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.