Hope

The definition of insanity is trying to upload 3 MB pictures over a 32 kb/s satellite connection. After compression, these little cuties took about 30 seconds to load, rather than 30 minutes. Hopefully that ends my picture problem.

Listening to the media today, you'd think that Afghanistan was already lost. Little good about the country is chosen for release, dooming the general public to endless reports of dead soldiers, retreating allies, and angry op eds about how we squandered years in Iraq instead of focusing on the "important" war. Or maybe a gem like this one. (You may have to sign up for a free account to read it. Apologies.)

Since I've been here, I've found some reasons to hope.

First is the change in leadership. General McChrystal is out and General Petreaus is in. Don't misinterpret my meaning. McChrystal was and is a good leader, and I have little doubt that we would have succeeded in time in Afghanistan. Key phrase: "in time". Eventually. Certainly not by July 2011 when the President wants us to start drawing down troops. We would have gotten there, but it was likely going to take a few years.

Petraeus isn't a cure-all for the problems here, but already there has been a change in focus from Nov 2011 (the end of the Afghan fiscal year) to July 2011 (when the troops are supposed to start leaving) The strategy is staying the same, but the energy level has increased dramatically since word came down of the new leadership. Everyone here knows he was responsible for fixing the quagmire we had in Iraq, and nothing less is expected here in Afghanistan.

All this, and he isn't even on the ground yet.

With the shifted focus and increased energy and effort of the personnel here, I expect things to move along more quickly than they would have before. This is partly because our deadline is being moved up, so it's necessary to try and meet our goals sooner, but it's also in part because people genuinely want to please Petraeus. If he asks for the moon, people are going to find some way to get it to him. That's the mark of a great leader, and it's what we've got now in Afghanistan. Not simply good. Great.

*****

One of the largest problems in Afghanistan is illiteracy. Only a small portion of the population can read at any level, and even fewer at a level high enough to contribute to the Coalition efforts to establish a working central government in this country. This is the main reason why it has been so difficult to grow and train the Afghan Army and Police. There just aren't enough literate people willing to be officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs, senior enlisted personnel) to lead the main-line force. Without this leadership, the force cannot operate at the level required to care for the country's security.

As much as we can try and teach the adults to read, where the change will come from will be the next generation, today's children. Whatever we establish today will be carried on by them in the future, so it is imperative that we make education a priority in the country.

My predecessor, Andrew, along with a couple other guys in our office, have been handing out books to the kids on the street outside Camp Eggers for several months. The books cost around a dollar each, and are printed locally in both Pashto and Dari, the two languages spoken here in Kabul. To pay for the books, they take donations. They send home braclets that the street kids sell, re-sell them to people in the states, and use the proceeds. On occasion they've funded the book distribution out of their own pockets. They understand the importance of getting these kids an education, in any form. Lack of education and job opportunities is a big reason people turn to the Taliban. (The Taliban was also a big cause for lack of education in today's adults to begin with, as they shut down schools in Afghanistan for a number of years) When you have no other marketable skills, if picking up a rifle and shooting at Americans feeds your family, you do it.

The focus of the book distribution effort has been on the less fortunate kids we come across in our brief travels. Last week, that focus took a quick aside, as we ventured just down the street to a local school. If you walk out of the northern gate of Camp Eggers, the school is impossible to miss, by sight or by sound. It's directly on the other side of the northern wall of camp, and four stories tall. At all hours of the day, you can hear kids laughing and playing on the playground outside. Having delivered books to the street kids several times already, and having another group of children so close, the decision was made to pay them a visit.

Armed with 50 books for the kids and bags of school supplies for the classrooms, we walked over early Sunday morning (Friday is the Muslim holy day, and Saturday is the other weekend day). We had contacted the principal to make sure we were expected and welcome, but had little idea of what else to expect.

When we arrived we were taken into a room about the size of a small gymnasium full of tables and chairs. Shortly the kids were lead in to see us. There were far more kids than we had books for at the school, so each of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classes sent five kids. (How those kids were selected, I don't know.) Very politely, and very quietly, they approached five at a time to accept their gift.

Outside Eggers, there are all sorts of kids that have things they want to sell you. The overwhelming favorite is braclets, but also head scarves, lighters, and random other junk they've been given by foreigners (one kid had a key for a Ferrari). All of them are dirty and under-fed. I have no idea if they go to school. They pounce on you as soon as you leave the gate and don't stop hounding for money until you buy something or get to a security check point.

A first grade girl reading her new book.

The kids at this school were completely different. They were clean and well mannered. They were dressed nicely in their school uniforms. The boys always lead the way, with the girls at the rear*. They never pushed or shoved each other to get to the front of the line. Even the smallest of them could read some of the words in their new books. All of them thanked us in English.

*There was one girl that started at the rear of her group, but while the four boys in front of her shyly stepped up to meet us, she did an end-around and came directly to each and every one of us for a handshake and a hello. She looked us in the eye and smiled brightly, clearly thrilled to be meeting new people. She seemed quite the leader. I hope her bold spirit stays intact as she matures in a society dominated by men.

School principal on left, teacher in center, translator on right.

Through our Air Force translator, the principal told us that there is a proverb in Afghanistan that says all neighbors should help each other. She said it was good that we came, as in all the time Camp Eggers has existed, we were the first people who had lived there that had visited the school. Five years of being next door neighbors, and no one had ever bothered to cross the wall, even to say hello. I was floored. I'm sure the perception was that these kids were the upper crust of society and had no need for a visit from the volunteers, but the staff at the school had taken it as a slight, interpreted our lack of hospitality as a apathy towards their school and their society. Indeed, it was good that we had come.

Later, over tea with the principle and her assistant, we were told that there were 3,500 students at the school - 3500!! - from 1st through 12th grade. Knowing that there are schools like this in Afghanistan, where education is valued more than the extra money a child could bring home by selling trinkets on the street, was a refreshing blast of possibility, the promise of a better future for this shell of a country. It is my hope that before our troops leave and turn the reins back over to the Afghan people, we are able to create more places like this one.

This little guy saw me taking pictures and twisting the zoom ring on my lens. He held up the white plastic ring to his eye and started spinning it, pretending he was taking a picture of me.

On the way back home, we noticed they had a soccer field. Immediately plans were made to come back with more books and soccer balls so we could play with the kids. As much as this is about the kids, we get a lot of satisfaction from it too, a trip to play soccer a little more so than usual =).

All for now. Out here.

Eggers

Air conditioner alley, the main drag on my way to work every morning.

Eggers (EGG-errrr-s...zah) is a busy place. I've been sprinting to catch up with the pace of work here, and am still lagging behind. The work schedule is 8 to 8, officially, and subtract out lunch a dinner, but often work starts earlier and runs later. So far I'm averaging an 11 hour day, and that's with a half day the day I arrived and on our "day off" (don't come to work til 1300) on Friday. As such, I haven't been awake enough at night to update my blog. Some of you have mentioned this to me =). While I'm very happy you all are enjoying the blog, I think I might have spoiled you guys writing every day at CRC. That kind of pace is not going to be sustainable here. My plan is to update every 3-4 days, sometimes shorter when I have a lot to write about, sometimes longer when I'm getting slammed at the office. But be sure to let me know if I get too sporadic with my posts. I know I can count on you.

Camp Eggers is my new home away from home. It was built circa 2005 (I don't know the exact date) and named after a special forces soldier that was killed by an IED here in Afghanistan. Eggers is inside what is known as the "Green Zone". It's similar to the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq, but not nearly as large, nor as secure. The Green Zone also includes International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) HQ (home to Commander ISAF, formerly General McChrystal), the US Embassy, the Afghan Ministry of Defense, the Presidential Palace, and a compound known as New Kabul Compound (NKC). All together, it's probably only a few square kilometers right in the heart of Kabul.

Around the Green Zone is the Inner Zone, which is larger, but less secure. You'll regularly encounter Coalition forces or Afghan National Police (ANP) checkpoints in these areas. The rest of Kabul is the Outer Zone. You don't go to the Outer Zone unless you're required to. The potential for attacks isn't really higher (in fact, it's probably lower since little of importance resides out there), but you're a lot farther away from help if something goes wrong. The airport and a couple of smaller bases are really the only things out here worth mentioning.

