And now for a little R&R ...

I've been home on R&R for a couple of weeks now.  It's been a busy time, so busy that I haven't had time to post.  Or if I have had time, I haven't been the least bit interested.  But it's Sunday morning now.  We're off to a slow, lazy day today, so this is an opportunity to catch up.

I flew out of Maiwand on one of the Embassy's helicopters and landed back at KAF for a few days.  When you're in Afghanistan, you have to build in several days of travel to account for the vagaries of weather, helicopter availability, and general chaos.  So I had a couple of days of down time at KAF before heading out to Dubai.  It was a bit odd being back at my former home and workplace and having it NOT be my home and workplace anymore.  Still, it was nice to have a bit of time to decompress before starting the long slog back to the US.

I took a contract flight directly from KAF to Dubai.  In typical governmental fashion, we had to show up several hours early and be herded through various stages of security screening, like cattle to the slaughterhouse.  The flight itself was uneventful and, thankfully, not full, so I had a bit of room to stretch. Once in Dubai, I had many hours to kill.  Some of my compatriots just hang out at the airport, some get a hotel room, but I went exploring.  I wound up at the Mall of the Emirates, a huge, modern, and ritzy shopping mall.  When you see a Lamborghini and Ferrari parked in a roped-off valet area next to the main entrance, you know you're not in Afghanistan anymore.  Inside the mall, there was a store for every high-end brand name that you ever heard of, and many more you haven't.  They even had an indoor ski slope!  Unbelievable.

Then it was back to the airport and onto the long, 14-hour flight to Atlanta.  Fortunately, I had an aisle seat and was able to frequently get up and stretch.  I can't sleep for squat on airplanes and this flight was no exception.  In Atlanta, I cleared customs, found my gate, and pretty soon was on the last leg to Asheville.  And at 9:15, about 27 hours after leaving Kandahar, I was hugging my wife and dogs at the Asheville airport.  Home.

As always, it is wonderful to be in my own home, in my own bed, walking my dogs, being with my wife, and seeing my friends.  Janis had me take care of some maintenance chores around the house.  I spent a couple of days on yard work.  We visited with friends and neighbors and caught up on each other's lives.  We went out to eat at some really good restaurants.  In all, we just enjoyed being together.

This past week has been hectic.  Janis's son Rick, and our 5-year-old grandson Jackson, came out to spend a week with us.  I hadn't seen Jax in 3 1/2 years, which is eons in a 5-year-old's life.  He was a bit shy with us at first, but that didn't last long.  We connected pretty well.  And we had a very busy week: an Asheville Tourists ball game, going to the park, seeing a movie, throwing a frisbee, and lots of other activities.  It was a bit of a whirlwind.  But they boarded the plane yesterday afternoon and headed home.  Now it's just Janis, myself, and the dogs again.  We've got some more home chores to do, mostly clean-up from the 5-year-old tornado and normal chores (like mowing the yard).

In a few days, it'll be my turn to board the airplane.  It's almost time to head back to Afghanistan and work.  I can't really say I'm ready, not at this point, but it's something I gotta do.  And I'll be ready once the time comes.

Another Week in Maiwand

Another week down in Maiwand and I'm still having a great time.  The hours are long, longer than they were at KAF, but the pace is slower.  That's not the contradiction it seems.  For example, our network is slow.  Click on a file and it could take two minutes to load.  At KAF, I had my classified and unclassified networks right next to each other on one desk.  Here, they're on opposite sides of the FOB.  So when I need to write a report on the classified system, it usually requires information from the unclassified system, so I have to print it out and hike across the FOB.  And we spend a lot of time waiting.  When we go over to the District Center, which is most days, we have to form up in a group and some have to be armed.  So we spend a lot of time sitting at the gazebo, waiting on everybody to show up so we can go to the Center, or sitting in the Center, waiting to go back to the FOB.

Here's my Easter outfit.  Easter Sunday was a regular workday for us.  We had to go over to the District Center to check on a project.  Going over there requires a full set of personal protective equipment (PPE).  It's about 40 pounds worth of stuff.  Fortunately, the walk isn't all that far.

Our slower/longer pace, though, is letting me dig deep into Maiwand's unique situation.  I'm learning as much as I can about the people, their tribes, their issues, their villages, what's happened in the past, what's going on now, and what's planned for the short and long term future.  Maiwand is very different from the other districts that I've studied or spent time in.  It's the Wild West, literally: on the western side of Kandahar Province, out in the boonies, about an hour by car from Kandahar City, and bounded on the north and south by unfriendly natives.  The area along Highway 1, where I am, is pretty secure.  It's the commercial trading center of the district, so everybody has to come here to buy and sell.  But if you go to the south a bit, you're into Taliban country.  Go to the north a bit, and you're into narco-trafficker country.  Neither is the kind of place where you can hop out of your MRAP and walk up to somebody and strike up a conversation.

