ROC Drill

I’ve been very busy this past week, actually working 16+-hour days, helping the IJC prepare for the big Rehearsal of Concept (ROC) Drill. In response to President Obama finally deciding to send 30 thousand US troops to Afghanistan, ISAF and GIRoA (Government, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan…this is the acronym we use most often) are finally getting into the detailed planning of how they’re going to deploy and use these extra troops (not to mention the extra 40 thousand Afghan army and police units GIRoA is standing up and the 7 to 10 thousand troops NATO will probably send) to provide security, governance, and development to the people of Afghanistan. This past week, planners, logisticians, engineers, and many others from each of the Regional Commands have been here, refining the plan, “mitigating” the “friction points”, and rehearsing for the ROC Drill.

The final drill was presented today to COMIJC (the three-star general) and several Afghan ministers and generals. It went well. The Afghans didn’t ask any questions, but a few of them did speak to all of the ISAF planners. The Minister of Defense said this level of support for governance and development, in addition to security is something that Afghanistan “has been screaming for for the past eight years”. Both ISAF and Afghan leaders believe that this next year could represent a “tipping point” (someone’s been reading Malcolm Gladwell) in the war against the Taliban. Fair, effective governance and sustained development are things that the Taliban can’t offer the Afghan people. I certainly hope it does start to make a difference soon.

My job in all of this ROC Drill process has been and will be probably until I leave, to monitor and track the flow of forces (personnel and cargo) into Afghanistan. I also have to have an idea of the issues affecting the airfields that the forces are supposed to flow through. That would be a hard enough job on its own, but it’s even more difficult when I have to rely on several outside organizations relaying that information and to date, they haven’t. I’ve spent the better part of the past week or two trying to figure out who had the information my boss expected me to know. I found three different offices that were building their own “synch matrix” to track force flow, but none of them owned the needed information and were also looking for the right organization to get that information from. Finally, two days ago, the right organization show up and says that yes, they own us a daily product so we’ll know the status of the force flow. Thank you! It’s still a little gray, but I think I’m close to figuring out exactly what I need to do to support the force flow. I just have to coordinate with a little more to get the right people to send me the right kind of information in a timely manner.

Johnny Jihad and the Detainees

Well the name may not be very politically correct, but I spent my Christmas Eve listening to live music performed by three lieutenant colonels and a full-bird colonel who are also deployed here. The four colonels strummed out mostly 70s classic rock in the coffee hut for a couple of hours Christmas Eve night. They’ll never make any money as a band, but it was great entertainment for a deployed environment. It made me want to play my guitar and sing 70s songs, too. In fact, after I left, I went back to my tent and looked through all of the guitar tabs I’ve saved on my computer. I read the songs, singing them in my head, and imagined playing the chords. I didn’t have a guitar, but wanted to play so bad I had to just visualize it. I’m debating if I should ask Val to mail me one of my guitars. It would be great to play every now and then, but storage space is already limited and I don’t get that much free time to play.
Speaking of free time, that’s how I spent most of Christmas Day. Having stayed up until 2 a.m. the previous night, I slept in the next morning…until 11 a.m.! Then I took a long, hot shower (a rarity) and went in to work just to check the unclassified e-mail. It was nice to receive several Christmas messages from family and friends. Thank you. Then I called Val and the kids at 8 a.m. their time to wish them Merry Christmas. They all seemed to have a great Christmas morning. Then I went back to work to surf the web some more, but work-related e-mails came in and people were stopping by asking for stuff, so I actually had to do some work for a few hours. But I was able to leave work early around 6 p.m. A late start and an early leave from work felt almost like a day off, so it was a pretty good day.



