We’ve had two crash landings at Bagram since I’ve been here.
Neither of them were my fault.
The first was back in October when a USN P3 came in hard and executed what is affectionately called a belly-flop on the runway here. I heard about it days later, though apparently it was the talk of the base.
I received a couple of emails from home, one of my father’s Navy buds being a former P3 crew member. They asked what I’d heard about the incident, which at the time was next to nothing.
I inquired a little from time to time afterward, and heard that it was pilot error, that the landing attempt was all FUBAR, and that the pilot was relieved of duty afterward. Luckily, there were only minor injuries to the crew, though the plane received considerable damage and sat at the end of the runway for several weeks before being towed off to one side. There it has sat ever since, and I see it’s scarred exterior every time I drive home from the other side of post.
The second crash landing we had was just yesterday, when a C-17 (one of the largest airplanes in the US fleet) touched down with its landing gear up. My colleagues on the other side of post, which is closer to the airfield, said they could hear the horrible, grinding and crunching noise when it occurred, though they didn’t know what it was at the time.
Like the first incident, the crash landing blocks all fixed wing traffic and results in longer lines at the chow hall and shower points. Transients hoping to get out of Bagram pile up as the delay stretches on.
The story of this crash comes out just as slowly as the first, and it turns out to be much the same tale. Though we’re initially told that the landing gear had collapsed, the final verdict is pilot error. Simply stated, the crew forgot to put the landing gear down.
We hear later, through word of mouth, that the crew was very experienced and frankly had been overconfident, that they’d turned the volume down on the many automatic warnings, bells, and whistles (they call the automated voice “Bitching Betty”).
The plane would sit at the end of the runway for several days before being lifted up, the landing gear lowered without incident, and then it’s rolled off to the side of the airfield where it will be assessed to see if it can be repaired and flown out.
The alternative, I’m told, is that it will stay in Bagram and slowly be cannibalized for parts. It’s the fate of the P3 that crashed some 4 months ago, that I’ve seen almost every day since.
USN = United States Navy FUBAR = F’d Up Beyond All Recognition
I am reminded how easy I have it working on a FOB.
Some people call the workers who never leave base “Fobbits”, though it’s a relatively rare moniker. Some workers (to include soldiers, civilians like me, and KTRs) fly into a base from Kuwait and don’t leave that base, ever, until they fly home. My job is not so isolating as that, as I at least travel between different bases a fair amount. I’m grateful for that, as I think I would go a bit batty had I not left Bagram in the last 5 months.
Tonight at one of my usual meetings, there is a new face – a 1LT who comes with the LTC I do a lot of work with. This new face has been in country for a number of months, acting as the platoon leader for a unit that handles primarily route-clearance missions, which means they patrol common routes looking for IEDs.
Many of the meetings I attend concern new technology to detect and defeat IEDs, and the 1LT is there to provide us with first-hand knowledge of what soldiers are actually encountering out in the field. He’s not the first soldier in from the front, and much of what he tells me I’ve heard before, but his personal story is a bit new.
The first thing I notice is that this 1LT is a little rough around the edges. Swearing is part of the vernacular out here, and I find myself swearing more in theater than I ever do back home, but this guy is really letting loose with the profanity.
His attitude is more than a little bit I don’t give a shit.
Searching for IEDs is not an easy job, and as it turns out one of the ways we find many of them is by having them blow up – the trick is to have them blow up when you’re not in the way, or in something safe enough to survive the blast. The 1LT, like most soldiers in route clearance, has been blown up more than once.
Most recently, he was knocked unconscious and had to be evacuated from the scene. He tells the story, though he can’t remember it and is only going on what his troops told him later, than the unit’s CG came to visit him while he was on a gurney and that the 1LT threatened to kick his ass. To his credit, the CG laughed it off.
Others officers in the command weren’t as thrilled with what they saw as the 1LT getting more and more ornery, and so they sent him to Bagram, to act as an LNO but mostly just to get him off the front lines and hopefully to calm down.
I asked him if he felt he needed the break from the action, and he said “Hell no. They’re idiots. I’m fine.”
He’s telling that part of the story while we’re having dinner, four of us, and I watch as he nearly jumps out of his skin when someone slams a door across the room. It’s an exaggerated reaction to the noise, he whips his head around, assesses the situation, and then continues talking.
everal times throughout the meal, the 1LT clearly not being relaxed. One wonders how long it will take after the war for him to get back to normal, or if he ever will. It’s a cost of the war we often overlook: the psychological toll.
