good participation.  The problem is that they are still treating it like a radio.  Each kandak just gives their own report, and then they leave.  They feel like their job is done, and despite the fact that the kandak boundaries touch one another, they act as though it doesn’t matter what’s happening on the opposite side of the road because that isn’t their job.  I had Salim and Qais try to back-brief Siegel and the new S2A on what they know. We worked on the places in the area, the cardinal directions, and they provided them with an overview of the IPB as they know it. 

I spoke to the S2A and I was more than a little bit surprised at how little he knew.  He said

“That guy didn’t sleep at all last night” gesturing to Salim

“Are these guys on something?”

“Yah, they smoke weed.”

“I’m not worried about that, as long as it’s nothing that’s going to fuck them up.  That guy looks like him mom smoked crack while he was still brewing.” Motioning to Qais.

“You know it is still Ramadan, these guys are just starting to show some of the wear from that.”

“Oh, yah” 

“How are their tactics? What if the Taliban attacked us right now?”

“They probably wouldn’t do very well, but how many of the RCT sections could fight as a squad very well?”

“The intel shop could.”

Maybe he’s right, and if so, then good on him, he probably did all of the predeployment training to a T, but that’s not what they do here.  They are not Marines, not basic infantrymen, and basic infantry platoon commanders.  They are Afghan soldiers.  That’s a totally different thing.  A whole new war nothing learned.  It seems that the bid by the ETT to take over the PMT (their PMT made it all the way over here before they figured out that there were no Afghan police to train) has failed.

I talked to Siegel about what they needed to do, how they needed to interact with the Regiment, with the Afghans, etc.  He wanted to know when he should go sit and drink Chai with them and all that stuff he learned at the Advisor Training Group.  I told him to forget about all of that.  They don’t need to like you to learn from you.  They fundamentally don’t want to learn, so if they like you, then you are probably not doing your job.  It is all brand new to him. 

Siegel wanted to know if I had taught them threat weapons (soviet bloc weapons). 

“Why does that matter to a Sergeant at the Brigade level?”

“because that’s what the enemy is using.”

“OK, but you can’t teach them everything, what you are suggesting is teaching them something with a low marginal utility compared to their job, they need to figure out where their own units are, how to read a map, the cardinal directions, who to display enemy activity, a whole lot of things are more important than that.”

“I just think it will be easy and keep their attention.”

“OK, but I thought that four cardinal directions would be easy too.”

“that can be conceptually hard to grasp.”

“Brother, I’m just saying if I could press the ‘everything’ button and just have them know everything that they need to know, then I would press that button, but here we need to make choices.   I need them to know about their job before I need them to know about threat weapons.”

We bantered some more, and when we were done the Gunny called me back in and said

“you know sir, I had that blow-up the other day about the turnover”

I nodded.

“They’ve already got a campaign plan.  If they want to do something, just give them your recommendation, and leave it.  Don’t worry about it anymore.  I could see your heartbeat increase over there, and for what?  They are going to do it when you leave anyway.”

I just can’t not care.  A few minutes later we walked into my tent and Siegel asked Brian

“Sir, are you going to miss it.”

“Not at all.”

I spoke up, “I just don’t think that’s true for me.  I just can’t not care about it.   I want these guys to succeed; I want America to stop hemorrhaging money and blood.”

Brian nodded.  He said “the only thing I told them when I gave them a few gifts was that the only gift I needed in return was the promise that in a few years they would be doing this without America.  Then they said khuuuh, that would be too much work.”

I just can’t help but be a little passionate about this. That is a little surprising to me. 

In the afternoon, I was going to work on some more turnover stuff, but I was not able to.  Lt Siegel got pulled away to deal with the crisis du jour for the next team, they didn’t have enough weapons and ammo to draw for the convoy. 

I fought the battle of the inbox, signed Siegel up for a bunch of distros, worked on some GMAT prep stuff, and that is about it.

On the way to chow Steve said he was close to being touched today.  The Battle Captain called him into the conference room.  He started reaching behind the podium.  Steve thought “wow, maybe he’s going to give me a gift for all of my hard work.”

“Before you go…” He pulls out the body of a fan and some blades.

“Could you get this installed in the COC for me?”

Awesome

In the evening meeting it came out that Col Mustafa wanted to take the trucks back.  Maj Trevino, now knowing the program after a month here said

“well, you can do that, but it is going to make fuel and water deliveries very difficult.”

