I have been asked this question many times since I've been home. I was asked when I was on leave, and people who I don't even know have asked me as well. I have often had to explain where I have been for the last year and a half while conducting business that I haven't been here to conduct.
Very often, the question is posed, "So, where is Osama?"
I have two answers: 1) Pakistan and 2) It doesn't matter. Where I was, I was looking for Mullah Mahmoud and Qari Nejat.
In the Tagab Valley, the biggest problems were the local Taliban leaders. Mullah Mahmoud was the "spiritual" leader of the local Taliban, and Qari Nejat was the biggest kinetic troublemaker on the ground. The HiG were a huge, but more subtle, problem as well.
I wasn't looking for Osama bin Laden. I was looking for Mullah Mahmoud most of the time. He lived in the Afghania Valley, a sub-valley that ran to the east off of the north-south Tagab Valley. There were several of these sub-valleys, but I spent a fair amount of time in the Afghania Valley.
My ANP and I captured two of Mullah Mahmoud's bodyguards. We searched his house. My ANP were yelled at by his mother for eating grapes from the vines overhanging the vineyard walls.
She demanded two dollars in payment. I laughed inside myself about that, remembering the line from the movie... "Two dollars! I want my two dollars!"*
We staged an all-night movement into territory that took myself, SGT Surferdude, and 40 ANP miles up the Pachalaghn Valley, where there had been no foreigners since the Russians had last been there, based on a tip that Mullah Mahmoud was hiding in a house up there. SGT Surferdude and I wound up seven and a half miles from the nearest Americans... all five of them... with hit-or-miss communications by radio and no cell phone signals.
We didn't catch the Mullah. We never did, at least not while I was there. If they have caught him since then I don't know about it. I heard a sketchy report that Qari Nejat was reportedly killed in the Tagab Valley, but no confirmation. That was just as we were leaving the country.
Osama wasn't the problem where I was. I had smaller fish to fry.
Mullah Mahmoud and Qari Nejat supported Osama, no doubt. I'm sure that they were cheered by hearing his sonorous tones on fuzzy cassette tapes smuggled out of the mountains of Northwest Pakistan. My problem wasn't really Osama, though. My problem wasn't really Mullah Mahmoud or Qari Nejat. They were simply an acute symptom of my chronic problem; the people of the Tagab Valley.
Those people had issues; have issues.
Everywhere we went and met with local leaders, we asked them about what their issues were. One issue that was consistent was unemployment. Their men had no work. Farming was the occupation in most of these areas, but with a population in the neighborhood of 40,000, the Tagab Valley doesn't have farming work for everyone. Unemployment runs high.
In Afghanistan, a man cannot start a family unless he can support them. First, he has to pay for his wife. He has to pay the bride's family a dowery; a "bride price." The price for a bride varies from province to province, but it can run as high as $10,000 (American.)
A wedding is the biggest party that you can have in Afghanistan. It's a huge event.
This is in an area where most people make less than $200/month. And many of them are unemployed.
Such a state of affairs breeds a lot of dissatisfaction. It also leaves a lot of young men with a lot of time on their hands. It leaves a lot of young men who have started families, and older men who have families, with a lot of time on their hands and families to feed.
Throw into that mix a group of people who "feel their pain" and have money to spend performing what CPT Mac liked to call "stupid human tricks," and you've got an insurgency with the ability to recruit.
As I've said before, most people really don't care who's in charge. Look at our own country; a lot of people don't even vote. Have a rainy election day and the numbers who do go down even more. That's how many people are so unconcerned with who's in power that they don't even make the effort to vote, much less fight about who's in charge.
A very low percentage of the population of the 13 original colonies actually took part in the American Revolution. Most just waited it out and dealt with the end result. Some fed or housed troops (on either side,) some provided minor support, most did nothing for either side.
In a situation like that which exists in Afghanistan, the same thing is true. Most of the farmers in the villages don't really care who's in charge, as long as they can raise their families in peace. There will be someone strolling around the area with an automatic weapon and the ability to impose some type of control. To most, they may have a preference, but that preference is not enough to fight over.
But when one of those groups is a significant employer in the area, fed by opium profits and Arab money, they can offer "employment" to those who are not ideologically committed enough to fight based on their personal dedication to the cause. Add the religious under(or over)tones of the Islamic righteousness of a pseudo-Jihad, and you have a man who needs money and can justify in his own mind why it's okay to shoot at other people, especially those foreigners who are there trying to help the elected government of Afghanistan establish control over previously ungoverned areas. Many suicide bombers are just the ultimate example of this.
A lot of American dissatisfaction with the war is based on our perception that we, as the world's preeminent superpower, are taking what appears to be an inordinate amount of time subduing a couple of relatively tiny and undoubtedly weaker countries. We see our task as "bending them to our will." With the world's most powerful, technologically advanced military forces, why in the hell would that be a problem?
Because we are not fighting against a conventional army wearing uniforms, requiring a logistics tail, establishing a "front line." We are dealing with insurgents who look just like every other average Joe (or average Achmed, if you will) in the valley.
Now, it's true that we're also dealing with a global Islamofascist insurgency; but that's another story... but that story interfaces with the tales of two little countries in the throes of rebirth in three important ways.
The first is message. By beating the drum of Islam, they open the door to legitimacy. Religion is one of the biggest reasons to kill in the world. Too many examples to cite; shouldn't have to. This is not the only component to the message of the insurgents; jobs, progress, addressing hopelessness, blaming the Kafirs for all of their problems, and presenting an image of the future are all part of that message. THIS is the "hearts and minds" type of stuff.
The second is money. It's beyond dispute that there are a lot of Arabs, even our good buddies the Saudis, who aren't willing to risk their own lives or country, but they will give money to the Afghans or Iraqis to buy weapons, recruit, whatever. Achmed Wilson's war.
They even have fund raising telethons.
The third is leadership. They do have a poster child. We did help create him, but to complain about our mistakes in the past is to distract ourselves from what we need to do now.
We, as a nation, think conventionally. We really really think that "cutting off the head" of the hydra is going to kill the beast. That doesn't solve the underlying problem any more than killing the poster child for any cause. He has power because he has relevance. Smokey the Bear would not exist if it weren't for forest fires.
This brings me to my REAL answer to the question of "Where is Osama?"
My answer is, "I don't care."
It's not about Osama. By being fixated on the poster child and not the disease, we set ourselves up for failure. What's the worst thing that we can do to Osama?
"Kill him," I hear the cry. Not true, any more than thinking that the American Revolution would have been stopped by killing George Washington. Ayman al Zawahiri would take the reins, just like we had Thomas Jefferson and a host of other committed men. We call our guys patriots.
The worst thing that we can do to Osama bin Laden is make him irrelevant. Reduce him to a raving old man hiding in the mountains of Pakistan, surrounded by a small but impotent clan of ardent admirers who cannot stir enough emotion in the population to do more than smile and say, "No, thank you. My family and I are doing fine. Thanks for asking."
What if King George had given the Colonies seats in Parliament and removed the complaints of the colonists? All but the most raving revolutionaries would have gone back to their families. The fringe would have moved to Idaho and lived on secluded compounds creating shadow governments on their ranches and waiting for over two hundred years for Janet Reno to send snipers. They would have become as irrelevant as our own modern day white supremacists, neo-nazis, and tax protesters.
The desire to kill Osama is driven by revenge. Revenge is not a motive for anything positive in this entire world. It is a powerful emotion, and it was the same emotion that drove our entrance into Afghanistan as well as our toppling of Sadam Hussein. The fervor that drove an overwhelming vote in Congress to approve the military invasion of Iraq (which many backpedal on now, claiming to have been lied to) was driven by this primitive emotional reaction.
Side note: Congress has access to the same intelligence. If they made a mistake, they made a mistake; but to claim they were duped afterwards is to fail to take responsibility for their actions. It's like a teenager crying out that it's not their fault that their homework didn't get done. Hey gang; grow up!
As our frustration with the failure for more immediate gratification grows and with the natural dimming, with time, of the immediate urge for revenge, opposition for the war grows. This frustration becomes, "I'm tired of this game; I want to quit."
If we do that, then we leave a motivated, mobilized enemy who has already demonstrated the willingness to attack us on our own soil, and a world who once again sees our inability (unwillingness makes us unable) to follow a task through to completion.
That's a really bad combination. Lethal, in fact.
What makes us a superpower? Is it our military? Well, we have a fairly large, indisputably technically superior military, but that's not all that makes us so powerful. We are ignoring the application of one of our most powerful weapons in the Global War on Terror, even while that weapon is being wielded in our domestic political struggles with the grace of Conan the Barbarian with a really big sword.
It's the economy, stupid.
Sorry; just had to use that phrase.
We have an enormous, resilient economy. Afghans are the biggest capitalists I've ever seen. Afghans will start a small business in a heartbeat. The Ferengis on Star Trek were patterned after Afghan businessmen, I just know it. Of course, the Klingons were patterned after Pashtun warriors, but that's another subject.
Afghanistan has tremendous natural resources and no way to exploit them for the benefit of their own country and people. They have no way to move those commodities to market them to the world.
What can we do?
Hell, I don't know; I'm just a paean Noncommissioned Officer. What I can tell you is that the answer isn't the Army, the Marine Corps, or the Air Force. Having the military fix a county's economy is like have a dentist do open heart surgery.
We can get the chest open, but just go ahead and hand us the Mixmaster for the rest of the job, because it'll make the end result quicker, but it won't change it.
