General Impressions, Part Deux

When I wrote this article a couple months back, I thought I was going to be briefing the NTM-A commander in a few days.  As it happened, that chance never materialized.  The work morphed, a different organization took the lead, and I ended up only in a supporting role.  I was pretty bummed that I didn't get to follow through with the briefing, especially since chances to brief leadership at that level don't come along everyday.

 

Well, today I got my second chance. 

 

Lieutenant General (LTG) William B. Caldwell IV is the NTM-A / CSTC-A commander, and has been since November 2009.  The rank of Lieutenant General is signified by three stars, and surpassed only by the rank of General (just General, no qualifiers), which has four stars*.  In the U.S. Army, there exist somewhere around 50 three star generals for the entire force of 548,000 soldiers.  In Afghanistan, there are only four: General Petraeus' deputy commander, Petraeus' Chief of Staff (both foreign officers, one French, one British), the Commander of the ISAF Joint Command (COM IJC, LTG David Rodriguez) who controls how Afghan and Coalition forces are employed in the field, and COM NTM-A, LTG Caldwell. 

 

*Ok, so technically I'm ignoring the ultra-rare, five star rank called General of the Army/Navy/Air Force.  In the history of the U.S. military only nine people have attained the five star rank, so I think I'm safe.

 

During "normal" war time operations (force on force battles), a three star general would command a force element called a Corps, made up of several divisions, totaling 20,000-40,000 personnel.  Here in Afghanistan, LTG Caldwell has total command over the recruiting, training and assignment infrastructure of the Afghan National Army and Police.  He is entirely responsible for building the Afghan security forces to the point where they can take care of their own country.  He commands a budget of around $12 billion.  Yes, with a "B" - billion.  And as the ORSA cell for the NTM-A command, he depends heavily on our shop to provide analysis to his constituent organizations in order to facilitate decisions.  As you can imagine, briefing LTG Caldwell is kind of a big deal. 

 

Usually we don't get to do much of the briefing to the commander, as we are in a supporting role to the subject matter experts instead of in the lead.  But, in this case, the organization we were supporting felt more comfortable having us brief the results than having us teach them how.  It was good for us, as it reinforces to the commander our importance in the scheme of things, and will (hopefully) make him more likely to question "analysis" that didn't come from our shop.  Of course, to make that impression, we had to actually do well on the brief.  Cue preparation.

 

The briefing we were to be a part of is a monthly "deep dive".  The commander tells the two star general in charge of the Afghan Police, Deputy Commander - Police (DCOM-P), what topics he wants to cover for the month and we drill into it as deep as we can in two hours.  This month we were talking about how many training centers we will need to sustain the police force after we finish growing, and how we can grow two types of police more efficiently to better secure the country.  The first was fairly technical, and was briefed by one of my co-workers.  The second is somewhat contentious between the trainers and the operators, and briefed by myself*.  Neither topic was going to be easy to cover, so we had a meeting with the general every single night this week to cover the slides and the presentation.  This is highly unusual.  A two star general has a lot of things to do.  Meeting with his staff every evening for an entire week for the same topic was a very visible testament to how important he considered this Deep Dive briefing to be.  By the time the brief rolled around this morning, I think I could recite my slides and my briefing notes in my sleep.  

 

*Neither of these topics were classified, but I would consider them sensitive, so I can't go into a ton of detail.  Vague references is the best you get.  Sorry.

 

Personally, I was hoping for my first briefing to COM NTM-A to be a smaller affair with only a few people present.  Say, 10-12.  Sadly, it was not to be.  The Deep Dive is a well attended event, but this one more so than usual, as several outside organizations were coming, as well as representatives from the Afghan Ministry of the Interior.  Even knowing the place was going to be packed, I was unprepared for what I walked into.  Holy sardine can, Batman!  I counted 65 people in a room designed for 30.  Three people were sitting on the floor.  One was standing in a corner.  The aisle to the "spectator" seats was blocked by another row of chairs.  I was thankful that as one of the briefers, I had a choice seat with my name on it along a side wall and a slide packet stapled and waiting for me.  I'd been to these things before and had to fight for a spot, but not today. 

Generals from the Afghan Police, IJC, and EUPOL were special guests at the table, along with all of the other generals from NTM-A.  Total, there were five one star generals, four two stars, and the three star.  I have no idea how many colonels and other ranks were in the room, but as I have grown accustomed to, I was definitely the most junior, both in "rank" and age.  I was definitely a bit nervous due to all the brass, and very thankful I was briefing second.

When my time came to brief, I was expecting it to be rocky.  As I said earlier, my topic was somewhat contentious, as those responsible for operating the force and those responsible for training the force don't always see eye to eye on those topics.  IJC, the operators, were requesting specific items from NTM-A, the trainers, and my analysis showed what we were doing to accommodate them.  I was worried that the two star general from IJC in attendance at the meeting would object to something I was briefing, but he was very agreeable to the information I was providing, and LTG Caldwell was very pleased with the presentation.  He even gave me a thumbs up and a "You're right on track" when I told him our first course of action was clearly not going to satisfy IJC's request.  Through 40 minutes (for only 10 Power Point slides) of discussion with the staff, we came up with some very reasonable ideas on how to tackle the issue.  We've got a lot of work to do, and, as always, not very much time to do it in, but nothing that is impossible.  As I sat down and the next briefer took over, I received an appreciative nod from the commander.  I figured that meant I did ok.

