Flags at Night

I know I haven't written in a while. It feels like nothing new is happening to write about. Things change, but the new things are just like the old things. The only change I really notice are the flags I walk past every night when I leave the office. The same flags seem to go up and down. The American flag tends to stay at half mast.



Here's a picture of me and an American cop I used to work with. We are standing next to some explosive material that our afghan team seized before it could be turned into IEDs. Mark has gone home now. He's probably sitting around just "fanning his balls" as the he liked to say.

Goodbye M4

TF Biometrics came into town to meet with LTG Yarmand on a few issues so Jeff and I drove them over to MOI. Here is a picture of Yarmand looking a bit outnumbered by U.S. advisers.



In the evening we had a going away party for the COL that runs my directorate. Here is a picture of Perez wondering how many goodbye speeches are going to be made.



We also spent a while talking about McCrystal's resignation. We all read the Rolling Stone article and thought it was pretty funny. McCrystal (M4) is fairly dead-on with his comments, although it's also true that as a General he relinquishes the right to speak openly about the failures of his superiors. M4 is fairly well liked out here; we'll be sad to see him go. Petraeus is very popular also so that won't be an issue. However, it's the wrong thing to do to have asked Petraeus to accept an effective demotion. That was purely a political move to stem criticism of the administration's failures. It is not a reflection of the weakness of other generals in theater that could have been promoted, but rather a reflection of the political vulnerability of the administration to further criticism.

Bagram

Ok, I'll admit that this time around Bagram wasn't so bad. The Parwan complex by the DFIP is actually a nice tent city. And they have a boat, sort of:



The tents were relatively new and clean. The bunks used actual mattresses.



At first I was a little unnerved by the close proximity of our camp to a mine field. However, the afghans performing cleaning operations out there didn't seem too concerned. Maybe the field was thought to be clean and they were just verifying that. There are tons of minefields around Bagram though.



Most importantly though, it was quiet over there at night. Sure there were explosions and gunshots in the distance, but that doesn't bother me. The other times I've been at Bagram there were constant vehicle noises and beeping noises and plane noises. Also, there are people everywhere on the main part of Bagram. Each evening I read outside. The first night a bunny came and sat by me for a while. The second night a big lizard crawled over my foot and a field mouse came a sat by me.

What to do on your Birthday?

The short answer is nothing special. However, today I happened to need to fly out to Bagram, the worst base in the U.S. inventory. At least we got to take a STOL flight instead of a C-130. However, the flight was only 8 minutes so it didn't really matter. I threw all my gear in my tent and went to lunch. I'm over by the DFIP which is owned by JTF-435. The internet connection here is pretty fast - the fastest I've experienced in country. And the room is packed with soldiers and sailors on computers. Interestingly, I've not seen any Air Force guys in JTF-435. Maybe Admiral Harward doesn't accept 6-month deployments.

I don't have much todo today since my meeting isn't until tomorrow. I think I might just sit around and do nothing. Maybe read or take a nap.

Thank you for everyone who wished me happy birthday.

Jim

A typical meeting and mentoring day today, followed by contracts crap.

At the end of the day we had a going away party for a police officer working here as a contractor. Jim is the first guy to leave that I'll miss. I spent many evenings in his office talking about our program, the country, or just shooting the bull. He's a great guy and I'll miss how often he makes me laugh.

Mez Pics

Tent Life at Camp Spann:



Spann is pretty much all tents:



Tents and MRAPs. They have more MRAPs than I've ever seen. They are everywhere:



A nice cafe at Camp Marmal:



The mountains that border Camp Marmal:

Mez Trip

I just got back from a trip to Mazar-E-Sharrif (Mez). It was nice up there, but I hate traveling. We took a French C160 up there, and a German C160 back. The Germans are great pilots. The French, not so much, but they are better than the Italians who absolutely suck. Still, wearing the body armor makes the trip incredibly uncomfortable. My butt starts aching from the weight 10 minutes into the flight and there is no room to move around or reposition. You are packed with people on either side and in front of you.

The American base up there, Camp Spann, sucks. it is crowded and uncomfortable. The DFAC was so hot that I was sweating while I ate. All the drinks were warm. There were so few restroom and shower facilities that you have to wait in line. They didn't have a rec area like stone. After work I think the soldiers just sit on their laptops or go to the gym. I didn't get a chance to visit the prison where the CIA agent, Mike Spann, was killed. They have very restrictive travel requirements so we couldn't just borrow a car and drive over there.