*****

Eggers is a haphazard place. This area used to be a very upscale neighborhood, and it shows. There are nicely decorated sidewalks and strong, natural stone retaining walls. There are tiled porches on some of the permanent structures, and a lot of two-story buildings. The Coalition supposedly paid top dollar for the land here, and promptly came in and ruined it. Offices and living quarters were dropped in what were formerly backyards, side alleys and streets, taking up almost all the open space. Without much acreage, the only choice has been to build upwards, resulting in very few single story structures, and lots of "urban canyon" feel. Walking around for the first couple days felt like I was a mouse searching for cheese at the end of a maze.

Most of the structures we've added are shipping containers (like the ones you'd ship cars inside from Japan to America, big things) that have been improvised for office space and housing. Doors and windows are cut in the sides, and rooms built on the interior. Office size varies, depending how big and how important the organization is. For the living quarters, the rooms aren't large at all, MAYBE eight feet by twelve feet, with two or three people per room, but they are air conditioned, and they aren't leaking on your head while you're asleep or anything.

New construction at Camp Eggers. Notice the bamboo ladder. The side supports are solid pieces of wood, and that's at least 30 feet in the air.

If only I was living in one of those.

You see, Eggers is growing. Quickly. In fact, it's growing SO quickly, that the amount of people on Eggers is greater than the amount of living space. This means all the new people get to wait for old people to leave before they can get a bed. Where do we get to stay in the meantime? In a tent. Yes, my friends, I am still living out of a bag. Woe is me.

For a tent, it really isn't that bad. It's large enough to fit a dozen bunk beds, though not all the bunks are filled. It is air conditioned, and combined with the Kabul weather, it actually gets a bit chilly at night time. During the day it's sweltering, but I am VERY rarely there during the day, given my work schedule. The WORST part about it is that it's actually across the street.

When I in-processed here, the guy I'm replacing, Andrew, told me "The only word you don't want to hear is 'Alamo'." Well, guess what? Alamo Tent is where I am. (I told him afterward I wished he hadn't told me that, since I wouldn't have known the difference if he hadn't.) Alamo is the only tent, the only housing of any kind, that doesn't sit on Camp Eggers proper. In order to get there, I have to walk out through all the security checks and cross a public road. The road is heavily patrolled, and has lots of security on it 24/7 (in the 60 feet that are between my tent and the road, there are two gates and five guards armed with AK-47s), but the local populace does have access. Every morning there are cars full of people and bicycles and motorcycles carrying people to work. Since these people have access, so do the insurgents interested in hurting me if they get crafty enough. Not long ago there was an attempted kidnapping on a contractor in a "military" uniform along this road. The distance I have to walk along this road is only about 50 yards, but it has been suggested that I follow the buddy system when walking that way just to be safe.

I was told there was a 3-4 week wait time on housing, with a good possibility that I would have to wait longer. I am encouraged by the fact that since I moved in, at least three people have moved out. My tent isn't the only tent, so I'm sure there are a lot more people ahead of me, but it's nice to see progress and to know that the days of a solid roof over my head are actually getting closer.

*****

Eggers is a diverse place. The flag plaza is a veritable forest of country banners from NATO and our other Coalition partners. I've worked frequently with British and Canadian forces already. The Mongolians man our force protection patrols. The French are here working with police trainers. The perimeter security is manned by a local security contracting company, employing the local Afghan population. There's at least a couple dozen other nations participating. Even with the multi-national population, the base has a distinctly American feel. Currency here is dollars, and the food is just like home. Last night was steak night at one of the DFACs, today for lunch was philly cheese steak on the short order grill, tonight was Mongolian barbecue (yummy). The majority of personnel are American, and almost everyone speaks English (not the locals - they only know enough to get by). This contributes to a very friendly overall atmosphere. People greet you as they walk by and usually have a smile for you as well.

This is in stark contrast to ISAF HQ, just down the street. The multi-national force is the same, but there are far more non-American personnel. Food isn't served unless it has curry in it (I'm only barely kidding here, they curry everything, even eggs and grits at breakfast), currency is euros, and people are generally rude and impolite. Having spent sometime at ISAF, I'm glad I landed here.

*****

Before I get too far removed from it, a quick wrap up of CRC, by the numbers:

403: people processed in my CRC class.

249: people on the flight from Ft. Benning to Kuwait. The rest had their own transportation.

8: days, or parts of days, spent at Ft. Benning.

7: World Cup games watched between formations.

85: approximate weight in pounds of the equipment I was issued at CIF.

16: colonels (O-6, full bird) deploying in my group. 16 is a lot.

11,000: times I wished I was home, approximately.

1.5: inches thick of the paperwork I had to process and file.

25: dollars spent for a week of internet access, so I could Skype with my family and write this blog.

That's all for now. Out here.

Boots on the ground

My first view of Afghanistan from the airport in Kabul.

Boots on ground (BOG) time is a big deal with the troops. BOG time is how much time you've been in a combat theatre. As the wars have escalated, so has BOG time, while it's counterpart, dwell time, the time spent state-side, as decreased. BOG time can only go so high before they send you home, meaning as soon as you step into theatre your counter starts.

My counter started 19 June.

"Theatre" includes any combat zone, as well as the "gateway" territories. (This is for my purposes, at least. There were some people deploying to Eygpt and Bosnia at my CRC class. Since those aren't combat zones, I don't know how they're deployment time is counted.) Currently, that would include Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, with gateway zones being Kuwait or Kyrgyzstan. So as of landing in Kuwait at 1600 local time (8 hours different from central time in the states), I was officially a deployed analyst. My orders say I will be here 181 days, though I have another piece of paper that says 179. In actuality it will probably be a few less than that, in order to ensure I leave theatre before my orders run out. If I go over my orders period there will be a nightmarish batch of paper work, and no one wants to mess with that. For those of you trying to count in your heads, I'll save you the time: 19 June + 181 days is 16 December. Baring the Army screwing something up, which is still a real possibility, I will be home for Christmas. Yay!

I arrived in Kuwait after a couple hours of lay over in Leipzig, Germany, and about four hours of flight time. I was hoping to catch a good view of Kuwait city from the air, but it was so hazy that I couldn't see much of anything until we were only a couple thousand feet off the ground. Once on the ground, I found out the haziness was just as bad looking up. All of the sand in the air turned the normal light blue into a dirty, gritty gray color.

The Kuwaiti desert. Beautiful, isn't it? Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

And the heat. Gasp! It was 109 degrees farenheit when we landed, and that was one of the cooler days of the last few weeks. The high just a day earlier had been 122. There was a strong wind that helped to stall choking to death on the blazing blanket of air, but retreat indoors as quickly as possible was the only reliable solution to combating the heat.

The first snafu of our trip happened right after we got on the ground. The Army officer in charge (OIC) of the flight was the designated keeper for the soldier's rifle bolts. If you aren't familiar with firearms, the bolt on a rifle is the moving part that strikes the powder behind the bullet and makes the whole thing go boom. If you remove it, the weapon fails to function. All bolts had been confiscated and placed in a tool box that sat next to the OIC. When we left the airport, we were driven by bus to a staging area where we could get some water while waiting for our bags to be offloaded to a couple of semi trucks. When we got ready to leave the bus area, the OIC realized the box of bolts was missing.

Ruh roh.

Thinking he may have set them down in one of the trucks loaded with bags, he proceeded to force 20 poor saps to unload ~800 40 lb duffel bags in 109 degree heat to correct his mistake. Only after both trucks had been completely unloaded did it occur to him to call the airport and see if he had left the box on the airplane. Of course, he had. All told, we sat on the buses for four hours before driving 45 minutes to Ali Al Saleem, Kuwait, home of Task Force Gateway, the people responsible for moving us to our final destinations. Arrival time was around 2100 local time.