After the brief, my suspicions appeared to be confirmed, as LTG Caldwell's Chief of Staff congratulated me on briefing a difficult topic so well, and several senior NTM-A leaders that had never spoken to me before echoed his sentiments.  Not that I was expecting to fail or anything, but things went far better than I had imagined them going.  I was grateful for the preparation time, and for the tips those with experience briefing these kinds of audiences had given me.  I'm not sure I'll get this chance again, and really wasn't sure I wanted to have it in the first place, but having suffered through it, I'm glad I did.  The experience of briefing a commander in a combat zone is unique, and can't be gained just anywhere.  The lessons learned will be invaluable in future briefings as I move on in my ORSA career.  One more reason to be glad I came to Afghanistan.

That's it for now.  Out here.

Fast Friends

The whole gang at the office.  Front to back: Steve, Heather, John, and Anonymous.

 

My worst nightmare about coming to Afghanistan was getting in over my head on an analysis project.  I was afraid that there would be some technique that I would need to execute, and have no idea how to do it.  While I was getting ready to come over here, listening to my predecessor talk about the projects he'd worked on scared me a bit, as it sounded way over my head.  I wasn't sure I could handle it.  Thankfully, the things I needed to learn I learned, and I had people to ask about the things I needed help with.  So far, I haven't fallen flat on my face, and my support structure here won't allow it.

 

A close second to this was my fear that I would get stuck in an office with a bunch of people that I hated.  Our office is very small, maybe 10 feet long by 25 feet wide, and we fit 5 people into it.  We're stuck in here together between 12 and 14 hours a day.  Sharing that much time, in this small a space, for six months, would be absolutely horrible if I didn't get along with my office mates.  Instead I've found the complete opposite.  Each of my four co-workers are people that I would be willing to hang out with back home.  Instead of driving me crazy, my co-workers help keep me sane.  

 

The first person I met here was Heather.  Heather deployed to Camp Eggers the week before I did, and we'll end up leaving about the same time.  During the first few weeks here, Heather and I stuck together, mostly to ourselves, as the people we worked with at the time weren't all that social.  But slowly, each of those people were replaced by new blood, and we drug each new guy into our circle.  Our wolf pack was two, and has grown to five.

 

Heather is a bit camera shy, so I have to ambush her.

 

Heather has definitely become the little sister of the group.  We pick on her pretty mercilessly, although in good fun.  She's good-natured enough to take the teasing, practical jokes, and incessant girlish giggling at her expense.  She's also feisty enough to keep us from getting out of line, and dishes out her own brand of humiliation.  She has a hilarious habit of leaving half-empty water bottles everywhere she goes, like the little girl in the movie Signs.  She's addicted to Pixie Sticks.  We militantly protect her from idiots asking for analysis to be done at midnight for a brief the next morning, as she has a tendency to take on any problem she encounters.  We all love her to death.

 

John is the quiet one, and the last of us to arrive in Afghanistan.  He likes to work by himself, and needs quiet time in the office a couple times a day to get stuff done.  But when he's not focused on work, he's just as fun-loving as the rest of us.  John developed "TAITh": Thank Allah It's Thursday (Friday is our sleep-in day, no work til 1300).  He can usually be counted on for a devestating one-liner when it is least expected.  He's a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, but hey, we all have our flaws, right?

 

Steve is the honorary ORSA of the group, and the only one of us here for a year.  His first circle of friends all redeployed back to the States at the same time we were showing up, so we laid claim to him before he could fall in with the wrong crowd.  Steve is definitely the crack-up of the group, which is saying something around these jokers.  He's the only one that knows what I'm talking about when I start a conversation on video games or computers.  He likes to try and do every single weightlifting exercise possible in one work out.  He has the nearly unforgiveable character flaw of being a far-weather Yankees fan, meaning he's not even aware the baseball season has started until the Yankees are in the playoffs.  This October could put a strain on our relationship.

 

 This is what Steve looks like when he discovers the praline ice cream is all gone.

 

The last member of our group is an enigma, wrapped in a conundrum, and fried in bacon.  His past military experience has left him paranoid of any evidence of his existence being present on the internet.  As such, I shall simply call him the Anonymous Analyst. 

 

AA is an aloof individual.  Goofy is his natural state of being.  Dead pan delivery of subtle sarcasm is his specialty, causing lots of headscratching and strange looks amongst those who have just met him.  This guy is the primary instigator of all practical jokes in the office, and the first person held accountable in the absence of a claim of responsibility.  As such, he is often targetted for retaliation, both real and imagined.  Remember I said he was paranoid?  Just a cryptic mention that he might be missing something important will cause hours of entertainment as he searches for whatever it is you "hid".  It takes much longer to convince him you were kidding than it does to spin him up in the first place.

 

AA is best friends with the staff at the dining facilites, specifically so they will slip him the best and/or biggest piece of whatever kind of meat they are serving that evening.  It is not unusual for his meals to consist of four or five types of meat, with a side of cantalope to make himself feel better.  He claims he's in his "bulking phase" of weightlifting, and he needs all the protein to refine his physique.  We know better.  We nicknamed him Meatasaurus, and bought him a can of Spam for his birthday.  Surveying his desk right now, I don't see said Spam anywhere in sight.  I assume he ate it.

 

Our little group spends tons of time together, and not just in the office.  Lunch and dinner each day are a group event, barring interference from meetings and AA's impatient, spine-gnawing, meat-craving hunger pangs.  Me and the guys go lift weights 6 days a week while Heather does CrossFit at the same time outside the gym.  Thursday night is cigar night, followed by a movie.  (In actuality, any night we don't have to work past 8:30 has the potential to become movie night, but we're particularly protective of Thursday.)  We play video games together in John and Steve's room, and sneak away for coffee and conversation at the Green Bean (the combat-zone version of Starbucks) whenever we're able. 

The aforementioned practical jokes are a daily staple.  Here's a sampling of some of the fun we've had so far:

 

- Changed e-mail signature blocks to include creative nicknames on all e-mail traffic, including messages to general officers.