The second night I spent at Camp Marmal (also called Camp Mazar-E-Sharif or the Mez airport). That place was pretty nice. It's a German camp. Everything is clean, well designed and build on a grid. It had several cafe's that look exactly like German cafes inside. They are even rude like european cafes and wouldn't accept dollars, only euros. We went to the Norwegian camp inside the base and had a cappuccino there at a pizzeria/cafe. It was very relaxing, sitting on the couch and chatting. You almost forget you're in a war zone. Also, the airport terminal was awesome. It looked nice, the seating was comfortable, and they had dance/techno music playing all the time. Very German. They may not be great battlespace owners, but they sure know how to run a airbase. They make Bagram look like its still being managed by the soviets. Even simple things like loading/unloading the planes was noticeably more efficient than the U.S. airforce.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow when I get a chance to download them off my camera.

No go

So, I haven't felt like posting lately. A lot has been going on but at the same time it feels like nothing new. As typical I've been fighting with contracting/finance about them doing their job. I've been working on the details for starting a contract to build a small masonry building. Unfortunately the afghan who runs the unit didn't like our modest design and wanted a much more luxurious (and expensive) design so we are arguing about it now. I've been working on a complex biometrics statement of work.

And... I was supposed to leave on a week long trip back to the states today to escort some afghans. Unfortunately the trip was postponed/canceled. That really sucks. I can't put into words how much I was looking forward to seeing my lover, even if just for a night.

Herat

So here is the uncensored report on Herat. It's relatively peaceful out there. The local guys told me that the Iranians keep things peaceful to protect their economic interests. So they have few IED's around town. And the ones they have are radio-controlled so they don't accidentally hit the local population. An IED hit a group of people earlier in the morning that I was out driving around. When I got to my meeting the Italian that got hit was in there meeting with the afghan (because he was late to his meeting). He said it wasn't a big deal. It was small and didn't hurt anyway.

Camp Stone is our American FOB out there. The Italians own the battlespace so the Americans have a relatively small presence. Almost all the Americans I met said the Italians don't do anything. They don't have any money and mostly stay on their base. I don't know how true that is, maybe it's only perception. However the perception in Kabul is pretty much the same regarding the foreign forces, except the brits. When I was at the airport the other day someone was making fun of the Germans there who are under strict orders to not do anything that would reach the German median back home (because they are afraid the publicity would trigger a pullout).

Anyway, the Americans say the afghans, both the police and the army, are openly criminal and corrupt. In Kabul we are used to dealing with the leadership being corrupt, but they said everyone is corrupt around Herat. The examples they gave revolve around all the afghans working on the base. We have lots of construction projects on base and they hire the locals to do almost everything from laying cement to constructing buildings. They said if the afghans workers have any money on them when they leave the base (for example from getting paid) the police/army will take a percentage (usually ~10%) as soon as they leave the base. Also, they said if the Americans give the workers anything, such as left-over supplies, the police/army just steal it and keep it for themselves. They had many stories like that. The perception from the Americans I spoke is that the ANA and ANP are equally corrupt.

I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of things happens all over the country based on the reports I read. The afghans accept much of it because that's the way things have been here for as long as anyone can remember. But one of the things the Taliban offer is a less corrupt system. That's a mechanism they use to win the support of the local population. I can't say that I'm particularly proud to help prop up a government that allows such open corruption. However, the police in Kabul aren't as openly corrupt like that. And I'm comfortable that the police that I work with in CID are good people in general. Hopefully it is a problem mostly with the average uniformed police.

It just goes to show how difficult this 'country-building' effort really is. We are pouring hundreds of billions of U.S. tax dollars into a country where the corruption starts at the president and extends all the way down the the beat cop on the street stealing form poor farmers. The U.S. military is essentially propping up a Tajik government in a country that is mostly Pashtun. I'm not privy to enough afghan politics to know if the efforts to better integrate the pashtuns into the government are succeeding. I can say that I'm not seeing it personally, which makes me nervous that when we pull out chaos might ensue.

Back from Herat

I went to Herat for the last few days (via Bagram - yuck). I'm too tired to blog about it, but here are a few pics.

Camp Stone is our main base near Herat. I stayed there in the JTF Paladin tent.



The view outside my tent. Just on the other side of those mountains is Iran.



They don't work the long days that we do here at Eggers. Here is how many soldiers spend the evening:



I met LTC Anwar at the Regional Headquarters. Here is the lunch we had after our meetings. Mostly everyone just grabs what they want. With their fingers. They were kind enough to give me a plate and fork.

Umm....

When we are returning from a mission to the east, Massoud Circle is the last traffic circle we go through. The gate to the green zone is at one end of the circle. We are always a little nervous because entering/exiting the ECP (entry-control-point) is one of our most vulnerable points. But it's nice to see Massoud's monument and know we are almost in the safe zone.



Anwar came by our office the other day. I hadn't been out to see him so he felt the need to give me a big hug. I'm kind of flinching because he doesn't smell good. I don't think he washes his clothes either. It's tough to deal with the smell of strong BO. The vast majority of afghans are like that.