This is Highway 1, in the bazaar area of the main settlement of Hutal.  Think of the road as the I-40 of Afghanistan, and the bazaar as their free-flowing farmer's market.  This is where the Afghans come to buy their clothes, food, cell phones, and sell their vegetables, eggs, and poppy.  This area is very close to our base, so our soldiers can, and do, make foot patrols through here and talk with the shop owners.  Go about ten clicks north or south, though, and it's different.

Since our goal is to reduce tensions between the groups, and build some sort of peaceful co-existence (if not to integrate them under a common governance umbrella), we have to reach out to those in the north and south.  We do this in a variety of ways.  Some ways work better than others, some backfire, some are successful but in ways we don't expect, and some have no effect whatsoever.  Basically, we have a variety of tools given to us from higher headquarters, and we put them into action as best we can and see what happens.  And sometimes, we have to wonder just what those geniuses up at higher headquarters were thinking when they dreamed up some of these schemes ...

One of our schemes to help stabilize the area is in providing seed and fertilizer for vegetables, wheat, and other crops.  Farmers here are at the subsistence level.  They grow food crops mostly for themselves to eat, not so much as cash crops.  The big cash crop here is poppy and we'd like to get them to grow something else.  So we're trying to make alternatives more available.  Part of the plan is to provide them with heavily-subsidized seed and fertilizer to help get them started.  It also includes training on how to make best use of the fertilizer, water, and seeds.  Believe me, they need that training, as their crop yields are very low, even when considering their environment.  So on this particular day, a lot of farmers came in to the District Center, got some training on how to grow veggies, and then were given a big load of fertilizer and seeds.  The picture shows a happy farmer sitting on top of his tuk-tuk, which is loaded down with seed and fertilizer bags, heading home to his fields.  Will he really stop growing poppy?  Hell, no, he makes too much money off it.  But this will at least give him some alternative crops to think about.

So that's some insight into what I've been doing on your tax dollars for the past week or two.  I'm really having a good time here - it is SO much better than doing staff work at the headquarters at KAF!

But now it's time for a break.  Did I say break?  I just got to Maiwand!  Yep, it's true: I'm heading out on R&R, which was planned long before the shift to Maiwand came up.  I'll be flying out and heading home for a couple of weeks.  I'll get to be with my wife, play with my dogs, mow the yard, drive my own (unarmored) truck, and see my grandson.  It's going to be a great couple of weeks.  Then it'll be time to come back and really hit it hard at the job.  Things are about to start happening and I want to be a part of it!

Sketch Time

Abdul Manan

Ink on paper, 12"x9"

©2012 Skip Rohde

Settling Into the New Job

Getting settled in a new location and new job is always an adventure.  I got here almost a week ago and have been running pretty hard ever since.  Some of it has been establishing a relationship with my new teammate, Eric.  Some of it has been meeting all the military guys that I'll be working with over the next six months.  Some of it has been getting acquainted with all the various operational and administrative issues surrounding our little organization.  Some of it has been meeting with a lot of Afghans over at the District Center.  And some of it has been housekeeping: setting up my little home and office the way I want them.

My new teammate is a really good guy.  Like me, he's a retired military officer.  He looks and sounds a bit like Donald Sutherland, as he was in the movie "Mash" ... which is actually quite appropriate for our situation here.  I'm going to have fun working with him.

The military unit here has been great to work with, right off the bat.  They have a solid understanding of their role, kinda understand what our role is, and are a pretty squared-away unit, especially for being here only a short time.  So far they've been extremely supportive.  One change from the previous unit is that these guys are more interested in getting us out to where we need to go.  And they're all pretty upbeat and happy to talk with us about the mission, sports, life back home, what we're doing, whatever.  America, you're sending some fine young men and women over here.

Our little team has a a good bit of history built up by the previous members over the last two years: lots of hard work, files, and records of things that I need to have at least a passing acquaintance with.  Since I'm the new guy, I know that the Afghans going to hit me up for things that they've asked for before, only to be told "no".  You know how it is: you get a substitute teacher in school, and you try to convince him that you always go to lunch an hour early.  So I need to know about the major things that have been tried or requested before, and what the result was, and why.  In other words: lots of research.

Haji Kasan

Ballpoint pen on lined notebook paper

6"x4"

The fun part is working with the Afghans.  I've been to several shuras and other meetings already.  "Controlled chaos" might be a good description of how their meetings generally run.  Well, maybe not so much "controlled".  But you could also call them noisy and energetic.  I have to pay close attention to what's being said in these meetings, and by whom, in order to pick up the subtleties that are so easy to miss.  But sometimes, as I look at these fabulous faces, my pen just starts moving on its own accord and something like this sketch pops out.