The 1LT goes on to talk about the locals he’s seen on his missions and, like many soldiers who are on the front lines, he expresses an almost unwavering distaste for the Afghani people. I suppose he ultimately doesn’t have to respect the local nationals, as his job does not involve interacting with them, but it’s difficult to hear his diatribe.
He says that the Afghanis often come out of the woodwork after the US troops pass through, and that they will pick up anything you drop. “They’re so poor,” he says, “They have literally nothing in this country.”
He recounts that some of his soldiers defecated into empty MRE bags and left them outside the vehicles, knowing that the locals would think they hit the jackpot when they saw the bags, and laughed at their imagined reaction to seeing what was in them.
It’s an altogether different perspective of the country than I’m used to, but not at all unique here. There are a great many young US soldiers, airman, sailors, and marines who come here to do a mission, get dirty, put their lives on the line, and draw success from little more than surviving. They’re not here to rebuild the country or to free the country from the terror of the Taliban, and in fact rarely if ever even think in those terms. They have a very specific mission, and they do it as best they can for 12 months or more, with little time to think of or care about the big picture.
Luckily, for everyone, there are plenty of other people doing the rest of the job – and of course they’re able to do the rest of the job because of the guys shooting the enemy and being shot at.
I’m standing in line at the chow hall, trying to choose between several different evils. Nothing looks good.
I settle for a cheeseburger, shifting over to the short-order line where a young soldier is standing with his take-out tray. Waiting. The burgers aren’t ready yet. The cook has enough time to walk away from the grill entirely, and I make a comment about showing up at the wrong time.
The soldier nods and smiles, and looks at my uniform. Soldiers are always looking at the tape on my left chest, the one that reads RDECOM. I’m fairly certain I’m the only person in Afghanistan with that on my uniform.
"So what do you do here, sir?” he asks. They always make me feel old, calling me sir.
I give him my typical spiel and he asks me a pointed question about some vehicles, and I give him an educated answer to show I’m not an idiot.
I ask him what he does, and he sighs. He turns to show me the arm badge that identifies him as an MP. I note that he probably doesn’t get off the FOB much, and he sighs again: “I don’t get to go anywhere”.
“I signed up to be a soldier,” he continues, “And I’m a cop.”
I ask him if his recruiter lied to him, as I’d heard other soldiers complain in the past, and he affirms that they did, adding that many people along the way lied to him about what he’d be doing. He’s visibly frustrated talking about it.
I ask him if the stories I hear about alcohol abuse on base are true, and he says they are. People will always find a way to get alcohol, he explains, though we all know it’s a violation of General Order #1.
We finally get our burgers (he gets a double), and exchange pleasantries as he leaves the DFAC.
I find an empty seat at a table with a contractor and ask if he minds if I join him. It’s a perfunctory question, and I’m already placing my plate down when he bids me welcome. I set off for a drink (having fallen in love with the chocolate iced coffee that is only at this DFAC, and not always available), returning a minute later to find him eating a bowl of ice cream.
“I wouldn’t have sat here if I’d known you were going to do that,” I say.
“Hm?”
“Eat ice cream, I mean,” I explain, “It’s tempting.”
“Ha! Well, it’s about the only thing that looks good today.”
He’s right about that. I mention that the DFAC seems to be going downhill, the quality of the food sliding noticeably over my 5 months here. He tells me he’s been here for 25 months (“But who’s counting?” he says) and that it’s been on a slide for the last 6.
It makes me wonder what the food was like before I got here. What did I miss?
In the past two weeks, the quality of the cutlery has diminished again. Friday I spent as much time picking the broken tines out of my steak as I did eating it. The trays we used have been replaced by smaller paper plates, and my usual DFAC hasn’t had Jell-O in over a month. Milk has been out of stock for the last two weeks.
I skip the ice cream, though it is a constant lure in the DFAC.
A few hours later, Izzy and I are at the APOD trying to get him on a flight to Kuwait for a meeting with his boss. We’ve been trying the past three days, but the weather has conspired against us. Torrential downpours and low-lying fog have canceled many flights, and put the whole flight-line on a weather hold for more than a day.
This afternoon is promising, though, as there’s a C-17 heading out and Izzy is #18 on the stand-by list. The C-17 is a big bird, and it looks like everyone wanting to get out to Kuwait is going to have a seat. He manifests without incident and we stand around waiting for the announcement to build the baggage pallet, when everyone brings their bags out to get strapped down on a platform that will then be loaded onto the plane.
As we’re waiting, a contractor wanders nearby – he’s wearing a Red Sox cap and a Red Sox shirt under his jacket, so I feel like we’re already friends. I ask him where he’s from – “Freetown” – and we talk about the Sox, the Patriots, and briefly about the Celtics and Bruins. As with almost every other conversation I’ve ever had about the Red Sox, we also talk about the Yankees. We talk a little about work – he repairs commo systems – and he tells me he’s being relocated to Iraq.
