Range Day

 

This weapon is illegal in three different ways in Missouri.  All kinds of awesome.

There are certain perks to being deployed to Afghanistan.  You get paid a lot.  Movies are cheap.  And no one questions when a civilian wants to shoot automatic weapons.

Back home it took multiple months of planning and permission granting to get a group of civilians from my home office to a range.  Body armor had to be issued.  Ammo had to be ordered.  Every round had to be fired, and every shell picked up to be counted, lest an investigation into the fate of unfired ammo be initiated.  It was a massive pain in the butt for 45 minutes of play time on the range.  

Afghanistan ranges are so much easier.

As with many things in life, it's not what you know, it's who you know.  One of our buddies works with a guy who was roommates with the guy that runs the range when they served in Ranger battalion together.  A quick phone call between roommates was all that was needed to get a group of seven of us a reservation.  We brought the weapons (well, most of them, more on that in a bit), they brought the targets and the ammo, and we were cleared until we ran out of time or bullets, whichever came first.  (Unfortunately, it was time.  Running out of bullets would have been a lot more fun.)

After a long and arduous SUV ride, detoured by protesting Kabulites and lazy traffic police, we arrived at Darul Aman, on the south side of the city.  The area was pretty interesting.  On one section of the base were ruins of a palace built by Genghis Khan.  Nearby were the King and Queen's Palaces, built in the 1920s to house, presumably, the king and queen of whatever monarchy ruled Afghanistan during that era.  And near the entrance to the base was a new construction site where an Afghan Government building is being built.  Four separate buildings home to three different ruling parties from three different centuries.  The one time in my life I wished I was a history major.  

The King's Palace on the right, flanked by the new Government building on the left, 

with the city of Kabul in the background.

The Queen's Palace with spy blimp on overwatch.

Up the mountain from these buildings and the surrounding camp was the range.  Upon a arrival we were introduced to the crew in charge, a British corporal, an Australian naval officer, and an American Marine gunnery sergeant.  The gave an abbreviated safety brief, crushing our hopes of shooting without having to wear body armor in the process.  As they set up new targets for us and broke out the ammo, we loaded magazines and prepped the weapons.  And one in particular attracted more interest than the others.

Everyone (minus myself) brought a Beretta M9 pistol, the basic weapon for senior enlisted and officers assigned at Camp Eggers.  We'd also secured three M4 assault rifles.  One of these was special (I'm holding it the picture at the beginning of this post), as it was equipped with a shortened barrel, a holographic red dot sight, and a detachable suppressor, aka silencer.  It had been issued to one of our resident officers by a Special Forces team at his home base.  I have no idea why they issued such a weapon to someone that was going to be working a desk job.  I also don't care.  I'm just so happy that it happened to someone that was willing to lend it to us to put through it's paces.

Seeing the suppressed rifle, the range crew felt compelled to make a trade.  If we would let them shoot the suppressed rifle, they would let us shoot their fully automatic rifles.  Needless to say, that wasn't a difficult decision.  So to our pool of available armaments was added the British L85A2 Carbine, a shortened version of the full rifle made for vehicle crews to carry in tight quarters, and the Australian's Steyr Aug.  (They also intended for us to be able to shoot an AK-47, but the guy that was supposed to be bringing the ammo for that gun flaked out and never showed up.)

 The British L85A2 Carbine.  A short little weapon with great sights 

and little recoil, but LOUD.  You knew when someone was shooting this.

The Steyr Aug.  Fun to shoot, but much trickier than the other weapons.

I can see quite a bit of training being needed to use this weapon effectively.

Commence the entertainment.

Besides the silencer, each of the three M4s had a different optical sight attached.  One had an ACOG, and the others had two different types of red dot sights.  These weapons were stationed at one end of the range and were free for whoever wanted to fire them to do so.  The Brit and the Aussie each ran a station for their weapon, helping the user understand the proper way to compensate for each rifle's quirks.  The Carbine was the most odd.  Besides pulling the trigger, everything was done with the left hand.  This even required reaching over the top of the stock to the right side of the weapon to draw back the bolt and chamber a round.  Lefties would HATE it.  It felt a little odd to me, as I was only using my left hand to hold the weapon when I was shooting the M4, but I was getting used to it by the time I ran out of ammo.  The Aug's special quirk was it's method of selecting how many rounds to fire.  You could either fire on semi automatic, or one round at a time, or on fully automatic, or rounds fire until you stop holding the trigger.  Most weapons have a switch on the side that lets you choose one or the other.  The Aug had a two-stop trigger.  Pull back to the first stop, and you fire one round.  Pull back to the second stop, and you fire many rounds.  This was very strange to adjust to, and I don't think I ever hit the target more than once when I was firing on automatic.  For one the kick was much greater on this gun than the others, but I was also consciously thinking about how far I depressed the trigger, wondering if I was going to get one shot or several.  This would be a hard weapon to get used to.