I think that perhaps the government can provide some serious motivation for American companies to invest in these countries. I'm not an economist, but it seems that some things can be done, if we think about how to solve that problem.
The Afghans are willing to take anything that we give them. They are what... the third poorest nation on earth? But they are not a nation of welfare moms; the pride of providing for their families with honest work is strong in them.
Who was it that said, "Teach a man to fish...?" What makes us think that's not good advice in general?
Make Afghanistan an economic redevelopment zone. Tax exemptions, Medals of Freedom, free rides to the moon for the CEO and board... whatever works. When a guy has a job to go to in the morning, it's a lot harder to get him to run around in the middle of the night making money by planting bombs in the road or lobbing rockets at the local FOB.
Last year, there was a bidding war over who would get to develop a huge copper deposit in Afghanistan. The Chinese won with (if memory serves) a bid of $20 billion for the privilege of mining and exporting the copper (which is a very hot commodity.)
Guess where the Chinese are taking the copper? You guessed it... China. They are building a railroad to move the copper to China. What a boon in a country which possesses 15 miles of railroad. Do you think that perhaps other things besides copper may move on that railway once it is built?
I applaud the end result. I'm no huge fan of the Chinese, it will still help Afghanistan; so it's a good thing. The Afghans are the winner, with the creation of about 7,000 jobs, $20 billion in economic infusion, and a railroad to China to boot.
Those 7,000 jobs will also feed countless other jobs for Afghans who don't work in the mine; shops, services, and all the stuff that people who have money spend it on.
Oh, and US companies need to get ready for more, cheaper copper-based products from China. Hmmmm... wonder what you can make with copper that we make, too? Never mind... I'm sure it won't produce any competitive edge for the Chinese. Forget I mentioned that.
The Taliban is not happy about the copper mine. No big surprise; it takes away a big part of their message, and in that area it makes their local version of Mullah Mahmoud and Qari Nejat irrelevant. It also makes Osama pretty much a non-issue.
I'm not saying that the military doesn't have a role in this war; it is a war. What I'm saying is that if we don't address the other root causes, the struggle will be long and ugly, and we are born quitters on the world stage. If we don't respond in an effective way, the well-meaning myopic in this country will become stronger and we will be in real trouble.
Many of us have given a lot in this war. Some have given their all. Some cry out that those lives (and by extension my efforts) were wasted. The only way that these sacrifices have been in vain is if there is no end result.
It really does not matter if we kill Osama or leave him a Koreshian vestige in the mountains of Pakistan, railing into a tape recorder to those who no longer care; but if we do not leave him and his cause irrelevant, then we truly have wasted all of those lives, and all of the man-years, sweat, and loss of those of us who returned with breath in our bodies.
In most previous wars, we worked to render our opponents inert; incapable of further organized resistance. We beat them into a state of reasonableness. We destroyed entire societies in this pursuit, only to rebuild them in our own image, providing ourselves with allies and economic competitors.
In this war, we either render our opponents irrelevant, or me and my brothers, the sons and daughters, the fathers and mothers, the survivors and the fallen, become irrelevant; because it is our job to provide for the common defense, and in that we will have sacrificed in vain.
Our very first job, as a nation, is to understand what our goal really is. That which is nebulous is easily turned to the purpose of whoever has a cause.
Witness the current Presidential election process. Who has a plan?
Answer: Nobody. The only conversation is about how to employ (or unemploy) the military. Nobody is talking about addressing the basic situation which gives insurgents a foothold on the hearts and minds of these peoples, providing a base of power for the insurgencies.
I have said (repeating an unattributed quote) that this nation is not at war, but its military is. It's time to leverage the power of a nation. Not all patriots are military, as are not all solutions to our problems. Our biggest victories have come when this entire nation has been mobilized and galvanized behind a campaign for survival.
As an aside, I still cannot believe that there are so many able-bodied young who live as if there is no war going on. The various military services should have a waiting list. In WW-II, young men who were classified 4-F would sometimes kill themselves out of shame. No problems like that here in the States this go-round. It seems that we have already had our greatest generation.
Of course, Ernie Pyle was published in the mainstream media during WW-II. It seems that the media has had its greatest generation, too. My father's generation had Ernie Pyle. My generation has had Dan Rather. I think that we got the short end of the stick.
In WW-II they had a different term for CNN. They called it "Tokyo Rose." Railing about the media would be an entire post of its own. I can tell you this; if we wanted to get good and angry while in Afghanistan, we could watch CNN or the network news. The blatant ignorance and clear bias was enough to get good and angry over.
This is not about Osama. He is merely one of the main focal points for the rage of a people who are filled with hopelessness, fatalistic despair, religious bigotry, and powerlessness.
This Memorial Day weekend, we have nearly 5,000 more to memorialize than we did in May of 2001. Part of honoring the dead is to ensure that they did not die in vain.
In March, days before my team left Camp Phoenix to come home, we attended a memorial service for SFC Colin Bowen. SFC Bowen had been severely wounded in an IED attack on his humvee in January, while he was doing the same job we were doing. He finally succumbed to his wounds just before we left Afghanistan. He left behind a wife and small children. I did not know SFC Bowen, or his family, but O did. He spoke of SFC Bowen and his family with great respect. That's all I needed to know.
It was the only time in that country that I saw SFC O cry.
So my thoughts this Memorial Day include SFC Colin Bowen.
*"Johnny" the Paperboy in Better Off Dead Paramount Pictures, 1985
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Friday, May 23, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Readjustment And Trivia
The Army warns you about readjustment and "reintegration." Oddly enough, a lot of it is true. They warn about depression, or let-down. They warn about the family and things that happen normally as part of reintegration.
A lot of it is true.
I never felt overly "jacked-up" in Afghanistan. It all felt pretty normal to me, actually. There were a few times when I knew that I could easily be killed, and there were several times when I knew without a doubt that if the ACM had chosen to hit us at that moment that I was in a very very precarious position.
I did, however, feel alert. There have been times here in the States that I have been inattentive, even though I was going through the motions. For instance, driving around town running errands but thinking about something else, to the point that I would suddenly realize that I had lost track of where I was. I never lost track so much that I was endangering other people or vehicles around me, just the bigger picture.
I was on autopilot.
That never happened in Afghanistan. I always knew when I was outside the wire what was going on, at least what was going on in proximity to me, even if the rest of the situation was unclear.
At the time, I wouldn't have described it as hyper vigilance; it felt normal, and not uncomfortable. I liked being outside the wire. I pitied those poor fobbits who never left the wire... there are so many of them. I couldn't have felt good about myself had that been my existence in Afghanistan.
When you get so used to having to have your "hand on the stick," being where you can put it on autopilot and get away with it causes the spring to uncoil. When the spring uncoils, the lack of tension sends a ripple through the rest of the heart and mind.
It's disconcerting.
Trivia
Being back in American culture takes on a whole new perspective after having been in Afghanistan. The apparent inattention of the American public to the war, the seeming lack of support for the task, even with the apparent support for the individual, is something that requires some getting used to. It was my life for nearly a year and a half, counting the spin-up time and the deployment itself. To find it so trivialized in the daily life here is, for some reason, mildly disturbing.
I'll get over it.
I try to keep in mind that my brother, upon his return from Viet Nam, was encouraged by many to engage in physically impossible acts of self-love and was showered with dog feces at the airport in San Diego. I actually had to avoid running over people who stepped in front of me not to shower me with feces but to say, "thank you."
Like I said, I'll get over it.
It is truly the electronic age. The mess halls on even some of the smaller FOB's had a big screen TV in it, with military satellite TV. We often watched AFN (Armed Forces Network) Europe while we ate. This was not the case at the firebase at the top of the Tagab Valley, but in many other places there was AFN.
The "commercials" on AFN consisted of such things as OPSEC* awareness commercials starring "Squeakers the Mouse," an evil, yet unnamed cat that was constantly spying on Squeakers with apparent ill will, and an occasional guest-starring hamster whom I'm not sure had a name. Other "commercials" were such things as military organizations advertising what they did for the overall war effort ("We are the Logistics Command, supplying everyone with everything everywhere") and so on.
Apple did have an iPod commercial; it warned that wearing earphones on a military base is generally against regulations and exhorted iPod users to avoid incurring the wrath of military justice by being smart about not using their products in violation of post policies. It was done in the typical iPod crazy-dancing silhouette with white iPod wires style; and the silhouette was obviously wearing bloused combat boots, and then he was busted by a silhouette wearing an MP armband.
I thought that was pretty cool; a civilian company who paid enough attention that they would actually spend money to cater to the military market.
I've always enjoyed imaginative, humorous commercials. I used to quote the "Beggin' Strips" commercials in Afghanistan ("What is it? I can't READ!")
The amateurish Squeakers commercials were a stark contrast to the stylish commercials that even the most ridiculous of products sport here in the States. Smilin' Bob looks like a pro compared to the AV Club reject products that adorn AFN Europe.
Right now, though, the seriousness with which advertisers present their pleas for Americans to spend their money on trivial... well, there's just no other word for it but crap... it's just so glaringly obvious to me.
After having spent a year in combat, the vigor and earnestness with which such minor luxuries are touted just seems more than comical; make that nonsensical. Americans actually have the time to think about "increasing the size of that certain part of the male body" (eyes batting in amateurish seductiveness.)
Sheesh.