Mustafa shut his mouth. 

One other seminal event occurred in my life today.  I used a cubit as a unit of measure.  I had to calculate the volume of a diesel fuel tank, and the  volume of the box that is designed to keep the fuel in if anything goes wrong.  It turns out that there was no issue.  The tank hold 36 cubits cubed and the box it sits in will hold 48 cubits cubed. 

Next the Ark…

People would think I was as odd as Noah building one here in Helmand. 

Month 12 Day 15

Notebook entry

10 reports given, teleconference one showed up, Munir thinks base his responsibility.

Journal entry

Today I met up with Munir in the morning.  The XO has told him that he
personally needs to leave the wire every day to check on what is going
on outside, make sure the contractors are not a threat, etc.  I told
him this is not his job, he is supposed to be paying attention to the
entire AO, and that local security is the job of the garrision support
unit.  He said the GSU is too busy stealing to worry about security.
Either way, it is emblematic of some of the problems we face here, the
officers remember what it was like to be Lts 25 years ago under the
Russians, but have no idea what it is to be field grades.

I did the teleconference in the morning.  Up here Salim, Qais, and the
GSU CI guy showed up.  Only one of the kandaks showed up.  After we
were done they spoke up and said "what is the purpose of this, they
just pass the same reports we already have."  I agreed it was
pointless.  So we had an impromptu class on how to run a meeting.
They learned a new word, 'agenda' (the same in Dari as in English),
and I talked about what we coudl do to make it better next week.
Remind the kandaks, it is happening, send them and agenda, talk about
the things on the agenda, and then send out the minutes/taskers.  That
took an hour.  Salim went internal and kept trying to go to sleep.

Munir didn't show up at the time he said he was going to show up for
class, 1400.  I'm not shocked.

In the afternoon I worked on that opplan and tried to rally the
Marines. To come have fun by taking back some of the stolen gym
equipment, only three Marines had the balls, Lekic, Doc Kirell, and
Capt Arthur.  My sentiments on this are well expressed in those
E-mails.

I'm disappointed that the USMC has become so career-oriented.  I just
sent a good E-mail to Erik Sand encapsulating my feelings.  He wrote
about he had the same problem in the Navy.

Erik,

Yah we didn't get to talk much, but I do vaguely remember you.  I hope
I didn't say anything nasty about the senior service.  Perhaps it is
something we can rectify our lack of conversations if you ever park
your boat in San Diego.

Since I live in a glass house, I won't throw any stones, but I do
think a lot of things would be better if the pension system were
removed.  I see three types of Marines.

First, Basically everyone on their first tour who believes in service,
is still having a rough go of it--real Marines

Second, The High-fliers, they are brilliantly suited to their jobs,
and well-exceed the expectations put on them, the future flag
officers--real Marines

Third, The rotten middle, those who stay in because they are scared of
the outside world, don't know what they would do, and really want the
pension.  They are willing to do anything for a pension, bend the
truth, forget about the country, forget about what is right.  Once
they hit sanctuary, or are guaranteed retirement you see their true
colors come out, they generally don't do anything.  These guys rapidly
expanded in the last ten years, and they are dragging us down.
America would be better without them.  If we cut the pension-leash I
believe they would roam free.

I bring this up with a lot of the pensioners here, but I think they
are confused.  They don't see the conflicted lives they lead.   I
think that is because everyone starts off in the first category, a few
press on to the second, but the majority of those who stay in are
absorbed into the third, and the absorption is slow.  They still hold
an idea of service in their mind.  They believe it when people say
thank you for your service, but they are living a lie.  I don't blame
them entirely.  I feel the pull, I've got a mortgage, a wife, and I
can't just do whatever I want and I think about my fast-approaching
pay cut and am occasionally given to bouts of fright, for some people
who just scraped through college, have lesser skills, have kids, have
a true 'dependant.' the prospect of leaving must be terrifying.  I
just wonder if that is the right thing for the country.

Thoughts?

Rock on,
Scott

The Marine Corps I once knew is dead, replaced by mercenaries.

Month 12 Day 8

Notebook entry

11 reports given, math class, teleconference, Qais review, drivers course.