And, finally, getting settled into my new digs takes time.  I'm very fortunate: I have my own Containerized Housing Unit, or CHU.  This is a small one, 20' long, 8' wide, and it's both my office and bedroom.  But it's all mine.  Unlike just about everybody else on this base, I don't share living and office space with anybody. My teammate has a similar CHU just a few feet away.  But my CHU is a wet one.  What that means is that I have running water, so I have my own little bathroom.  Sounds great, but it came at a price: the bathroom area looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the British were chased out of Afghanistan in 1880.  Which is quite a trick since this CHU is only about two or three years old.  Yes, the bathroom area was a real shithole, complete with a floater.  It took me four hours with scouring powder, soap, and disinfectant before I felt like I could spit my toothpaste in the sink without having to wear a HAZMAT suit.  It took two more days before I felt that I could use the whole bathroom without updating my tetanus shot.  As it is, there's no hot water, and the shower is all the way on the other side of the base, but I have my own clean sink now, and a toilet that is at least somewhat useable, so I'm a happy camper.

So I'm in my new job and perfectly happy with it.  This is what I came to Afghanistan to do!

Moving to Maiwand

It's time for a major change in jobs.  Tomorrow morning, I will leave the luxuries of Kandahar Air Field and move downrange to the District Support Team in Maiwand.  KAF has been a great assignment.  I got to work with a lot of smart people (as well as a few whose smarts seemed to have been left back in the States).  I went to some neat places: Arghandab, Dand, Spin Boldak, Uruzgan, Zhari, Kandahar City, and Daman.  I participated in the painfully thorough planning process for the spring operations that are about to kick off.  I was immersed in trying to figure out how an extremely dysfunctional government really functions, which often entails studying things that have nothing to do with government.  In short, I learned a hell of a lot.

So about a month ago, I decided to go for a new challenge and told my boss that I wanted to move further out to a DST.  These are small teams of 1-4 people who work closely with the district governors, officials, shuras, key leaders, and military forces.  They often live in spartan conditions on small bases.  Life out there is much more basic than here, but DST members deal directly with Afghans, personally, on a daily basis.  Frankly, at KAF, I've been doing staff work and working pretty exclusively with Americans.  I can do that at home.  Time to go do something different.

So I'm off to Maiwand.  This is a key district in southern Afghanistan.  It's in western Kandahar Province, on the border with Helmand Province.  The Ring Route, Highway 1, which runs in a circle around Afghanistan to connect all the key cities, bisects the district.  It's home to the Taliban.  Its major cash crop is poppy.  The official Afghan government only has a toe-hold there.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be half of a two-man team based on a small COP in the district center in the town of Hutal.  ("Town" as used here is being generous.)  In another week or two, we'll add another individual.  Our mission is to get a functioning structure in the district so that it can maintain itself after military forces and US assistance pull back.  Whether that's achievable remains to be seen, but I'm going to give it my best shot.

So I'm pretty excited about this opportunity.  This is what I came to Afghanistan to do.  Time to go do it.

Back at KAF

Private Rios

Graphite on paper, 7"x5"

My time at Arghandab is up and I'm back at Kandahar Air Field (KAF) again.  Arghandab was a lot of fun.  It was great to be away from staff duty and to work directly with the local Afghans and the military forces out in the field.  Everything we did out there affected the mission.

I got to do some more drawing as well.  Above is a sketch of Private Rios, who always seemed to be on guard duty whenever I had to go through the gate over to the District Center.  A friendly, outgoing, and very talkative guy (to use one of my mother's favorite phrases, he could talk the ears off a brass monkey), Rios was curious as to what we were doing in general, and was thrilled to have me do this sketch.

In my last post, I included a drawing of the Arghandab District Governor.  He loved it, but thought I made him look too serious.  Actually, I really lightened up his expression - you should have seen the stern face I had to work with!  The next day, I went in to say goodbye.  The DG was sitting in his office with about a dozen of his cronies.  He told them all about the picture I'd drawn the previous day.  Next thing I knew, he was pulling some paper out, finding a pen, and wanting me to draw him again, only this time with a smile!  How could I refuse?  The pressure was on!  So I sat there and drew him again, with one of his cronies who looked like the original Abraham sitting next to me and giving a running commentary.  It was a blast.  I was lucky: pens are unforgiving, but I managed to capture his likeness and spirit pretty well.  The DG was thrilled.  Mission accomplished.

I did quite a few other sketches during my time in Arghandab.  You can see them on my studio's Facebook page, www.facebook.com/Studio.of.Skip.Rohde.  I haven't put them on my website yet ... actually, I think my website is overdue for some updates, but not today.