 

From near to far, A2 Carbine, M4 rifle, and M9 pistol.

In stark contrast was the silenced M4.  Lightweight, low recoil, large, bright, clear sights, and quiet.  It sounded like a nail gun instead of a rifle.  It wasn't quiet enough to be completely stealthy in a quiet environment, but outside from more than 50 meters, or in a large building from more than a few rooms away, I don't think the gun would be audible.  This thing was an absolute blast to shoot.  Dealing with the ammo magazine, on the other hand, was irritating.  We had a couple of cheaper plastic magazines that kept trying to give the rifle more than one bullet at a time when firing on three round burst mode.  I quickly learned how to clear the breach on my own, but after getting rounds jammed on three straight trigger pulls, I switched back to single shot mode and didn't have any more problems. 

After we were done shooting we policed the range for our brass.  I had to laugh at the difference between this range and the one I had been on back home.  At home we had one person shooting at a time with everyone else far behind the line, to the point we couldn't even see the target being shot at.  Here we had multiple people shooting, swapping weapons, shooting again, only pausing to let some soldiers at the far end that were adjusting their sights walk down and check their targets.  Back home we knew exactly how much ammo we had, we fired every round, we picked up every spent shell, and the empty cartridges were weighed.  The scale was sensitive enough to detect a difference of 100 rounds out of pallet load of spent ammunition.  Here we weren't even sure how much ammo we started with, had no idea how many rounds had been fired, picked up the brass we could find but didn't fret over every single one, and certainly didn't worry about counting them afterwards.  The fact that we were in a combat zone and that weapons training was an expected part of that freed the range officers from many of the annoying restrictions we put up with in the States.  This experience was a lot more enjoyable.

The palace and it's outbuildings have all fallen into extreme dis-repair.

Being occupied by the Russians didn't help anything, as evidenced by all the bullet holes.

Before heading home, we decided to drive up to the Queen's Palace and have a look around.  Like any good castle, it was built in a defensible position at the top of a decently sized hill, with no other major terrain features for a mile in any direction.  This arrangement offered a spectacular view of the city and surrounding mountains.  

The beginnings of the Afghan countryside on the outskirts of Southern Kabul.

 

The end of the Queen's Palace, and currently the only  

entrance not sealed off by concertina (razor) wire.

Inside the palace was quite amazing.  The damage done to the structure was significant enough that you really had to imagine what it looked like in it's hey day, but the potential for greatness was readily apparent.  The most striking architectural feature were the large columns running the entire height of the three-story structure, and tiled in green marble.  

Marble columns in the Queen's Palace, Darul Aman, Afghanistan.

As I walked through, I thought to myself that if this palace and it's larger companion across the way were ever to be refurbished, that would be a day when we would no longer be needed in this country.  When the Afghans can put together the planning, technical expertise, and funding to pull off a restoration project of this magnitude, it will be long after the conflict currently underway.  If I ever come back to Afghanistan in the future, I hope that this will be the case.  

As I write this I am less than two weeks from the end of my tour and departing Afghanistan.  There's not going to be a lot I miss about this place.  But experiences like these are going to be one of them.

All for tonight.  Out here.

Turkey Day

 Part of the Thanksgiving feast at Camp Eggers.  Yum.

Today is a day for remembering what you have and not taking those things for granted.  It's about family and fellowship and, of course, turkey.  I had fellowship with my friends.  My family is 7,000 miles away.  I actually skipped the turkey in favor of rather delicious ham.  The last check mark is giving thanks, so...

I am thankful for:

 

- 22 hours off work.  The duty day ended at 1500 on Thursday, and our customary morning off on Friday is still in effect.  That means I get ALMOST one whole day off.  What a luxury.

 

- My thoroughly awesome office mates.  We've been with each other 14 hours a day for almost 5 months and we still haven't killed each other.  We all share a similar sense of juvenile humor, which makes the day go by much easier and much faster.  I really don't think I could have picked a better group to spend my deployment with.