He has a thick Massachusetts accent (almost as thick as his beard and both much thicker than mine) that reminds me of home, despite the fact that none of my family and few of my friends speak that way.
He's a nice guy, and it's a great diversion for me. I eventually tell him to be safe, a common way to say good-bye over here, and step out into the rain to get Izzy’s bags.
RDECOM = Research Development & Engineering Command
I certainly don't want to imply that I have it rough.
I have it rougher than living in the States, to be sure, but I live better than most people in Afghanistan (i.e. the Afghani nationals), and even better than most of the US personnel here. I have my own room, for one thing, occasional access to a vehicle, good coworkers, a supportive command chain, a steady paycheck.
That said, my life is stripped down largely to the bare necessities and what passes for luxury out here is paltry compared to the lifestyle most Americans are used to living. In this situation, very small things can make a significant difference in the quality of life.
Weeks ago I purchased a small clip-light that I first attached to the headboard of my bed but eventually moved it to a pipe on the wall because I was constantly knocking into it during my nightly, sleeping exercises. This light, this crappy little light that will accept only a 40-Watt bulb the illumination from which is the equivalent of a jar of lightning bugs, has brought me immeasurable joy. I can now read in bed without having the glaring fluorescent light on. I can turn it off and stay in bed, instead of having to get out from under the warmth of covers in the chill of night.
Shortly after, I purchased a small radio that I could plug my iPod into - and once again my life in Afghanistan took a turn for the better. It cost $30 and is of the same shoddy quality that everything in theater seems to exhibit, but it plays my music - something my old computer struggles to do at times - and I find myself grooving along as I toil at my computer. I'm grateful for this small thing as well.
More recently, my Mom included a box of Cheez-Its in a care package and I cocked an eyebrow when I saw it. I don't recall ever having eaten Cheez-Its before, though I'm sure I have - when I popped the box and had a handful, I was enamored. It's a new taste, something not served at the DFAC and this alone makes it worthwhile. They often have Cheez-Its at the PX, but I never thought anything of them until now, but I'll be buying them in the future thanks to my Mom's reintroduction of them.
The highlight of recent discoveries and joys, however, has been salsa. I had a craving recently and went to the PX to buy some; I'd seen it on the shelf with the chips, but they were out when I sought them. I bought a bag of nachos in eager anticipation and kept it unopened on a shelf in my room. I continued to check back for salsa, to no avail, and I mention my quest to Izzy in one of our daily meandering conversations.
A couple of days later, he knocks on my door and hands me a jar - Izzy, my new best friend.
It was delicious. Flavorful and spicy ("medium"), it was if I'd been eating everything with a condom on my tongue for the last 5 months - such is the mundane quality of the chow hall grub. I ate almost the entire jar in one sitting, which I regretted only later, and in the next few days I returned to the PX multiple times to stock up.
Salsa has lost some of the initial strong appeal, but is still a nice snack, an escape from the usual. I have 5 jars on a shelf not far from my stockpile of other sundries I don't want to run out of - 11 bars of soap, 10 bars of deodorant, 7 tubes of toothpaste, 6 bottles of shampoo, and more books than I care to count right now.
I notice I've only 1 box of Cheez-Its. I'll swing by the PX later tonight.
Barack Obama is inaugurated today, becoming the nation’s 44th president and Commander-in-Chief, the head of the military.
I don’t recall ever watching a presidential inauguration, but I watch this one, from Afghanistan. I’m not drawn to the pomp and circumstance, but I enjoy watching history unfold and like many in Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m interested to see what changes the new boss will bring about.
The plan for OEF was already moving forward before Mr. Obama took office – plans are well underway to move increasing numbers of troops here, just as they will be drawing down in Iraq (OIF). It makes for an interesting time to be in either theater. I was in Iraq during “the surge” in 2007 when we saw a spike in violence, owing to the increased US presence, followed by sharp declines as our forces settled into their roles and took care of business. Like it or love it, the surge worked.
With violence increasing in Afghanistan, a similar strategy will play out over the next year, though this one coordinated with NATO forces throughout the country and never to reach the numbers of troops we saw deployed to Iraq.
I have a colleague in Iraq, occupying now the post I occupied for 7 months in 2007, and we chat from time to time. It is oddly bittersweet to hear about the base closures in Iraq, the drawdown of troops, and the planning for the eventual complete withdrawal – at least of our role there, though US troops will surely not disappear from the Iraqi landscape altogether anytime soon.