This picture includes the full-bird colonel. He didn’t sing any, but he played the harmonica pretty well, especially on Tom Petty’s “Last Dance for Mary Jane”. He also played a little lead melody on a few songs. I’m wondering if they need a finger-picking-folkie-hybrid-glass-slide-blues guitar player and backup singer…


Here are three of the four band members. Notice the one in the Santa hat. Many US soldiers (and a few Brits) were wearing them ALL day long. I know it’s Christmas, but my personal military bearing wouldn’t let me wear one in uniform. It must be my Marine training because I didn’t see a single Marine wearing one. Still the music was great.

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope everyone reading my humble blog has a wonderfully merry Christmas. Yesterday some of our Afghan partners in the IJC hung the banner pictured above on the fence outside of the CJOC. When I saw the sign and realized that the Afghans had it made and hung it up, it made me smile. I think it’s a really nice gesture. As printed on the sign, the MOD stands for the Afghan Ministry of Defense and the MOI is the Ministry of Interior. The patch in the upper left corner is the Afghan National Army’s seal and the patch in the upper right corner is the National Police. The banner even has Santa and the reindeer flying across the sky, above a church (although there’s no cross on the steeple). Overall, I think it’s very nice and just wanted to send everyone a Christmas greeting from Afghanistan. I’m thinking of all of you (trust me).

The IJC has a few things planned for Christmas Eve and Christmas: movies, food, a 5K “jingle jog” (yeah, right), live music by some of the deployed soldiers (including my deputy group commander), a DJ (there’s some civilian/contractor guy that hosts parties every now and then, although I’ve never gone to see what they’re like), caroling (I’m trying to be positive, but that seems like too much of a stretch for me), and of course church services. Tomorrow will probably be a shorter workday…maybe only 12 hours long. Then I think we get all day off on Christmas, which sounds nice, but I don’t know what I’ll do all day. I’m sure we’ll just hang out most of the day. I’ll try to take plenty of pictures. Love to you all. Merry Christmas!

Dorm Move onHold

So just as I make my peace with moving to the transient dorms, they put the move on hold. Word is that the lawyers have raised the issue of the legalities of moving international troops into dorms built with US money, partly due to insurance-like issues (what happens if a German slips in the bathroom and hurts himself?) and partly due to the fairness of the US paying the bill and every other country enjoying the benefit. Trust me, the French aren’t sharing the building they paid for. I’m kind of in that camp, too. I’ve served in the military for 18 and a half years. Why should I cram into a small, 8-man open-bay just to play nice with the international officers that are stationed here too? I’m learning more and more that many of the contributing countries have “national caveats” that keep them from doing specific things, especially when it isn’t specifically protecting their own troops. Yes, it’s great that they’re deployed here with us in Afghanistan, but if, for example, their helicopters will only emergency launch when it’s one of their troops that is hurt, that doesn’t do the rest of us any good. Anyways…! I get to spend a few more days in my spacious, quiet tent. We don’t know when we supposed to move. The Headquarters Support Group actively keeps information from us (a senior enlisted Brit soldier who attends the MWR working group was told he could only send out updates to the British and “not to the Americans”…What kind of “support” is that?). Most people think we’ll move right after the new year. We’ll see. At least it’s been confirmed that they have wireless Internet in the transient dorms, so that will be nice.

The Final Stage of Grief

Being a generally positive person and when faced with the inevitable (i.e. direct orders), I’m trying to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation. There was a brief rumor that staying in the tents would be an option, but that’s been squashed by leadership. On Christmas Eve, I’ll be moving to the transient open-bay dorms. I’m still concerned about storage space and a place to secure my valuables (I’ve recently learned that the locks on the half-wall lockers don’t work), but at least they’re regrouping everyone by rank and unit/organization. That will make it easier to coordinate and compromise with the living conditions. If fellow major “Joe” from my home unit is being annoying, I’m more comfortable telling him outright that he needs to straighten up. If I had to do that with an international senior enlisted, it would probably cause an incident and lingering tension. Also, and best of all, the transient dorms are supposed to have wireless Internet by time we move in (for real this time). That would be a big perk, to be able to sit in bed and surf the web...without being blocked from my own blog, Facebook, Flickr, etc. I’m already trying to figure out the best arrangement of the bunk beds to make the most of the wall and floor spaces. A fellow work mate and future open-bay mate has already helped be “acquire” a large metal shelf from the now abandoned dining facility. That will really help us stack all of our extra bags and free up some room and/or hall space. AND, it’s probably also the wisest, safest thing to do. Leadership has said that moving everyone into the dorms is a Force Protection issue, because the dorms are supposed to have some extra layers of roofing to protect from rocket attacks, certainly more than the tents. I wasn’t too worried about that, but today we received our second rocket attack since I’ve been here. The first was in early November, but it was a dud so I didn’t think too much of it. But today’s rocket actually exploded. Both were on the outer edges of the base, but it’s gotten my attention. So now I’ve accepted the move. I’ll enjoy the space in the tent for now, but look forward to having Internet available off-duty.