Now, like I said, I enjoy products being presented with humor, and production value is much appreciated after having been subjected to Squeakers scurrying past a mousetrap baited with obviously paper cheese; but commercials that pander to the obviously asinine just grate on the soul.
My sense of being a "fly on the wall" in my own culture will probably decrease with time, but right now I am a witness to the slack-jawed amazement with which others can view our trivial thrashing about.
The network news is a whole 'nother issue. The American public has never been shown the truth about what is going on in the theaters of combat. They don't even pretend to try to present a snapshot of what is really going on; yet they will, with all seriousness (bordering on somberness,) present a fingernail clipping-sized snippet of deeply disconcerting "news" about something without ever really showing the value of what is being attempted, even accomplished, by a very tiny portion of our population.
No wonder that sizable chunks of the American public appear to be more than willing to vote for somebody, anybody, who promises to "bring the troops home." I can tell you one thing; if we "bring the troops home" before we can leave the two governments capable of governing their countries, then all those lives will be wasted, and we will find ourselves less secure than we have been in a very long time.
I didn't go to Afghanistan to win the war. I am not that powerful. It takes the efforts of many like me for a long period of time to do that. I saw a lot of actions/inactions that were completely counterproductive that end; but I also saw a lot of people performing small acts of greatness.
Keep this in mind; we are fighting a counterinsurgency in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In history, there has never been a successful counterinsurgency that has been won in less than ten years. What we are doing requires consistent effort over a period of time. This is not a sprint, it is a marathon. We are a nation of 50 meter sprinters. We need to be a nation of marathoners, a nation of patience, and a nation that views itself as a citizen of the world. That doesn't mean that the world should dictate our actions, nor does it mean that we need to seek the approval of the world.
The past year and a half have changed my viewpoint in a number of ways. None of the above means that I am anti-American. I love this country. While I am concerned about our country failing to follow through on this endeavor, thereby wasting my efforts and the lives of those who lost their lives in putting forth their efforts, I still have tremendous faith in both this country and the amazing Constitution that established our great nation. I tear up when the National Anthem is played, and I am stirred by the sight of the flag.
While I was overseas, America was the ideal... it was the paradise willingly left behind to dwell amid the hostility and mud huts and poverty and strange languages. America is an ideal that our terps aspire to, even a lot of the Afghans that we advised dreamed of how to get here, to be allowed at this huge table of peace and plenty. To be American.
It means so much more than I can convey with words. Many have tried to express it; I don't think that anyone ever will... just little bits of it at a time.
I'm not saying that America is bad, or trivial; but we do some absolutely inane things.
The biggest fear of most of the "good" Afghans that I dealt with is this; that we will leave. What they fear is real, and it is our pattern as a nation. We get halfway through and we get bored or tired and we leave.
And then the bad guys win.
Hey, I'm just wondering... what did everyone do that pissed off the oil companies so badly while I was gone? I cannot believe what is going on with the price of gasoline. How does a refinery strike in Scotland drive prices at the pump up ten cents a gallon overnight? Did the price of the fuel delivered to the zippy marts change overnight? Does anyone else see anything wrong with the "binocular price fixing" going on?
That's how the gas station managers I've talked with justified raising their prices.
"The guys up the street bumped theirs up to $3.79... so we went $3.78. Pretty smart, huh?"
Uh... yeah. Especially when you were charging $3.56 this morning. Did you get a new delivery that was more expensive this afternoon?
When I left the country, gas was $2.80-something a gallon. What in the hell have you guys been doing while I was gone?
Now, I don't think that there is some big cabal fixing prices on a national scale... maybe there is, but it's happening at the neighborhood level, too. One guy raises his $.15 a gallon, so everyone else goes $.13 to $.15 a gallon, too. Don't want to be left out of making an additional profit now, do we?
What would happen if one guy raised his prices $.15 a gallon and nobody else did? But that's not what we're seeing now, are we?
Tell me how that's not price fixing. It's not a conspiracy, but it works just fine all the same. We are even having our expectations managed. We are all set for $4-plus a gallon gas prices. We have been primed.
A lot of investors are taking advantage of this situation by speculating on oil prices. Even in Afghanistan we got the news that major oil companies had never made so much money in their entire existence as they did last year. With our economy already strained by a war that I view as necessary enough to jump through hoops to participate in, what kind of patriotism is that, to individually seek to profit so much by driving up the cost of what has become a necessity to the average American?
Okay... so there's a chunk of my reintegration shock.
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A lot of it is true.
I never felt overly "jacked-up" in Afghanistan. It all felt pretty normal to me, actually. There were a few times when I knew that I could easily be killed, and there were several times when I knew without a doubt that if the ACM had chosen to hit us at that moment that I was in a very very precarious position.
I did, however, feel alert. There have been times here in the States that I have been inattentive, even though I was going through the motions. For instance, driving around town running errands but thinking about something else, to the point that I would suddenly realize that I had lost track of where I was. I never lost track so much that I was endangering other people or vehicles around me, just the bigger picture.
I was on autopilot.
That never happened in Afghanistan. I always knew when I was outside the wire what was going on, at least what was going on in proximity to me, even if the rest of the situation was unclear.
At the time, I wouldn't have described it as hyper vigilance; it felt normal, and not uncomfortable. I liked being outside the wire. I pitied those poor fobbits who never left the wire... there are so many of them. I couldn't have felt good about myself had that been my existence in Afghanistan.
When you get so used to having to have your "hand on the stick," being where you can put it on autopilot and get away with it causes the spring to uncoil. When the spring uncoils, the lack of tension sends a ripple through the rest of the heart and mind.
It's disconcerting.
Trivia
Being back in American culture takes on a whole new perspective after having been in Afghanistan. The apparent inattention of the American public to the war, the seeming lack of support for the task, even with the apparent support for the individual, is something that requires some getting used to. It was my life for nearly a year and a half, counting the spin-up time and the deployment itself. To find it so trivialized in the daily life here is, for some reason, mildly disturbing.
I'll get over it.
I try to keep in mind that my brother, upon his return from Viet Nam, was encouraged by many to engage in physically impossible acts of self-love and was showered with dog feces at the airport in San Diego. I actually had to avoid running over people who stepped in front of me not to shower me with feces but to say, "thank you."
Like I said, I'll get over it.
It is truly the electronic age. The mess halls on even some of the smaller FOB's had a big screen TV in it, with military satellite TV. We often watched AFN (Armed Forces Network) Europe while we ate. This was not the case at the firebase at the top of the Tagab Valley, but in many other places there was AFN.
The "commercials" on AFN consisted of such things as OPSEC* awareness commercials starring "Squeakers the Mouse," an evil, yet unnamed cat that was constantly spying on Squeakers with apparent ill will, and an occasional guest-starring hamster whom I'm not sure had a name. Other "commercials" were such things as military organizations advertising what they did for the overall war effort ("We are the Logistics Command, supplying everyone with everything everywhere") and so on.
Apple did have an iPod commercial; it warned that wearing earphones on a military base is generally against regulations and exhorted iPod users to avoid incurring the wrath of military justice by being smart about not using their products in violation of post policies. It was done in the typical iPod crazy-dancing silhouette with white iPod wires style; and the silhouette was obviously wearing bloused combat boots, and then he was busted by a silhouette wearing an MP armband.
I thought that was pretty cool; a civilian company who paid enough attention that they would actually spend money to cater to the military market.
I've always enjoyed imaginative, humorous commercials. I used to quote the "Beggin' Strips" commercials in Afghanistan ("What is it? I can't READ!")
The amateurish Squeakers commercials were a stark contrast to the stylish commercials that even the most ridiculous of products sport here in the States. Smilin' Bob looks like a pro compared to the AV Club reject products that adorn AFN Europe.
Right now, though, the seriousness with which advertisers present their pleas for Americans to spend their money on trivial... well, there's just no other word for it but crap... it's just so glaringly obvious to me.
After having spent a year in combat, the vigor and earnestness with which such minor luxuries are touted just seems more than comical; make that nonsensical. Americans actually have the time to think about "increasing the size of that certain part of the male body" (eyes batting in amateurish seductiveness.)
Sheesh.
Now, like I said, I enjoy products being presented with humor, and production value is much appreciated after having been subjected to Squeakers scurrying past a mousetrap baited with obviously paper cheese; but commercials that pander to the obviously asinine just grate on the soul.
My sense of being a "fly on the wall" in my own culture will probably decrease with time, but right now I am a witness to the slack-jawed amazement with which others can view our trivial thrashing about.
The network news is a whole 'nother issue. The American public has never been shown the truth about what is going on in the theaters of combat. They don't even pretend to try to present a snapshot of what is really going on; yet they will, with all seriousness (bordering on somberness,) present a fingernail clipping-sized snippet of deeply disconcerting "news" about something without ever really showing the value of what is being attempted, even accomplished, by a very tiny portion of our population.
No wonder that sizable chunks of the American public appear to be more than willing to vote for somebody, anybody, who promises to "bring the troops home." I can tell you one thing; if we "bring the troops home" before we can leave the two governments capable of governing their countries, then all those lives will be wasted, and we will find ourselves less secure than we have been in a very long time.
I didn't go to Afghanistan to win the war. I am not that powerful. It takes the efforts of many like me for a long period of time to do that. I saw a lot of actions/inactions that were completely counterproductive that end; but I also saw a lot of people performing small acts of greatness.