As part of my responsibilities here, I coordinate how my guys and I need to react to more troops in Afghanistan – I try to track how many are coming, what equipment they’re bringing, and where exactly they’ll end up. It is largely a pointless effort, as things change so quickly and often that I sometimes feel I’d be better served to just count them as they get off the plane.
All in all, I’m excited about the new presidency, if for nothing else than for a change from the status quo – which obviously wasn’t working. It is not clear how, if at all, my life will be affected by the new administration.
I guess I have a job to do regardless.
OEF = Operation Enduring Freedom (the war in Afghanistan) OIF = Operation Iraqi Freedom (the war in Iraq) NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organization
It’s late in the afternoon before I see Izzy today and the first thing he asks me, with a smirk, is “Were you sleepwalking this morning?”
I wasn’t, but I know what he’s talking about.
I went to bed very late again – around 0400 – and was dead asleep when around 0900 I could have sworn I heard a knocking on my door. Sensitive to the fact that I made Izzy knock several times yesterday, I jumped out of bed, shouted “Coming!”, threw on a shirt, and opened the door.
There was nobody there.
I poked my head around the corner and couldn’t see anyone nearby. I shook my head an crawled back into bed.
This happened at least three times, and through the thin wall between our living areas Izzy heard me yelling and running around, my door opening and closing most of the morning.
It’s much later in the day, and I hear the familiar crunch of gravel as a car passes next to my hooch. The crunch becomes louder, then the engine is speeding and I hear tires spinning uselessly.
I open my door to see a pickup truck stuck on a pile of gravel, one tire dug through to the dirt and mud beneath. Two of the passengers get out and jump on the back to redistribute the weight; I snap a picture of them and we share a laugh.
Their attempt unsuccessful, I put my camera away and suggest we try just plain pushing the truck, and from the front we’re able to push it to steady ground. They thank me, back up, gain some speed, and get over the gravel pile on their next go.
If gravel and I met prior to the summer of 2001, they were brief interactions – a driveway here, or a garden path there. I didn’t take much notice of it, and it didn’t seem to mind.
In June of 2001, however, gravel made it known that we were not friends. That summer, I traveled to Croatia to take part in an archaeological excavation of a cave. The cave was nestled in the side of a very large hill or a very small mountain, and every morning we had to make the trek up to it for a day’s work.
We parked at the side of a road that snaked around one slope of a valley, and would hike down into the valley and make our way along the bottom for about a mile. We were told to watch for snakes, though I never saw any. When we were below the cave, on the other side of the valley from where we parked, we climbed straight up the incline toward it.
The slope was covered with loose rock – gravel – and it gave way under every step so that the purchase made was hard fought. I hated those morning climbs, and I think we all did. When we finally made it to the cave, still early in the morning, the whole crew was already exhausted, and we lay around drinking water and panting. On more than one occasion someone suggested we just camp in the cave every night. I thought it a great idea, but we were never allowed to.
Fast forward 6 years to the summer of 2007 and I find myself in Iraq.
Army bases in the Middle East use gravel liberally, to provide stable ground where we would otherwise have just dirt, and mud that would quickly become rutted and chewed up by sizeable military vehicles. The gravel is everywhere, and it’s not fun to walk on.
I remember arriving in Kuwait just prior to my entry into Iraq and putting on my uniform for the first time - civilians are not allowed to wear uniforms in the States, but are required to in theater. Perhaps not having the right size, my Army-issue boots quickly tore up my heels, and I limped around for the first couple of weeks hating the gravel much more than I might have otherwise. It was uneven and unstable, and though my feet eventually healed and I became used to the gravel, I never learned to like it.
I am unsurprised by the preponderance of gravel on the military bases in Afghanistan, being now well-accustomed to how we cover the ground throughout theater – and I still hate it.
I share a vehicle here whereas in Iraq I had my own, so I think I do more walking. There may also be more gravel, or perhaps its looser, but the net result is that I have been more cognizant of it during this deployment. I am always looking down, watching out for particularly large or loose cobbles, but nonetheless I can’t travel more than 100 yards without tripping up just a little, one ankle or the other slipping and causing me to stumble.
When I walk behind others, I see the same Afghanistan shuffle and know that it’s not just me which is mildly reassuring.
The gravel is worse when wet, after a rain, and snow-covered gravel doesn’t offer a safe walking surface at all. Worse still is night gravel, when many of the differences in level and stability can’t be spotted at all until you’re trying to walk on them.