They placed these rocket shelters between the tents after the first rocket attack. Fortunately, I haven’t had to hang out in them any.

Bad Billeting Made Worse

Even before I switched tents to get a bottom bunk, I had the opportunity to move to a bottom bunk in a hard-billet, transient dorm room. I chose not to move. The transient dorm rooms are 8-man/4-bunkbeds open-bay rooms down a long hallway; they would be proper rooms, but they don’t have a fourth wall. The main reason I chose not to move was because there was actually less space and storage in the transient dorm room. There are four bunk beds in probably a 12-by-12 room. Instead of a fairly good-sized footlocker, they have thin, half-height wall lockers, which are too short to hang anything and too tall and without shelves to stack t-shirts and underwear. Instead of an electrical outlet per bunk, they have one electrical outlet with a six-plug power strip (most having power strips plugged into them, which is a fire hazard). When I checked out the room previously, there were multiple plugs waiting their turn to be plugged in. Instead of a front door with a cipher lock that provides some security, they don’t even have a door. Everyone’s extra bags of stuff (I have three full A-bags of stuff that doesn’t fit into my footlocker) just sits out in the hallway of an unsecured building. There were plans 2 months ago to have wireless Internet in the transient dorms, but while the other dorms already have it, the transient dorms currently do not. The bathrooms are inside, but they’re actually smaller, too (the toilet stalls are ridiculous; I paid a visit when I was trying to decide whether to move and while I was seated on the toilet, my knees literally touched the door and when I was pulling up my pants, I hit my head on the stall wall. I felt like Mr. Bean in there.) So the colonels get 2-man rooms, the lieutenant colonels get 3-man rooms, and majors and below get 8-man open bays. And staying in the tents “is not an option.” So they know we have better living standards in the tents, but are making us move out. Oh, and guess when we have to move…24 December, Christmas Eve! After 7 weeks of wishfully looking forward to moving up somewhat, we (O-4s and below) are actually moving down. And now I have to hope and scheme to get a bottom bunk again. It’s beyond frustrating. I’m actually a little angry and don’t know the positive that I’m supposed to focus on. Man, I’ll have to pray extra hard for patience tonight.

ISAF Joint Command

Even though we’ve been in Afghanistan for more than 8 years now, the ISAF Joint Command (IJC) was only stood up in September of this year. Previously, there was only the ISAF Headquarters and the individual Regional Commands (RC). ISAF Headquarters was busy coordinating the war on the political level with the international community, while the RCs were busy running the war for their respective geographic spaces. There wasn’t a corps-level, headquarters command that was focused on coordinating all of the RCs’ efforts. That’s what the IJC is designed to do. The IJC moved to North KAIA in late September. It took a couple of months to set up all of the office areas, computer networks/systems, and operational processes. The goal was for the IJC to reach “Full Operational Capability” by 12 Nov 09 and while I know there are kinks still be worked out, as the below commemorative photo indicates, apparently we met the goal. I’m in the second row behind the general officers and to the left. I don’t normally work on the Joint Operations Center (JOC) floor, but I was filling in for the Air Liaison Officer that morning. The JOC is where all of the current operations are monitored and managed.