After a few briefings on procedures and schedule, we unloaded the semi trucks (much faster with 249 people set up in a chain gang) and were turned loose. The basic idea from this point on, regardless of destination, is to register yourself with the aviation folks, then turn up exactly when and where they tell you to see if your name has come up yet. Seats on flights are given on a first come, first serve basis, with the exception of high ranking officers and enlisted who get to go first. You could be number 500 on the list and have to wait a week to get a flight, or you could be number 5 and have to wait a few hours. It depends on how soon you get signed in and how many flights for your destination are slated. If your name gets called and you aren't there to accept the slot, you go to the bottom of the list. I found a very quick and efficient way to work through this process: I cheated.

For the thousands of people a week coming through this camp, there are only two, yes TWO, personnel registering people for flights at any given time. I didn't even pick up my bags, I went straight to the counter and signed up. I had also e-mailed ahead and told them I was coming, which was equivalent to showing up two days early. When my paper got stamped, the lady crossed out 19 June and put 17 June. Cheat code verified. Score.

The end effect of this was that I got out of Kuwait in 14 hours, very near a record for a worker bee like me. The first flight I had a chance to be on the manifest for, I was. Out of 38 seats, I was number 22. This was fantastic, as I had spent the night sleeping in a chair, followed by an "air conditioned" tent on a cot left over from the first Gulf War. The less time spent in Kuwait the better.

This is where my travel experience really got interesting. From this point on, I was flying on military aircraft, since we were in theatre and all. We were also required to wear our body armor for the trips, just in case someone took a shot at the plane. We were bused to the airfield to load a C-17. Near the planes were concrete bunkers meant to hide fighter jets in the event of bombing. The looked like they had done their job at some point, as the tops of the buildings had moving-truck sized hunks of concrete missing, yet were still being used to house equipment. We walked into the plane through the loading ramp on the back of the aircraft and strapped in. Most of us sat in normal airline seats (sans tray tables) in the middle of the plane, but others sat on the sides in the seats soldier's would use during parachute ops. Accommodations were cozy to say the least, exacerbated by the fact that we're all wearing 40 lbs of body armor.

Queue second trip snafu. As we sit inside this nice, metal plane, with the 118 degree desert air pouring in the open back door, sweating to death in body armor, the crew chief told us that the air condition wouldn't be working until we started the engines in another 30-45 minutes. Until then, we would just have to suffer. However, we could remove our body armor.

Sigh. Small mercies.

The flight itself wasn't bad, though it was strange to not have windows on the aircraft. That was probably a good thing when it came to the landing. Because there is always an outside chance that some Taliban is sitting outside the airstrip with an anti-aircraft missile, planes land at full speed while jinking (pilot speak for dodging, making oneself hard to hit) up and down, left and right. When the wheels hit the ground, it was hard to tell whether we had landed or crashed. When I stepped outside, the Bagram Air Force Base flight line was a greeting crew to our arrival. Welcome to Afghanistan.

The waiting game for airplane space at Bagram wasn't as suspenseful as in Kuwait. For one, there were fewer people flying to Kabul than there were to Bagram, so there was a better chance to get a seat. I also caught hold of the coattails of a couple of colonels, so I knew very shortly after landing what time I'd be leaving. Unfortunately, after landing at 2100 (9 PM), roll call for my flight was at 0400. Not enough time to check out a bed, really. Another night sleeping in an airline terminal, this time on the concrete floor.

Throughout the evening, numerous aircraft could be heard outside on the tarmac and airstrip. Helicopters, cargo planes, a few fighter jets. I was close enough to watch the airfield, but not much could be seen because it was so dark. Unlike a civilian airport where lights are an important accident avoidance measure, military airfields run blacked-out so as to avoid putting out a sign that says "Taliban, please shoot mortars here". The only light coming from the flight line was the occasional glow of twin afterburners on a fighter jet as it lifted off. For an aviation geek, the experience was pretty awesome.

When we got bused out to the flight line around 0600, I could finally see the machines making all the racket. Medivac Blackhawks, other C-17s, EA-6B Prowler aircraft designed to jam or intercept electronic communications, and several C-130s. Across the runway were the fast movers, F-15s lined up one after another, canopies gleaming in the sun. I was sad we didn't get to drive by those up close like the rest. We pulled up to a C-130 from the Minnesota Air National Guard and loaded up for the last flight of the journey.

This flight was something of a joke. Bagram and Kabul are eight minutes from each other by air. Eight. Minutes. We sat on the tarmac doing pre-flight checks and taxiing to the runway approximately five times longer than the flight times. The only reason they do this is because convoys over the mountains between the two cities are infrequent, due to the high level of insurgent activity in the area. Only a few weeks ago, a force of twenty insurgents armed with rifles and suicide vests attacked the front gate of Bagram AFB. It was massively unsuccessful, but it shows that they are indeed out there, and the road to Kabul is far less than secure. By air is the much safer route.

From the Kabul airport to Camp Eggers, my final destination, was by car. When we called for transport, we thought we'd be riding in MRAPS, huge, hulking, 10-20 ton vehicles designed to eat explosions, but instead we got up-armored SUVs. Our first escort that showed up only had enough room for one person, so we had to wait for a second. The leader of that first vehicle was an interesting find. An Air Force captain trained to fly F-22s, a $140 million aircraft, driving VIPs in Afghanistan. I'm not sure what this indicates: we have so many people here that we can't find work for them all, we have to few people here and have to force people to do jobs outside their expertise, or F-22s are really THAT useless in the current fight. I'm leaning towards the third one.

The drive across town was short, mercifully. For those confused by the time zones, I was on hour 58 of travel, and now 9.5 hours (yes, POINT FIVE - Afghanistan is backwards) ahead of my home time zone. I was fried, and ready to be done. I was alert enough to observe the city and all its mysteries. Small children everywhere, including walking out in the street unattended, carts pulled by donkey on the same road as semi trucks, traffic circles with four layers of cars, with drivers completely oblivious to the rules of the road. The poverty of it all was striking, and the chaos. Nothing was clean - nothing - and with all the people and things so close to the road, it would be almost impossible to ascertain whether that pile of stuff was a bomb of someone's dropped laundry. I was glad I wasn't driving, and doubly glad I wouldn't need to be out here often.

And that was that. Travel over, trip complete. I'll cover my impressions of Camp Eggers and my work experience in the coming days. I've rambled on long enough here.

*****

Other interesting travel experiences:

- Flying on an airplane full of people carrying pistols and assault rifles. Yet for some reason, we weren't allowed to carry on fingernail clippers.

- Learning the truth of the adage "soldier's can sleep anywhere". Its not a joke. Sitting up, bent fully in half at the waist, curled into a ball in the bottom of a chair WHILE WEARING BODY ARMOR. It didn't matter. If these guys had a spare minute, they were out.

- Eating bacon cooked by a Muslim.

- Being accosted by security for having my camera out at the Kabul Airport. Thankfully they didn't see me actually taking pictures. I guess they had reason to be antsy though, as 20 minutes later a three-star French general walked through the area to load a helicopter.

- Sweating WHILE showering in Kuwait.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Out here.

CRC Day Seven: Leaving on a jet plane

I write this from Leipzig, Germany. This is our second stop in the trip to Afghanistan, the first being Bangor, Maine. I should be in Kuwait in the next 6-7 hours. There's a TV in the corner playing German pop music videos. The gift shop as a large World Cup display with tons of German national team gear.

The last day of CRC went very smoothly. I was able to get my malaria medications without trouble, and the flight crew are very practiced at getting people onto their planes and on their way. We lifted off from Georgia around 1500 yesterday. The building we were waiting in, Freedom Hall, was one giant room around the size of a football field, with large easy chairs to relax in and projection screen TVs hanging from the ceiling. It was a great venue to watch World Cup soccer in, especially since the US was playing. For the record, that goal they disallowed was a terrible call, but it did seem like he made the call before the ball went into the net, so he didn't know he was disallowing a goal when he blew the whistle. That doesn't excuse the error in judgment, but at least he wasn't actively trying to screw us.