The next morning, I packed up and a group of us trudged up the hill to the landing zone.  The Embassy helo came in about 20 minutes early (yay).  I climbed in, buckled up, and we were off.  My time in Arghandab was over.

The helo, by the way, was an old Russian-built MI-8.  Think 1950's Chevy van with rotor blades, flown by crazy Ukrainians.  There are certain ways in and out of the LZ that the military wants helos to take to minimize the impact that rotor blasts might have on both the base and adjacent religious shrine.  The Ukrainians don't pay much attention.  They skimmed right along the ridge, one or two hundred yards out, thoroughly enjoying themselves.  For those of us in the back, our windows were filled with mountains on one side and blue sky on the other.  And the mountains didn't look very far away.  Beats the hell out of any thrill ride at Six Flags!

Back at KAF, the first thing I did was take a nice long shower, shave, and throw a couple of loads of clothes into the laundry.  Life at a FOB is fun, but it's lacking in certain amenities.  Things like a fairly spacious and clean shower stall, for example.  Toilets that flush, instead of port-johns.  The ability to pull your clothes out of the dryer when they're done, rather than pick them up after they've spent several hours wadded up in your laundry bag and now look like you slept in them for a week.  Today, I treated myself to a cappuccino at Green Beans, which is the Starbucks for war zones.  Life's good ... at least as far as creature comforts are concerned.

I was talking with a friend at breakfast this morning and he was lamenting the fact that, here at KAF, we spend all day reading emails, writing reports, and preparing PowerPoint presentations, all to affect decisions on things we'll never see.  Very true.  Which is why I'm heading out to the field again very soon.  I'm transferring to one of our District Support Teams (DSTs) and will be there for the rest of my tour.  I'm really excited about it - I'll be able to dig down into the dynamics of one particular district, get to know the District Governor and key leaders, team up with the military unit, and in general get my hands dirty doing operational stuff.  And I'll be able to do more interesting drawings.  It's a district that I'm already fairly familiar with, so I won't be walking into it blind.  THIS is what I came to Afghanistan for!  So when am I leaving?  Not quite sure, but probably within the week.  You'll read about it right here.

Diplomacy Through Art

A few days ago, I was in a meeting with the District Governor of Arghandab, Haji Shah Mohammad.  I did a quick sketch of him while he was talking with somebody else, and when we left, I gave it to him.  He thought it was pretty cool and wanted me to do another one, a bit more formal.  So this morning, I met with him in his office, along with a number of his cronies, and did this drawing.

Haji Shah Mohammad

Graphite on paper, 12"x9"

The District Governor of Arghandab and me

I sat on the visitor's couch across from him while he sat in his favorite chair.  The lighting was a bit odd:since the power was out in the building (a common situation) we relied on ambient light from the windows, which was soft and unusually colored due to today's thick dust.  I had an interpreter, Ahmad, with me, and he talked with the DG and the cronies while I drew.  I can't talk and draw at the same time, so I kept quiet and sketched away.  After about 20 minutes, I thought the drawing turned out pretty well, and the DG thought so, too, especially when I gave it to him.  So now he has two original Rohde drawings in his private art collection.  I had a great time doing it and hope that I can do more before the end of my tour.

Keeping Busy

Southern Afghanistan is warming up.  This morning we’re well into the 70’s (fahrenheit) with clear skies and only a little dust.  Nice day.  The weather is changing rapidly: a week ago, I needed a jacket; today I’m in a polo shirt.  Good stuff!

I mentioned in my last post that we were moving our office out of the District Center and into a tent on the US-controlled side of the wall.  We did most of it over a week ago.  The only thing remaining was the move of one of our computer networks, which included a communications system.  This is a complex move that required some special technicians.  They arrived a few days ago and we started to roll.  Immediately the military guys here threw us a curveball.  Our satellite dish was on top of the District Center, but they wanted it moved into our compound.  Where?  They didn’t say and didn’t care, as long as it was off the Center and in our compound.  Which is packed about as tightly as a compound can be, meaning there’s no room at the inn.  But  with the help of a sharp Sergeant First Class, we found a place on top of a guard tower, found a crane, and found some willing soldiers to carry a rack of heavy electronic equipment down two flights of stairs and across the compound into the tent.  Never a complaint from any of them, even when a sandbag broke and dumped a bunch of dirt onto the head of one poor guy.  “It’s all good, sir!”  Great bunch of young men.  Then the techs worked their magic and our system was up and running about seven hours after we began. 