Some notes about the picture: The JOC was built inside of North KAIA’s new gym. Although fairly well made, all of the desks are unsanded, bare wood. We have to duct tape the edges so we don’t get splinters. (This is really the temporary, 18-month IJC until the permanent IJC is built.) The five screens behind everyone are actually the front of the JOC. They display situational maps of current operations and informational PowerPoint slides. Sometimes we even watch live video feeds of the operations. I hope you can get the flavor of how diverse the supporting countries are. Just in the first row of general officers, there are 3x US Army, 1x US Navy, 1x US Civilian, 2x British, 1x French, 1x Spanish, 1x Italian, 1x Canadian, and 1x Norwegian. (I love how the Italians wear scarves tucked into their camouflage uniforms.) And the 1388 over the IJC logo is the current year according to the Islamic calendar. Hope you like the picture. It’s a rare look into an active JOC.

Happy Birthday Emily!

I think it’s one of those big life-hurdles when you’re oldest/first kid becomes a teenager. Val and I get a little overwhelmed thinking about it sometimes, especially here lately. It’s not because it means that we’re getting older. It’s because we think about our little babies growing up and facing more and more of life’s challenges on their own. Speaking for myself, the thing that calms my worries about Emily becoming a teenager is how wonderfully sweet and smart and level-headed she is. She has always been a joy to parent. She has always tried to do the right thing. She has always been sweet and calm. And nothing has changed in the “tween” years leading up to her 13th birthday. I know Emily will keep on being a sweet, caring, and achieving young lady. I’m so thankful to have such a wonderful daughter and I’m so proud of her for everything she’s done. Happy Birthday, Emily. I love you!

I Shouldn't be Surprised

I guess I gave the computer administers too much credit too soon. The web filtering program wasn’t fully running that first day. The second day it blocked (or “clogged”) everything. Now it’s settled into blocking “social networking and personal sites” and among other sites, anything that streams content, like my secret music site. (Check out Pandora.com, type in your favorite musical artist, and enjoy similar artists.) So now, I can check my Yahoo e-mail, which is good, but Facebook is completely blocked. Since I had just started getting into Facebook, I guess I can live without that for now, but I was starting to build up my friend list with distant relatives and old friends that I was looking forward to catching up with. I can’t access Flickr anymore either, to include ISAF’s and the American Embassy in Kabul’s official Flickr pages. Did you know Secretary of Defense Gates has a Facebook page? Me neither, but now I won’t be able to check it out. Most importantly, I can still access my blog site, BUT I can’t log-on in order to add any new posts or pictures. So until we get (the mythical) wireless Internet for personal use, I have to e-mail my posts to Val and have her upload them for me. Thanks, Val!

Major Crisis Averted

Well, I’m back at work, waiting for the SEC Championship game to start. I wasn’t able to nap before-hand…I’ll save that story for another post. But the good news is that a quick check of Yahoo mail and the Blogger indicate that I’ll still be able to use those sites, even now that the “content filtering product” is activated. To give the computer administers some due credit; they only blocked the chat features of Yahoo/Hotmail. Apparently, it’s the chat features that are bandwidth hogs. E-mails and the occasional picture aren’t too much. Even Facebook is working. (And the secret music site that I occasionally listen to is still working. Shhh, don’t tell the administers.) So, my apologies (for some mean/frustrated thoughts) to the computer administers. I’ll try to stay positive about the off-duty wireless Internet, hard-billet dorm rooms, and the MWR tent. Maybe the Army can surprise me with those, too.