The airline we're flying is a charter company called World Airlines. So far on two flights, with a total of a little less than nine hours in the air, they've shown us three movies, and fed us meals twice. Pretty good service. The movies were Avatar (not bad, but seen it many times), GI Joe (absolutely terrible), and I have no idea what the third was. I saw it on the screen, but I was trying to sleep then, so I didn't really care.

Internet in Bangor was supposed to be free wi-fi, but ended up being broken. Here in Germany I had to pay 3.95 euros for an hour. That works out to something like 6 bucks, but I wanted to try and talk to my wife over Skype for a bit. Of course, it's 2 AM back home, and she's not getting the texts I'm sending her via Google Voice, so that may or may not happen. At least I get to update this thing.

After we land in Kuwait we've got a ~2 hour bus ride to the air base. We should be on the ground in late afternoon to early evening, so I'm hoping to get some good pictures. Will update from Kuwait when I have the opportunity.

Until next time. Out here.

CRC Day Six: Eagle Power

My day has been just lovely.

The rank right before General in the Army (and the Marines and Air Force) is Colonel (abbreviated COL). This is the sixth officer rank in the military, so it is often designated O-6. Often it is also called a "full bird colonel", to distinguish it from the O-5 rank, lieutenant colonel, and because the rank insignia for a COL is an eagle with spread wings. By the time a military officer has reached this rank, they have considerable pull and influence. Today, one happened to use this influence to save my bacon.

My first and only formation of the day was at 1645. (I'm sorry, my mind has made a permanent switch to military time, I'm afraid. If you aren't used to thinking that way, its not hard to figure out. If the hour is 12 or less, than its not any different than AM/PM time. If the hour is greater than 12, subtract 12 and that's the time in PM. I apologize for any blown synapses.) We were to be picking up the prescription inserts for our gas masks (it's not possible to wear glasses while wearing the mask because it is so tight), malaria pills, and getting briefed on the procedures for the flight tomorrow. Flight manifest? Check. Mask inserts? Check. Malaria pills? Umm...uh oh.

I was supposed to fill out a form at my medical appointment. A form I was never given by the doctor that examined me. Somehow this didn't get noticed by the CRC staff, and I didn't know to ask about them, thinking that since my orders had "Afghanistan" all over them, malaria pills would be automatic. I went to talk to the cadre about this and they were clueless. After several phone calls, their answer was it was my fault. If I didn't get pills, it must have been because I skipped something or didn't turn in the form. I had until 1830 today (75 minutes) to find a doctor off-post, make an appointment, get a ride, obtain a prescription for the meds I needed, go to the pharmacy, pick up the pills, ride back to CRC, and show them my meds. Failing this, I would be held over until the flight a week from tomorrow.

I. Don't. Think. So.

Unfortunately, they didn't care much about the opinion of a civilian, nor the fact that I had never even seen the form they were talking about. They cared that I didn't have a box checked on my form that said "ready to deploy?". They were willing to supply me transport to wherever I needed to go, but had no other help to offer. Supposedly.

And that's when the camouflaged man with the eagle on his chest swooped in for the rescue. You see, he had the same problem I did, and he was none too happy about it. And the chances of CRC telling a COL "sorry sir, wait til next week" was zilch. When I told him I had the same problem, he told me to come along. We caught a ride back to CRC headquarters where I watched him skewer a staff sergeant, fillet a specialist, and get them to schedule an appointment with a base doctor tomorrow morning at 0700, with a visit to the pharmacy at 0800. With good traffic, we should be back before we start loading the buses to go to the airplane at 0900. If we're not, they're going to bus us there separately to rejoin the rest of our group.

I find it poetic that the guy that came to save me had wings. Eagle's, not angel's, but still wings.

So I still get to fly tomorrow. Thank God. 9 hours to Ireland/Germany, 3 hour lay over, 8 hours to Kuwait, 2 hour bus ride to Ali Al Asleem...it will be a long day. Regardless, it will be much better than another week spent here.

*****

I spent my morning packing my bags and marking them with bright orange duct tape so I could pick them out from the sea of other generic green duffel bags that will be packed on the plane. I watched some soccer and went to lunch. It was a very nice morning.

In the early afternoon, I checked the website for my World of Warcraft (WoW) guild. WoW is a game I've played for a long time, and my guild is the group of people I play with while I'm online. We use the website to schedule events inside the game and socialize. Today I saw someone asking if my account had been stolen.

What?

You see, WoW is SO popular, that people are willing to pay real money to get in-game items and currency. However, the people that sell these items and currency do not come by them honestly. Instead, they steal people's user names and passwords with a virus-like program, log in to their accounts, send all the stuff they want to their own characters, and disappear. Often times these individuals work for "companies" in China whose entire business model consists of fencing stolen virtual goods. It's quite the black market.

So when I went to check if my account had been stolen, I found that, indeed, it had. Big, big bummer. Since there is a record of all the transactions that take place in the game, it is possible for your stolen stuff to be restored, it just takes a while. I called customer support to get my account fixed, waited on hold for an hour, was told that the last computer to log on to my account had an in China, and that I needed to change all my passwords right away, as there's no telling what other information they may have in their possession. They're going to fix all the damage, but it will take a few weeks. I'm extremely glad this happened today and not tomorrow or Saturday while I'm on an airplane out of the country. I just wish it wouldn't have happened at all.

Flight day tomorrow. I should have internet access in the hangar while I wait for the plane. If I don't, I'll try again at the airport in Europe. After that, the next time I speak to you all I'll be on the clock, with the days ticking down to my journey home.

Talk to you later. Out here.

CRC Day Five: If you didn't drop it, don't pick it up

Oy vai.

I decided to start breaking in my boots today. From all accounts, these type of boots take a few weeks to stretch out and take the roughness out of the canvas. I'm expecting blisters. I just probably should have waited until tomorrow.

At 0615 this morning, we had our formation to head up the hill to the big tent for IED and first aid training. Because of the hour, and the unexpected cloud cover, the heat wasn't an issue, so they had us walk instead of ride the buses. It was only about half a mile, but my feet hated me after wards.

In Vietnam, 90% of all combat deaths occurred before the casualty arrived at a medical facility, with 60% of those deaths resulting from loss of blood. Teaching us how to stop the bleeding in a variety of cases was the primary goal of the first aid training we received. Obviously a medic is going to be needed eventually, but the more blood the first responder can keep in the body immediately, the better chance the casualty has to survive later.

We started off with learning how to evaluate a casualty, insert a nasopharyngeal tube to assist in breathing, dress a wound, apply a tourniquet, and move a victim aided and unaided. Basic first aid for the most part, except for the tube. And though the training is addressed towards combat injuries, it can be applied to injuries of any sort.

Next was lunch. We had a choice of buying burgers and brats from an organization selling lunch for charity, or eating MREs. I chose the brats. I was fortunate in that my section was the first released for lunch. Even as one of the first people in line, the grill was already backed up, and talking to the cook while I waited for my food, he said he was told he'd only be cooking for 75-100 people. Apparently CRC thought the other 300 were going to be eating MREs. As I said before, I was fortunate.

After lunch came the gross part. It really wasn't that bad, but those with weak stomachs were glad they had already eaten.

First was training on how to treat a sucking chest wound. Gunshot or shrapnel wounds to the chest often penetrate the membrane around the lung letting in air. Because the air pressure in your lungs is less than the air pressure outside your body, the air forces itself inside your body and collapses the lung, making breathing difficult. The sound of the air going into your chest makes a sucking or hissing sound, thus the name of the wound. Remember how I said 60% of the deaths in Vietnam were from bleeding to death? Another 33% of deaths were caused by air in the chest collapsing a lung and squishing your heart and good lung to the side of your ribcage. It has a fancy name, but I don't remember it. As such, this type of wound was covered pretty thoroughly as well. To treat someone in this condition, you've got to seal the wound (entry and exit) with a piece of plastic and a bandage. The plastic can be any old thing. The side of an MRE bag was suggested since they will be prevalent. Then you drive a 14 gauge, 3" needle into their chest cavity to relieve the pressure. This allows the lung to re-inflate. This training was accompanied by pictures, practice on a dummy, and hands-on time with the biggest needle I'd ever seen.