 

- Slowly added half-empty water bottles to Heather's desk, and convincing her each time that she had left them there herself.  This only worked because she has, on average, 7 open bottles of water on her desk at any given time.  She caught on after the total crept north of 20.

 

- Sent numerous e-mails from our supervisor's computer to a member of our group when he leaves his computer unlocked.  Usually the message directs the recipent to perform some terribly redundant/useless/tedious task immediately.  The joke is only revealed after the task has been partially completed.

 

- Rigged a cigar with a wire so that the ash would never fall off.  Through carfeul power of suggestion, guided the deputy of our department (and founder of cigar night) to choose that cigar to smoke.  During our contest to see who could keep the ash on their cigar the longest, we "discovered" the clueless deputy was "cheating" after four and a half inches of ash refused to sucumb to gravity.  He knows he was set up, but he doesn't know by whom. 

 

- Unplugged Heather's mouse from her computer, but left mouse and cord in place, so it looked like nothing was remiss.  Giggled under our breath while she restarted her computer four times in an effort to fix the problem.

 

- Swapped locations of adjacent keys on Heather's keyboard.  While her typing was unaffected (she doesn't look at the keyboard), copying and pasting and other shortcuts were reversed.  She couldn't believe she kept messing up the keystrokes.  It took her 10 minutes to realize that we were to blame.

 

I conceed that some of these are lame.  However, what is lame back home is hilarious while deployed.  The same concept applies to movies.  Trash that I wouldn't watch even if someone paid me back home is a decent distraction over here.  Anything you can do to forget that you're thousands of miles from home and could be shot at at any moment is welcome.  Even if it's lame.

 

Our bosses are pretty awesome, too.   The lieutenant colonel directly in charge of the analysts gave a good belly laugh when I turned in my weekly project report in haiku.  The department deputy organized cigar night, and joins us for movie night more often than not.  Our O-6 watches football with us, as long as we don't disparage his Eagles.  Break that rule at your own peril.

 

Overall, I really don't think I could ask for a better work environment.  Obviously I'd rather be at home with my family, but my deployed family keeps me company.  Without them to distract me from my longing for home, and pick me up after a hard day at the office, my deployment would plain suck.  I'm very thankful for the friends I've found.  I just wish I didn't have to go half way around the world to find them.

That's all for now.  Out here.

Halfway there

All signs point to the end of my time in Afghanistan drawing closer and closer.  Fall has arrived, officially.  The air is getting cooler, the pomegranates are ripe, and the grapes have been harvested.  Snow is beginning to cap the mountains that loom over the city.  The last batch of my office mates to go on R&R have just returned.  And I now have less time remaining than I have accumulated.  Though the days are still going by quickly, in truth, they can't go by quickly enough.  Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying this assignment.  The work I do here is extremely satisfying, and my co-workers keep me sane through the long hours.  But I can only stand being half a world away from home for so long. 

 

In celebration of my halfway mark, I'm looking forward to the end.  Here are some things I can't wait to get home to, and some things I can't wait to leave behind.  Some are big, some are small, some are obvious, but none of them can come soon enough.

 

Things I'm looking forward to at home:

 

- My wife.  Going to bed alone every night sucks.  Being limited to 10-15 minute conversations over the phone every day sucks.  Throwing up for two days without anyone there to take care of you sucks. 

 

- My kids.  My three little girls are growing fast, and I'm missing a lot of milestones while I'm over here.  First day of kindergarten, first day of pre-school, first gymnastics meet, first soccer goal scored.  I'm hopeful that I'll be home before Christmas to spend part of the holiday season with them and catch up on all I've missed. 

 

- Normal work hours.  The fewest hours I've worked in a two week pay period while deployed has been 156, and that included the first days I was on camp and was allowed to sleep off my jet lag.  This pay period is going to be close to 170 hours.  I get paid overtime, so the money is great, but stringing together 80+ hour weeks for 26 straight weeks is brutal.  Thankfully, I get a weekend to recharge...

 

- Weekends.  About those.  The weekend here lasts from end of work Thursday evening (whatever time that may end up being) to 1 PM Friday afternoon.  I sleep through most of it in order to recharge my batteries from 12-14 hour days.  Time to myself that doesn't come at the expense of sleep would be awesome.

 

- Fast, unfiltered, cheap internet.  The internet at work is approaching fast, but most sites are blocked, so no surfing even after work is done.  The internet you can pay for (at $100 a month) is unfiltered, but it can take a minute for a site to load, and several hours for videos on YouTube.  Don't even think about trying to download games or movies or music.  Skype video freezes up and becomes unuseable within 5 minutes.  Yes, I am aware I am complaining about having crappy internet in the middle of a combat zone.  I am glad that it exists, and it is better than nothing.  But I want my cable internet back.

 

- A good storm.  Unfortunately I'm going to miss all the fun, noisy, summer storms, but at this point I'd take snow just the same.  The weather here is BORING.  Cloudless and sunny 95% of the time.  I want some overcast, rainy, mellow days to break up the monotony.  My home in the Midwest has plenty in supply.  Here, not so much.

 

 

Things I look forward to leaving behind:

 

- That Afghanistan smell.  Dirt.  Sewage.  Hash smoke.  Dead flies rotting in the fly traps.  I border on vomiting from the stench a few times a week on average.  Will.  Not.  Miss.

 

- The air.  The air quality here sucks.  Kabul sits in a bowl, much like L.A.  All the smoke produced by the locals burning things is trapped, contributing to the problem.  I've heard it gets worse in the winter, as people will burn anything they can get their hands on in order to keep warm.  On top of that, an air quality study done here shortly after I arrived found that 17% of the particulate in the air was human feces.  Yummy.  The one time I went for a run outside, I got sick the next day, and I'm convinced it was from sucking down the dirty air in large quanities. 