Downtown Kandahar City

Yesterday was another very interesting day.  I was tagged to go to a large briefing at Mandagak Palace in Kandahar City.  This is the provincial governor’s center, which includes a conference area (where we were), offices, residential and guest houses, and more.  We left in the morning in a train of MRAP’s, winding along the Arghandab valley and then up and over a pass.  The outer edges of Kandahar City came up pretty quickly as we came down the mountain.  Traffic wasn’t too bad, mostly pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and donkey carts, almost none of which observed any sort of rules of the road.  When we finally got to the palace gate, we discovered that the police had roped off every entrance.  Parking MRAPs in an Afghan bazaar is not an option, and neither is backing up, so eventually the ropes came down and in we went.

This was my first road trip into the city, so my pucker factor was a bit on the high side, but for the soldiers manning the vehicle, it was just another routine day in the office.  Their chatter, though, was not the sort of thing you’d normally hear from a bunch of guys in the US.  The driver, for instance, casually told of being under investigation because the barrel of his machine gun bent.  The reason: he’d put several thousand rounds through it in a very short period of time, to the point where it overheated and warped.  He was laughing at the major who had to do the investigation, ignoring the bit about why he had to fire several thousand rounds so quickly in the first place.  

The gathering at the palace was an opportunity for our Afghan partners to brief provincial district officials on their plans for the next several months.  Americans such as my group were there to provide moral support.  And, given the Afghan inclinations, we were there to ensure there was an audience, and to ensure that the briefers showed up as well.  I think it’s safe to say that giving a detailed briefing about upcoming operations is not a normal Afghan way of doing business.

I had attended one other such event in Spin Boldak several months ago.  Back then, I said that the real value in such an exercise is getting the Afghans to think about their operations, plan them out, and be able to tell others about what they’re going to do.  It’s still very true.  And they are learning.  Our district Chief of Police wouldn’t have said five words to any group over three people a year ago; yesterday, he got up in front of a large group of very senior Afghan and American people and spoke confidently and at length.  I understand that all the briefers did better this time than last.  That’s a good sign.  As I’ve said, the leaders here may often be un(der) educated, but they’re smart, and can and do learn.  Whether they continue to do this after we pull back is another question.

So after it was over, we climbed back into our MRAPs and headed back.  It was, fortunately, another uneventful trip.  

Today (Friday) is their weekend, which also meant a fairly quiet day for us.  A good time to catch up on paperwork, fix a few equipment issues that have popped up, and do some research that’s been on the back burner.  One of my projects has been to find out whether the district shura members come from all over the district, or whether they come from just a few select areas.  The question, as you might imagine, has some relevance as to how we work with the local officials.  I thought it would be a quick project, maybe an hour.  Nope - I’ve been working on it for a week now and am still not done!  As I’ve discovered, villages can have more than one name - or, rather, multiple names that mean the same thing.  Because there’s no one way to translate Afghan words into the Western alphabet, each one of those names can be spelled about six different ways.  So the villages of Pai Shuyen and Shoheen Sofla are, in fact, the same one.  It’s the same thing with people’s names.  There are, for instance, five gents named Haji Mohammad in the district shura ... or maybe only four, as we’re not quite certain that one of them might be filling two roles.  So after a week of work, I think that the district shura assignments are spread evenly around the district.  But I wouldn’t swear to it.

So I’m still having a good time out here in the district.  Working here is living at a very basic level, but it’s at this level where change can be (and needs to be) done.

Tension in Arghandab

Last week I deployed to the District Support Team in Arghandab district.  The team lead was going on leave and needed somebody to cover for him, so I raised my hand.  Any chance to get away from staff work and go to the pointy end of the stick is a chance to be jumped at.  

So last Monday, I flew from KAF to Arghandab on a rattletrap CH-46 helicopter.  The flight was uneventful (good) and within ten minutes of landing, I had my stuff stashed away in my CHU and was in the office, ready to get started.  Mike started bringing me up to speed on the main issues facing the DST.  I was familiar with some, but certainly not all - in my experience, no headquarters is ever fully aware of what the guys in the field are facing.  So we spent Monday and Tuesday talking about DST stuff, going to meetings with the military guys, talking with random Afghans, writing reports, visiting with the District Governor, going to more meetings with the military guys, and writing more reports.  Damn, I thought I left the meetings and reports back at KAF!  Wrong again, moosebreath.

Mike flew out on Wednesday morning, heading off to the States to visit his daughter, and Philip and I were left to run the place on our own.  So what do we do?  Meet with the military guys, write reports, meet with random Afghans.  But we also had another mission: move the DST.  The team’s office has been in the District Center for a few years now.  While this has been great for being able to meet with the Governor, district officials, and of course the random Afghans, it had an unwanted second-order effect: Afghans came to rely too much on the US forces and DST to get things done.  