Next was open abdominal wounds. We were told how to wrap organs that may be outside the body and bandage the wounded area. Essentially you just wrap the person in the largest bandaid you find and hope the medivac gets there quickly. Again, this was complete with practical exercise on the dummy and...pictures. Lovely. I learned just enough to know that I'd rather be shot in the chest than in the stomach. It's easier to fix as long as you don't get hit in the heart.

Last in this section was learning to how to tie dressings onto head wounds, and how to identify if the casualty has a brain injury. Essentially, if there are any cracks in the skull or palate, or spinal fluid leaking out of their ears, then they have a brain injury. Huh. Imagine that. Tie a bandage on it and call a helicopter. Done.

The last section of the day was IED and unexploded ordnance (UXO) training. Some of this training involved out instructor setting off pyrotechnics suddenly and unexpectedly. Exhilarating. Main lessons learned from these classes: 1) A IED can look like anything and everything, so no one has a clue what to look for in the field. 2) Red rocks, fence posts, metal roofing materials, etc. means stay away, there's a minefield over there. 3) If you didn't drop it, don't pick it up, no matter what.

The last one was the most important. Our instructor said he had a buddy in the engineer corps that had worked with explosives for 16 years who picked up a fist-sized IED with a pair of pliers, held it in front of his face, turned it over to inspect it, and tripped the anti-tamper mechanism installed on the detonator. He was killed instantly. Another tale he told us was of insurgents filling ballpoint pens with plastic explosive and rigging them to explode when the clicker was pressed. Then they tossed them over the walls of friendly bases. Someone wandering along the wall sees what looks to be a perfectly good pen, picks it up, clicks it to see if it works or not. Boom. No more hand, if you're lucky. And it doesn't even have to be as sinister as that. Afghanistan is a country with an estimated 10 million active landmines, most left over from the soviet occupation. Some of these landmines are the size of a candy bar. What might look like something that fell off a Humvee might be something that can kill you.

And that was the end of it, 12 hours after we began. The longest day by far. I told you my feet hated me. Upon inspection I don't yet have blisters, but it's only a matter of time.

*****

I forgot to mention a pretty neat experience I had yesterday in my previous post. Riding back from the CIF, I got to listen to a colonel (COL) and a lieutenant colonel (LTC) talk about their command experiences and the different things that they had experienced in their careers. The LTC also was an operations research analyst for a few years, which was an interesting wrinkle in his Army experience. H is getting ready to take command of a battalion this fall. A battalion is roughly 800 mean. Commanding one is a big deal. The COL was a former brigade commander. A brigade is about 4000 men. Commanding one of those is a bigger deal. Being a sponge while the COL mentored the LTC was a really pretty awesome.

I also got to talk with my cousin tonight. He's a specialist in a brigade support battalion headed to Kandahar, Afghanistan in July and called to see what I was up to and where I'd be headed. It was a good conversation. We're going to be in very different parts of the country, so we probably aren't going to be running into each other, but it'll be nice to know that some part of my family is only a couple hours away.

Tomorrow is the home stretch. Laundry, final packing, receive malaria pills and gas mask inserts and I'll be finished, ready to fly on Friday. After I fly out, my access to internet becomes a matter of question, as will my free time, so I don't know how frequently I'll be able to write here. I hope to post something 2-3 times per week, once I get settled, but that might be optimistic while I'm traveling.

See you tomorrow. Out here.

CRC Day Four: Yowza

$4193.70 worth of gear issued me for my trip to Afghanistan. And I thought women over-packed.

It is finally raining here. When I arrived Friday night, at midnight it was 85 degrees with 90% humidity, and it's only gotten worse. The last two days the heat index was 110 with very little wind, making the outside air stuffy like a sealed up attic. In short, it's been downright miserable. But tonight, our first rain shower rolled through. The storm brought a slight temperature drop and a breeze. It was quite a relief.

The slate for today had us finishing up the last of our stack of paperwork (I think - I hope), and getting issued all of our gear from the Central Issuing Facility (CIF). Formation was at 0640, and we loaded the buses again to go to an office building in another section of post. The CRC compound is pretty isolated on Ft. Benning, way out near the firing ranges and tank trails, so anytime we have to go somewhere, it involves about a 20 minute ride. Given the hour, we drove past quite a few units out doing morning physical training (PT). The post I work on, Ft. Leavenworth, isn't home to any military units, so it's always cool for me to see what a "real" Army post is like.

At our stop, we were put through several different stations to get our final paperwork addressed. All of the soldiers and DOD civilians, about 200 people, were going through the process at the same time. Thankfully for the civilians, we had fewer briefings and less paperwork to do, so we were able to start rotating through the stations before the soldiers. This ended up saving us about 2 hours worth of lines. Considering the whole process still took 3 hours, I was very happy with this arrangement.

So what did I get for my 3 hours of bureaucratic navigation? A new ID card, a secure debit card I can use overseas, filled out personal information that will allow friendly forces to verify my identity should I be captured or MIA, emergency contact data completed, and a check mark on a form that said I already had a Will. Stimulating. I'm pretty happy with how my ID picture turned out, though. Sadly the card expires in January, so I only get to keep it for a few months instead of the customary three years. Phooey.

Next came the fun part, as we took a trip to Sam's Club for GIs. I wish I could have taken pictures, but cameras were strongly discouraged inside the facility, and I didn't want to push my luck. CIF was a giant warehouse with racks of gear stretching to the ceiling, and giant bins of gear in the middle. We rotated through 9 different "departments", starting with duffel bags and ending with socks and boots, though soldiers ended with picking up their weapons (9MM for officers and highly ranked enlisted, M16s for everyone else).

In the useful category, I received hot and moderate weather boots, desert camouflage uniforms, t-shirts, hat, winter coat, poncho liner (it's thick enough and large enough to use as a make-shift mattress), my body armor and a kevlar helmet. The body armor is pretty interesting. In total, the Interceptor Body Armor (IBA) is fourteen pieces: vest, front and back chest plates, neck collar, throat protector, underarm shields, shoulder plates, side armor plates, and the side armor plate holders. It weighs 33 lbs. It took me more than an hour to put all the pieces together and get it properly adjusted. Once it all fit together though, I was impressed by how seamless the whole thing was.

I'm really not looking forward to wearing this thing though. Since I'm going to be flying into Afghanistan on a military flight, I'll be required to wear the armor and my helmet on the flight. I'll also have to be humping my duffel bags and backpack, which I'm not even sure is going to be possible. All the protection comes at the cost of mobility, as the IBA is very restrictive. I'm honestly not sure how soldiers are able to fight in this stuff. I'll also have to put on just the vest whenever the security on the base deems the environment dangerous enough. Other than that, it will just sit in my closet.

In the category of completely useless equipment received, I got extreme cold weather boots (that's my third pair of boots if you're counting, all of which I get to keep when I come home), the poncho, and a gas mask. I took the boots cuz they're free boots. I plan to mail them home before I leave. The poncho was a package deal with the poncho liner, so it balances out. The gas mask was required. The chances I'm ever going to wear this thing are extremely slim.



Oh c'mon. It was too cool looking to not put on at least once. But it shouldn't need to come out of its bag again. I promise.

In category of useless equipment refused, there was a canteen/cup combo (I'll have a water bottle), sleeping bag, sleeping mat, and associated sacks (I'll have a cot), cold and wet weather pants (I'm not camping in the woods), shooting gloves (not shooting), safety goggles (again, not shooting), knee and elbow pads for firing from kneeling and prone positions (yet again, not shooting), and an entrenching tool. I hadn't planned to refuse any gear initially, because the items aren't listed by name but by the Line Item Number, or LIN, on the equipment list. Since I didn't know what LIN corresponded with what item, I had just accepted my fate of hauling a bunch of junk I didn't need. Lucky for me, someone I work with returned from Afghanistan the day before I left, and was able to tell me what was what and help me draft a memo of refusal for my colonel to sign. This saved me an entire duffel bag worth of crap. Very, very happy.