Airport run

Been fighting contract battles mostly the last few days. Afghans just can't except how long it takes the U.S. government to pay them, and how often things get screwed up. They are constantly fearful they'll never get paid. One of my favorite expressions:

Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

I'm having a hard time teaching the afghans this lesson in relation to our contracting process.

Today I got to run around in civilian clothes for a while. I went to the airport to do a sight survey. It feels strange to wear civilian clothes and to not have my weapon on me.

Nomads

We drove past a nomad tribe today. They just wander around the country with their animals and pitch tents to stop in one plane for a while. The place where they were stopped was former warlord land which was being partitioned off and sold to the people. I wonder what the nomads will do when everyone owns the land. You can see the brick walls starting to be built. As soon as an afghan buys some land, he builds a brick wall around it.



I ate an MRE for lunch. The first MRE I've had since Ft. Jackson.

At least a couple of our fish are still alive. I'm not sure who feeds them though. I don't see the smaller fish around. Maybe the big fish ate them.

Flowers

Things have been busy lately. There was bad VBIED the other day that killed a few Americans. It had been a while since Americans were killed in Kabul. The attack occurred on the road to Camp Julian where I did the marksmanship training on April 7th.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/world/asia/19afghan.html?src=me

Also, the internet was really slow for the last couple of days. Something to do with the attack on Bagram air base.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1990334,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

Yesterday morning my directorate held a ceremony to honor two people that died from an IED a year ago:

http://www.usafa.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123205594

So there's been lots of activity. Things are probably picking up now because of the Peace Jirga. I still feel pretty safe. The only threat to me are the VBIEDs, which seem more or less random. So statistically I don't really have a reason to be concerned.

Laziness

The contracting process here is so messed up. At any given time, about 1/3 of my contracts have some kind of problem. And most of the problems are with the military/civilians running the contracting and finance offices. I have to meet with another afghan tomorrow who wants to evict us because he hasn't been paid. Why hasn't he been paid? Because the contracting and finance offices are excruciatingly slow. They certainly don't work under the direction that we are fighting a war here and we are trying to win the hearts and minds of the afghan people. If you have any doubts, just look at the office hours for the finance office. They work less than bankers hours. The afghans that work in contracting actually seem way more competent than the Americans.

I'm not a big fan of Karzai, but if he has to deal with half as much crap from the military as I do, I can see where he might be frustrated and wonder if it'd be better for us to just leave so we'll stop screwing up and turning the local population against the government. (Of course, he wants is to keep funneling our billions/month his way.)

I can't imagine the kind of communication failures that would lead to this kind of stuff:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/afghan-prosecutor-arrest-warrant-us-officer

Fish

LTG Caldwell came by the other day for an awards ceremony. He got a chance to see the tortoises so now they've met the senior ranking officer for the base. That's probably as high as they'll go. I don't think GEN McCrystal ever comes over here.



Also, the NGA folks managed to get 6 fish for the pond from their afghan counterparts.

And a crazy sandstorm blew through today. It lasted about 30 minutes then it went back to being a beautiful sunny day.

Rock Stars

Ok, so the tortoises are popular. We had a power outage yesterday for a while so I took let the turtles out to stretch their legs. Probably 20 people were milling about watching them waiting for the power to come back on. Even BG Macdonald walked over to check them out (probably wondering what everyone was staring at).

Tonight was cigar night and a Major General was over smoking a cigar and checked them out. I bet they wish they could tell all their friends in Mez about their moment of fame.

Not Turtles

I haven't felt like updated my blog lately. The days are starting to blur here. Not much changes.

Some company in the states donated a pump for our pond. It looks nice and clean now:



The NOCs asked out interpreter to get us some turtles for the pond. Unfortunately he got us Russian Tortoises which just sink. So now we're not sure what to do with them. But there are very popular. Everyone stops by the check them out. I even took them for a walk yesterday.

Half Mast

I noticed the Canadian flag was at half mast today. It's a sad day for some family.




http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/canadian-death-toll-in-afghan-mission-143-members-of-forces-2-civilians-92751934.html

111

Standing in Line

There is not much nice about Eggers. It's crowded everywhere. There's not enough berthing. Chow is greasy. It's hard to find a free treadmill at the gym. There's an ever present sewage smell. You get the idea.

But there are a couple of things I enjoy. Every morning when I walk to work I see the snow capped mountain peaks in the distance. I always enjoy that sight:



The only flowers I ever see the afghans planting are roses. So it's actually very very nice to see rose bushes everywhere:



Lastly, I was standing in line at the DFAC and realized I actually enjoyed the wait. It's not uncommon to wait 20-30 minutes in line, depending on what they are serving (pizza night is the most popular). But it's never bothered me to stand there in line and zone out for a little while. Strange. In the states I hated to wait on food.