You may have heard that one of Karzai’s gripes is that the US and ISAF are a “shadow government” that is outside Afghan control.  It’s true.  We’re here, we’re organized, and for several years, we were the way things got done.  The local Afghan government, if it existed at all, was seen as slow, unable to get things done, and (at worst) corrupt and incompetent.  So rather than work through their own government, Afghans learned to turn to the Americans first.  You need a road repaired?  Might take the Afghan government a year or two to get around to it, if at all - go to the Americans.  You want a school built?  The Afghan government has no money for schools - go to the Americans.  You get the drift.

Recently, though, we’ve begun pulling back.  The Afghan government has to become functional and answer the needs of its own people.  So when Afghans come and ask us for this project or those supplies, we direct them to the responsible Afghan officials.  To help enforce that, we’re pulling our few remaining offices out of the District Center and relocating to the adjacent US-controlled compound.  We’ll still be working with the local Afghan officials on a daily basis, but we’ll be trying to get the people and the officials to use their own chain of command and not rely on us.

So on Wednesday evening, after Mike left, Philip and I, along with a group of soldiers, started loading up the office’s furniture, computers, files, and other stuff (lots and lots of “stuff”) and lugging it over to our new digs.  We’re in a tent now, with a wooden floor that has a permanent slope to it.  Some equipment can’t move yet, not until a special team comes in to take it apart, move it, and set it up in the new space.  So we still need to go to the old office occasionally, for a few more days.  I tell you, Mike owes me: that was some back-breaking manual labor we did!  Once we got all the stuff over there, it took a couple of days to get things organized and into operating condition, but we’re there, more or less.

So things were looking pretty good.  Until yesterday morning, when we heard about the incident in Panjwai.  A soldier had walked out of his base and shot an unknown number of Afghans.  Some were killed, some wounded.  Panjwai is adjacent to Arghandab and this particular base is maybe 20 miles from here.  Coming on the heels of the Koran burning, this was not good.  While we were aware of it yesterday, and the Afghan leaders were aware of it, the regular people at the Center were not.  But we decided to tighten up on security, so Philip and I are staying away from the Center as much as possible during the day and only using the old office at night.

The Afghan leaders that we’ve talked to have all been pretty understanding.  They’re very upset with the soldier, of course, but they’re not upset with Americans in general.  They recognize that this is a rogue act by one guy with some serious issues.  They want to see an immediate investigation, they want to see justice, and they want things to calm down.  All of which we want, too.  

The district officials, police, and army have an additional responsibility that we do not.  They have to calm their people down and maintain order.  During the Koran troubles, they did an excellent job overall.  There wasn’t much trouble down here in the south, and what little there was, was fairly easily contained.  Since this event occurred right here in Kandahar Province, just a short distance away, things might be different.  

The Afghan media, though, is following the American tradition: sensationalize, exaggerate, and show blood and gore.  The reports are pretty graphic and pretty horrible.  The Taliban isn’t going to have to do much to make them worse than they already are.  What’s true and what’s not remains to be seen in the investigation, but the press isn’t waiting for an investigation.  

So things are a bit tense here.  We’ve tightened security on our end and are waiting to see what the fallout is.  Life on the pointy end of the stick just got more interesting.

New Sketches

I'm in Arghandab, a district in Kandahar Province, for a couple of weeks.  One of the Department of State team members is on leave and I'm filling in for him.  This has already proven to be an interesting and challenging assignment.  Power outages, dealing with the Afghan work ethic, meeting lots of soldiers and trying to remember their names and jobs so I can coordinate with the right guy, and moving the office from the District Center (source of the power outages) to a nearby Army tent (which is on a different power system and uses different voltage) has been a challenge.

Despite that, I have my sketchbook and have been able to do some quick drawings here and there.  Yesterday, for example, I attended the district shura, which is a public meeting where the District Governor, Chief of Police, officials, and village elders get together to discuss, well, everything.  It's a bit of a stage show, a bit chaotic, unscripted, surprising, and a great source of drawing material.

Shura Members

Pencil on paper, 5"x7"

 Abdul Manan

Pencil on paper, 7"x5"

 Battle Damage Claimant

Pencil on paper, 7"x5"

Shura Member

Pencil on paper, 7"x5"

On the Road Again

I finally managed to break free from KAF a few days ago.  Several of us flew up to FOB Pasab in Zhari District on Thursday to meet with a team of civilians there.  They were Department of State, USAID, and US Department of Agriculture experts who are directly involved with the local Afghan government. Two of us stayed for a couple of nights for some more in-depth and focused discussions.  It turned out to be a very productive visit.  I'd never been there before, and I'm the kind of guy who'll go almost anywhere once, so it was fun to see a new place.  