Every once in a while you get a well-packed and leveled area of gravel, and in those times it can be akin to walking on a sidewalk. It’s usually like this just long enough for you to start walking comfortably before you catch a boulder on the side of your foot and the guy walking with you gets to make fun of you for almost taking a dive.
The gravel also comes in different sizes. Generally they are the standard egg-sized gravelites, sharp and pointy on the edge directly under the part of your foot with a blister on it. If I have any type of bruise or injury on my foot, the gravel hones in on it like a heat-seeking missile.
We call the bigger cobbles “ankle breakers” for obvious reasons. Gravel is most dangerous when it turns suddenly from gravelites to ankle breakers, because they look the same at first, but obviously the larger stones are not as easy to walk on. I remember giving my ankle a good twist in Tikrit, Iraq, at a stretch like that.
I had not seen this in Iraq, but here in Afghanistan we also have the occasional, seemingly random, large rounded stone just lying about. I’ve taken to calling them dinosaur eggs, and if you’re not careful they will take you down mercilessly.
This morning, gravel upped the ante in our hate-hate relationship. Sleeping late into the morning, as I’m apt to do, I was wakened by a horrendous noise the likes of which I’ve never heard. The walls of my little hooch don’t keep out the winter, and they don’t begin to keep out the sounds of Hell. Not feeling 100%, with a slight headache and sore throat, I put a pillow over my head and try to ignore it, but it’s too much, too loud.
I stick my head out and see a guy on a plow spreading gravel that had been dumped in large piles dotting the housing area. He gives me a smile and a wave and if I had a gun I’d have shot him.
I try to get back to sleep and am mostly asleep when someone knocks on my door a little later. I wake up not entirely sure if I heard right, but at any rate I ignore it. They knock again and I ignore it again. My phone rings and I ignore it. I finally answer the third knocking, disheveled and coughing from a dry throat, and it’s my colleague Izzy with some questions and concerns about a project we’re working on.
I don’t see the urgency in what he’s telling me, not with my head aching and the gravel-based sounds of death finally subsided making me want to crawl back into bed. I always tell everyone that we work 24 hours here, though, because we’re always on call, and I regret not answering the first knocking.
I ask him to give me 5 minutes and pull on my uniform. I brush my teeth as I do every morning: standing in my doorway with a bottle of water to rinse with. I give my mouth a good cleaning and then spit onto the gravel outside my room.
I hit the 50% mark today, having completed half of the time from my deployment in August to my expected departure for R&R in June. I’ll still have a number of months after my break, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. For now, I’m enjoying the sense of coasting downhill toward a Stateside break.
I’ll have been here 9 months by the time I leave, and will be more than ready, I think, for a decent bed and a beer (though not particularly in that order). My break will be a little less than a month, I think, and I am already cramming it chock-full of visits around the country, and a perfunctory appearance at the office in MD, all planned around two weddings.
This R&R may be the only time I make it home to the States during 2009, so I’m planning to make the most of it.
My redeployment (permanent departure) from Afghanistan is still unknown. When I volunteered to stand up this assignment, my command was concerned that we wouldn’t have the manpower or volunteers to backfill me. Wanting very much to come here, I offered that I’d stay for up to 2 years, and it was enough for them to allow me to come.
I never really expected to stay here for 2 years, though, and I still don’t. I emailed my boss a few days ago about the upcoming year, and we agreed that I’d stay on for all of 2009 – something I wanted, as I have some financial goals I’d like to meet. After that, though, nothing is certain.
My boss mentioned that there has been increased interest in the deployments – both in Iraq and here – and so we’ve bandied about a redeployment of January 2010. I’m coming to grips with that, and feel it might work well, though I can’t say I’m thrilled about giving up the adventure of the Middle East for my office job in Maryland. I offered to take an assignment in Kuwait after this ends, or possibly stand up a post in Germany. He replied simply “Let’s talk about it in June.”
With that possible departure in mind, though, I find some pleasure in imagining being within a year of leaving here. Each calendar day I toil through won’t have to be repeated now, and I like that. Groundhog Day will come and go and by the time the next one rolls around I’ll be somewhere else. I’ll watch next year’s Super Bowl in another country.
I think a lot about June, and look forward to it – I think some about next year and all the unknowns there. Mostly, though, the here and now keeps me occupied.
When I moved into my room, I inherited the used furniture within and had no means to improve my lot - there's no furniture warehouse down the street. While lucky to have a personal room, I had a difficult time getting to sleep at night and never slept well on the limp mattress, springs from the box spring below digging into me through it.
My friend Eli eventually offered me a foam ("egg crate") mat, and that improved the situation slightly, though the foam would inevitably bunch up into hard ridges, and was just as uncomfortable as the problem it was solving.