Here's what all the stuff looks like after I packed carefully and assembled my body armor. The larger bag weighs about 50 lbs, the smaller about 40 (33 of that the body armor).



My personal gear MIGHT fit in the space of the second bag plus my backpack, meaning I'd only have three pieces of luggage instead of the usual four. I'll have to wait until Thursday to see if this is possible, but I'm optimistic.

*****

As I type this, there's an uproar in the recreation room. A large crowd of people had gathered to watch Game 6 of the NBA Finals, but ABC isn't coming through on the cable here. Every other channel works perfectly fine, while ABC is just a blank screen. Instead we're watching the ESPN ticker for score updates every few minutes. These soldiers are not happy campers.

During our nightly phone call/video conference, Little One got a curious look on her face. Pointing to the other people in the camera's view she asked, "How come there are other people there? I thought you were the only one going?" Her sweet little child understanding of everything is so darn cute.

First formation tomorrow is a 0615. We're scheduled for classroom work all day, doing things like IED identification and first aid training. At the least it will be more interesting than standing in lines all day, but these classes are also supposed to last for 11 hours. Ewww.

See you again tomorrow. Out here.

CRC Day Three: Small world, but no smallpox

Today was medical day for my group. After breakfast, we were supposed to meet for the drive to the health clinic where our medical records would be checked to make sure we had all the proper vaccinations, blood work, hearing tests, eye tests, and physical exam completed. Anything not completed before coming to CRC would be completed on site (for military and DOD civilians at least, contractors get fed to the wolves here.)

After the time for our formation got pushed back, twice, I was lounging around talking with some military guys about where we were deploying to when I found a Lieutenant Colonel going to the same place I am in Kabul. After some more conversation about our home installations and where we were from, we discovered that we had grown up about 10 miles from each other (though at different times) and that his brother was the computer teacher and IT guy at my high school. We ended up eating dinner together and talking about people we both knew and where we're headed for deployment. It was a refreshing shot of home when I'm feeling quite far away.

The second highlight of my day was avoiding getting the small pox vaccine. Small pox has been eradicated "in the wild", so to speak, but the vaccine is still given to military personnel just in case some enemy of ours decides to manufacture it in a lab and use it as a biological weapon. But the vaccine is nasty. Its not given with a traditional needle. It requires, and I quote from the cheat sheet on the wall of the nurses' cubical, "15 jabs", per dose. After the first dose, your skin at the injection site bubbles into a red, itchy blister, and fills with pus. After a few weeks the blister dries, scabs and falls off, leaving a permanent scar. New doses are required every 6 months to 3 years, depending on how many total doses you've had. Each dose has the potential to cause the same reaction. Yuuuuuck!

If you're a soldier deploying, you don't have a choice, you're getting the scabby stuff. Civilians only get the vaccine if they are declared "mission essential" or "emergency essential". Emergency essential means you're medical personnel of some sort. Mission essential means you're more important than I am. I am classified as "key personnel". Thankfully, I was informed of this distinction before coming to CRC, as my designation isn't listed anywhere on my orders. Several of the DOD civilians in my group that are going overseas to run shopettes and kitchens ended up getting the vaccine simply because they didn't know they could refuse it. The medical staff is too busy and too programmed to bother asking if you really need the shots. They stick first and usually don't ask at all. So thank God for good preparation.

I did get shots for tetanus, seasonal flu, and hepatitis A and B, and now my arm hurts. The whole medical process also took long enough that our group missed getting to eat by about 2.5 hours. They did have Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs for us, but having eaten one of those before, I decided I wasn't hungry enough to stoop to that level.

Tomorrow is legal prep and equipment draw. First formation for civilians is at 6:40 AM. The poor contractors get to form up at 5:45. Lucky them.

*****

Today was Daughter Prime's birthday. As a surprise for her , I made my first Skype video call home this morning. My daughter had been very excited about the idea of getting to see me while we talked, and had been disappointed that it hadn't happened yet. I talked to just her this morning before she went to her soccer camp, and then talked to all three of my girls this afternoon. It was nice to be able to see their faces and not just hear their voices. I know I'll have internet access in Afghanistan, but I'm not certain of how fast it's going to be. I really hope its good enough to allow communication home.

Early morning tomorrow for me. Out here.

CRC Day Two: Empty Space

The road between the sets of barracks on the CRC compound. We are frequently told to stay off the tan, sandy-substance, seen here, called "grass", lest we kill it. Must be a Georgia thing.

I think a monkey got a hold of the meeting schedule here.

First formation was at 7 AM this morning. We were to be fitted for our body armor and uniforms. I assumed that all 400 of us would be showing up at the same time, same place, and the early hour was needed in order to make sure we'd all be processed before the next formation. I assumed a somewhat complex set of measurements would be taken, or at least our shirt, pants, and helmet sizes would be recorded. I was wrong.

Instead, all the Department of Defense (DoD) Civilians reported at 7, all 23 of us. (That's right, 23 civilians, total, out of 400 slots. The rest seem to be about evenly split between military and contractors.) The military don't need uniforms and body armor from CRC, as they have it already. The contractors were to report at another time. The "fitting" consisted of a specialist handing us different sizes of body armor and informing him whether or not our belly buttons were covered by the vest. We were then to jot down the proper size on a form he pushed at us, staple a copy of our orders to the form (of course - 14 copies, remember?) and hand them to the secretary. Finished. The entire group took 20 minutes, maybe. I was happy for being done quickly, but annoyed that I had to wake up early for such a brief activity. Maybe it was a fluke, or just always planned this early because they never knew how many people they would have in each group. Whatever. I went and watched two more World Cup games and took a short nap.

Cue second bout of insanity. Meals are served in the Dining Facility (DFAC, pronounced dee-fak) three times a day. Breakfast and dinner are both served for four hours. Lunch is only served for two, from 11 AM to 1 PM. 400 people need to eat in these two hours, so this is by far the busiest point of the day. The staff has seemed very efficient in the two days I've been here so far, but this kind of crush understandably stresses the crew. Lines build up very quickly, both at the serving line and at the dish drop-off, as everyone is trying to get in their meal during the two hour window, and seats are at a premium.

So why, WHY, would you choose to schedule the second formation of the day at 12:30? Now we only have an hour and a half, amplifying all the problems that already existed. Starting to feel less like a fluke. To make it worse, the briefings they bused us to from this second formation took 2.5 hours for about half of the deployers, 3.5 hours for those that hadn't done their POW training. Would it not have been better to schedule this meeting for the morning, give the full two hours for lunch, then do the uniform/body armor fitting in the afternoon? Yes? Can I get a nod from the monkey with the sharpie in his hand?

I think I'm more annoyed by this than I should be. As an Operations Research Systems Analyst (ORSA), optimizing things is part of my job. The last project I worked on modeled an optimal flight schedule for unmanned aircraft. If this place hired TRAC for a week, the CRC schedule could be worked to get people deployed in about two days instead of seven. Grrrr.

So here I sit at 3:30 PM, finished for the day, killing time until dinner and trying not to think too much about home. I had been told not to bring any books as I wouldn't have time to read. This might be true in Afghanistan, but not at CRC, and I am extremely glad I didn't listen to that advice. My laptop, iPod and DS are good entertainment, but all have batteries that need to be charged. There is also an unfortunate tendency for valuables to walk-off around here, so every gadget that needs to be charged also needs to be babysat, even if its in your room. As I type this, all of my electronics are getting their first juice since Friday morning before I left home. By contrast, my trusty paperbacks need no electricity, nor are they tempting targets for theft. So far I've finished one and am halfway through another. I have another five with me. I thought that would be enough to cover me for the week plus travel time, but given all the free time I have here, I'm not as certain any more. I may have to start rationing.