FOB Pasab is a pretty large military base.  Most of it is ISAF, but not all: there is a section that belongs to Afghan security forces, and a section that includes the District Center, which is the seat of government.  Like all our bases, it's made up of tents, CHUs, "Plywood Palaces", stacks of CONEX boxes (big shipping containers), diesel-powered generators, miles and miles of T-walls, and gravel.  

Most significantly, it has one of the best DFACs in all Kandahar Province.  After eating at the "Sux" DFAC for so long, it was great to find a really well-run place.  The food tasted great, there was a good variety, and they had all the extra geedunk (Navy terminology for snack food) that DFACs are supposed to have but ours never do.  For example, they had a wide variety of drinks, including Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Coke Zero, regular Coke, Orange Crush, Snapple, boxed juices (pineapple, orange, apple, cranberry, and mixtures), V8, Gatorade, non-alcoholic beer, and much much more.  The Sux might have regular Coke, orange crush, mystery drink (maybe it's Tang, but I wouldn't bet on it), and something they claim is apple juice.  FOB Pasab's DFAC even had (gasp) REAL ICE CREAM!  Yes!  Cookies 'n' Cream, Praline, Chocolate, and Vanilla ... the kind you scoop out of a big ol' tub, not the kind that squirts out of a machine like runny poop.  Last night was Friday, which means Surf 'n' Turf, and I had a big stack of crab legs for the first time since, well, Baghdad.  Followed by real pecan pie.  Oh my gosh, it was almost like being in the real world again.  Tomorrow I gotta hit the gym to start working it off.

But we weren't there just to hit the DFAC, we were there to work.  (No, really, we were.  There to work, I mean.)  We spent most of the day in some pretty deep discussions about the team, the mission, operations, and how to maximize our effectiveness.  I got to visit the district center and get a feel for the place.  Last night, the incoming Colonel (he'll be in charge of all the military operations in the area in a week) came to the tent and talked with us for two and a half hours.  Quite impressive.  Very sharp guy with a keen understanding of the social, political, and military environments.  He'll be a great one to work with.

Today we came back, riding home in an ancient CH-46 helo.  The Navy and Marines used to operate these things way back when I was a junior officer at sea, so it was cool to get to ride in one again.  Yes, that is Your Faithful Correspondent in the cool Ray-Bans at the top of this post.

So now it's back to the KAF Grind.  Back to the Sux ... in fact, I needed some Alka-Seltzer after dinner tonight, and not because I ate too much.  (A word of explanation: the "Sux" refers to the DFAC right around the corner.  It's official name is the Luxembourg DFAC ... aka the "Lux" ... aka, well, you know).  There's going to be an excruciating 2-hour meeting tomorrow morning.  Oh, boy, can't wait.  (I'm lying.)

New Sketches

My last couple of posts have talked about some pretty heavy issues.  Time to lighten it up a bit.  Here are three new sketches.

District Official

Ink on paper, 7"x5" 

This guy is an official in one of the districts in this area.  He's a pretty sharp guy and I hope that comes across in this sketch.

 Poppy Farmer

Ink on paper, 7"x5"

A slightly different story with this one.  He was growing poppy in one of the districts down here.  That is, until the district chief of police and a horde of police and other officials hit the area.  Now his poppy field is destroyed and he's under arrest.  Not a good day.

Angry Poppy Farmer

Ink on paper, 7"x5"

This guy is another poppy farmer.  Where the other one seemed resigned to his fate, this one wasn't.  He's looking for somebody to kill.  Well, if somebody just destroyed the crop that was going to fund you for the next year, you'd be mad, too.

It felt good to do some drawing again.  I may have some more opportunities in the next couple of weeks, and I'm really looking forward to it!

Security Situation

A week into the Koran-burning incident, things here are still a little tense.  The number of demonstrations around the country has dropped fairly steadily, and there are fewer people participating in fewer demonstrations.  Karzai has stepped up to encourage people to show restraint, stop the violence, and give the investigation some time to proceed.  The provincial and district governors have echoed this line.  They've also encouraged (maybe the right word is "leaned on") the mullahs to calm people down.  


Fortunately for us down here in the south, there have been almost no violent incidents.  Yeah, we got a rocket attack a few days ago, but that's nothing to get too excited about.  More of an annoyance than anything else.  The bottom line is that things are quieting down, slowly and gradually.


One thing that does have people concerned is the shooting of the two American officers inside the Ministry of the Interior.  This is serious.  The Ministry of the Interior is not at all like our Interior Department - it's really the police forces and other law-enforcement groups.  The Americans were killed in an area that is considered very secure.  People have to have special clearances to be there.  And one of those people shot our officers in cold blood.  And escaped.  The Afghan investigation is ongoing and word is that they're on the trail of the guy.


