It is a sad and unfortunate consequence of the current conflicts that suicides among servicemembers has been on the rise. Multiple deployments have taken a toll on young soldiers separated from their families, and the stress of a wartime environment alone is no small obstacle for many.
The Army recently released suicide numbers to the media for 2009, a metric it does not normally discuss until the end of a calendar year. But the Army is taking this seriously, and wants to highlight this internal danger to the health of our Armed Forces.
As soon as this subject made headlines, and the Army stated that it would take aims to address the problem immediately, we all knew there was training in our future. It didn't take long before the DACs and soldiers were ushered into a conference room (KTRs are immune to most, but not all, mandated training).
The training consists of interactive movies, worksheets, discussions among break-out groups, and a brief open forum. The movie is slick and modern, a stark contrast to the majority of the training I receive that was clearly made in the 1970s (the lapels and ties give them away). As a whole, it focuses on identifying the warning signs of mental distress in your buddies and emphasize that once you’ve identified a problem, you are not to leave that person until they’re sought help.You force them if you have to, but you don't leave them alone.
I have, thankfully, not worked with anyone in either theater that killed themselves (that I know of), though I’ve come close. A unit I worked very closely with in Iraq lost a soldier to his own hand a month or two after I left - someone I certainly worked with, though I never learned the name of the victim. Stories abound on every post, though, and the majority concern a soldier (or marine, sailor, airman) distraught over a failed relationship while deployed.
Mental well-being is tricky to gauge out here, because we’re all under an unusual type (and amount) of stress; we are separated from family, friends, the luxuries of home, we’re occasionally under attack, we’re cooped up, and we never, ever, get a day off. It is expected that we will all have down days, and we do. You never know what the guy next to you is dealing with back home, and one phone call from an upset wife or bad news about a loved one can exacerbate the feelings of isolation we all experience.
Furthermore, working alongside the same people for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, will inevitably result in friction. I’m lucky to work with a good group of guys (and a girl), but they have each annoyed me at one point or another, and I know I’ve returned the favor. It's impossible not to.
All that said, some of us are better able to deal with it than others, whether by temperament or circumstance. Izzy and I recently ran some errands around post and pointed out every person that looks miserable - military and KTR alike, they lope along beaming dejection. It might be temporary, of course, but there are some wretched people whose countenance never changes.
I'm lucky in having to interact with relatively few such people, but they're around. They're around in the States, too.
DAC = Department of the Army Civilian (like me)
***
AMERICAN OUTSIDE THE WIRE
My friend Hali calls me out of the blue to see if I’m free for lunch. She’s on Bagram with a friend of hers, so I get a hold of Izzy and we meet them at the DFAC.
It’s interesting to have an Afghan friend, and she holds court with stories of her time in Iraq and her work here in Afghanistan. When one of us uses the word “Afghani” to describe a person, she is quick to educate us that the term is only used to describe the money - never for anything else; it's insulting. Izzy and I take note, and will go on to correct each other dozens of time in the ensuing months.
Hali’s friend is James, an American who owns a business that seems to have its hands in many pots. A young man, maybe mid-twenties, he has light brown hair and pale skin - he doesn’t look like a local. It surprises me, then, when he tells me that he lives in Kabul. Not on the US Military base in Kabul, but in the city.
He says there are many safe parts of the city, but certainly places you don’t want to go, alone or otherwise. He says he recently stopped running in a park near his house - it's just not safe anymore. Hali says Kabul is “like any cosmopolitan European city”, which I can only skeptically accept on face value.
James tells us of his work, how he employs locals to build furniture in one enterprise, but that it’s hard to get them to show up for work on time - cultural attitudes about work and time are very different here. It’s certainly to his credit to be involved in the community at that level, though, as it is obvious that what the country needs is more skilled workers, and more interaction with a progressive and modern industrial complex.
I know that he must be making an enormous amount of money, and when I ask him, he says “Well, something’s keeping me here. And it ain’t the women.” I keep coming back to the safety, though, and am even more surprised to learn that almost all of his travel around Afghanistan is done in a car. In the SUV he drove onto Bagram, in fact. Un-armored, no weapons, windows un-tinted.
He says he used to be able to drive down to Kandahar, but wouldn’t do that anymore - Hali interjects that too many of the bridges between here an there are controlled by the Taliban. He tells of one incident driving out to Jalalabad when he received small arms fire. He happened to be driving just ahead of a US military convoy, and so got caught up in that, but he says he simply drove faster and got out of harm’s way.
It seems an unnecessarily harrowing way to live, but also exciting, interesting, and productive.
We have a good lunch, and part ways with hugs and handshakes.
DFAC = Dining Facility
***
HUDDLE-UP
The mission I oversee in Afghanistan is not a big one - we’re at about 12 personnel all told. But we’re spread out, at 5 different FOBs, and some of the KTRs rarely see each other.
Eddie has the idea to bring everyone to Bagram at the same time, to develop some team unity, to disseminate information, and to make sure everyone’s on the same page. It sounds like a great idea, and I’m surprised that it works.
Travel within theater is notoriously difficult, and I had no expectation that everyone would get here at the same time. But they do, and on a Saturday morning we set up folding chairs and card tables we had to sign for at the MWR, and everyone meets and greets, like one big family. Their regional manager, someone I’ve worked with for a couple of years, even makes the trip in from Kuwait to give a short brief and answer questions from a higher level.