 

- Good security.  The only times I've had to wear my body armor were either voluntary or for a practice drill.  There have been very few incidents in Kabul during my time here, and none of them serious. 

 

- Friends that push me to work out.  Hitting the gym isn't something that do for fun in my spare time, and I don't have the discipline to stick with a routine that causes me pain on a regular basis.  Having buddies to push me to do better has been key to me getting in better shape.

 

- The forethought to load Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" on my iPod.  It just isn't Thanksgiving until I listen to that song.

 

- Freedom from Christmas songs.  I can't STAND to listen to Christmas music anytime before Thanksgiving or after New Year's.  My family, on the other hand, would listen to them all year long if allowed.  They are taking full advantage of my absence in this respect.  They even put up the tree last weekend.  Don't get used to it guys.  

 

- Quality Thanksgiving entertainment.  Namely, the Today Show on NBC broadcasting live from Camp Eggers.  It was pretty cool to walk past the cameras, the crowd of people trying to get on TV, the reporter, etc, then watch the scene on TV while eating dinner.  

Today Show correspondent Lester Holt prepping for a report from Camp Eggers.

 

- PS3s and 50" TVs.  Combined with people who have never played video games, hilarity ensues.  

- Only 17 days until my convoy leaves Camp Eggers!  Then begins the waiting game on flights to get home.  I have hope that I'll get home before Christmas, but trying not to get those hopes too high, as there is still a pretty good chance that I'll be in Kuwait instead.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Stay safe on the roads, stay sane on the shopping trips.

Out here.

Meager Gestures

 Sorrow wears a sweater.

America is rich.  Even our poor people have enough access to food to become fat.  In the midst of financial crisis and high unemployment, it's easy to forget how blessed we are to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.  But when confronted with poverty of great severity, the disparity between ourselves and others becomes all too apparent.

Consider this.  The average yearly salary for a worker in Afghanistan is around $400.  Yearly.  Salary.  Consider also that a house (like you and I think of) in Kabul costs hundreds of thousands of dollars because of international agencies and Coalition contract money driving up the price.  The high cost of living combined with the low earning potential makes Kabul ripe for class disparity.  The rich are very rich, by Afghan standards, and the poor are very poor, by any standard.  We are fortunate to be in a position to help.

The Volunteer Community Relations (VCR) program at Camp Eggers takes donations of clothes, school supplies, toys, and toiletries and arranges opportunities to distribute these items to the neediest of the needy in Kabul.  Every week, volunteers come together to sort the items by age group, size or category, and parcel out the items into equal portions.  About once a month, the organizers put together a convoy to visit a local refuge camp or an orphanage or other area where these items are needed.  To be eligible to go out on one of these missions, you must have participated in at least one VCR sort, and those that haven't been on a mission previously get preference over those that have for filling the spaces.  It's a good way to get out of the office, get off camp, and assist in doing the local folk some good.

 An Air Force officer showing the kids pictures of themselves on his digital camera.

Minds = blown.

The mission that ran most recently was entitled Operation Get-Ur-Done.  No, I'm not kidding.  It was actually rather appropriate.  This mission had been canceled four times due to planning snafus.  The chaplains office has primary responsibility for the VCR program, augmented by other volunteers.  Everyone involved has their "real" job to do, making finding time to organize VCR stuff difficult.  The people in charge of planning these missions also have very little mission planning experience, making it take longer than it really should.  An infantry officer would be able to do this stuff in his sleep, but a chaplain, not so much.  A site must be found, surveyed for security purposes, traveling routes planned, security escorts coordinated, vehicles reserved, passenger information gathered, mission briefing planned, mission briefing given, cats herded, all before a single item can be given away.  All of this must be done on top of the sorting and the packaging of the actual goods.  It's a lot of work, and it's a testament to the dedication of the volunteers that it gets done at all.

This mission was to be fairly large with five fully loaded SUVs and a box truck to carry the goodies.  We were visiting a refuge camp that houses people from the southern region of Afghanistan, people that had lost their homes or their livelihood in some fashion or another.  The booty was 90 trash bags full of stuff.  This wasn't enough to give one bag to each family living in the camp, so the group running the camp held a lottery, drawing names of 90 families to receive aid.  It's unfortunate we weren't able to supply something for everyone, but we only do what we can do, and hope we have an opportunity to visit again in the future.  An added wrinkle to this mission was that instead of having an American infantry platoon provide security for us, we would be meeting up with an Afghan National Army (ANA) unit.  And not only were they going to provide security, they were bringing other items to give away to the refuges.  I was quite interested to see how this was going to turn out.

