Back to Prison

We went back to the prison today. We had to exchange out some broken biometric kits. It's a long ride out there over some really bad roads. Today I was escorted by HMMWV's:



However, I definitely felt less safe because everyone notices you.



The kids love seeing HMMWVs though. They come running down streets or across fields to wave to us. We gave them some water and candy once but they swarmed so close to the car we couldn't get our doors shut for fear of catching their fingers, and we were afraid of running over their feet. Lesson learned.



They seem like generally good kids. Although I saw some kid shoot a dog with a sling-shot. Boys will be boys I suppose.

We had lunch again at the prison with the guards. That food is so good. The Nan bread was fresh out of the oven. Still warm and fluffy.

In the afternoon we moved into our new office. Finally. The airforce guys have been hot swapping desks for a month. Which really sucked for them, and everyone whose desks they were using.

A funny thing happened later in the afternoon. Word already got out that I won my paperwork battle yesterday and a LTC called me up asking if I could do it for another unit. I told him that I didn't know if I could, but I'd give it a try. It's weird how getting things done in the military feels like you are constantly asking favors from people. You aren't, you are just asking them to do their job. But it gets turned around and you feel like you are imposing on them. It's not always that people are lazy or they don't want to help you. The main problem is that few people (even the smart ones) know how to get stuff done. Much of the reason is from the constant rotation of folks through theater. There are very very few Standard-Operating-Procedures around here because things change rapidly and people don't have a lot of time or incentive to write them. So the only way you know how to do something is by knowledge transfer from someone else. As people become adept with the system here, they get returned home and a new guy comes in who knows very little.

Now that I'm starting to learn the system here, I feel closer to rotating home. :)

The airforce situation continues to amuse me. They all got sent to remedial training tonight at 5pm wearing full battle rattle. They came back about 8pm just in time to miss dinner at the DFAC. Is it rude of me to laugh at their plight? Ah well, too late now.