Going on R&R

I've finally left for R&R. It was a somewhat drawn-out process. Here is the low-down.

I took an MRAP convoy from Eggers to Bagram. It took longer than I remembered. about 2.5 hours. You leave sometime early in the morning. The MRAPs don't convoy every day so you have to pick the convoy closest to your leave day.

Once you get to Bagram you drop off your weapon at the armory and your IBA/ACH in a conex. I actually left my weapon at Eggers because I heard the armory was a pain. They are only open a few hours per day so you can be delayed returning while you wait for the armory to open. Then you take your luggage to the terminal drop-off area and they scan your ID to process for leave. That's all until the R&R brief at midnight. There is a tent you can go to if you want. I went a took a nap. The rest of the time I spent at the MWR Dragon watching movies, or at the USO. I never got the internet at the USO to work - it was probably too crowded. I used the MWR computers at the dragon though.

The midnight brief was packed. About 500 people I think. Fortunately they had two C-17's leaving that morning. I was mustered on the second one fortunately. I found out that the first one was delayed and they actually arrived in Kuwait a day after me. Once you go to the midnight brief, if you are scheduled on a plane, you go into "lockdown" either in the terminal or tent 2. The earlier plane got the terminal so we had to go to the tent. The scheduling folks are a bit screwed up I think because they came back to verify the name list three times. There isn't much to do in the tent. They have steel folding chairs and you can watch TV. I laid down on the ground using my backpack as a pillow and dozed for a couple of hours. I was freezing. I wish I'd brought a coat or a blanket. I had a sleeping back in my checked baggage but that wasn't useful here.

Finally, an hour before our flight, they marched us back to the terminal to palettize our bags and board the plane:



The flight to Kuwait wasn't bad - slightly less than 4 hours. Without body armor the flight was much more pleasant. Once you arrive at the airbase they drive you over to the processing area in buses. This base is Ali Al Salem. Kuwait was pretty hot. I'm sure not as bad as July, but pretty damn hot. I'd heard that before, but what I didn't realize is that they muster you outside in formation a lot. There was a group of several hundred ahead of us using the tent so we mustered outside. There's the initial muster when you arrive where they take your ID to process. Then you come back at 1400 to get a billeting assignment and 1800 to fill out some paperwork. Somehow they screwed up my billeting and put me in a VIP tent with only one other guy (an Army LTC). I neglected to complain.



After you fill out a few forms you are free until 0600. There are a few things on base. A McDonalds, Subway, Green Been, PX etc. I just used the DFAC which has a 24/7 sandwich bar (not as nice as Eggers though). At 0600 they tell you if you are on the Dallas or the Atlanta flight and when the lockdown time is. Then you leave and come back will all your gear and you are in lockdown until you depart. Lockdown lasts a long time - maybe 10 hours. You don't do much except go through roll calls which seems to take a half hour. You do go through customs where they look into you bags and make sure you don't have any ammo, porn or war trophies. My flight had about 330 people. Mostly Army - so there were many formations. The gave us our itineraries a couple of hours before we boarded the bus to leave for Kuwait International. However since you are in lockdown you can't contact your family to tell them when you are finally arriving.

My plane had a layover in Shannon Ireland for about an 1.5 hours. However it took 30 minutes to get through security and another 30 minutes to stand in line for the bathroom. The wifi was excruciatingly slow but I managed to get one email off before we had to go back on the plane. Another 8 hours after that I landed in Atlanta.

They couldn't get me to my final destination on the same day that I arrived in Atlanta. I went to the US Army office in the airport and they scheduled me a room (with a roommate) at a nearby hotel. It was nice to take a shower finally. I fly out early tomorrow morning and return back to Atlanta in 15 days.

In summary, I left Eggers on Tuesday and I'll arrive in Victoria Saturday. Leave officially starts on Sunday and I fly back to Atlanta two weeks from Monday.

9/11 Memorial

They had a nice memorial today. There were people standing shifts at the memorial all day.



I spend most of the day working contract issues and getting everything in order since I'm going on leave in a few days.

Kandahar Airfield

I well down the Kandahar yesterday. I stayed at the airfield so I didn't get the chance to see any of the city. I went to a few briefings though. There is definitely a war going on down there. A-10's and other fighters are constantly coming and going on combat missions. And there are many other kinetic missions going on. Very different from the Capital region were we are focused on building government institutions. I went down there to visit the Jeff lab:



The base more spread out than most - more like Bagram.



Except this place is flat:



The one thing Kandahar Airfield is famous for is its "poo pond" and the odoriferous emanation it exudes:



Here's a picture of an ANA guy with his kids riding in the back of the truck. They looked like they were having fun.

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.

Bala Hissar

This morning I traveled to an ANA (army) base. The ANA facilities are much nicer than the ANP (police) facilities. I walked up some hill to take pictures of the countryside.



I had a great view of the nearby neighborhoods. However I was nervous standing around too long in case someone thought about taking a pot-shot at me.



All the stray dogs here are so nice. Not very healthy, but very sweet.



This afternoon VADM Harward crashed our meeting with LTG Yarmand.

New Puppy

Today I went over to MOI to take delivery of a ton of furniture for the police. It was somewhat funny because we bought them way more furniture than they were expecting. The delivery trucks just kept coming. We were there all day.



I helped unload. After a while I embarrassed the afghan offices and they yelled at their enlisted to come help. In their full gear. That was funny to watch. The afghans officers don't do any manual labor. The enlisted mostly disappear when the see the trucks come in and the officers kept having to chase them down. So much for reports that afghans are hard workers. They mostly seem amazed to see me working. I don't know if it's because I'm American or if it's because I'm an officer. It was a good day though. Better than sitting around in the office doing computer work.



They had a couple of new recruits. They were testing their endurance by making them run laps with a vest on. Afghans don't believe in pt-gear - they do most things in their man-jams.



When I got back to the shop there was a dog in the secure facility. The NGA people said it followed them all the way back from their mentoring mission. I wonder how long he'll stick around.

The Back Half

Today was a pretty typical day. We went over to the MOI and talked to the Biometrics director. The internet was down in the office most of the afternoon. There is a conference going on next week so most of the city is shutting down in case the taliban try something. However they weren't very successful attacking the peace Jirga.

Some of my team may go to Herat and Mez next week to investigate setting up the new Biometrics collection sites. That reminded how nice the airport in Mez is and Camp Marmal in general. This terminal is the first building you enter there:



It's so nice compared to any of the other bases I've been to here. I wish I could take my 4-day R&R there. But McCrystal canceled that for everyone. Well, he didn't cancel it. He said we can take it in our rooms. Wow - thanks.

I suppose I'll work contract issues for the next few days. They are minor issues, but with 15 contracts and a broken finance office at Eggers, the problems take a while to fix.

My roommate left today. So switched to the back of the conex. It's a great improvement. Much more privacy back here.

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.