 An ANA soldier stands guard from the bed of his pick-up truck while 

children watch from the window.

The drive to the camp took about 20 minutes through the heart of Kabul.  On the way to the camp, we passed by the Iranian Embassy, which was an interesting experience.  Seeing the guards standing guard outside the gate and knowing that they could be guarding any number of things designed to disrupt Coalition efforts in Afghanistan made my skin crawl a little.  I was lucky enough to be seated next to a local resident that served as an interpreter for Camp Eggers.  He was able to point out several things in the city that we would have missed otherwise, and answer questions we had about the things we did see.  As it turned out, he only lived about three blocks from the refuge camp, and he apologized profusely for not being prepared to have us come and visit his home.  For all the things the Afghans aren't, one thing they are is hospitable.  These people will give until they bleed and ask if you'd like seconds.

On arriving at the camp, I was rendered speechless.  The dwellings where these people were living were clay brick huts, clearly hand-built, with a tarp for the roof.  While this by itself wasn't really that surprising, the juxtaposition of these mud huts next to a ten-story apartment building was striking.  The camp appeared to have been built on an empty field in the middle of a city of 2.5 million people.  Coming from America where zoning laws and building codes and public health regulations and any number of other things would render this little shanty town illegal, it was hard to screw my mind into the reality staring me in the face.

 The road leading away from the refuge camp into the nice part of town.

Unfortunately, I was too gobsmacked to take pictures of the camp itself on the drive in, 

and we weren't in a position to see the camp during the distribution.

 The ANA set up their perimeter and brought in the supplies they had to distribute while we got the box truck in the right spot and got the bags ready to hand out.  Someone produced a rope and stretched it across one end of the road for the people to line up behind.  There were kids crawling all over the place to see what we had brought for them.  I'd dealt with kids in two different spots in Afghanistan before this trip: the German school, and the street outside ISAF.  The school kids are clean, well kept and well mannered.  The street kids are dirty, persistent, and prone to picking pockets if they think they can get away with it.  The kids at the refuge camp were filthy beyond belief, very polite, and genuinely glad to see us.  Not in the "Yay!  I can make money off you today!" way of the street kids, but in the ecstatic, bubbly, hyper-curious way children act on Christmas morning.  Most of them were dressed in clothes from America, obviously handed out to them by some organization once upon a time.  I was glad we were here to help them further, but the supplies seemed so meager for a need so great.  I wished we could do more.

If sandals are all you have, you wear them.  Even when it's muddy.

Once the distribution started it was bedlam.  The people getting supplies were orderly, waiting their turn to have their hand marked with a sharpie before being allowed to cross the rope to the truck.  Everyone else was going nuts.  There was a small trench near the road where people were walking back and forth, climbing the low dirt wall to see if they could convince someone to give them something, even though they weren't one of the ones in line.  There were kids just curious to see what was going on, underfoot like an annoyingly adorable kitten.  There were herds of goats being ushered through our midst.  But through all the madness, the ANA were amazing.  They took charge of the distribution, not only of the stuff they brought, but of the stuff we brought as well.  The Camp Eggers crew was quickly but politely brushed aside to let the Afghans pass out the aid to their countrymen.  Which ended up being perfectly fine with me, as I got to snap away on the camera and take in the scene.

 An Afghan girl collecting supplies for her family.

To only be able to help 90 families was hard.  Judging by the size of the camp, there were at least several hundred families living here, I wanted to be able to help them all.  Sadly, it was not to be.  The supplies disappeared quickly, and were soon gone, spirited away on the backs of children, women and old men (very, very few working age men came to pick up supplies, interestingly) into the mouths of clay huts.  As we loaded back into our cars, some of the kids gathered around the vehicles asking for pens or candy.  One old man made it very clear through pseudo-sign language and charades that he was hungry and wanted us to give him food.  But we pulled away, aid tapped for the time being.

Stinky, smelly goats being herded through the distribution.  I had to laugh.

 And the goat herder.  His flock of twenty or so animals was completely under control.

The experience was rewarding, and definitely something I needed to see.  I understand now why they give mission preference to people that have only been to one VCR sort over the people that have been twenty times.  Seeing poverty and sorrow and strife on TV or in a magazine doesn't punch you in the gut like it does when you see it first hand.  True recognition of our privileged existence requires staring into the face of a child who doesn't know where his next meal will come from.  Going on one mission is all you need to want to help out in anyway you can.  