I would get out of bed at least once during the night, remove the fitted sheet, and flatten the foam, refit the sheet, and crawl back under my blanket. Like I said: I hated my old mattress.
Today, I'm standing outside our hooch having a meeting with Izzy (who lives in the other half of the building). It's drizzling, but we're not minding it. Lacking an office, we have many meetings like this, one of us standing in the other's doorway, or both of us outside.
As we're chatting, two marines turn a corner and walk toward the dumpster near my room. They're each carrying a mattress and one them quips "I'll give you a good deal on this mattress!"
I notice immediately that it is more solid than the one I've been sleeping on, and ask him if he's really going to throw it out. As if in answer, his buddy deposits the other one in the trash, and I quickly say "I'll take it!".
I figure if it's not better than the one I have, I can always throw it out later. But I don't need to.
I sleep that night at a higher altitude, with the new mattress on top of my old one. It's a good set-up, except that the new mattress is slightly larger than the old, and so during the night it slowly made an escape toward the floor and I felt as if I was falling the entire night, which of course I was.
The next night I remove the old mattress from the equation, folding it in two (not a good sign that I could fold the mattress) and putting it in the corner in case I still need it. After another night, I toss it in the dumpster.
My new mattress has had a successful test run. It is probably the second worst mattress I've ever owned, but it replaced the worst, and I'm grateful for the improved conditions.
For the second time in less than a week, I show up at the shower point at the wrong time.
I’m up late, as usual, and I head over to the shower at about 0230; it’s deserted. I step into one of the stalls and let the water run for a solid minute but it never creeps above lukewarm, so I move to another and am letting it run when a cleaning crew comes in.
The cleaning crew consists of 5 LNs with red badges indicating that they need to be escorted at all times, and 1 American doing the escorting. The escort/supervisor asks me if I’m coming or going and then asks me if I can wait to shower until they’re done. He says it’ll be about 10 minutes.
I’m frustrated at first, but of course can’t justify having them all stand around and wait for me to lather up and get squeaky. I take a seat on one of the benches in the open area and after the super gets the crew going, he sits a little further down and I strike up a conversation with him.
I ask him if the locals are from the town just outside the gate, and he says they are. He doesn’t know how much they get paid, and in fact has been instructed not to ask his guys, but we agree that it would be a pittance by our standards. He tells me that the cleaning crew jobs are the bottom rung, and that all of the employees want to work at the DFACs because the workday is shorter and if they do that they can go to school before or after their shift.
This surprises me, because I’ve heard many accounts of how uneducated the locals are and it stupidly hadn’t occurred to me that they would be endeavoring to correct that situation. The super relates how some of his guys on another shift recently graduated from High School, though when I ask him if Afghani High School is equivalent to ours, he just laughs and says “Naw, it’s more like elementary school.”
Still, we agree that it’s great they want to do better for themselves.
I don’t ask him what his education level is, but in the course of the conversation we skirt around the topic enough that I get the distinct impression he didn’t attend college. Even so, he tells me he’s making about $70,000, tax-free, to escort the LNs, and of course he has no expenses over here. Not a bad situation at all.
He had asked the crew to clean the shower bay I was in first, and in short order one of them motions to me and tells me “Okay” and I finally get to take my shower, the water heating up nicely.
(09JAN2009) Apparently, some of my colleagues saw this coming.
After just three days in Afghanistan, Jennifer has decided to catch the next flight out of country and homeward. As a contractor, she has to resign her position, which means that the job she's held successfully for several years in the States is no longer hers. It is within her right, of course, though it still leaves many of us shaking our heads.
The reason for her abrupt departure, she tells me, is the conditions we live and work in here.
"I can do the job," she says, "I just can't do this."
I hear later in the day that some who knew her were surprised she volunteered in the first place, that they know her as a bit of a neat-freak and not one to rough it. When told she was deploying, one of her colleagues already in country said she wouldn't last and, when asked why, he simply kicked the dirt at his feet.
I don't see those of us who live and work here - and of course there are thousands - as particularly hardy, though perhaps it's true that we're willing to put up with a certain lack of luxury. We don't mind that dirt gets everywhere, though many of us try to keep our own private areas as clean as possible. Izzy and I share a vacuum and we use it regularly. We grumble when the PX is out of something we want or need - and it is always out of something we want or need - but it's part of the price of doing business.
She apologizes profusely, but I tell her she doesn't owe me an explanation. She has to do what she thinks is best for her, and I think we can all agree that Afghanistan is not for everyone.