Journal entry

In the morning I did a map class with Munir.  We had to do it in my tent because Munir couldn’t find his soldier.  He was pretty receptive and is relearning pretty quickly.  I had to divide my time a little bit because I was helping Capt Nowak with his contribution to the Gazette article.  No one has taken the time to sit down with him and explain formal grammar rules. 

Qais did the teleconference.  We had two kandaks show up.  That was a pretty good result.  After the teleconference I went to do some review with Qais on the map, operational term and graphics. 

I would have liked to do more, but we are pretty short-handed on linguists right now.  I am glad that we came back off the ledge of sending Tony to Fiddler’s Green.

In the afternoon I kept correcting submissions for the Gazette.  The Doc wanted me to correct his paper only to know if he had less errors than Cap Nowak.  I told him I was not going to entertain that question. 

I worked on the intro to the article, transferring a bunch of files from SIPR to NIPR, went to the meeting and racked out.

Month 10 Day 27

Notebook entry

10 reports given, create it but can't control it, Pakistan and the Taliban, Bernie missing in action then to combined combat operations center, Zuriat, teleconference, intelligence preparation of the battle space class, weather, mud and tile.

Journal entry

Listening to “Descent into Chaos” by Ahmad Rasheed it struck me that you can create things, but it is hard to control them.  Like the Taliban and the ISI.  When they moved back into Pakistan and the Army couldn’t put them down and they were putting radical pressure on them, and even attacking Musharrif.  Well I wonder if it won’t be the same with the ANA.  They say we didn’t put enough thought into building this place, but have we honestly put enough thought into how this military is going to act after we leave?  Just like the Pakistanis, we can create it, but can we control it?

Bernie was MIA most of the morning, but he made it over to the CCOC without my help.  I called Maj Kraus and let him know that Bernie was there and they linked up.  In the Afternoon we linked up and tried to do the teleconference.  Only one kandak showed up despite us sending out the warno to the Marines and Bernie sending out a cipher to the ANA.  I really wanted this to be a success. 

After the teleconference. I tried to talk to Bernie about a general orientation to the AO.  That went well.  He was receptive, especially to the nuts that I left on the table for him.  It is nice to have a smart guy around, I ask him about the Baluch people and he knows who they are, a little about their background, etc. 

He taught me something too.  I learned what those burial mounds with the flags on them are called ‘Zuriat.’  They are what the locals do when a person who is very righteous dies.

Month 10 Day 6

Notebook entry

Garmsir governor no vote, leave flight, unauthorized absence rates, liaison officer, continue with old aid, Lieut. Col. Valquist reporting, Salim didn't show up, teleconference, roster, drivers course 33, instructor cadre, $100 million facilities regional command Southwest

Journal entry

One thing I forgot to mention from the last journal entry was that the Garmsir district governor is from a well-connected family in Kabul and is too young to vote in the elections which will bring him into office. 

Capt Arthur told me at lunch that the leave flights came up in the daily operations and intelligence meetings.  They brought up the fact that the UA rate had actually increased, not decreased, and the CO Col Schmitt then said, ‘this kind of shoots a hole in my theory that if we give them regular leave that they will come back on time.’ He then launched into some odd logic about how we need to make sure that they are getting back onto the flight, talked about establishing an additional LNO up in Kabul to make sure that they get there.  It was all a little bit stupid.  Because they already have a roster, what is an LNPO going to do?  Go to their house and force them to get onto the flight.  LtCol Valquist was also resistant to the date that I graphed for him on UA rates, when it didn’t show what he wanted he blamed the leave flights moving back by a few days and the guys leaving.  He also said that it was a result of him leaning on Col Kareem to stop overstating the number of guys present so they can get extra chow money.  Sigh, it’s another example of wanting to believe something and finding facts to support your case.

In the morning I worked on fixing the roster to get the perstats for ANSF. Perstats that are really now pointless because I know that the data is going to be ignored.

I told Salim to show up at 1400 for class.  I found him in his room still asleep at 1445.  We had a teleconference at 1500, that was all kinds of fucked up, only two kandaks showed, we only had the one SVOIP phone because Maj B converted the other one to a NIPR so that ended up coming off late.  CJ Radin came over, he is a lot easier to deal with now that I am a Capt, he seems a lot more relaxed.

Maj Kraus came back in the evening and said that RC(SW) is going to invest 900,000,000 in facilities for the ANA.  Awesome.

River City, Marine in N Marjeh stepped on an IED, why?  What for? For all this?