I don’t want to go into too much detail, for many reasons, but the incident recounted here is almost entirely responsible for my getting (far) behind in updating this blog.
I wear a lot of hats in theater, and the most visible is that of the government representative for a data collection mission in Afghanistan. This mission actually spans the globe, but I’m only responsible for overseeing activities here, in this theater. Generally, this is the easiest part of my job, because Izzy, Eddie, Mark, Vic, and the rest of the KTRs I work with take care of it. That’s their job, and they do it well.
Every once in a while, though, they need someone in uniform (i.e. me) to help deal with other people in uniform - it’s unfortunate, but KTRs are occasionally looked down upon and sometimes even resented by the military personnel they’re here to assist. Not always, but sometimes.
The data collection mission we take care of in Afghanistan also has personnel in Iraq, and Kuwait, and employees will occasionally move from one theater to another based on need or for a myriad of other reason. A couple of people have jobs that cover both regions and travel regularly between Iraq and Afghanistan, which must be an enormous pain in the ass. I’m glad I don’t have to do that.
We had one such employee, TJ, visit us from Iraq back in November for a few weeks, but I was never clear on his mission or value-added. I asked a lot of questions of him, and then ultimately of his bosses, and it came to pass that nobody could really justify his position - it sounds like he fit a need when the job was created, but that circumstances had changed. He was told not to re-enter Afghanistan without my first approving his mission and travel, and eventually he was told that his contract would not be renewed when it expired in May - which is not terribly uncommon.
TJ sent me an itinerary for travel into Afghanistan in January and after determining that we were already doing or didn’t need done the things he was proposing to do, I denied his request. No Afghanistan for you. He was, perhaps understandably, annoyed by this new restriction in his travel, we exchanged a few heated emails, and then we moved on. I thought no more of it.
So, it was surprising when Izzy saw TJ walking around Bagram this week.
What happened after that initial spotting is a week that Izzy and I will talk about for as long as we know each other. We twice channeled our inner bounty hunters to track him down on post, we engaged the MPs, we delivered to him a letter of termination, we changed the flights he signed up for and then restricted his destinations, we constantly monitored his movement, and we kept our respective chains of command updated on every tiny development.
The worst part, for me, was when my colleague in Iraq escalated this to his CDR, who then contacted my CDR. A problem we were handling internally suddenly became something I had to explain to everyone and their XO. My command Stateside was furious with this development, but understood I had nothing to do with it.
The crux of the problem was that TJ did not have permission to be here. In fact, he was on leave from his post in Iraq and had told his boss that he was going to Germany. Instead he came to war zone. You can perhaps imagine how the military frowns upon people coming onto active bases in Afghanistan without permission.
It was a big deal, and our sole job during this week became getting TJ out of Afghanistan. I didn’t even care where he went, as long as he was out of my AO.
He eventually left Bagram, which we learned just prior to asking the MPs to pick him up and detain him. We tracked his movement through Qatar and into Kuwait, where MPs relieved him of his military ID so that he could not take a military flight from there - we were told he had signed up for a ride into Iraq - at which point he called his boss and played dumb. He claimed never to have seen or spoken to us in Afghanistan, but didn’t deny that he came here.
The only explanation we could think of for why he came is that he was looking for a job. He knew he wasn’t going to be renewed on his current contract, and the US military presence in Iraq is shrinking just as our numbers grow in Afghanistan.
I understand his desire to stay employed, I do, but he went about this entirely the wrong way, and he got caught. He had orders allowing his travel into both theaters, but not the permission of the people who gave him those orders - he screwed up, and for a few days he became my and Izzy’s problem.
He was fired, of course, and the company that fired him paid for his ticket to the States where he became his own problem.
KTRs = Contractors
MP = Military Police
CDR = Commander
XO = Executive Officer
AO = Area of Operations