Keep this in mind; we are fighting a counterinsurgency in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In history, there has never been a successful counterinsurgency that has been won in less than ten years. What we are doing requires consistent effort over a period of time. This is not a sprint, it is a marathon. We are a nation of 50 meter sprinters. We need to be a nation of marathoners, a nation of patience, and a nation that views itself as a citizen of the world. That doesn't mean that the world should dictate our actions, nor does it mean that we need to seek the approval of the world.
The past year and a half have changed my viewpoint in a number of ways. None of the above means that I am anti-American. I love this country. While I am concerned about our country failing to follow through on this endeavor, thereby wasting my efforts and the lives of those who lost their lives in putting forth their efforts, I still have tremendous faith in both this country and the amazing Constitution that established our great nation. I tear up when the National Anthem is played, and I am stirred by the sight of the flag.
While I was overseas, America was the ideal... it was the paradise willingly left behind to dwell amid the hostility and mud huts and poverty and strange languages. America is an ideal that our terps aspire to, even a lot of the Afghans that we advised dreamed of how to get here, to be allowed at this huge table of peace and plenty. To be American.
It means so much more than I can convey with words. Many have tried to express it; I don't think that anyone ever will... just little bits of it at a time.
I'm not saying that America is bad, or trivial; but we do some absolutely inane things.
The biggest fear of most of the "good" Afghans that I dealt with is this; that we will leave. What they fear is real, and it is our pattern as a nation. We get halfway through and we get bored or tired and we leave.
And then the bad guys win.
Hey, I'm just wondering... what did everyone do that pissed off the oil companies so badly while I was gone? I cannot believe what is going on with the price of gasoline. How does a refinery strike in Scotland drive prices at the pump up ten cents a gallon overnight? Did the price of the fuel delivered to the zippy marts change overnight? Does anyone else see anything wrong with the "binocular price fixing" going on?
That's how the gas station managers I've talked with justified raising their prices.
"The guys up the street bumped theirs up to $3.79... so we went $3.78. Pretty smart, huh?"
Uh... yeah. Especially when you were charging $3.56 this morning. Did you get a new delivery that was more expensive this afternoon?
When I left the country, gas was $2.80-something a gallon. What in the hell have you guys been doing while I was gone?
Now, I don't think that there is some big cabal fixing prices on a national scale... maybe there is, but it's happening at the neighborhood level, too. One guy raises his $.15 a gallon, so everyone else goes $.13 to $.15 a gallon, too. Don't want to be left out of making an additional profit now, do we?
What would happen if one guy raised his prices $.15 a gallon and nobody else did? But that's not what we're seeing now, are we?
Tell me how that's not price fixing. It's not a conspiracy, but it works just fine all the same. We are even having our expectations managed. We are all set for $4-plus a gallon gas prices. We have been primed.
A lot of investors are taking advantage of this situation by speculating on oil prices. Even in Afghanistan we got the news that major oil companies had never made so much money in their entire existence as they did last year. With our economy already strained by a war that I view as necessary enough to jump through hoops to participate in, what kind of patriotism is that, to individually seek to profit so much by driving up the cost of what has become a necessity to the average American?
Okay... so there's a chunk of my reintegration shock.
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Back In The USA
Coming home is an adventure all its own.
The final flight out of Afghanistan, for us, was on a C-130. The C-130, a four-engine turboprop whale, is a slow and torturous ride to go the distance from Kabul to Qatar, where we boarded a C-17 for the short hop to Kuwait, from where we embarked on a civilian charter that took us through Germany and then to New Jersey and finally Kansas.
In Kansas the whirlwind of out processing started in earnest. There were briefings followed by a welcome home ceremony in a gymnasium attended by a few officers and NCO's who had been responsible for training us to go to Afghanistan and the few families who had been able to make the trip to Ft Riley. The days that followed brought a myriad of out processing tasks; medical, dental, turning in equipment, turning in our personal weapons, briefings about everything from our reemployment rights to dealing with post traumatic stress and the difficulties of reunions and readjustment to the family.
And, spending the last few days that we would ever spend with a group of men with whom we had shared a lot over the course of the past fifteen months.
There was a lot of joking around, a bit of celebrating, some evenings were spent together. Some of the men's families had made the trip to Kansas to greet their warriors and welcome them home. Most of us had to wait to see our families, but it was only a few days. The good people at Ft Riley did all they could to speed us through our out processing and move us on to our final destinations.
But we were still in our little enclave. While we were mentally breaking our ties with this ad-hoc organization, we were still just our little group. We were each looking towards our own reunions, still looking towards returning to our individual lives. We were from many states, and each of us would go our separate ways, beginning to live what had been normal to us.
I don't know about the rest of the guys, but it will never be quite the same again for me.
Everyone flew home via Kansas City. When I arrived at the airport, I had very little time to get checked in and get to the gate. Kansas City is a small airport, and it's a short trip from the ticket counter to the gates. The good people from Homeland Security carefully scrutinized my military ID and I moved towards the metal detector. Mind you I was wearing my newly donned Combat Infantry Badge and I forgot the foil on the tobacco in the lower leg pocket, but I tripped the machine twice and was slowly and carefully subjected to The Drill, a maneuver which many travelers have performed.
My uniform and accompanying bona fides had no affect on the defenders of our homeland. I was clearly up to no good, and my heinous plot had to be foiled.
I doffed my combat boots, had my feet carefully wanded, and then the full body wanding was artfully performed. This was followed by an equally artful full body pat-down, whereupon I was informed that I was cleared to proceed home. At just this moment my name was called over the intercom to report to the gate immediately for final boarding.
I was lacing my boots as quickly as I could when one of the HSA employees, an underutilized astrophysicist on loan from NASA, decided that my carry on bag had to be hand-screened. I was carefully maintaining my cool, but I was just about to lose my mind.
"Are you insane?" I asked the young Herbert Dingle reincarnate. "See my name tag? They just called me to the gate, and this guy just cleared me."
"This will only take a moment. They won't leave without you," he asserted.
"Yes, they will. They have no idea that I'm here. I have four children waiting for me in Cincinnati," I pled.
He was carefully examining my doxycycline, mentally evaluating the explosive potential as he slowly rotated the bottle at eye level.
"Those are my anti-malarial pills," I said, careful not to raise my voice or appear hostile.
The supervisor arrived and casually leaned on one of the posts. "We really appreciate your service, sir."
"Really?" I asked, restraining myself from having a post-Afghan meltdown, "Cause you're not acting like it. I just spent a year fighting actual terrorists, and you're treating me like I'm one of them."
One of the junior astrophysicists ran off to inform the gate personnel that I was being detained and would be there shortly. She was the only one of them who really seemed interested in whether or not the appreciation of my service included actually being permitted to make my flight.
I finally boarded the plane and they immediately shut the door behind me after cordially greeting me. I found my way to my seat and was relieved to see that the plane was perhaps a third full. I had the two seats to myself. Very pleasant.
The flight attendant was very solicitous and took very good care of me on the flight to Cincinnati. The flight was uneventful. Again, as the decent to Cincinnati began, the flight attendant made the normal announcement and then mentioned that I was coming home. The passengers applauded.
We landed and taxied to the island terminal. From this terminal you must board a shuttle bus to go the main terminal and make your way to the baggage claim. I was in a huge hurry to see my children, to be home.
As I made my way towards the shuttle boarding area, there was an airport employee who was providing assistance to people who needed to make connecting flights. I needed no such assistance, so as I made my way around this woman, she stepped out.
"Excuse me," she said.
I changed direction and tried to go on my way.
"Excuse me," she said again, stepping in front of me.
Knowing that no one had any reason to stop me, but not wanting to be unkind, I stopped, exasperated.
"I cannot allow you to pass..." (I'm about to revert to my basic infantry training) "without shaking your hand and thanking you for your service."
"You're welcome," I said, shaking her hand.
Puff of smoke. I was on my way as quickly as I could.
The long walk from the outer terminal to the baggage claim area was the last obstacle. I traversed it as quickly as possible, and as I neared the end, I could see a little girl hopping kangaroo-like. It was my five year old daughter, who was very excited. My total focus was riveted on her.
At that moment, I was passing an airline pilot who was walking in the same direction. He reached over and grabbed my shoulder and said, "Welcome home. Thanks for your service."
I was so totally focused on my daughter, I'm not sure that I even acknowledged him.
My thirteen year old son was beaming. My two year old son appeared excited, too; but I'm not sure if he really understood what was happening or was simply under the influence of the excitement of the others. I ran the last few steps, shedding my laptop bag and backpack, and knelt to hug my daughter and son, oblivious to the rest of the passengers passing through the terminal. My eyes stung.
Sweetness.
It was now real. It was over. The Afghan journey was over, and I was back in the arms of my children.
Readjustment is a difficult thing. The time change has really struck me since I got back home. The kids are just starting to get used to having me around. I've got projects to take care of as well. There is a lot to do.
It's weird, too.
Just a few weeks ago, I was in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, aware of the local happenings and the changes that were happening. I was aware of the reports of this Taliban leader and that village swinging one way or another, of what our next step was with the local ANP. Now I'm back in Ohio, and nobody cares about any of that.
It's weird.
I took my children to the mall the week after I arrived back home. I've repeated many times the quote, "America isn't at war. The military is at war. America is at the mall." As I drove towards the mall with my little ones in the their car seats, it occurred to me that I was on my way to the mall now, too. How odd. I laughed to myself.