Eddie has a schedule, and has carved out an hour for me to talk to the guys. I discuss the larger context of their mission - what we back in the States do with the data they collect - something most of them have not been privy to in the past. I go on to talk about some of the things I do as a deployed analyst which have nothing to do with their mission, as my job as their government rep is not a full-time job.
I didn’t see anyone sleeping.
FOB = Forward Operating Base
MWR = Morale Welfare and Recreation
***
MY ROLE IN THE FAMILY
I’m part of the team, but not really one of them.
The KTRs I work with all wear hats with their company name on it. I wear an Army uniform. They are paid by their company, I’m paid by the Army. The KTRs have a chain of command, and I’m not in it. Not really.
As the government representative, I exist in a gray area. I do not have the power to fire anyone, but I am often asked for input on such decisions. I’m ultimately responsible to my unit for the execution of the mission in Afghanistan, but the KTRs are doing almost all of that work. I am not the boss, but their boss and I talk about almost everything. I am kept up-to-date, and problems are always run through me so that I can sign off on most courses of action. It’s a nice way for the KTRs to cover their asses, actually.
The part of my job overseeing the contract is more of a managerial position, but even then Izzy does most of that - he's responsible for all the paperwork. Maybe it’s more like being a consultant. A consultant who will get his ass chewed if he lets something bad happen under his watch.
I feel fairly well accepted; it’s hard not to be when you work so closely for so long with a group of people, and I believe they know I will look out for them as best I can. We laugh and tell jokes, and many of the KTRs I have no reservation calling my friends.
But there’s an edge to it as well. When we discuss certain topics, I see them hesitant to disagree too loudly with me, and I have no delusions that it’s because I’m always right. I am deferred to more often than I should be, and it makes me strive to be better.
Recently, I had a conversation with Mark, who’s one of the supervisors out here, and it raised some questions that I shot back to the home office, to include one of the KTRs I work with Stateside. When the emails started flying, Mark backed off of some of the things he told me, and I called him on it. He told me, understandably, that he doesn’t want to make waves. “Scared” is probably too strong a word, but he was definitely not comfortable. The guy I’d emailed back in the States, my KTR buddy from the home office, is Mark’s boss’s boss’s boss - but he’s not in my chain at all. To me, he's a guy I've had many, many beers with. To Mark, he's someone who can fire him.
I try to be mindful of the position my colleagues are in as KTRs, without the job security that I enjoy, and of my own status as not-their-boss but in some role of authority. It is a role I’m fairly used to, as I played this part in Iraq for 7 months in 2007 and have been here in Afghanistan as long, but I forget sometimes.
I haven’t screwed anything up too bad yet.
KTRs = Contractors
***
RIDE-ALONG
In the course of my job, I have occasion to climb on and around, in and under Army vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Sometimes I get to ride in them.
I’ve ridden in HMMWVs plenty, and every variant of the new MRAP. Generally the rides are short, just hitching a ride from A to B, and sometimes we’re taking a vehicle out for a test ride after installing equipment. Once, at NTC in FT IRWIN, CA, I rode in a HMMWV through ditches and over brush. We were tooling at a good clip just feet from the road - the driver wanted me to feel every bump.
After the meeting (or “huddle”, above), one of the KTRs I work with arranged for anyone who wanted to be able to ride-along in an ASV on the test-track they have for assessing new vehicles and training new operators. This being one of the few vehicles I’d not ridden in, I jumped at the opportunity, as did 3 others.
As with every military vehicle, the ASV is over-sized outside, and compact inside. You crawl in the side and squeeze into the front seats, not comfortable in the least until you’re sitting looking through the windshield. Once there, though, there’s a hatch above your head that opens, and your seat rises and lowers with a the use of a toggle switch. The driver, Earl, and I raised our seats so that our heads are popping out of the hatches, which is how you always see soldiers driving around in these things - looking like whack-a-moles. Until now, I always thought they were standing up inside.
Earl peels out and the vehicle bolts forward across the dusty plain. We bank and turn quickly, leaving a massive plume of sand and dirt in our wake. We go up and down the steep grades, into and out of gullies and ditches - I constantly think we’re going to get stuck, but Earl knows the capabilities of this machine, and the wheels keep turning and working us free of each obstacle.
I’m duly impressed. It was a fun ride, and the vehicle was much more agile in off-road conditions than I’d expected.
My buddies take rides in turn, until finally Heather hops in and her driver, Chris, goes off in unexpected directions at high speed, we assume, to impress her. He disappears behind a hillock and doesn’t emerge. We hear the engine racing and we trot down to see the ASV sunk into mud. The ground was dry at the upper layer, but thick and soggy beneath. My own boots sink a good several inches depending on where 
I step.
It gives Chris and Earl a chance to show off the towing capability of the ASV, as they use one to pull the other out of the muck. We give Chris a decent helping of grief over it, of course.
HMMWV = High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle
MRAP = Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (vehicle)
NTC = National Training Center
KTR = Contractor
ASV = Armored Security Vehicle
***
DOGS OF SPRING
The winter is starting to break, and we had a few days this week that were downright warm. My hooch is just over the wall from the local village, and there were dogs barking late into the night
I stupidly assumed they were pets, until it was pointed out to me that: (A) the people are far too poor to afford pets, and (B) this is the first time we’ve ever heard them.
So, wild dogs are roaming the area and for a couple of nights they wound up near the condo until they were chased away or killed by the locals.