 

- Dirty looks when I use my camera.  People are super paranoid about cameras here.  It's either someone that believes taking pictures of the cats at the DFAC is a violation of operational security, or shows obvious disdain because photography lowers me to "tourist" status.  I had one Army sergeant make fun of me because I went through a lot of effort to get pictures of the Secretary of Defense when he visited a few weeks ago.  I know what I'm not allowed to take pictures of, and I don't point the lens in that direction.  The people that try and control me beyond that are extremly irritating.

 

- Football games at midnight.  I like the NFL, but I just can't stay up that late to watch the games.  We do get to see some of the replayed at more sane hours of the day, but most of the fun is taken out of it when you already know the final score.

 

- Guys with guns guarding where I sleep.  I am thankful they are there to protect me, but I will be happier when I am sleeping in a place where the protection is not required. 

 

- Politics.  I'm tired of my analysis being used as a weapon to further someone's agenda.  Analysis should be objective, and speak the truth, not subjective and speak the catch phrase of the week. 

 

 

I could probably come up with a lot more, but those are the highlights.  I am thankful that I am on the downhill slide to seeing these things come to pass.  The thought of home is staving off burn out from the long hours.  I am hoping hard that that continues.

 

Happy Autumn everyone.  Out here.

Patriot Day

 

 

The day was cool, but the sun was warm, making my shoulders itch under my uniform.  I stood at parade rest, an uncomfortable position of half-attention with my hands clasped at the waist behind my back.  On my right was a small table with two oil lamps and a notebook filled with with names of those who have been killed in action the past nine years.  On my left hung an American flag, on which were written the names of all emergency personnel killed when the Twin Towers fell.  On the other side of the flag plaza hung a similar flag, with the names of the people killed at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and United 93.  In between were myself and my office mates, paying our respects to the victims of the attacks on 9/11 and all those that have fallen defending us from a repeat performance.  Standing guard over the memorial, we honored their memory, and paused to reflect on the road we've traveled through the aftermath.

 

As I stood immobile, my thoughts wandered across the topic at hand.  11 September 2001 I was sitting in my high school psychology class, watching the world change along with everyone else.  Outside the window planes headed to various destinations around the country were ordered to land, leaving racetrack contrails in the sky.  Not once did I imagine that the events of that day would draw me, nine years later, to Afghanistan, fighting the same fight that started that day in New York.  My stream of consciousness wandered the path I'd walked from that day to this one.  I thought about all the actions taken in the name of defending America from further terrorist actions.  I wondered if the people who's names were printed on the flags I was honoring would approve of what we've done in their names, what we continue to do. 

 

Nine years of war.  Nine years.  My children do not know America in peace.  My entire adult life has played out under the spectre of conflict.  The length speaks to the immensity of the task, but also to all the mis-steps we've made. 

 

No one - no one - expected American troops to be in the same theatre of war for nearly a decade.  If someone predicted nearly a decade of combat lay ahead of us on September 12th, they would have been ridiculed.  Mocked.  Because it would have been ridiculous.  The military machine was powering into high gear, and we were told the conflict would be mere months, even weeks, of American troops steam rolling the mountains of Afghanistan flat, crushing the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Osama in their wake.  Iraq was immaterial.  The enemy had painted concentric circles on Afghanistan, and the U.S. was warming up for target practice.  We were not likely to miss.

 

Unsurprisingly, the resistance was quickly crushed.  But what we didn't know until too late was that we didn't crush them effectively enough.  Distracted by our own success and playing second fiddle to the "real" shooting war in Iraq, we allowed our enemy to slink away, bloody but unbowed, struck down but not destroyed.  We squandered the time we had to make sure there was no way for them to crawl back to their former stronghold.  And here, nine years later, we're paying for letting them off the mat daily with lives of soldiers both U.S. and Coalition.  We're paying for our failure to secure the country then with added years of conflict, money and responsibility.  And nine years later, we find ourselves in a position to ask, "Is this worth it?"  On 11 September 2001, no one could have imagined that this question could be anything but rhetorical.  How do we answer it now?

 

I mused about what I would tell my children about this day and it's consequences when they were old enough to grasp it's magnitude.  How will I explain hate and terrorism, pre-emptive strikes and IEDs, asymmetric warfare and little white headstones, when I don't fully understand them myself?  Can I adequately word the confusion, and subsequent nausea, felt throughout America as the realization that two planes striking two towers in less than 20 minutes could not possibly be an accident?  How can I explain the enormous courage displayed as the FDNY rushed into a building doomed to die, when every natural human instinct was to run away?  How do I convey the black grief in the sound of 343 emergency beacons chirping in unison, their owners buried under falling rubble, never to rise from the street?  Is it possible to transmit the pure hatred towards our government and their actions circa 2005 to someone that didn't experience it themselves?

 

My relief stepped lightly up the marble steps and stood in front of me.  He spoke quietly.  "I stand ready to relieve you."  I replied, "I stand relieved."  In normal circumstances, the soldier would have rendered salute, but being a civilian and unable to return the courtesy, he did not extend it, instead exchanging curt nods of acknowledgment.  I stepped aside and he took my place, folding one hand behind his back, the other holding the barrel of his rifle skyward, the stock balanced on the ground.  Down the steps for a group photo, and then back to the office, and working towards bringing us home sooner than later.

 

And as I stepped away from the flag plaza, I wondered, where will my steps take me from here?

 

Wow is too small a word.  Courtesy of reddit.com.

/salute

 

Out here.