But I am not one of them. They cannot see it, but I'm not one of them. I have been at war, and part of me is still there. Perhaps that's what we're actually purchasing with our time spent over there; the peace of mind to go to the mall and not think of Afghanistan or Iraq unless they see a report on the news.
I got an email this morning from Jacques Pulvier, who is still in Afghanistan and should be leaving in the next couple of weeks, telling of one of the teams that replaced our old team in the Tag Ab Valley, sometimes called the Tagab Valley. They had gotten into a fight there yesterday, and I could picture exactly where that ambush had happened; one of the places where they like to ambush us there in the valley.
Part of me will always be able to picture that area, that valley, the people, the khalats, the riverbed, the fingers that pointed from the mountain at the villages along the newly paved road. The Ala Sai District center that you can see from the town of Tag Ab; it would take nearly a half an hour to get there and as many as three ambushes to get back from there.
There are still people who I know working in that valley. There is more work to do there. It is the changing of the guard, though. There are new people, new teams, a new division.
Jacques has run his last mission into that valley, thank God. He's about to return from our forgotten war, another single victory; a live American soldier who has been there, done his best, and returned.
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The final flight out of Afghanistan, for us, was on a C-130. The C-130, a four-engine turboprop whale, is a slow and torturous ride to go the distance from Kabul to Qatar, where we boarded a C-17 for the short hop to Kuwait, from where we embarked on a civilian charter that took us through Germany and then to New Jersey and finally Kansas.
In Kansas the whirlwind of out processing started in earnest. There were briefings followed by a welcome home ceremony in a gymnasium attended by a few officers and NCO's who had been responsible for training us to go to Afghanistan and the few families who had been able to make the trip to Ft Riley. The days that followed brought a myriad of out processing tasks; medical, dental, turning in equipment, turning in our personal weapons, briefings about everything from our reemployment rights to dealing with post traumatic stress and the difficulties of reunions and readjustment to the family.
And, spending the last few days that we would ever spend with a group of men with whom we had shared a lot over the course of the past fifteen months.
There was a lot of joking around, a bit of celebrating, some evenings were spent together. Some of the men's families had made the trip to Kansas to greet their warriors and welcome them home. Most of us had to wait to see our families, but it was only a few days. The good people at Ft Riley did all they could to speed us through our out processing and move us on to our final destinations.
But we were still in our little enclave. While we were mentally breaking our ties with this ad-hoc organization, we were still just our little group. We were each looking towards our own reunions, still looking towards returning to our individual lives. We were from many states, and each of us would go our separate ways, beginning to live what had been normal to us.
I don't know about the rest of the guys, but it will never be quite the same again for me.
Everyone flew home via Kansas City. When I arrived at the airport, I had very little time to get checked in and get to the gate. Kansas City is a small airport, and it's a short trip from the ticket counter to the gates. The good people from Homeland Security carefully scrutinized my military ID and I moved towards the metal detector. Mind you I was wearing my newly donned Combat Infantry Badge and I forgot the foil on the tobacco in the lower leg pocket, but I tripped the machine twice and was slowly and carefully subjected to The Drill, a maneuver which many travelers have performed.
My uniform and accompanying bona fides had no affect on the defenders of our homeland. I was clearly up to no good, and my heinous plot had to be foiled.
I doffed my combat boots, had my feet carefully wanded, and then the full body wanding was artfully performed. This was followed by an equally artful full body pat-down, whereupon I was informed that I was cleared to proceed home. At just this moment my name was called over the intercom to report to the gate immediately for final boarding.
I was lacing my boots as quickly as I could when one of the HSA employees, an underutilized astrophysicist on loan from NASA, decided that my carry on bag had to be hand-screened. I was carefully maintaining my cool, but I was just about to lose my mind.
"Are you insane?" I asked the young Herbert Dingle reincarnate. "See my name tag? They just called me to the gate, and this guy just cleared me."
"This will only take a moment. They won't leave without you," he asserted.
"Yes, they will. They have no idea that I'm here. I have four children waiting for me in Cincinnati," I pled.
He was carefully examining my doxycycline, mentally evaluating the explosive potential as he slowly rotated the bottle at eye level.
"Those are my anti-malarial pills," I said, careful not to raise my voice or appear hostile.
The supervisor arrived and casually leaned on one of the posts. "We really appreciate your service, sir."
"Really?" I asked, restraining myself from having a post-Afghan meltdown, "Cause you're not acting like it. I just spent a year fighting actual terrorists, and you're treating me like I'm one of them."
One of the junior astrophysicists ran off to inform the gate personnel that I was being detained and would be there shortly. She was the only one of them who really seemed interested in whether or not the appreciation of my service included actually being permitted to make my flight.
I finally boarded the plane and they immediately shut the door behind me after cordially greeting me. I found my way to my seat and was relieved to see that the plane was perhaps a third full. I had the two seats to myself. Very pleasant.
The flight attendant was very solicitous and took very good care of me on the flight to Cincinnati. The flight was uneventful. Again, as the decent to Cincinnati began, the flight attendant made the normal announcement and then mentioned that I was coming home. The passengers applauded.
We landed and taxied to the island terminal. From this terminal you must board a shuttle bus to go the main terminal and make your way to the baggage claim. I was in a huge hurry to see my children, to be home.
As I made my way towards the shuttle boarding area, there was an airport employee who was providing assistance to people who needed to make connecting flights. I needed no such assistance, so as I made my way around this woman, she stepped out.
"Excuse me," she said.
I changed direction and tried to go on my way.
"Excuse me," she said again, stepping in front of me.
Knowing that no one had any reason to stop me, but not wanting to be unkind, I stopped, exasperated.
"I cannot allow you to pass..." (I'm about to revert to my basic infantry training) "without shaking your hand and thanking you for your service."
"You're welcome," I said, shaking her hand.
Puff of smoke. I was on my way as quickly as I could.
The long walk from the outer terminal to the baggage claim area was the last obstacle. I traversed it as quickly as possible, and as I neared the end, I could see a little girl hopping kangaroo-like. It was my five year old daughter, who was very excited. My total focus was riveted on her.
At that moment, I was passing an airline pilot who was walking in the same direction. He reached over and grabbed my shoulder and said, "Welcome home. Thanks for your service."
I was so totally focused on my daughter, I'm not sure that I even acknowledged him.
My thirteen year old son was beaming. My two year old son appeared excited, too; but I'm not sure if he really understood what was happening or was simply under the influence of the excitement of the others. I ran the last few steps, shedding my laptop bag and backpack, and knelt to hug my daughter and son, oblivious to the rest of the passengers passing through the terminal. My eyes stung.
Sweetness.
It was now real. It was over. The Afghan journey was over, and I was back in the arms of my children.
Readjustment is a difficult thing. The time change has really struck me since I got back home. The kids are just starting to get used to having me around. I've got projects to take care of as well. There is a lot to do.
It's weird, too.
Just a few weeks ago, I was in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, aware of the local happenings and the changes that were happening. I was aware of the reports of this Taliban leader and that village swinging one way or another, of what our next step was with the local ANP. Now I'm back in Ohio, and nobody cares about any of that.
It's weird.
I took my children to the mall the week after I arrived back home. I've repeated many times the quote, "America isn't at war. The military is at war. America is at the mall." As I drove towards the mall with my little ones in the their car seats, it occurred to me that I was on my way to the mall now, too. How odd. I laughed to myself.
But I am not one of them. They cannot see it, but I'm not one of them. I have been at war, and part of me is still there. Perhaps that's what we're actually purchasing with our time spent over there; the peace of mind to go to the mall and not think of Afghanistan or Iraq unless they see a report on the news.
I got an email this morning from Jacques Pulvier, who is still in Afghanistan and should be leaving in the next couple of weeks, telling of one of the teams that replaced our old team in the Tag Ab Valley, sometimes called the Tagab Valley. They had gotten into a fight there yesterday, and I could picture exactly where that ambush had happened; one of the places where they like to ambush us there in the valley.
Part of me will always be able to picture that area, that valley, the people, the khalats, the riverbed, the fingers that pointed from the mountain at the villages along the newly paved road. The Ala Sai District center that you can see from the town of Tag Ab; it would take nearly a half an hour to get there and as many as three ambushes to get back from there.
There are still people who I know working in that valley. There is more work to do there. It is the changing of the guard, though. There are new people, new teams, a new division.
Jacques has run his last mission into that valley, thank God. He's about to return from our forgotten war, another single victory; a live American soldier who has been there, done his best, and returned.
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Friday, March 28, 2008
Last Look At Afghanistan Up Close
I remember arriving in Kabul just about a year ago. It was night, and we did a short convoy from the airport to Camp Phoenix. Today we left Phoenix for the last time and moved to another location from which we will leave the country.
Last year, there was nobody out and about as we rolled through the streets in the back of a five ton truck with a bench seat down the middle of the bed so that we faced outwards. All of the smells of Kabul were there in the night air; the strange not-quite-woodsmoke smell that I would smell thousands of times over the course of the past year, the occasional whiff of sewage, the smell of dust and exhaust and poverty.
The woody smoke smell would turn out to be a combination of wood and animal manure, shaped into round patties. Afghans make great use of animal manure as fuel.
We caught glimpses of a strange, ancient world blended with the 21st century; mud brick walls connected at times by electrical wires and the odd satellite dish. Dirt roads that felt the hooves of animals daily with Toyota Corolla's parked in alleyways.