I want to ask her, but do not, what she expected when she signed up to come over here. How did she imagine it was going to be? Surely she knew we don't have hotel rooms and private bathrooms. Or did she? Did no one tell her? We require the KTRs we hire to have prior military experience, and she does, but she had never deployed to the Middle East and by all accounts this came as a complete shock to her.
I don't have the opportunity to get to know her well, but she has been polite and nice throughout her time, and I'm sorry to see her go both for professional and personal reasons. Not everyone who comes over to work with us is as nice. She's the first KTR I've worked with in either theater to quit, and it's a surprising development.
She came over with Heather who, though sick as a dog the past several days, remains in good spirits. When I ask her how she likes it so far, concerned that she too would be despairing of the conditions, she tells me "I slept in a tent in Mosul for 7 months. This is nothing."
In theater, I am administratively attached to a BTN and so fall under the BTN CDR, a LTC. But I also report directly to and take taskings from our BDE CDR, a COL. There is also a LTC(P) from my command in theater doing similar work to my own, and in many ways I fall under him as well, when my projects warrant his attention – though he is only tangentially involved with the functions of the BTN/BDE.
Then, too, there is my chain of command Stateside, who I deal with almost exclusively through email, but who nonetheless give me directives, rate me, and (very important) approve my hours and pay me.
My chain of command in theater extends from the BDE CDR to a BG (1-star general) who sits in Kuwait. He came to visit us this week, and I was invited to have dinner with him and 30 of his closest underlings.
The dinner is held at the chow hall I usually eat at, in the same side room where we entertained the 4-star a few months ago. They serve the best food they can, which is the dry steaks we ‘enjoy’ every Friday night. Before chowing, we go around the room and introduce ourselves, the BG nodding along and only occasionally making a quip if he already knows the person.
I’d never met him, and so my introduction is quick, and I sit down to wait and watch as the circuit is completed. Soon enough, we eat, and then the BDE CDR presents awards and a BDE coin to a redeploying civilian, someone I’d had occasion to work with a bit and like a lot.
I’ve sat through a number of these award ceremonies, and stood up for one when I left Iraq in October of 2007. The only thing that changes is the CDR’s specific spiel about the departing. He has a lot to say about Dave tonight, all of it deserved, and it ends with a pinning of a medal for which we stand at attention.
The honor completed, the BG then stands up to take questions from the room. He receives only a few, but makes the most of them by answering in long, drawn-out responses most of which are at a level far above my concern and are therefore lost to me. It’s nice that he avails himself to us, as the 4-star did when he was here, but with our CDR’s in the room I get the distinct impression that we’d better have vetted our questions through them before broaching anything with the BG.
I have no questions for him.
The dinner ends, with some of my colleagues sticking around to get their picture taken with the BG, our transitory celebrity.
I was happy to be included, but quietly slip out the back door.
I get up around noon after a long night and morning.
This is not unusual for me. I stay up working a lot, and as I am largely my own boss out here, I can sleep late into the day without repercussions most days. There are some meetings I have to attend, that interrupt my slumber, but my only responsibility today is at 1900.
I meet up with our new colleagues after lunch, and take them for a drive around post, to show them the place, and to visit each of the three PXs in search of AAA batteries that one of the women, Jennifer, needs for her flashlight.
If the PX doesn’t have something in stock, you simply have to wait until they do. That could be days, weeks or months. I remember arriving in Iraq and seeing clothes hangers in the PX, but didn’t immediately pick any up. A week or so later, when I was moved into my room and needed some, they were nowhere to be found. I got into the habit of checking the PX for necessities every few days, just as a matter of course.
I finally saw clothes hangers again four months later.
There are no AAA batteries for sale today in on BAF. I suggest she just buy a new flashlight.
As we’re driving around, I’m pointing out different buildings or activities, and it’s not until halfway around post that Heather mentions Izzy took them on the same tour earlier in the day.
As we pass a point along the route that takes us past a high fence separating the post from the rest of Afghanistan, a point where you can see the village of Bagram across a rutted field, they tell me that when they drove there earlier in the day, children threw snowballs at them. They say that at first they didn’t know what was going on, but one had smacked flat on the side of the SUV.
I laugh at the story at first, then they point out that if the locals can throw snowballs, they can throw other things. Explosive things. It is perhaps too easy to forget about the dangers of just being in this country, even if we’re not rolling out on missions every day like the soldiers I work with.
We make it further around the perimeter road and fall in line behind a truck for a spell. The truck is carrying office furniture, and inexplicably a desk and chairs are set up in the back with TCNs sitting in two of the office chairs, as if they’re holding a board meeting. I snap a picture of them as they laugh and wave at us.
