Happy Halloween

 The gang dressed for candy gathering.  Left to right: Han, Sith Lord, Padme, 

Obi Wan, Qui-gon, Anakin, Storm Trooper.

I just went trick or treating in a combat zone.

 

Well, that was a strange sentence.

 

Our office had been planning this for weeks.  It was against regulations, technically, and we weren't entirely certain what the reaction of the general populace was going to be, but we decided to beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission.  Since trick or treating as an individual is pretty lame, we decided to go as a group and coordinate the costumes.  Being as there were 6 of us, we had to find source material that would allow us to all have a character.  We considered several different options, but Star Wars was going to be the easiest to pull off.  Besides, we're all nerds anyway, so the shoe fit perfectly.

 

Before making our rounds, we had an office Halloween party.  Really it was just supposed to be a "morale maintenance" time, where we could all take a couple hours off to mess around together, but it happened to coincide with Halloween.  We had some dinner and played some games, laughed at ourselves playing Catch Phrase, and generally were able to relax and forget about deadlines for a couple hours.  After the party, it was time to get dressed. 

Our group consisted of a Sith Lord (me), Qui-gon Jinn, Anakin, Han Solo, a storm trooper, and Padme.  Most of the costumes were ordered online and shipped to us a few weeks ago, but Han used his dress blue Army pants, black jump boots, and tactical holster (complete with 9mm pistol) for his outfit.  The only thing he had to buy was a vest, which he had made in the bazaar by one of the locals.  Our lone girl, Heather, was the one who had originally suggested that we all dress up.  However, upon receiving her costume, she took quite a bit of cajoling and convincing to wear it in public.  I guess she wouldn't be a girl without being a little self-conscious about wearing a semi-see-through body suit. 

After getting dressed, we ran into someone dressed as Obi Wan Kenobi.  He had gone to a little more effort than we had.  His costume cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300, and would be acceptable to wear to a Star Wars convention.  Those of us dressed as jedi/sith had a bit of light saber envy, as Obi Wan's made sound effects when waved through the air or clashed into things.  None of us had ever met him before, but we invited him to tag along with us as we toured the camp, and he gladly accepted.  Safety in numbers.

Our colonel jokingly treated us like his children, making us pose for pictures before he would let us leave the office, and warning us not to talk to strangers and not to eat any candy until he had screened it for razor blades and poison.  He also instructed us to tell anyone that asked we were from a different office, one we don't particularly like.  As I said earlier, this was technically against the rules.  The soldiers here are supposed to wear either their fatigues or their gray shirt and black shorts PT uniform.  Halloween costumes don't quite fit the uniform standard. 

We ended up making FIFTEEN stops on our tour of the camp.  Everyone had friends they wanted to visit at different offices, making our journey a little longer than expected, but it wasn't too cold out so it wasn't so bad.  Our storm trooper had a (very) difficult time seeing out of his helmet, so the night was probably longer for him than the rest of us.  We were nice to him though, and didn't walk him into any poles or ditches, though we did almost manage to get him to walk into a port-a-potty.  We tried to go visit the some of the generals, but they were either out of the office or in meetings.  Their staffs, however, were highly entertained by our appearance.  In fact, everywhere we went tonight we attracted quite a bit of attention.  While this wasn't entirely unexpected, what was a pleasant surprise was that all but a couple of people were happy to see us.  Every office was ready with a camera, and most with candy, so if the spoil sports existed they were keeping quiet about it.  We took one community bag for candy collection and made out like bandits.  I estimate some where between six and seven pounds of candy was collected.  The sack is now sitting on our already well-stocked goodie table.  We'll have to make sure to take a bunch of it out to the street kids, lest we eat it all ourselves. 

Tomorrow is the start of the last full month of my stay in Afghanistan.  I have about 45 days left before I being my travel home.  Sometime in the next two to four weeks my replacement will be headed to CRC and begin his own adventure.  Given the time table, I'm not sure which holiday I'll be celebrating first, my youngest daughter's birthday or my replacement leaving the States.  Either way, I will be happy to celebrate, as it will mean I am that much closer to coming home.

All for tonight.  Happy Halloween everyone.  May your candy be plentiful and your costumes reflective.  Out here.

The Good Idea Fairy Needs To Be Shot

Wanted, Dead or Alive: Flying fat man in a tutu carrying a light bulb on a stick,

for crimes against intelligence and common sense.

When you turn a kid loose in a candy store, what happens?  They fill their bag with every type of candy within reach.  Kids don't have much of a concept of money.  The have even less of a concept of money in relation to items.  Kids think cars cost $100 because that's the biggest number they can think of at the time.  A bulging sack of candy that costs $40 won't phase them because they don't realize that price is high for junk food.  All that kid is concerned with is getting candy in large amounts.  Likely he or she would pick out a few things that they don't even like along the way, because they're caught up in the moment, but that doesn't matter either, because the sack is bigger with the bad stuff than it is without it.

 

As it happens, there's a very similar occurence when a general learns that he likes analysis.  He orders every type of analysis he can think of, in large quantities, to be delivered as soon as possible, without regard to the resource cost.  We call this an attack of the Good Idea Fairy.

 

Once a general officer's thirst for quality analysis has been stoked, there's little hope of quenching it.  Every thing said general, or his staff, can think to "analyze", they task out to some one.  These strokes of brilliance are often accompanied by the phrase "Hey!  That's a good idea!"  Thus, the phenomenon is named. 