A few days after the mission, my Little One had a birthday.  She turned four.  I was able to "attend" the party through Skype and watch her and her friends make crafts, eat cake and ice cream, and, of course, open presents.  As I watched her rip open her packages, dwelling on each box only long enough to absorb what she had received before moving on to the next one, I was overwhelmed by how lucky my little girl was.  She had a warm home that wasn't made out of mud, a full belly, the beginnings of an education, and not a care in the world, beyond whether or not the present she wanted was in the box with the blue paper or the purple paper.

I tried to imagine what the toys and money being lavished on my daughter would mean to the little girls huddled together for warmth in the refuge camp.  How many meals would that money buy them?  How many nights would they be kept warm and dry by the clothes being unwrapped?

I wondered if their wildest dreams even approached my little girl's reality.

Somehow, I doubted it.

*****

If you have any items you wish to donate to the VCR program, box it up and send it to:

VCR Program (Pool House)

Chaplain's Office NTM-A/CSTC-A

APO AE 09356

Donations accepted include clothing, toys, school supplies, toiletries and other hygiene items, diapers, etc., etc.  Think about what you'd donate to a homeless shelter.  Those items will be welcome.  Try not to send anything with pigs or a religious message, as these will not (and actually cannot) be distributed.   And DON'T put the word "Afghanistan" ANYWHERE on the box.  If you do, the box will get kicked into the Afghan mail system instead of the military mail system and will never be heard from again. 

In addition to the Afghan outreach, VCR also sends boxes to soldiers on remote operating posts around the country.  Magazines, microwave popcorn, old DVD movies, and anything else you think a soldier in the mud would relish are welcome as well.  Many of the places around the country don't have a store to shop at, so they depend on home for resupply of all the good things in life, like Gold Bond and clean socks.  Trust me, you'll make some grunt's day.

That's all for tonight.  Out here.

The Ghar

Kabul Military Training Compound on the left, Kabul on the right,

and some very tired LTCs in the front.

As a rule, they don't let us out much here at CSTC-A.  There's not a lot of need for operations research analysts to go out on convoys around the city, and definitely not outside of the city.  So it's fairly exciting to get out of the office for some "R&R".  Well, only the second part of that term is applicable in this case.  There was definitely no resting.

"Ghar" is the Dari word for "mountain".  The spot we call The Ghar is a relatively small pile of rock on one of the Afghan National Army (ANA) training sites just on the outskirts of Kabul.  Groups from CSTC-A used to organize trips to hike to the top fairly often, but the approval procedure changed a few months ago, making it a lot more difficult to put together.  My predecessor had climbed several times, but I'd been here for almost 5 months and still hadn't gotten to go.  Thankfully, one of my office mates got to be buddies with the aide of the approving authority and was able to get a Ghar trip cleared.  As the adage goes, it's not what you know, it's who you know.

Friday mornings are the only suitable time to go climbing a mountain.  Fridays are the low battle-rhythm day, meaning no work until 1300.  It's a chance to sleep in, recharge the batteries, go do some shopping at the bazaar and generally relax.  Having the work day start that late gives time to travel, climb, return, rest and recharge before the job begins again.  Unfortunately, this means waking up at 0415 on my sleep-in day.  Boo, times two.  We met up at the parking lot at 0500 for a final briefing before rolling out at 0530.  Security precautions necessitated multiple groups of cars along multiple routes all meeting at the same place around 45 minutes later.  We started hiking up the slope just as the sun was peaking through the clouds on the horizon.

Here comes the sun, doo-do-do-dooo...

Now, I've been working out 6 days a week while I've been here, weightlifting for the past few months.  My body has changed shape, and I feel pretty good about myself.  

Then the mountain decided to serve me some humble pie.  

Total ascent on this "relatively small" mountain was around 1,000 feet.  I'd climbed maybe 50 when my lungs and I had to have a little chat.  They were filing formal complaint about being used so strenuously somewhere where the air was so thin.  In their opinion, I should turn back now before they go on strike and make me pass out.  There were threats on both sides, but I won out in the end by offering frequent breaks on the way up.  I'm just glad they didn't have a union.  Seeing the coup I won over my lungs, my legs' protest was fairly weak, as they knew my determination was no match for their pathetic whining.  They made their objection, it was noted in the log, then I beat them into oblivion to drive home the point that I would not be denied a summit.