I'll close tonight with a picture for my girls. Daughter Prime and Little One are crazy about bugs, so I know they'll enjoy this. Wallflower is terrified of bugs, just like her mother, even running in tear-streaming terror from a fly on occasion, afraid of being "stung" by it. I hope she'll make an exception for this particular bug because, well, it's pink. Behold, the Rosy Maple Moth. Rawr.



See you next time. Out here.

Welcome to CRC!

Disclaimer: Some of this may get boring. In addition to documenting my experience, I also want to document the process of getting from Kansas City to Afghanistan, and back, so that those following behind me may be enlightened and have an easier trip because of it. In order to do this, I will likely capture details which you, the reader, care nothing about. My apologies.

Well, I'm here. The horrific trauma of saying goodbye to my family at the airport is over, and the aftermath wasn't as gruesome as I thought it would be. Daughter Prime took it the hardest. She remembers very clearly me being gone for 3.5 months when I first got this job, and realizes that this absence will be longer and harder. Her birthday is also on Monday, just 3 days after I left, making her experience all the more difficult. My Wallflower took it the best, or at least put on the bravest face. Her personality is such that when her mask starts to crack, a cataclysmic emotional event is going to follow soon after. I'm hoping this happens later, rather than sooner, as she will be difficult to piece back together. Little One is too, well, little, to understand what's really going on. My wife reported to me that upon arriving back at our house and seeing my car in the driveway, she asked if I was home already. Sigh. Things like that make me cry. I'm hoping that using the video chat feature of Skype will make the separation easier, but this is still going to be one of the most difficult things I've ever done.

Enough about that depressing subject. On to what's keeping me busy.

My trip was, unfortunately, eventful. We weren't quite to cruising altitude from Kansas City to Atlanta when the older gentleman in front of me vomited explosively all over himself and the seat in front of him. The flight from Atlanta to Columbus was delayed an hour due to maintenance. Then the bus from the airport to Ft. Benning ran late because several people on my flight also headed to CRC had one or more bags lost. The airline even lost one poor soldier's rifle that she had checked. Not a good situation.

After all the delays, and one side stop, the bus finally got to the CRC compound around 11:30 PM. A line of nearly an hour to sign in for rooms, beds, and sheets pushed my bed time until nearly 1 AM by the time it was said and done. A very talkative contractor standing behind me in the line used our wait time to scare the crap out of me with stories about himself and other people he knew getting turned away by this course for multiple weeks, leaving their leave date in limbo. I ended up tossing and turning all night long, looking at the clock too many times to count. Heavily emphasized piece of advice: when traveling to CRC, leave as early as you can bear on Friday.

But in the end, I'm here, I have all my stuff, and I got a slot in the class (woo hoo!). During check-in, we were directed to show up for sign in at 9 AM this morning, and to bring all of our paperwork with us. Naturally, that meant people started lining up at 7 AM in an effort to be first.

I should explain about the CRC process for a minute. In order to attend this class, which is required for deployment overseas for all military, civilians and contractors not deploying as part of a larger unit, you're supposed to make a reservation. Reservations are hard to get. Only 400 people are allowed into each class each week, and a whole lot more want/need to take it. Now, in theory, this reservation guarantees you a slot. In practice, the school overbooks each and every class, and many more people show up unannounced hoping to make the stand-by list. Thus, waiting in line for a CRC slot felt much more like trying to buy floor seats for a Miley Cyrus concert than it felt like the first step towards Afghanistan. The picture at the top of this entry is what the huddled masses looked like this morning.

I want to point out that these are only the people that were standing in line precisely at 9 AM on Saturday. Technically check-in for the class is supposed to take place all day long, but the demand is such that if you aren't here PRECISELY WHEN IT STARTS, you're probably out of luck. All the people with reservations that thought they could fly in on Saturday are now waiting until next week to try again.

After sign-in, there was a brief respite before being walloped with briefings and paperwork. The FAQ on CRC's website says to bring 14 copies of your orders, and they aren't joking in the slightest. Almost every piece of paper they push at you ends up being accompanied by a copy of your orders. The redundancy results in carrying around something akin to this:


Mercifully, after the 8th (literally) briefing about CRC procedures, safety, paperwork guidance, and the mandatory daily shower (I kid you not), I was finished for the day. I used my free afternoon to watch a delightfully entertaining US vs England World Cup match, and type up this post. Next is dinner, (mandatory) shower, family phone time, and early to bed. The lack of sleep is beginning to make my eyes droop.

Tomorrow looks to be fairly tame as well. First formation is at 7 AM to get sized for uniforms and body armor, then some other briefings on who-knows-what, before another free afternoon. I'll be back then with the wrap-up of Day 2.

Until then. Out here.

Travel Day

Well, this is it. My flight leaves in ~7 hours. The last thing I have to pack is the computer I'm typing on. My family is still asleep, so I'm trying to get this in before they wake up, so that I'm not losing time with them while I'm typing.

My itinerary looks like this: today I leave Kansas City to fly to Atlanta, GA, and then take a puddle jumper to Columbus, GA. From there I catch a bus to Ft. Benning, for a week at the CONUS Replacement Center (CONUS means Continental United States). I'll be there for a week doing training, checking over all of my paperwork, and drawing equipment. Next Friday, I'll (hopefully) catch a plane from Ft. Benning to either Ireland or Germany, and then onto Kuwait. After that, the time table gets chucked out the window.

From Kuwait, I need to fly on to Bagram Airforce Base, about an hour north of Kabul, my ultimate destination. In order to get to Bagram, I have to sign up for space on a tactical aircraft, either a C-17 or a C-130, depending what's on the runway when they call my name. However, since I'm a civilian, and an unimportant one at that, I'm low man on the totem pole for a slot. Role call for each plane is approximately every 8 hours. If I'm at role call and they call my name, great, I get to leave. If I'm there and they don't call my name, they'll tell me when to be there next. If I'm not there and they call my name, I get to start over again. Moral of the story: be there for every single one.

Of course, that's easier said than done. While in Kuwait, I can choose to sleep in the terminal, in what has been described to me as "big, nasty, black chairs" or get a bed. The beds are in transient tents, which thankfully are air conditioned, but still a tent. They are also about half a mile away from the terminal, and I'll be carrying about 150 lbs of gear. Oh, did I mention that Kuwait is a giant desert, and that it will be 130 degrees Fahrenheit outside? Yeah...fantastic.

The short version of Kuwait is that I could be there anywhere from 9 hours (my predecessor's time spent) to a week waiting for a flight, getting sleep only between the role calls for the plane.

Once I get get out of Kuwait to Bagram, I get to start a similar process, but with more travel options and more frequent flights. Hopefully this process will be a little less hairy, as by now I'm sure my brain will be short circuiting from lack of sleep and frustration with military/government procedures. If anything, I'll know I'm only one short flight, or a two hour convoy trip from my final destination, Camp Eggers, Kabul, Afghanistan.

*****

I had told my girls that I would take each of them out on a "Daddy Date" before I left, so that they could each have one on one time with me. My Wall Flower knew exactly what she wanted to do: "Penguin Park and Pizza Hut!" Little One quickly adopted that as her own plan, though she went for a little more sophistication in the choice of cuisine: "McDonalds!" Of course Wall Flower couldn't do something that someone else was going to do, so after some arguing with her sister, she changed her mind to a different local park, which was enough to end the conflict. Thankfully, that was the end of the copy cat syndrome.

Daughter Prime took a little more time to decide, introspective as she is. First she took a simple approach, deciding to just stay home and watch Star Wars with me. Her final decision was to go see a movie in theatres (How to Train Your Dragon) and play a video game on the computer with me (World of Warcraft - she's level 21).

I had feared that as my week of vacation before I left went on that each thing we did would actually FEEL like the last time, and that the week would feel more like a funeral than a goodbye. But it didn't turn out that way. All the girls were grateful for the individual attention, and though they've acknowledged that I'm going to be gone soon, they've been handling it remarkably well.