 

The Good Idea Fairy leaves in its wake a path of destruction unparalleled in the annals of history.  Humongous Power Point presentations, exhausted analysts, usually lots of scratched heads.  The time, money, and brain power spent fighting the Good Idea Fairy is uncountable.  Successfully fending off a Good Idea Fairy attack is rewardable with a medal for valor. 

 

The dangers of the Good Idea Fairy are legion.  One: not everything can be, or needs to be, rigorously, analytically, examined.  The Good Idea Fairy does not believe this to be the case, and blesses people with pseudo-epiphanies every day.  For instance:

 

General: "Tell me, good analyst, what will happen if I put this loaded pistol to my head, disengage the safety, and pull the trigger?"

 

Analyst: "Well, sir, you would likely die."

 

General: "Yes, but how likely?"

 

Analyst: "Well, I determine the probability of death, P(Death), to be roughly 1 - P(dud) - P(misfire) - P(miracle).  Further analysis would be required to determine the exact probability, but its safe to say probability of death would be very close to 100%."

 

General: "Hmm.  Go do some research and come back to me with an answer to the twelfth decimal place.  Anything less isn't accurate enough for this critical information.  Have the answer on my desk in an hour."

 

Good Idea Fairy: *cackles gleefully*

 

Often requests to analyze problems that can be solved with common sense are born out of fear or ignorance.  Fear, because last time someone got burned and they're going to make darn certain it doesn't happen again.  Ignorance, because the requesting authority has never done mathematical analysis, and has no concept of it's limitations or proper uses.  Of course the problem with spending resources, i.e. analysts, on problems that do not require rigorous analysis is that it's a waste of time.  Wasting time makes the important initiatives slip to the right (take longer to complete).  Timelines for important intiatives slipping to the right usually isn't accepted in a combat zone, so instead, extra hours must be dedicated towards both projects, meaning long nights and more work for the analysts doing the job, causing burn out, fatigue, crazed rampages through the office, etc.  All because a trivial problem had to be over-analyzed.

 

The key to combating this is communication.  You have to be able to explain to the requesting authority why a simple answer is good enough, and the impacts investigating a complex answer will have to all the other work being done.  Sometimes this works.  Often it doesn't.  The usual solution is to just go with it for the majority of cases, only pushing back when the analysis would be particularly asinine, or the analysts are unusually busy.

 

Danger number two: when the Good Idea Fairy strikes, and analysis requests are flying fast and thick, it is INEVITABLE that at least one, and usually more, of those requests will be impossible to fulfill.

 

An Army officer back home told me a story once about metrics the command in Iraq was trying to use to determine how secure Baghdad was during the middle portion of the war.  One idea was to count the number of kids playing sports (basketball and socccer, mostly) in a public area, like parks or school playgrounds.  The thought was that if kids were outside playing, then their parents must think the area is safe.  More kids outside would indicate an improving security situation. 

 

Now, the premise is fine.  More children playing outside WOULD be a good indication that their parents thought the area to be safe.  But, how, with a force of ~100,000 troops, would it be possible to accurately count children playing outside in a city of 6 million people?  What time of day should they be counted?  What day of the week?  Should they be counted only when it's perfectly sunny outside, or in any weather?  How often does this number need to be reported?  How many people should be diverted from security patrols in order to perform this task?  You can quickly gather how this task would be nearly impossible to accomplish.  Furthermore, the information sought through this method (how secure IS the city?) could likely be gathered in simpler ways, saving lots of wasted effort.  In this instance, other metrics were utilized, and the analyst responsible was revered as a genius amongst soldiers.

 

The key to fixing this problem, in my experience, is demonstration.  This is unfortunate, as demonstration requires you to do all the work in order to show how stupid a solution is before you can get leadership to decide you don't need to do all the work that you just did to get them to decide you didn't need to do all the work to begin with.

 

Still with me?

Demonstration is the only course of action because the word "impossible" does not exist in the lexicon of the U.S. Army.  The closest you can come is "infeasible".  Infeasible is smart speak for "waste of time" to a general, which is exactly the acknowledgment you're going for.  So the quicker you can demonstrate the infeasibility of a suggested course of action, the quicker you can get back to the real work.

 

A personal story.  Just last night I was waylaid by this monster.  Walking back to the office from a marathon meeting, a senior leader recognized his chance to grab three ORSAs and bounce his ideas off us.  He talked excitedly about these ideas he had come up with, analyzed himself on a napkin (literally), and already talked to the commander about.  He was convinced of his idea's feasibility, and demanded that our office set aside time to run the numbers and confirm his stance.  Meanwhile, we're shaking our heads, telling him that there's no way he will be able to accomplish what he's after, that we've already done similar analysis that invalidates everything he's saying, and that further analysis isn't a good use of our time.  But it was too late, the good idea seed had been planted and we were stuck.  Now we've got at least 3 days of modeling, analyzing, prepping and briefing ahead of us, for a problem we already know the answer to.  ARGH!

 

In this case, we tried communication.  Unfortunately, this method of attack did not work, so we move to demonstration.  Though this method will take a lot of work, if properly executed, we can put this problem to bed without being tasked to do anything further.  At this point, that's the best option.  We know the three days required for a proper "demonstration" solution are already sunk, but we'd like to stop the bleeding right there.  

 

So, if anyone sees a little winged person carrying a stick topped by a light bulb, please kill it.  The bounty on this creature's head is high, and you will be rewarded handsomely.  I even think it's possible that with this menace defeated, I may be able to end my tour early.  

All for tonight.  Out here.

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.