The path up the slope was not always apparent, often times requiring scrambling hands and feet over large rocks, or trying to climb up little, loose, sliding pebbles.  There weren't any rock walls to scale or anything, but it wasn't exactly a gentle hike either.  My method of ascent was to pick a big rock up the mountain a ways, set a goal to reach it before taking a break, then push my goal back to the next big rock instead.  I knew if I didn't push myself I wasn't going to get up the mountain fast enough to have time to enjoy the top.  That worked out pretty well for me.  In no time I was nearing the crest, raising my head over the rise to see the end...

Wait a minute.  Why are people still walking around the corner?  Where are they going?  Don't they know this is the end?  Let's just follow them and see what's over h-...awwww, crap....

The mountain had tricked me.  Complete fake out.  From the base, the spot I was standing on clearly was the top.  Now from the "top", clearly there was more mountain to climb.  /fume.  Trudge, trudge, trudge, trudge, pant, pant, pant, pant, top in sight, nearing summit, keep moving, keep moving....

Now what is this?  Seriously, I'm at the top this time.  Where is everyone?  Wait, what's over here?  Oh, you've got to be kidding me...

Just as deceiving as a low-down dirty...deceiver.

I can't explain how soul crushingly terrible it was to find out that the mountain had made a fool of me again.  I mean, c'mon!  False endings are an annoying gimmick in a movie or a song, but they're downright infuriating on a friggin mountain.  So, once again, I'm climbing, climbing, this time I can see a crowd of people at the top so I know I'm actually nearing the end.  And those two stupid fake endings made reaching the real one all the more sweet.

 The CJ7 gang at the top of the Ghar.  No, the anonymous one is not in the picture.

The view from the top of my newly conquered mountain was pretty amazing.  On the south side of the mountain was Kabul and the Army training grounds.  The city looked like quite the sprawl, as it should be, home to around 3 million people and all.  The thing noticeably different about this city was the lack of tall buildings.  Even in my relatively small hometown of Kansas City, home to around 1 million people, there's a couple dense clusters of skyscrapers.  Kabul might be lucky to have a building that tops 10 stories.  On the north side was the valley leading away to the mountains that eventually blend with the Himalayas some 300 miles from here.  The landscape was dotted with defensive fighting positions for armored vehicles, though whether they were an extension of the training grounds or left over from the British or Soviets I do not know.  I took a hometown newspaper up the mountain with me, and a card from a kid in New York named Jack who's class sent us letters and candy.  I also took pictures of my girls, and took pictures of their pictures on top of the mountain.  Even if they couldn't be there in body, I brought them there in spirit. 

Left to right, Daughter Prime, Wallflower, and Little One, at the top 

of the Ghar in Afghanistan.  Sort of.

After an all-too-short stay at the peak, it was time to head down and back to Camp Eggers.  Whereas the ascent saw my lungs and legs complaining, the descent was the cue for my toes to join the whining.  Good balance on my toes was the only thing that kept me from rolling down to the bottom in more than a few spots.  Finding that balance in combat boots is not simple.  I breathed a thankful prayer that there are men out there better than I that volunteer to hike these mountains carrying 50+ pounds of armor, weapons, ammo and other gear in search of the enemy.  I didn't have a true appreciation for the difficulty of that task before.  I do now.

 Me in my body armor on the way back to town.  Very happy

I only had to carry the pistol on the ascent. 

The ride back to Eggers was interesting in its own right.  On the way to the Ghar, the sun wasn't even up, so it was dark and there weren't a lot of people around.  On the drive back into town, the streets were packed.  It was, after all, Friday morning.  Friday is the Muslim holy day, and while traffic was reduced from typical levels, more people were out on the street than I had seen during my two previous trips through town.  Lots of shopping was going on at the roadside fruit vendors and butchers.  Sadly, the burger joint looked closed.  No, I'm not kidding.

Apparently we've brought our bad eating habits with us from America.

The Ghar is one of the best experiences I've had during my time here.  We get to spend quite a bit of recreation time together as a group, but it's so much more satisfying when you can go somewhere besides the office or the dining facility to do it.  We're planning to go once more before I head home, some time in early December.  It looks possible that my replacement will actually be on the ground by then.  Hopefully that is the case, as that would be pretty cool to hike to the top with a co-worker from back home.  We'll just have to see.  

Coming up next, more exciting adventures outside the walls of Camp Eggers.  Stay tuned.  That's all for tonight.  Out here.

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.