English ONLY Please

This sign, posted on the door at an Italian FOB, says all there is to say about who's bankrolling this war:

No Hills

My friend Matt sent me this link: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/anti-powerpoint-rant-gets-colonel-kicked-out-of-afghanistan/

It amusing because I'm usually at work until 2300-2400 working on ppt briefings. And ISAF is just down the street. I often walk there for meetings or to have lunch with Walter.

Walter left for leave a couple of days ago. I hope he's made it home to his girlfriend. He deserves a break. His job is more frustrating than mine. Consumed with meetings and he rarely (if ever) has the chance to work with afghans. Working with afghans is not more frustrating than working with our government. True, some of the frustrations are different. Especially now during Ramadan.

I wouldn't say my command suffers from the ppt problem that guy describes. That is more of a headquarters problem. But it is the nature of headquarters to be inefficient and confused. They have too many people trying to understand too many things. At my level it's easier because we can focus on a smaller subset of the problem-space. Ppt briefings force us to clearly articulate our ideas. Or at least display cloudy ideas that we are unable to clarify. If you can't develop a good presentation for a project, then you probably shouldn't be doing it because you haven't thought through the problem thoroughly. Without a doubt, I hate making a set of ppt slides. The only thing worse is tweaking someone else's slides.

I had an afternoon meeting with the afghans. They are pretty wiped out by afternoon time. The sun comes up around 4:30, so I assume they eat right before then. I kind of like the idea of fasting for the day. However, it seems like going to work as usual defeats the purpose. It seems like one should go walking through hills pondering life and whether our species will survive to be a galactic superpower.

Water

The water in my conex was shutoff this morning. Shaving using bottled water is not as easy as it sounds.

Also, someone killed all the fish yesterday. We don't know who. The pond had a great deal more water in it so the working theory is that someone thoughtfully wanted to give them more water, but didn't realize the water here is heavily chlorinated. It was kind of sad to see all the fish floating around dead.

Farah pics

I almost forgot to uplaod some pics of FOB Farah.

As you can see, it's looks pretty much like all the other bases:



Except the Italians (who own the battlespace) dropped off a couple of tanks for show.



Here was my ride between Herat, Shindand and Farah:

Turnover

Nothing going on worth posting about. Same old tasks. Lots of contract problems. Maybe the leadership in my directorate will start to help out because I'm not the only one having issues with the Eggers Finance office.

No word from the engineers on the building I'm trying to construct. They said contracting is taking about 3 months to issue a contract right now because there is a backlog. This can be a nightmare for our quest to spend a billion dollars a month. It's hard to make a deal with an afghan then say it's going to take three months before they can actually start the work, and another two months after they finish that before I can pay them.

Over the past week nearly everyone on my team has gone home. The one remaining initial airforce guy leaves in a couple of weeks. So far, their replacements are doing very well. The new airforce LT COL in charge of my group is a great guy and a good leader. I was apprehensive about switching from Navy being in charge to the airforce - but I've been pleasantly surprised. We are much busier now. The new SES in charge if the directorate has added several additional tasks to the group. BTW, the new SES in charge of intel is very squared away - he's a retired Marine Colonel. So all in all, I'm happy with the current crop of Individual Augmentees. Though I do miss my friends that have left, Jeff, Mark and Jim. I've crossed the paths here of some very interesting and capable people.

Night in Farah

I flew into Farah today on the same helos that took me to Shindand. Meetings all day. I managed to get a haircut here. They don't have a barber in Shindand.

It's hot here. And the AC units around base vary greatly in effectiveness. My tent is reasonable. It feels to be in the mid 80's. The AC should be able to cool it down tonight.

Farah is a decent base. Very effective at partnering with the Afghans. The battlespace owner takes that seriously. They had the local ANP commander and the NDS commander at the base today for a meeting. I'm told people are constantly coming and going from the base on mentoring missions. That's a great relationship - exactly how it's supposed to be done. Unfortunately that model is not used by many battlespace owners. Also, the current battlespace owner, 82nd Airborne, is leaving to be replaced by 4th ID. So it's not known if the new leadership will continue the strong partnership with the afghans or retreat into the FOB like the RC-east battlespace commanders.

Army guys are slobs. They leave the tents completely trashed when they roll through. Not much else to say about that.

I have determined definitively that the M16 is preferable to the M4. For a long time I wished I'd been issued an M4. They are shorter and much easier to carry around. And they usually come with a scope. However, the odds of me shooting my long gun are pretty slim, so the real value of the weapon is judged by other measures. It turns out that the M16 is tall enough to function and a rack for my ACU top. This is significant because the restrooms often have all sorts of unpleasantries on the floor. I can lean my M16 against the wall and hang my ACU blouse on that averting a major cleanliness issue. So for all the Navy guys issued an old-ass M16 like me, now you know you got the better end of the deal.

My meetings are done so I'll be working my way back to Kabul. Probably via Bagram. They don't have many flights coming through here so I'll probably head back to Shindand and wait there for a Bagram flight. From Bagram it's relatively easy to get to Kabul.

One final thing. The winds died down this evening so you can see the sky clearly. It's very crisp and beautiful. It makes me wonder if any alien races are close enough to be admiring the crispness of our sun in their night sky.

Waypoint Shindand

I'm in transit again. My goal is to get to Farah. I flew to Herat yesterday. It sucked. We took a loaded C130. It stopped in Bagram for about half an hour. It was hot, and the seats are incredibly uncomfortable when you are wearing 50 pounds of body armor, weapons and ammo. When i got to Herat I had to wait at the airport for about 5 hours to get a convoy to Camp Stone. Stone was alright. I meet with the Paladin guys there about one of my programs. Today I took a Super Huey to Shindand. I'm hoping to take another helo ride down to Farah soon.

Shindand is an interesting base out in the middle of nowhere. I looks to be an old russian airbase. I assume we took it over because of the runway. They don't serve a hot lunch - they leave out MRE's and boxes of snacks. They have lots of MWR computers though - more than Eggers.

That's about it. I'll upload some pictures when I return.

No Trumpeting

Sometimes you have to break all the rules.

Lunch

I spent the day at the detention facility in Pol-e-charki prison. It was a stressful ride out there. We had to turn back from the shortcut that we usually take because the river had flooded the road. So we drove through the city of Pol-e-charki. The roads were extremely crowded. And people arent very careful about watching where they are going.



Along the way I saw lunch hanging at the local butcher shop.



Kids are usually wandering around the main roads also. I can't believe their parents let them wader around in the road. Afghan kids have zero supervision.

Packages

Receiving a package is always a great improvement to one's day. Everyone around the office has learned to recognize packages for me based on their exotic taping.



Here is a picture of me, my new boss and my out-going boss standing outside LTG Yarmand's office. Jeff will be greatly missed.