Black Magic

Math is hard for most people. It's confusing and requires different thought patterns that have to be cultivated. Starting with addition and moving up the ladder of operations and subjects, most people start to get a brain cramp around algebra, glaze over at geometry, and stop paying attention at trigonometry. This isn't any different in the military. The percentage of people who are capable with math is higher than the normal population (among the officers that is, no data on the enlisted ranks), but it still is quickly confusing to most soldiers. Especially the kinds of funky things we end up doing. Most of these guys were taught to shoot guns, drive tanks, or blow things up, not differentiate or run analysis of variance. We often joke about our models being the "Black Box of Mystery". Repeatedly adding numbers in a spreadsheet is treated like black magic. I'm sure calculus would be like alien technology. It would be funny if it weren't so darn inconvenient.

Math addled brains cause two large headaches in my life.

First: because most leaders do not understand math at a deep level, they trust you to understand it, and convey it to them correctly. If you gain their trust by presenting them with solid analysis, they will be more inclined to trust you in the future. If you screw up, and lose their trust, it is very difficult to get back.

Unfortunately for us analysts, numbers can be made to say anything. Inserting bias in numbers is extremely easy if you know what message you want to convey. (For example: a few years ago a river boat gambling proposition came up on the ballot in Missouri. The advertising campaign for this measure claimed that "84% of residents in X area voted 'Yes' on this measure in June in order to get it to a state wide vote". In actuality, 84% of the voter population had turned out to vote, and the measure had passed. The message of the ad implied that 84% of people had voted yes, when in actuality, 84% of people had VOTED, and the overall answer was yes. The difference is subtle, but striking, and was pretty tough to catch in a 30 second TV spot.)

As a result, those whose reputations are established on the accuracy of our number crunching, such as analysts like myself, must be very careful to represent our analysis as accurately as is possible. We are painstaking in our work, often having multiple co-workers check over our calculations for mistakes. We vet the assumptions our work is based on through the subject matter experts, so that we can reasonably conclude that our work is based on solid foundations. We are purposefully spirited away in a dark corner of the command structure so that there is no possibility of a general officer barging in our door demanding that we modify a spreadsheet. We regularly accompany briefers during their meetings to make sure someone is present that can accurately explain the analysis, and characterize the results. And, after learning the hard way, we never, ever, trust our raw data with anyone outside of our office.

That hard way I speak of. Oh yes. There are those who use the numbers we produce for evil. Aye. Evil. There have been instances where organizations have taken our data out of context. *Gasp* Unpossible, you say? It gets worse! There have been instances where organizations have taken our data files, changed the data points, and ran to the boss with the new "analysis" that fit their agenda. Dastardly villains they are. We don't like them. Of course if any questions are imposed upon these people they simply throw up their hands and say "The ORSAs gave it to us!" And short of having a duel with 9 MM pistols in the general's office, we usually have to swallow our vomit and take the beating.

The alternate route of deception is more underhanded. Recently we performed analysis for a group that I would consider shaky. The numbers were fine, but there were bunches and bunches of "IFs" that had to be met to get to those numbers. "If" we do this and "if" we do that then the whole world just looks better and better. And imagine, no one was talking about the probability of meeting all those "ifs", even when probed. Repeatedly. But that was ok, as we had been invited to the meeting where our analysis was being briefed in support of the larger topic. Only, at the last moment, our meeting invite was rescinded. No seats left in the general's office. Sorry. No credit for your work, and no reality check on our crazy assumptions. But we'll make sure we throw you under the bus when this all crashes down on our heads! Ok now? Buh bye! /simmer

Of course there are consequences for evil doers such as these. These naughty agencies no longer have access to our data unless we are in the room while they present it, or better yet, while we present it for them. They also don't get the raw data charts that can be edited, but rather picture files of the charts that show exactly what we intend to portray. Where trust has been breached, it is not easily re-earned. And after being burned a time or two, having our name and reputation attached to shoddy and untruthful work, we've learned it's just easier to keep all the data under wraps and only pass out the final, vetted results. Even the potentially legitimate requests get turned down now, for the most part, simply because we don't want two different answers being computed off the same data source using different methods. Math is scary. How would you explain to a three star general that the same data generated different answers and still get him to trust you at the end of the brief? It's not easy, so we just don't do it. It is detrimental to information sharing, I agree, but an unfortunately necessary action to prevent outright fraud with our numbers.

Second: because most leaders do not understand math at a deep level, they ask for impossible analysis. Why are we still in Afghanistan after 9 years? I want the answer shown in one chart, on my desk in the morning. Thanks so much.

This is by far the more common of my two headaches. Cretins intending to misuse our work do so at their own peril, and they know it. Leaders asking for two weeks of analysis to be done in 5 hours just don't know any better. Just today I had someone ask why attrition changed from last month to this month. My e-mail reply: Why did it rain Sunday instead of Wednesday? It just did, man. I can't point to ONE reason, or even five. Numbers rarely have a big neon arrow pointing at the cause of its perturbation. Rarely is there only ONE cause! In the case I was asked about today, there were literally thousands of tiny causes, few of which are being tracked and none of which can be directly affected. Asking this question is akin to asking an artist to draw the beach down to the individual grains of sand: time consuming, and adds nothing to the overall product.

We try hard to educate people on this, we really do. But the military mentality of "complete the mission, damn the cost" gets in the way. A lot. In the face of mathematical ignorance, what are genuine reasons as to why the task cannot be completed sound like excuses for failure. As such, a lot of the time we suck it up and pull an all-nighter or four. We save our push back for the most impossiblist of impossible tasks, so that people know we mean business whenever we say no. If they could be done easily in time, and we're asked to do them in no time, we generally say yes. Crazy tasks we have undertaken that fit this description include major modifications of the software we use to project how many people will be working in the Army and Police on less than 24 hours notice, and building Power Point slides from scratch less than 10 minutes before they are to be briefed to a general officer. Tasks that were absolutely bonkers, like rebuild our main model in one day (would take AT LEAST a week) have been successfully rebuffed. Our sanity is better for it.