Over the course of the year, I would spend hundreds of hours on the worst roads imaginable, out in the middle of nowhere, humvee working hard, and here would come the ubiquitous (and I am not using that term lightly; I mean ubiquitous) Toyota Corolla headed in the opposite direction, often crammed to the gills with Afghans. Sometimes it would be just one guy. I have never seen a woman operate ANY piece of equipment in Afghanistan.
Unless you count goats as equipment. I was thinking motorized transport or farm equipment.
Today we moved by armored bus, which is a step up from an up-armored humvee comfort-wise. We had armed exscort... in UAH's... but we were just like tourists on our way to a tour of the local cheese factory.
As we rolled through the streets, I took in the sights that no longer surprise me, but I noticed one thing that I never ever ever got used to.
Children sorting through a pile of garbage. I don't know if they were doing it out of hunger or out of curiosity or looking for stuff that could be sold, but that sight just screams in my brain. It may be that they are just industrious little capitalists, but to me it is a spear of bone-crushing poverty being lanced into my visual cortex.
It is visually painful. It is emotionally painful. It is heart-wrenching the way that the Christian Children's Fund commercials intentionally try to be.
Try seeing that for real; barefoot kids in the middle of a pile of trash, picking through it looking for God knows what.
Okay, so I saw that today... possibly, probably, hopefully for the last time.
There were a lot of other sights that I said goodbye to easily; the mud brick Afghan construction, burqa-clad women moving like blue trick-or-treaters down the side of the street, haphazard electrical wires strung on flimsy poles running between houses like a drunken spider web. I won't miss the general shabbiness, the vague feeling of quiet desperation, the feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems; the destruction.
I am glad to be an American. We don't know what we've really got; we take it for granted. Overseas, our flag is a symbol of so much. It stands for things that citizens of other countries resent us for in a lot of ways, but they envy us, too.
Sometimes we are proud of the wrong things; we don't even know the preciousness of what we have. We are so lost in ourselves that we misidentify our real strengths; but they are there.
One thing that we take for granted is the intactness of our seemingly fractal society. Our infrastructure, which we sometimes become exasperated with, is so intact. Infrastructure; roads, bridges, electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection... it's so fragile. It's the stuff that takes years to build and lots of time to maintain, and it's the first thing to get blown to pieces when significant groups of people fight with each other over control of a society.
Our political system is robust; our wars are mud-slinging contests replete with slick graphics and such childish buffoonery as portraying opposing political candidates as having red palms, being puppets, and assailing their characters on all levels. There is no shooting. There are no battle lines. There are no ad hoc checkpoints where any evidence of support for the opposing candidate draws immediate execution.
Not only do we have the liberty to live our lives, for the most part, as we see fit, but we have the established Republic that gives us the freedom from internecine war and allows our work to stand.
This, of course, is what drives American anarchists completely insane, for they cannot possibly recruit enough nutcases to tear it all down. It takes work to destroy a country so thoroughly as Afghanistan has been destroyed.
Then it takes work and a long long time to build back up what has been torn asunder.
We live in a country where the work of our fathers and mothers still stands. We live in a world where destruction is a scheduled event to make space for new construction. We have throngs flocking to have good seats for the explosive-powered implosions of major structures, instead of throngs fleeing cities because of them.
We don't have so many tiny little graves. Afghanistan is full of tiny graves. I will not miss seeing them. I will not miss that javelin to the visual cortex that cleaves the heart.
I will not miss the incessant dust and dirt. I will not miss the constant question; does this guy want to kill me?
I will not miss being held in a Hesco prison.
God only knows what the future holds. I am not a youngster, and it is possible that I may not be called upon, or permitted, to do my part for my country again in such a way. I know that my children would like that. I promised a Colonel that I would not retire upon my return, and I will hold true to my word; but the fact remains that I may not be given another opportunity to perform such a service for my country, my family, my friends.
In short; it is quite possible that all of those scenes have been seen by me for the last time ever in person.
I am a volunteer; I had to struggle to get here, and it has been my great privilege and honor to have been here to do what I have done, see what I have seen, and hopefully make what contribution one man can make in one tour; to have served. Now the Afghan portion is over, and I have survived. I'm still in Afghanistan, but I'm in a safe enclave just scant yards from where the wheels of the Freedom Bird will leave Afghan soil for my last time. My days of conops and operational mentoring are over. Just a little more to endure before I can once again hold my children in my arms again and feel their warmth.
I hope that I never lose this sense of reality; that we are incredibly lucky to have such a place as America, that I have four healthy children who will have the luxury of taking it all for granted. I will try to tell them what I have learned of the preciousness of all that they have and all that we are, but how do you convey that to anyone?
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Last year, there was nobody out and about as we rolled through the streets in the back of a five ton truck with a bench seat down the middle of the bed so that we faced outwards. All of the smells of Kabul were there in the night air; the strange not-quite-woodsmoke smell that I would smell thousands of times over the course of the past year, the occasional whiff of sewage, the smell of dust and exhaust and poverty.
The woody smoke smell would turn out to be a combination of wood and animal manure, shaped into round patties. Afghans make great use of animal manure as fuel.
We caught glimpses of a strange, ancient world blended with the 21st century; mud brick walls connected at times by electrical wires and the odd satellite dish. Dirt roads that felt the hooves of animals daily with Toyota Corolla's parked in alleyways.
Over the course of the year, I would spend hundreds of hours on the worst roads imaginable, out in the middle of nowhere, humvee working hard, and here would come the ubiquitous (and I am not using that term lightly; I mean ubiquitous) Toyota Corolla headed in the opposite direction, often crammed to the gills with Afghans. Sometimes it would be just one guy. I have never seen a woman operate ANY piece of equipment in Afghanistan.
Unless you count goats as equipment. I was thinking motorized transport or farm equipment.
Today we moved by armored bus, which is a step up from an up-armored humvee comfort-wise. We had armed exscort... in UAH's... but we were just like tourists on our way to a tour of the local cheese factory.
As we rolled through the streets, I took in the sights that no longer surprise me, but I noticed one thing that I never ever ever got used to.
Children sorting through a pile of garbage. I don't know if they were doing it out of hunger or out of curiosity or looking for stuff that could be sold, but that sight just screams in my brain. It may be that they are just industrious little capitalists, but to me it is a spear of bone-crushing poverty being lanced into my visual cortex.
It is visually painful. It is emotionally painful. It is heart-wrenching the way that the Christian Children's Fund commercials intentionally try to be.
Try seeing that for real; barefoot kids in the middle of a pile of trash, picking through it looking for God knows what.
Okay, so I saw that today... possibly, probably, hopefully for the last time.
There were a lot of other sights that I said goodbye to easily; the mud brick Afghan construction, burqa-clad women moving like blue trick-or-treaters down the side of the street, haphazard electrical wires strung on flimsy poles running between houses like a drunken spider web. I won't miss the general shabbiness, the vague feeling of quiet desperation, the feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the problems; the destruction.
I am glad to be an American. We don't know what we've really got; we take it for granted. Overseas, our flag is a symbol of so much. It stands for things that citizens of other countries resent us for in a lot of ways, but they envy us, too.
Sometimes we are proud of the wrong things; we don't even know the preciousness of what we have. We are so lost in ourselves that we misidentify our real strengths; but they are there.
One thing that we take for granted is the intactness of our seemingly fractal society. Our infrastructure, which we sometimes become exasperated with, is so intact. Infrastructure; roads, bridges, electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection... it's so fragile. It's the stuff that takes years to build and lots of time to maintain, and it's the first thing to get blown to pieces when significant groups of people fight with each other over control of a society.
Our political system is robust; our wars are mud-slinging contests replete with slick graphics and such childish buffoonery as portraying opposing political candidates as having red palms, being puppets, and assailing their characters on all levels. There is no shooting. There are no battle lines. There are no ad hoc checkpoints where any evidence of support for the opposing candidate draws immediate execution.
Not only do we have the liberty to live our lives, for the most part, as we see fit, but we have the established Republic that gives us the freedom from internecine war and allows our work to stand.
This, of course, is what drives American anarchists completely insane, for they cannot possibly recruit enough nutcases to tear it all down. It takes work to destroy a country so thoroughly as Afghanistan has been destroyed.
Then it takes work and a long long time to build back up what has been torn asunder.
We live in a country where the work of our fathers and mothers still stands. We live in a world where destruction is a scheduled event to make space for new construction. We have throngs flocking to have good seats for the explosive-powered implosions of major structures, instead of throngs fleeing cities because of them.
We don't have so many tiny little graves. Afghanistan is full of tiny graves. I will not miss seeing them. I will not miss that javelin to the visual cortex that cleaves the heart.
I will not miss the incessant dust and dirt. I will not miss the constant question; does this guy want to kill me?
I will not miss being held in a Hesco prison.
God only knows what the future holds. I am not a youngster, and it is possible that I may not be called upon, or permitted, to do my part for my country again in such a way. I know that my children would like that. I promised a Colonel that I would not retire upon my return, and I will hold true to my word; but the fact remains that I may not be given another opportunity to perform such a service for my country, my family, my friends.
In short; it is quite possible that all of those scenes have been seen by me for the last time ever in person.
I am a volunteer; I had to struggle to get here, and it has been my great privilege and honor to have been here to do what I have done, see what I have seen, and hopefully make what contribution one man can make in one tour; to have served. Now the Afghan portion is over, and I have survived. I'm still in Afghanistan, but I'm in a safe enclave just scant yards from where the wheels of the Freedom Bird will leave Afghan soil for my last time. My days of conops and operational mentoring are over. Just a little more to endure before I can once again hold my children in my arms again and feel their warmth.