No More "Social Networking"

Apparently, we had too much of a good thing, so of course it had to be shut down. Late last night, the computer administers sent out an e-mail notifying everyone that starting today they were going to enable “a web content filtering product which prevents internet attacks and performance degradation by enforcing DoD/CENTCOM/USFOR-A policy regarding internet usage for authorized purposes.” The program is designed to block access to explicit, hacking, and gambling sites. Well, duh, that’s no problem. The problem is that the program also blocks access to “social networking” sites, such as Yahoo mail and Facebook. I and nearly everyone else use these sites to stay in touch with lots of family and friends all over the world. Something we can’t do with just 30 minutes worth of morale calls per week. More importantly, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to access and update my blog. I hope so, but based on the base support group’s recent performance I doubt it. This development wouldn’t be so bad if we had wireless Internet like they promised. That was supposed to be active on 16 November, but not only did it not happen, but there’s been no update on the status since then. Good grief! These are the frustrations that make a deployment more miserable than it has to be. I hope I’ll still be able to post after tonight. If not, I’ll have to wait until when (if) they get the wireless Internet working. Take care.

I just did the math and figured out that the SEC Championship Game is coming on at 0130 in the morning here in Afghanistan. I guess I’ll have to sleep a few hours before the game, come into to work (in uniform) to watch the game, then try to catch a quick nap after the game before heading back to work. Fortunately, Sunday is a late-start morning here; I don’t have to be in until 1030. So that should help. I’ve got to do whatever it takes…I’ve missed so most of the college football season this year it’s depressing (at least to me). Oooo man, I just checked and the National Championship Game is on 7 January at 8 p.m. That’s Friday 0730 in the morning here and I don’t have to be at work until 1100 on Fridays. I’ll only have to wake up a little earlier that day. (Those two late-start days are my only time off from a 12-14 hour work schedule. I still usually work 9-10 hours those days.) Here’s hoping it all works out to plan. Go Gators!Those people that "can't stand" Tebow, just can't stand that he doesn't play for their team. Any fanbase that had him would cheer him as their greatest hero. Get over it and enjoy a good news story.

Finally Got a Bottom Bunk

I’m not sure how long ago it happened—over a week ago, maybe two, but I finally got a bottom bunk. A Brit officer that I’d befriended in my first tent stopped by one day at work to let me know he was moving to a different tent that was “practically empty.” He was telling me so I could move down to the bottom bunk that he was using while the Dutch officer was home on leave. He was letting me know because I had given up my “seniority” as a tent resident to let him have it. I was trying to be nice because honestly, I was making me nervous when he climbed into him top bunk (he’s a few years older than me and I’m getting old!). While we were talking, it occurred to us that I could just move over there, too. After he left I practically speed-walked to my tent, grabbed my sleeping bag, and went to the new tent, B8, to claim a bottom bunk. Sure enough, there were two empty bottom bunks left; both closest to the front door. I choose the one to the left, opposite the way the door opens so I wouldn’t get as much as the light coming through. That night I moved the rest of my stuff over and set up my little space. It’s kind of a tight fit, but I don’t have to share space with anyone. In fact, just last night I rearranged my bags and footlocker to give myself a little more room and not bump into the footlocker. So is it everything I dreamed of? For the most part, yes. I have poncho liners on the sides of the bunk bed that blocks the air from blowing on me all night, so I don’t have to sleep with my head under the Gortex sleeping bag anymore. Obviously it’s easier to get in and out of bed or now, to just lean over and grab something out of my footlocker. I’m using the top bunk as storage space (and to ward off any new occupants). And I have a head board to lean against while I watch DVDs or play Spider Solitaire. Although I can’t step up completely, as there’s not really that much head room. Still, it’s better than the top bunk. If they could just get the wireless Internet working like they promised (back on 16 November), I wouldn’t mind staying in the tent my entire time here. Here's my new area: a footlocker for my everyday uniform items and valuables, additional bags stuffed along the side tent wall, cold-weather coat for trips to the shower/bathroom, poncho liners to block the air vents, bath towel on one post and laundry bag on the other. The black square on the left is even a window, should I ever get a day off and want to hang out and watch the clouds go by.

Just a picture of me in my deployment "pajamas", aka PT gear, to give you a scale of "my" living space.