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.