I hope that I never lose this sense of reality; that we are incredibly lucky to have such a place as America, that I have four healthy children who will have the luxury of taking it all for granted. I will try to tell them what I have learned of the preciousness of all that they have and all that we are, but how do you convey that to anyone?
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Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Semper Gumby
Well, we still don't know when we are flying out of Afghanistan, and we don't know for certain when we will be released from Ft Riley to go home; but that's par for the course, really.
When things are constantly changing, as they have so many times during this deployment, there is a simple motto to keep us going; "Semper Gumby." Semper Gumby is Latin for "Always Flexible."
The ancient Greeks, the same good people who invented Latin, also invented Gumby. This was proven by the recent finding of a several thousand year old Gumby at the site of the battle of Marathon.
Okay... I made that part up. Except for the part about Latin. The Greeks did invent that. That part is true.
Semper Gumby does mean, "Always Flexible," though.
Gumby is the ultimate warrior. The Chuck Norris fans (Norissians) would disagree and cry out that Chuck Norris could roundhouse kick Gumby into next week; but that's not true. His head would go into next week, but due to his flexibility, his feet would remain in this week, and he would simply unbend himself back into the same time frame as his feet, thereby defeating Norrissian mojo.
Flexibility is the key. All else leads to insanity and pissing off the leadership who make the plans that require the ultimate in flexibility from those who must execute them with no visible means of support.
"With flexibility comes serenity. With serenity comes power. He who is capable of bending like the Gumby will pass through great forces without shattering to overcome his foe." -- Sun Tsu*
Gumby maintains an M-240 machine gun at an undisclosed FOB
It doesn't matter what someone in a position of apparent decision-making ability says, because it will change. Rigidity in the face of such rapid changes of direction will result in cracking, peeling, chafing, and an overwhelming irritation. Combat Rigidity Fatigue is a major contributing factor in many cases of PDCD (Post Dysfunctional Command Disorder.)
Gumby prepares to head out on another exciting patrol
Working with Afghans also requires a great deal of flexibility. Afghans will drive the mentally rigid to distraction with their sometimes unpredictable, seemingly whimsical behavior. Gumby was heavily involved in all of our mentoring and advising operations with the ANP.
Gumby mentoring the ANP on flexibility operations
Dealing with Afghan civilians requires a gumbylike flexibility, too. Nothing will screw up your timeline like an Afghan who suddenly decides that his 50 goats need to be on the other side of the road. Gumby is vigilant, yet flexible to deal with capricious Afghan conditions while on combat patrols.
Gumby maintains vigilant flexibility on a combat patrol
Gumbyish flexibility is a combat multiplier, which is militarese for, "it makes you fight better." Counterinsurgency operations require a particular flexibility. This isn't some barren wasteland where there are only two opposing armies. The enemy here dresses in no special uniform. His forts are mud-walled khalats that look just like every other mud-walled khalat. It takes flexibility to work your way into the cracks between the average working Afghan and the local Talibs.
Gumby says, "If you can't find a crack, go in a window."
There is a lot of beauty in Afghanistan, as well as the mind-numbing poverty and, of course, rocks. Gumbyish flexibility permits one the mental room to appreciate the quiet moments of combat, too. The peaceful serenity of a mountain stream is still the peaceful serenity of a mountain stream in the midst of war.
Gumby enjoys the peaceful serenity of a mountain stream.
If the Russians had Gumby, the Soviet Union would never have collapsed, the Berlin wall would never have fallen, and we would all be quoting Marx to avoid being beaten with sticks. The Russians did not have Gumby, because Gumby is all-American (the part about the ancient Greeks being made up,) and he demonstrates the amazing flexibility of Americans. Being made of gumbyite, the most flexibly tough element in the universe, he is the only thing that cannot be destroyed by a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick. If Chuck Norris and Gumby ever teamed up, they could conquer the known everything, and Gumby would let Chuck Norris be the emperor of everything because he is just that damned flexible.
Gumby saved the free world.
"Semper Gumby!"
* Okay, I made that part up, too. I don't know if Sun Tsu ever said such a thing, but you can't prove he didn't, either. He just didn't actually write it in his best-selling book The Art of War.
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When things are constantly changing, as they have so many times during this deployment, there is a simple motto to keep us going; "Semper Gumby." Semper Gumby is Latin for "Always Flexible."
The ancient Greeks, the same good people who invented Latin, also invented Gumby. This was proven by the recent finding of a several thousand year old Gumby at the site of the battle of Marathon.
Okay... I made that part up. Except for the part about Latin. The Greeks did invent that. That part is true.
Semper Gumby does mean, "Always Flexible," though.
Gumby is the ultimate warrior. The Chuck Norris fans (Norissians) would disagree and cry out that Chuck Norris could roundhouse kick Gumby into next week; but that's not true. His head would go into next week, but due to his flexibility, his feet would remain in this week, and he would simply unbend himself back into the same time frame as his feet, thereby defeating Norrissian mojo.
Flexibility is the key. All else leads to insanity and pissing off the leadership who make the plans that require the ultimate in flexibility from those who must execute them with no visible means of support.
"With flexibility comes serenity. With serenity comes power. He who is capable of bending like the Gumby will pass through great forces without shattering to overcome his foe." -- Sun Tsu*
Gumby maintains an M-240 machine gun at an undisclosed FOB
It doesn't matter what someone in a position of apparent decision-making ability says, because it will change. Rigidity in the face of such rapid changes of direction will result in cracking, peeling, chafing, and an overwhelming irritation. Combat Rigidity Fatigue is a major contributing factor in many cases of PDCD (Post Dysfunctional Command Disorder.)
Gumby prepares to head out on another exciting patrol
Working with Afghans also requires a great deal of flexibility. Afghans will drive the mentally rigid to distraction with their sometimes unpredictable, seemingly whimsical behavior. Gumby was heavily involved in all of our mentoring and advising operations with the ANP.
Gumby mentoring the ANP on flexibility operations
Dealing with Afghan civilians requires a gumbylike flexibility, too. Nothing will screw up your timeline like an Afghan who suddenly decides that his 50 goats need to be on the other side of the road. Gumby is vigilant, yet flexible to deal with capricious Afghan conditions while on combat patrols.
Gumby maintains vigilant flexibility on a combat patrol
Gumbyish flexibility is a combat multiplier, which is militarese for, "it makes you fight better." Counterinsurgency operations require a particular flexibility. This isn't some barren wasteland where there are only two opposing armies. The enemy here dresses in no special uniform. His forts are mud-walled khalats that look just like every other mud-walled khalat. It takes flexibility to work your way into the cracks between the average working Afghan and the local Talibs.
Gumby says, "If you can't find a crack, go in a window."
There is a lot of beauty in Afghanistan, as well as the mind-numbing poverty and, of course, rocks. Gumbyish flexibility permits one the mental room to appreciate the quiet moments of combat, too. The peaceful serenity of a mountain stream is still the peaceful serenity of a mountain stream in the midst of war.
Gumby enjoys the peaceful serenity of a mountain stream.
If the Russians had Gumby, the Soviet Union would never have collapsed, the Berlin wall would never have fallen, and we would all be quoting Marx to avoid being beaten with sticks. The Russians did not have Gumby, because Gumby is all-American (the part about the ancient Greeks being made up,) and he demonstrates the amazing flexibility of Americans. Being made of gumbyite, the most flexibly tough element in the universe, he is the only thing that cannot be destroyed by a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick. If Chuck Norris and Gumby ever teamed up, they could conquer the known everything, and Gumby would let Chuck Norris be the emperor of everything because he is just that damned flexible.
Gumby saved the free world.
"Semper Gumby!"
* Okay, I made that part up, too. I don't know if Sun Tsu ever said such a thing, but you can't prove he didn't, either. He just didn't actually write it in his best-selling book The Art of War.
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Sunday, March 23, 2008
Out Processing Up The Chain
When you leave a theater of operations, you have to "out process." Out processing means filling out paperwork, clearing hand receipts* and making sure that you don't have any open issues, like legal issues or investigations. Here at Camp Phoenix, the headquarters of Task Force Phoenix (the people who I've supposedly been working for this year,) we are out processing for the third time. Each subordinate command has its own out processing, because each subordinate command has had some responsibility for us (at least on paper,) and some have actually given us equipment to use that they need returned.
Some of this has been purely ceremonial. We belonged in name only, gaining no support from that organization whatsoever. At least nothing that was visible at my level; dirt level.
We have been called heroes by some senior officers. I know a couple of guys who are in for hero-type awards, but for the rest of us it's just a verbal pat on the ass. The guys that I know who are in for hero-type awards deserve them; O and his old boss, MAJ Stone Cold. O saved an ANP's life under fire when the RPG he was firing exploded as he fired it, and MAJ Cold gathered up a bunch of ANP during an ambush and attacked up a mountain towards his attackers, breaking the ambush. Ferocious.
Ferocious is not what would come to mind if you met him in person without knowing what he has done. It's funny, but it's true. He is one of the finest officers that I have ever known. He does his job to the best of his ability with seemingly limitless energy and an underlying sense of humor about what he is wrapped up in. He's not a superman, but the heroes that I know are not supermen. The only thing that separates them from anyone else is what they do when the chips are down. There are no visual clues, and while O could be described as very confident in his abilities, he's not the cockiest man I know.