One thing you can say for certain about this place: you won't be bored.

*****

My next post will not be about work. I promise. In fact, I hope that my next three or four won't be about work. I'm tired of writing about the office and all that stuff, and I think I've covered it well enough for right now. I will move on to other topics. I don't know what yet, but I'll figure it out as I go. I always do.

All for this evening. Out here.

Goals

It's good to have a goal.  Setting goals for yourself gives you a mark on the wall to reach towards, and measure progress against.  Getting measurably closer to that end-state validates the hard work you're putting in, and spurs you on to greater gains.  And after you meet the mark, set a new one, bigger and better than the first.  Simple self-motivation.

The real trick to setting a goal is that you have to write it down.  You have to make it a public announcement, even with an audience of one (i.e., yourself).  In needs to be short, succinct, and specific, so you can't change your mind as to what it meant at some later date.  Tack that sucker up on your door, refrigerator, office wall.  Write it on your bathroom mirror with a grease pencil and don't erase it 'til you succeed so you have to look at it every morning.  When you start to slack off, or get complacent, or decide that your current state of affairs is good enough, you can look at that cold, hard fact, staring at you accusingly, and be reminded of what you were trying to accomplish.  You can't give up without settling, admitting that you were deceiving yourself into thinking you could do better.  And that just can't stand.  Unless you're a low down, dirty...deceiver.  (A cookie for you if you can spot where that came from.)

The Coalition's overall goals in Afghanistan are very nebulous.    There's a lot of wiggle room when evaluating whether or not Afghanistan is "secure" enough for us to relinquish the lead.  What qualifies as a "professional" Army and Police force?  This ambiguity makes these goals difficult to achieve.  One general's definition of secure will certainly be different than another reporter's definition.  The President and the American people may see "success" from very different (and current polling data suggests that this is the case).  Thankfully, I don't have to deal with this ambiguous mess in my job.  That's above my pay grade.  No, in stark contrast, NTM-A/CSTC-A's goals are rather specific. 

NTM-A is responsible for building that "professional" Army and Police force, and we have very specific goals we must fulfill in order to be considered a success.  The Army must reach an end-strength of 171,600 soldiers by October 2011.  The Police must reach an end-strength of 134,000 by the same date.  These numbers can't just be made up of any Joe Schmo, either.  The ration of Officers, Non-Commissioned Officers, and Soldiers/Patrolmen is specified, so as to achieve the best balance of leadership and grunt work in the force.

Underpinning these strength goals are several other goals.  Training, for example.  We have to put each one of these guys through training.  That's where the "professional" part of the force comes from.  We can't just hand these guys AK-47s, slap em on the back, throw em into the fray and expect quality results (though at points in the past, that is exactly what happened).  As such, we have to build and adequate amount of training facilities, hire enough trainers, and design courses long enough to be effective, but short enough to meet our personnel demands in the force.  Recruiting is another.  We have our target end-strength, now we need to go find the people to get us there.  Obviously we can't recruit 134,000 people all at once for the Police, so we set monthly goals that need to be met consistently.  High goals are set in the winter, when there's no other work to be had, and low goals are set in late summer and fall, when the harvest time and Ramadan occur (though Ramadan is really a moving target).  The big goal is attrition.  We know a certain amount of people are going to leave the force, but we have monthly goals that we work our tails off trying to meet so that we can keep the losses to a minimum.

All of these goals are interconnected, some easier to meet and maintain than others.  If the recruiters have a bad month, attrition needs to be lowered to compensate, while training space stays empty.  If we can't build training sites fast enough, recruiting all the guys in the world won't help, as they'll get tired of waiting for class space and go find another job.  If attrition gets out of hand, we're throwing money away training people that aren't doing the job they were hired for, and putting unbelievable pressure on the recruiters to find more people to fill all the vacated positions.  The cycle is brutal and unforgiving.

As an analyst, one of the things I get to work on is nailing down exactly what each of these goals should be.  We may have money to build training space to house 100,000 people simultaneously, but do we need to spend all of it?  Having 2,000 classroom spaces for new policeman isn't helpful if the recruiters are only going to be able to snag 200 new people.  Bleeding 70% of the force each year (an actual attrition rate for the Afghan National Civil Order Police (ANCOP) at one point) isn't conducive to growing the Police to larger and larger numbers, but can we get away with 30%?  Where does the break point occur between acceptable and unsustainable?

There's also just as much art as there is science when developing goal numbers.  Maybe we can get away with 30% attrition, but instead set the goal at 20% to motivate the Afghans to do even better, while simultaneously sending a message to the American public and Congress that we're striving to do better.  Setting the recruiting goal at a high mark during a challenging month might be silly from a mathematical perspective, but may motivate the recruiters to work harder than ever that month.  These numbers become the marks by which we are held accountable, visible to anyone that picks up a newspaper or surfs the internet, and send a message about our level of effort and our confidence in our work.  It's important that these goals be both meaningful and challenging. 