The last thing I made sure to do with them before I left was to make bed time the last couple of nights special. They have all sorts of little things they like me to do with them, and usually I make them only pick one or two, else bedtime become a Broadway production. But the last few nights, I did every thing they asked me to do. Bedtime stories and snuggles and lullabies and all sorts of other things. After they were asleep, I checked in on them before I went to bed myself. Sleeping soundly (one of them even snoring), I hoped that they would handle my deployment as well as they were handling my departure. I kissed their foreheads, joined my wife in bed, and tried to enjoy my last evening at home.

I think this is going to be harder than I thought.

The Skinny

I get a lot of quizzical looks when I answer the question "What do you do for a living?"

I work for the Army, but I'm not a soldier. No, I'm not a contractor either. I'm a government civilian. No, I'm not making this up.

It only gets worse when I try and explain my job. I rarely say I work in Operations Research, because hardly anyone knows what it is. I don't blame them. I didn't know what it was until I applied for a job in the field. Usually I just end up saying that I do "math stuff". The people who hate math are happy to nod, smile, and move on.

For those still curious, I elaborate. I work for the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Analysis Center, aka TRAC, at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. My job consists of statistics, optimization math, and wargame simulations, or what we call combat modeling. We apply these techniques, and many, many others, to all sorts of problems the Army decides it needs investigated. Currently TRAC is studying what vehicle will be commissioned to replace the Humvee, the number and type of UAVs the Army needs to operate optimally, and the cost-effectiveness of a new type of ground attack missile. We aren't the experts on any of these systems. Rather we go find the experts, coordinate meeting with them to pick their brains, analyze the data we receive from these meetings, and report our findings to decision makers at all levels of Army leadership, up to and including the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Chief of Staff of the Army.

That sounds grandiose. In reality, it's usually pretty tame, though interesting work.

That's what I do for my day job. When I get asked about what I'll be doing in Afghanistan, I answer that I'll be doing the same work, just for different people. The truth is, I really don't have any idea.

I know who I'll be working for: the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, or CSTC-A (pronounced See-Stick-Ah - the military has funny sounding acronyms for everything.) It is the sister organization of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, NTM-A. CSTC-A concerns itself with the training and equiping of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and the various flavors of the Afghan National Police (ANP). In the past, people in my soon-to-be position have studied things such as the optimal police training class size, minimum literacy level required for new recruits, and the best way to mobilize and equip new ANA units. Often the questions are being asked are not hard to answer, but finding the data needed to get GOOD answers is extremely difficult.

While I know the work I'll be doing will be the same flavor, the immediacy of the work and the pace of operations are such that I won't know exactly what I'm working on until I get there. Everything is needed yesterday. What I am assigned today my be examined tomorrow for 10 minutes by my boss before being briefed to a two star general. Projects are short and plenty, with very little downtime.

The quick pace and immediate impact of the work is a large part of why I volunteered for this assignment. The work I do for TRAC is interesting, but often the impact of these studies won't be felt for 5-7 years. The projects I'll be assigned at CSTC-A will often have results that are felt within weeks, if not days. This will be the dirtiest my hands can get in my current profession.

There are other reasons for volunteering as well. The quick pace of the work leads to long hours, often 80+ per week. In my six month rotation, I will gain a year of experience. That does good things for the career, and looks good on a resume. Long hours while in a combat zone and away from my family also translates into LOTS of money. And while that wasn't the reason I decided to sign up, it certainly was a factor in my wife and kids allowing me to go. I also wanted to get a better feel for the soldier. My prime customer in all the work I do is someone I get to spend very little time with. For the next six months, I will be surrounded by soldiers, able to soak up the culture and mindset of the military in a way not possible in Leavenworth. I'll also be dealing with being separated from my family, an all-too-common occurrence for our uniformed forces in the current conflicts. It is my hope that being in this environment will help make me a better analyst through an improved understanding of our armed forces.

So there it is, the what and the why of my deployment. I'll be back soon with words on the process and the timeline.

Thanks for reading. Out here.

You're going WHERE?

It was a Tuesday. Outside it was mid March in the Midwest, cool and sunny. Inside I cracked open a bottle of Pepsi in an attempt to wash way the still-there remnants of Monday-morning rust. It looked to be the start of another typical day in the land of government desk jobs.

My bosses' voice lofted over the wall, bracketing my attention. "K.C. I need to talk to you. In my office."

Hmmm. This was unusual. "OK, Mike." I removed my ID card from my computer, locking my screen against possible security violations, and took a long walk down the short hallway to the white-doored office. I wondered to myself, "What could he want that he needed to see me in his office for? Did I screw something up?" I knocked on the door frame and stepped inside.

"Go ahead and close the door, then take a seat."

A claxxon sounded in my ears. Any hope I had for this being a simple conversation was quickly vanishing. I followed his instructions and braced for impact.

"It seems that the guy we had slotted to deploy to Afghanistan from Ft. Lee has backed out. Something about not being able to find a dog sitter for a couple weeks of his proposed tour." I gave Mike a quizzical look at this. He rolled his eyes, nodded his head, and continued. "Leadership wants to know if you're still interested in going to Afghanistan this summer, and they need to know soon. The tour will be from July to January. That something you're still wanting to do?"

I gulped, completely taken off guard, and tried to stifle the huge grin breaking out across my face. Little more than a week ago I had been told that all the deployment opportunities had been filled for the next 18 months. I took a minute to re-orient myself to the world that was now upside down. "Ummm...yeah, I'm still interested," I croaked. "How soon do you need to know by?"

"Tomorrow," Mike said. "Go talk it over with your wife and let me know what you decide." I nodded assent and he turned to his computer, signaling an end to the exchange.

Right. My wife. She had agreed to let me volunteer, but I wasn't certain she would let me go through with it. I still get reminded time to time of how I made her a single mom during my 14 weeks of initial training for this job. I rose from the chair and left the office, wondering to myself how to broach the subject.

*****

That night my daughter had a soccer game. As we sat on the sideline watching 4 year olds play herd ball, my wife, Amanda, and I discussed the pros and cons. The money and experience would be great. The time away from the family would not. I'd be missing two birthday's for my kids, my mom's 60th birthday, my parent's 40th wedding anniversary, the first day of kindergarten, the first day of pre-school, Thanksgiving and Christmas, my own wedding anniversary, and possibly New Year's.

I asked Amanda, "Do you think you can do it? I don't want to go if you don't think you can make it." There was a long pause. Then slowly, eyes wet, she nodded.

After the game, we took the soccer player and her sisters out to eat. We ran into an old teacher of mine at the door who was also waiting for a table. He seemed like he wanted to sit with us so we could talk more, but we didn't invite him as I didn't want an audience when I made my kids cry. I hoped I didn't come off as rude.

After the pizza came, I told my girls that I'd be leaving in a few months, and wouldn't be back until next year. "Will it be like when you went to Virginia?", my Little One asked. I nodded, and added "But I'll be further away this time, and be gone for longer."

"How much longer", they asked? More than double. 6 months. And then they started to cry.

I had prepared myself for this, as it was inevitable, but it still wasn't easy. I comforted them, told them that it would still be a while before I leave, and that we have lots of time to have fun before then. I promised we'd get to go to the park and a baseball game, and several other activities the kids were concerned about. Still they cried. That's when I pulled out the secret weapon of all parents: bribery.

"You know girls, I'll probably make enough extra money that when we get back we can go to Disney World." The tears took a break, sniffles filling the space. "Really?" asked my oldest, Daughter Prime. I nodded. She considered this for a second, and started to smile. Exhibiting her ornery side, she asked, "Can you leave tomorrow?" I could only shake my head and laugh.

*****

So began my journey to Afghanistan. My hope for this blog is to capture the process of deployment and a picture of the war from a civilian perspective, to develop a good source of information for civilians that will be deploying in my footsteps, and to give my family and friends a way to keep up with me while I live on the far side of the world. Hopefully I can update a few times per week from now until the end of my deployment period in December, though I'll be posting more frequently in the near-term, as I'm playing catch up for the last few months. If there's anything you want me to talk about, let me know in the comments and I'll try and cover it for you. Topics coming up in the next few posts include more info about myself, who I work for, what I'll be doing, and the process of getting there.

Until next time. Out here.