It seemed a poor way to transport the furniture – couldn’t they just lay the chairs down? – but there are many such things we just do because they’re easier here. I suppose the TCNs were going to have to ride in the back regardless, so might as well be comfortable, and they did have hardhats on.
When trying to travel out of BAF, or when awaiting someone’s arrival, one spends countless hours in uncomfortable chairs, staring at one of the two televisions – one shows AFN Sports, the other a movie. As soon as you walk in, you see the chairs filled with miserable, sallow people, and in almost every case you know you’re looking at a future version of yourself.
The last two weeks it seems we’ve been either picking someone up or dropping someone off every day. A big part of the problem is that you never know exactly when planes will arrive or depart, or whether the person you’re picking up will actually be on one, or whether the person trying to escape will get a seat. There’s a lot of wasted time at the APOD, and a lot of lugging duffle bags in and out of the vehicle.
The last several nights we’ve been waiting for two new colleagues to arrive from Kuwait. Izzy and I have been sharing the responsibility of showing up at the APOD when each flight from Ali Al Salem (the departure point from Kuwait) arrives. We always ask incoming personnel to let us know when they leave, but there is often little time from when a flight manifests to when it leaves, and so we rarely know in advance. It’s pick-up by trial and error.
Tonight it’s my turn to show up at the APOD and hope our new colleagues are on the arriving flight. I show up around 1200 and am told that the flight is about 30 minutes out.
I sit and read a spell, then wander around the APOD and get a cup of coffee, despite the fact that I rarely drink coffee and don’t particularly care for it.
I’m standing in the hallway outside the arrival door when I spot a familiar face, albeit more tired than last I saw it. Jarrod Birmingham, the country singer I saw a few days ago at the MWR clamshell, puts his bag on a nearby chair and leans against the wall next to me.
“Still trying to get out?” I ask.
He nods unhappily and we strike up a conversation. I tell him his show was a lot of fun, which it was, and thank him for coming out to Afghanistan for us. He thanks me, waves off coming to theater, and tells me about the other FOBs he visited on this and the trip he made here last year.
He tells me a story about flying out to one of the really small FOBs, where he was told no performers had ever gone before. That made him feel good, as it should. He flew out there in a helicopter, and they took small arms fire on the way – the pilots then asked him if he wanted to return to Bagram, but he replied “We’ve already flown over the gunman once and survived, why risk it again? Keep going!”
That seems to make sense to me.
We chat for close to an hour, about my job, about his much more interesting job, about home, about his winning some French award for best American Country Music performer (?!), about how I have never won a French award for anything, about the travails of getting around Afghanistan, about working for the USO (they pay every performer the same amount, regardless of their stature), about his friendship with Kid Rock (who I saw a few weeks ago, whom he called ‘Bobby’ and said they rode motorcycles together), about his band-mates traveling with him, about women (he recommended the Ukraine), about beer, and about whether he’d come back next year (undecided).
All the while, I’m watching people walk in and out of the arrivals holding room, though I don’t know who I’m looking for as I’ve never met the two people I’m there to collect. I know they’re both females, which does narrow the choices down significantly since women are far outnumbered in theater.
I’m looking for someone with a hat or shirt with the company logo that I’ll recognize, the company my unit hires contractors from. Eventually, Jarrod sees I’m getting a little anxious, since the flight’s been on the ground for almost an hour, and he suggests I pop into the arrivals holding room and look around.
I excuse myself, not thinking to say good-bye, and step into the room of travel-weary soldiers and civilians. When you arrive in theater, you surrender your military ID card (CAC) so that you can be accounted for in country, and then it’s returned to you. I arrive just as the CACs are being redistributed, so I hear the name of one of my contractors, and see her collect her card.
I introduce myself to one of the women I’d seen walk in and out of the room several times while I stood chatting with Jarrod, and she in turn introduces me to her companion, Heather, my other new contractor.
Before leaving the APOD, we get Jennifer signed up for a flight to Salerno where she’ll be working (Heather is staying on BAF), collect their bags (noting their duffels are bigger than they are, I carry as many as I can), and pile everything into the car.
It’s well after 0100 by the time we check them into billeting. I carry their bags to the door of the hut they’ll be staying in, though I can’t enter, and we make plans for them to meet with Izzy in the morning while I plan to sleep in.
It’s always nice to get new blood in country, and these two both seem nice. They’re admittedly exhausted and ragged from the travel, and Heather has a wicked cough she says she picked up in Kuwait, but they seem in relatively good spirits, and they’re part of the team now.
I remember what is like my first day. Welcome to Afghanistan.
stretches on.
USN = United States Navy