And in reality, all of these are moving targets.  The only fixed goals are the overall end-strengths of 171,600 for the Army and 134,000 for the Police.  Everything else is variable, and changed fairly frequently.  The best analogy I can think of is an Etch-a-Sketch controlled by two people.  Imagine trying to draw a straight line from one corner to the other with two people, one controlling one knob, one controlling the other.  As one person turns their knob, the other must adjust to compensate.  Both knobs are being adjusted at the same time, and they have to be adjusted precisely, and in concert with the each other, to succeed in the task.  For our problem in Afghanistan, this happens every day, little fine tunings to try and keep us on the glide path to that final end-strength goal.  Training classes get extended as our training capacity increases, so that we can pack on even more education before sending fresh faces to the force.  Recruiting is usually low at the same time attrition is high, resulting in adjustment of the recruiting goals for the following months.  While the overall goal for attrition hasn't changed in almost a year (fixing that is a project I'm working on right now), efforts to reduce attrition, like better pay, guaranteed vacation, and better leadership, are usually implemented as a result of losing too many people in the months prior.

Knobs on the Etch-a-Sketch, all primed and ready to be tweaked to whatever value is necessary.  The target is steady, we just have to communicate efficiently and coordinate our efforts.  We're all working towards nailing that target dead on.

*****

Speaking of writing goals down, it's about time for me.

I came over here with plans to get in better shape, read my Bible more, and writing on my blog.  So far I've done pretty well with all of those (though some of you may disagree about the blog frequency!), but I haven't set my goals in stone so that I can be held accountable.  Well, here they are.

- Bench press 200 lbs 6 times (consecutively, no loop holes) before the end of my tour.  Currently I can do 185 about twice.  My office mates and I have been weight lifting 6 days a week, and they're pretty good about holding my feet to the fire, so I've got a good shot to make this one, I think.
- Finish reading and journaling through Psalms.  I planned before I left to read one Psalm each night and write down my thoughts about what I read.  So far, I've been in Afghanistan for more than two months and I'm not quite into the 30s yet.  /wristslap.  I've got more than 100 days left, so I can still make it if I double up for a little while.  This one will be the hardest, as my normal quiet time (night) has a lot of distractions, like talking to family, surfing the internet, blogging....
- Make it to every day of Insanity.  We're starting Day 1 of 60 on Saturday.  I stand a better chance at this than I did P90X because it's at 0630 instead of 0530, and I am NOT a morning person.
- Blog once a week, on average, and keep gaps between posts to less than 10 days.  If I've already missed this one, don't tell me, I don't want to know.

- Brief General Petraeus.  This one is largely out of my hands, but I've already narrowly missed the opportunity twice, so I'm hopeful.  If I keep producing quality analysis, I think I'll get there.

There.  Now they're public.  Time to get to work.


*****


One last thing: if anyone has specific requests for something they'd like me to take a picture of, let me know.  I'm planning a picture-heavy blog post in the near-future, and want to incorporate your requests.  It doesn't have to be a specific request.  I can have fun interpreting something nebulous.  As long as it doesn't violate security measures, or isn't next to impossible to obtain (don't ask me to take a picture of Petraeus eating or anything), I'll do my best.  It'll be a fun little scavenger hunt for me, and hopefully satisfy some of your curiosity about Afghanistan.


Until next time.  Out here.

General Impressions

Over the past eight days I have had the pleasure...priviledge...obligation?...ok, ok, I drew the short straw (*sigh*)...of briefing several generals on multiple issues related to the Afghan National Police (ANP).  Having never briefed anyone higher than the colonel level before, this was a new experience for me.  Briefing to colonels can be tricky.  Briefing to generals can be scary.  Generals can make things happen, and as such, expect a high quality in the presentation and information they are briefed in order to make intelligent decisions.  If you screw up, you're going to know about it. 

For reference, all generals are not equal.  There are four levels of general in the U.S. Army, each denoted by a different amount of stars, which is the rank insignia for a general officer.  Brigadier General (BG) is the initial rank, and has one star.  Major General (MG) is the second rank, and has two stars.  Lieutenant General (LTG) is the third general officer rank, and has three stars.  This is the rank of the commanding general of CSTC-A, LTG William Caldwell.  The last rank is simply called General, and has four stars.  This is the rank of the ISAF commander, General David Petreaus.  (Technically there IS a five star rank, but it's a special rank awarded extremely infrequently.  If General Petreaus manages to turn around the situation in Afghanistan, and lead us to unmistakable victory, he MAY be in line for a 5th star.  May.)

The first briefing was for a pair of generals, actually, a two for one special.  MG Ward, the Deputy Commander - Police (DCOM-P), is the primary audience for most of the things I produce, since I work so much on the police side of things.  He's a Canadian, and a bit of an oddity for a general officer.  While I've only been responsible for briefing him once, I've been in the room for several briefings where he was the primary audience, and I have never once heard him raise his voice.  He speaks very deliberately and thoughtfully, and clearly has a purpose in his words before they are spoken.  He also very much likes numbers.  He encourages us to produce slides that most generals would throw you out of the room for.  That ends up making our job a bit easier, since we can show numerical data without having to fear the general's eyes crossing.

The general I picked up for free in this buy-one get-one deal was MG Beare (pronounced Beer).  Also a Canadian, he will be replacing MG Ward starting tomorrow.  When I met him, he had only been at Camp Eggers for a day or two, and was still learning to crawl through the mire of ANP.  It was obvious his head was still spinning as he tried to keep pace with the work load.  After our meeting we talked for a minute or two, and he seemed like an extremely nice guy.  He was familiar with Leavenworth, and had actually spent a little bit of time there, so we talked a bit about home, and the CSTC-A commander, who's last duty assignment had him stationed at Leavenworth.