Actually, the cockiest man that I know is a demonstrated coward. He can't get enough of telling others how great he is, and he can't take cover and stop doing his job fast enough when a shot is fired.
MAJ Cold looks like the contract manager that he was before he came here. He carries no air of cockiness whatsoever. He carries an air of capability, but he carries no air of ferocity. But when he and his ANP were getting shot at, he dismounted his nicely armored humvee, grabbed his ANP by the shoulder, and said, "We're going up there," and he went.
And they followed him.
Soldiers tend to be cocky. Elitism is something to be admired, and the right to wear some badge or tab is a sought-after thing. But I'm here to tell you that the badges and tabs and patches and swagger don't make anyone a hero. You can't pick the real ones out of a crowd, and the only ones that you can know of are the ones who have actually had the situation thrust upon them and did more than many would. Not that doing one's job under fire isn't admirable; it is. There are many who do that; but that's the job. It's what's expected. We are soldiers. There aren't many who get out of the vehicle while bullets are flying around and they don't have to and they do more... not to be showy, but because there is something that they know needs to be done, and they do it. Nobody would have faulted O or MAJ Cold for staying inside their vehicles and continuing the mission from right there; nobody except them.
But the rest of us have been called heroes... it should have been accompanied by a clown horn noise.
There were some interesting things from the General's little out-brief today, though. You would expect him to have the statistics, the big picture. Apparently we made a big difference with the ANP. Ten times more of them were dying before we picked up the mission to work with them. District centers were being lost on occasion. Where we are working with them, they have lost no district centers, and their death rate has decreased to a tenth of what it was.
They still die ten times more often than ANA soldiers, but that's the nature of the beast. They are the softer target. They operate in much smaller numbers and they don't have the heavy weapons of the ANA.
There are stages of insurgency, and last year... the bloodiest year since we entered Afghanistan... the Taliban tried to take it to the next stage. They tried to take on government forces head to head conventionally. It didn't work out so well for them. The government of Afghanistan is operating in more places now than it was a year ago. I've seen it with my own eyes. Valleys that were contested a year ago are relatively peaceful, and valleys where there was no IRoA (Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) presence are now in the process of becoming governed. The boundaries of ungoverned Afghanistan are shrinking.
The Taliban isn't on the run, but they are being squeezed. Of course, the Taliban aren't the only ones out there. There are warlords and criminal gangs and some of the same players who helped push Afghanistan into chaos when the Soviets left. There are corrupt government officials, and there are corrupt Army officers and ANP officers. There are drug lords and there are villagers who will grow opium until someone forces them to stop.
Afghanistan looks like a kaleidoscope of problems, and it is. There is no quick or simple cure for all of this, and it is frustrating and confusing. I'd say that many of us feel frustrated and beaten down by this past year. Some of my brethren don't see any hope for Afghanistan. They come by it honestly, but I disagree. I see hope. I have seen progress. I have seen change; small, slow, but it is there.
The easiest answer is, "Nope; we're wasting our time here. This country will never amount to anything."
I can tell people at home that we are making a difference, we have made a difference here... but it is enormously taxing on the soldiers who are out there in little teams here and there all over the country. This is like doing occupational therapy with a severely brain damaged drug addict who suffers from delusions of normalcy and harbors resentments against the therapist. Oh, and the patient's evil cousin, who shares a love-hate relationship, keeps smuggling drugs into the ward.
Good old Cousin Pakistan. The Pakistani involvement is as plain as day to us. Most of us have seen Pakistani's here. They were employed, and they weren't on vacation.
I saw a sign today in, of all places, the JAG office. It struck me. It was a picture of two guys wearing body armor, weapons present, sitting on a crumbling khalat wall... it could have been anywhere in the country, and they could have been any of us. The sign said, "What have you done for the ETT's today?"
What indeed. Who made this sign, and why did they hide it in the JAG office among the Dilbert cartoons and all of the other stuff all over the wall? It struck me that this was the only original thought that I'd seen at Camp Phoenix. What should be the driving philosophy behind the whole organization is an anomaly on a lawyer's wall.
There is not a single one of us who were out there in the teams who feels like we were well-supported. There's a lot more that could be said about that, but that's the short story. We felt like we were truly "out there." We felt like this place was on another planet. If someone said, "Oh, they've got those at Phoenix," when we needed something, our reaction wasn't, "Oh, thank God! We're saved!" It was, "Crap. We'll never see it."
Being here brings feelings of resentment from ETT's and PMT's. We universally hate this place. It is a symbol to us of being out there, at the mercy of whatever unit was closest to us (a lot of that was a good experience... the 82nd and 173rd did good things for us a lot... but sometimes not,) and feeling like this place was a self-contained puzzle palace with no direct bearing on our success.
They sure as hell wanted us to wear their patch, though. None of us really want it. We aren't wearing it now. It was bragged to us today about how some staff guys had busted their hump to get us special antennas that we had to pull teeth from chickens to get ahold of. We never did see enough of them. We borrowed from the 82nd. We still didn't have what we needed. Nope, this place is a self-contained Peyton Place of social intrigue and we hate being here. Any place where soldiers have enough time on their hands to form a prostitution ring is a place where they are not connected to the war. Nobody goes out of their way to spend the night at Phoenix.
Where we were, saluting was basically your way of telling an officer that you wished someone would shoot him. Around here you can wear your arm out saluting. Officers are plentiful and salute-hungry.
Nope, this place is just another waypoint to do paperwork and justify their existence. O and MAJ Cold's awards have had to pass through here on their way to CSTC-A** for approval, and they still can't tell anyone with any degree of veracity where those awards are right this minute. They were submitted months ago, and I don't mean two. Actually, both of their awards have been downgraded once already. Nobody will stand up for these guys and really push to have them recognized as much as possible. O got a pat on the ass today, and his accomplishment was trivialized by calling all of us heroes. Yeah, yeah, talk is cheap and so are ARCOM's.
Every one of the senior officers who have spent all of their time here on this camp will go home with a Bronze Star, minimum. Every one.
So, that's irritating.
There is a feeling of accomplishment, and there is a feeling of wanting to grab the wily Afghan speckle-throated bull fobbit by the neck and shake it like a terrier with your favorite slippers, and there is a feeling of simmering tolerance for any amount of bullshit that they want to put us through so that we can go home and be with the people who truly matter to each of us.
*hand receipt: a way that the government has of giving you equipment that you need to do your job and keeping track of it so that you can return it when you are finished using it... but in the meantime, you are responsible for it.
**CSTC-A: Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan; they are Task Force Phoenix's higher headquarters.
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Thursday, March 20, 2008
Marking Time
Patience.
How much patience does it take to wait through wasted time while your kids wait for you over 7000 miles away?
How much patience does it take to wait for days to do ten minutes worth of out processing and then wait for days to do the next little bit?
How much patience does it take to out process at a place that you never in processed, just so that an intermediate command can assert its authority?
How much patience does it take to spend three days to go to that intermediate command to do their dog and pony show before you can finally go to the final authority and get your ass out of the country?
Less than I've got.
I'm sure that there will be more back at Ft Riley. There I will take my time and make sure that my medical stuff is straight and I have my I's dotted and my T's crossed as best I can.
Here, I will stand on my head, spit nickels, and sing patriotic songs if they want for me to. I know that it all leads to one place; home. It all leads back to my kids, and it has become like water... it all flows towards that sea.
There is a part of me that already misses being operational. There is a part of me that feels a sense of having abandoned the Afghans that I was working with. There is part of me that will forever remain here in the dust, mountains, fields, villages, khalats, district centers, and FOB's of Afghanistan.
There is part of me that will remain forever in the moment of recognition of the young man with half of his head gone; a moment of heartbreak and anger and powerlessness and denial and acceptance. So real that it will never go away.
There are other moments that will hold a part of me forever.
But those moments are also part of me now, too. Am I diminished by leaving a part of myself here or am I more than I was before by virtue of the same?
This is not the end.
In the meantime, there is patience.
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How much patience does it take to wait through wasted time while your kids wait for you over 7000 miles away?
How much patience does it take to wait for days to do ten minutes worth of out processing and then wait for days to do the next little bit?
How much patience does it take to out process at a place that you never in processed, just so that an intermediate command can assert its authority?
How much patience does it take to spend three days to go to that intermediate command to do their dog and pony show before you can finally go to the final authority and get your ass out of the country?
Less than I've got.
I'm sure that there will be more back at Ft Riley. There I will take my time and make sure that my medical stuff is straight and I have my I's dotted and my T's crossed as best I can.
Here, I will stand on my head, spit nickels, and sing patriotic songs if they want for me to. I know that it all leads to one place; home. It all leads back to my kids, and it has become like water... it all flows towards that sea.
There is a part of me that already misses being operational. There is a part of me that feels a sense of having abandoned the Afghans that I was working with. There is part of me that will forever remain here in the dust, mountains, fields, villages, khalats, district centers, and FOB's of Afghanistan.
There is part of me that will remain forever in the moment of recognition of the young man with half of his head gone; a moment of heartbreak and anger and powerlessness and denial and acceptance. So real that it will never go away.
There are other moments that will hold a part of me forever.
But those moments are also part of me now, too. Am I diminished by leaving a part of myself here or am I more than I was before by virtue of the same?
This is not the end.
In the meantime, there is patience.
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