While briefing two generals when only expecting one does cause the stress levels to raise a few notches, I was glad they were both present.  The briefing I was giving that day is a monthly update, and will be something I have to do at least three more times.  Since MG Ward is leaving, next time it will be the new guy all by himself.  Having MG Ward be able to guide him through the briefing once will be an immense help later down the road.  MG Beare's level of confusion will be much lower, and his expectations for what the briefing provides will be in line with reality.  Having MG Beare at this particular briefing was even better, as we were discussing a couple sticky issues of the police, and I was glad he was made aware of these problems right from the start.  There were several times during the brief that I normally would have pushed a little harder to make a point with MG Ward, who has formed his own opinions on things after a year on the job and didn't completely agree with the points we were making, but because I had MG Beare nodding along with me, I let it go.  While MG Ward may still have been the acting DCOM-P, it was more important to get MG Beare on board, since he'll be the general I have to live with the rest of my tour. 

The next general I interacted with was BG Smith.  He's an American, and was requested by name for this assignment by LTG Caldwell.  Only 10 months ago he was the assistant division commander for the 10th Mountain Division, fighting in eastern Afghanistan.  He wasn't even home a year before being asked to come back for another tour, this time as the Assistant Commanding General for Police Development (ACG-PD).  BG Smith is relatively new at Camp Eggers, arriving in the early part of July, but he's been around plenty long enough to know what's going on.  He is also quite the thoughtful fellow, but more of a go-getter than either of the Canadians he worked/works for.  I haven't gotten to interact with him a whole lot, but from what I've seen, I really, really like him. 

Case in point: after briefing, most generals will task you with more work.  Change this slide, do this analysis, answer this question.  They have things that they depend on you to tell them, and this is the time they can give you guidance as to how they need you to go about finding those answers.  Not BG Smith.  After concluding my briefing, (the same brief I gave to MGs Ward and Beare), the first words out of BG Smith's mouth were "What can I do for you?"  Indeed, there were several issues in the brief that needed to be addressed, and he was in a position to address them in his dealings with the government leaders in charge of the ANP.  One issue concerned an Afghan commander at a training site who was not allowing Coalition personnel use of his buildings to house ANP recruits.  BG Smith promised it would be fixed by the next day, as he would make it clear to the Minister of the Interior, the man in charge of the ANP for the entire country, that this behavior was unacceptable.  Either the commander would allow access to the buildings, or he would be fired.  Tomorrow.  Our group was thrilled.  Here was a leader that didn't back away from a fight and didn't need to put his decision through a group huddle before proceeding.  His combatant commander background definitely comes through in his actions.

But that wasn't the coolest part of this briefing.  Because we were detailing some serious issues with the ANP, he requested some of the slides from the briefing be translated into Dari so he and the Minister could have a candid discussion.  It was BG Smith's intention to clearly layout the very issues on which we had just briefed him, and encourage the Minister to "put some energy" into solving them as quickly as possible.  Those translated slides were delivered Monday.  Sometime this week, analysis I worked on will be in the hands of the highest levels of Afghan leadership, with an American general advocating action to correct problems that I helped identify.  That kind of influence can't even be approached at my job back in Kansas. 

The last briefing wasn't actually to a general, but a civilian Senior Executive Service (SES) officer.  An SES is the civilian equivalent of a general, in this case equivalent to a two star.  Dr. Jack Kem is the Deputy Commander for NTM-A/CSTC-A, so even though he's a civilian, he's technically the second in command at Camp Eggers.  He also has a direct line of influence to the CG, and can help to shape the battlefield when trying to get the CG to make a decision on your particular issue.  He's a great guy to have in your corner.  Dr. Kem also comes from Leavenworth, where he was a teacher at the Army's Command and General Staff College (CGSC).  CGSC is where majors and lieutenant colonels who are slated to be battalion and brigade commanders go to get their master's degree.  On top of that, Dr. Kem also has an ORSA background.  This can be a help and a hindrance.  On the helpful side, technical details that can't normally be briefed to leadership CAN be briefed to Dr. Kem, since he has a good understanding of the techniques used in producing our analysis.  On the hindrance side, because of his level of knowledge, the level of rigor in your analysis often has to be greater than normal, adding time and headaches to an already difficult task.  The extra work only makes the answers better, but the amount of work that has to be put in to get to that level makes the value of that extra detail debatable at times. 

Of my three briefings, I considered this one to be the least useful.  Dr. Kem only had 30 minutes to hear the brief, and his executive officer was making sure he stuck to schedule.  As such, places I had hoped we would have serious discussion were skimmed past, lessening the value of the briefing.  Dr. Kem also has a tendency to "chase rabbits", so to speak, elaborating extensively on topics that are only cursorily related to the briefing.  My briefing was no exception, and so a tight window became maddeningly tighter.  And to top it off, when all was said and done, he told us the reason he had directed us to do the analysis was no longer valid, and the analysis wasn't as important as he once believed.  Translation: I don't care that I asked you to look at changing this thing, we're not changing it now and probably not ever.  Arrrrrrgh.  My analysis WILL help us to more accurately predict the future strength of the ANA and ANP in our mathematical models, but I had intended for the analysis to influence ANP policy as well.  That piece got killed.  Oh well.  Another day at CSTC-A.

I also narrowly escaped a couple more briefings this week to bigger and more important men.  I had been put on notice that I would be briefing the CG any day, but that never materialized.  It does look like the CG will be a regular in our monthly briefings to the DCOM-P now, so I may have only been given a stay.  We'll see.  Also, my boss was given 4 hours notice tonight that he would be briefing General Petraeus tomorrow on police related statistics.  My boss told me that if we'd been given a day or two days notice that he'd have made me do it instead. 

I am Neo.  Watch me dodge bullets.  /whoosh

*****

 A brief Happy Birthday to my mom who turned *cough cough* years old yesterday.  And I may as well say Happy Anniversary now as well, as my mom and dad will have been married for 40 years this Saturday.  Wish I could be there.

That's all for tonight.  Out here.