Meanwhile, we've pulled all our "embeds" out of all the ministries.  These are the people that have been helping the Afghans build their government capabilities to run the country.  Now they're back on ISAF-controlled bases, or at their embassies, until such time as it's determined that the Afghans can provide better protection.  Believe me, the ministries will be feeling this loss before much longer.  


But while this assassin, and a few others around the country in recent months, have received a lot of attention, the performance of the Afghan security forces in general has been pretty impressive.  In literally thousands of demonstrations, it has been the Afghan security forces who have faced them.  They're the ones standing in front of the hordes of angry Muslims and defending the infidel Americans (and British, German, Dutch, Romanian, Albanian, Canadian, Norwegian, French, Slovak, and more) from attack.  And defending the Parliament building, airports, and other public facilities.  It has been a very dangerous task and many of them have been killed.  A year or two ago, this wouldn't have happened.  So my hat is off to the vast majority of Afghan security forces.


That said, there's still the question of trust.  The shooter in the Ministry of Interior is in the news now, but he has not been the only one.  Over the past two years, as the Afghan security forces have been built up, there have been increasing numbers of what we call "green on blue" incidents, in which Afghan security forces fire on ISAF forces.  Those of us out here have been talking about it for quite a while.  The Afghan security forces are, indeed, getting bigger and better, but at the same time, there are more uniformed members willing to pull a gun on one of us.  Not good.  


One final note.  The news sites have reported that Gingrich and Santorum have both denounced Obama's apology to Karzai over the Koran-burning incident.  I have to say that these comments are just more examples of why those two are not qualified for such an important job.  If official representatives of the United States (which includes all soldiers and US government workers over here) do something that profoundly insults the people of the country they're in, we owe them an apology.  Period.  I mean, if you go over to somebody's house and do something stupid that insults them or causes damage, you apologize, right?  You do if you're raised in a civilized society.  An immediate and forceful apology was necessary to even begin to calm the storm that this incident raised.  Obama did it.  George W. Bush did it, too, when a US sniper shot a Koran in Iraq several years ago.  But Gingrich and Santorum are now on record as saying they wouldn't.  Meaning they have no problems with needlessly increasing the danger that the people over here (including me) are facing.  So fuck you very much, Newt and Rick.


While on this topic, I have to say that I actually agree with something Sarah Palin said.  (Never thought I'd say that, but it's true).  She tweeted that Karzai owes us an apology for the shooting of the two officers in the Ministry of Interior.  She's absolutely right.  I'm waiting.

Koran-Burning Incident

By now, you've heard on the news about the Koran-burning incident at Bagram.  It's been a hot topic of conversation around here, and we're all on a heightened state of alert.  The story, from what we've seen in the news, is that somebody in Bagram tried to burn a bunch of Korans.  Some Afghans saw what was happening, pulled them out, and told a bunch of their friends.  All hell broke loose,

Reality is a bit more complex than that.  These particular Korans came from the detention facility.  The prisoners used them to write messages to each other.  When this was discovered, all the Korans were confiscated and stored somewhere.  There they sat until somebody decided they had to go.  What we figure is that some major told some lieutenant, who told some sergeant, who told some private, to move all the books.  Somewhere along the line, somebody who knew what these Korans were, and how they were supposed to be handled, told somebody who didn't know, to "get rid of this stuff".  Here in Afghanistan, that usually means to burn it.  So, probably, some 18-year-old private just thought he was doing what he was told.

The rest you know.  As of last evening, about four were dead in rioting and lots of people injured.  US and ISAF units all over Afghanistan are pretty much on lockdown, including here in the south.  But down here, things have been much quieter, probably because news travels slowly.  The officials we've spoken to understand that accidents happen, but have all cautioned that this is taken very seriously by the general Afghan public.  We've sure seen that up north and hope it won't play out the same way down here.

Some people have been very dismissive of the the Afghan reaction.  After all, they're just a bunch of books, right?  No.  To Muslims, it's the Word.  It's not that they're symbols (which they are as well), but they are literally the word of God.  And here is an infidel destroying the word of God.  Blasphemous.  We in the west are not immune to this sort of thing.  Years ago, an artwork titled "Piss Christ" was shown in New York.  It was a photo of a Catholic crucifix submerged in a urine-filled toilet.  The country was scandalized, Rudy Giuliani tried to close it down, and the clamor lasted for months.  Nobody died, however; a key difference between there and here.  But the underlying sentiment was the same: somebody had deeply affronted somebody else's religion.  Here it was accidental; in New York, deliberate.

So it will be interesting to see what happens over the next week.  Will southern Afghanistan erupt the same way that the north did?  We don't know.  But we're ready.

Working with Really Good People

In my last post, I wrote about an example of dealing with people who are walking problems.  There are a lot of them here.  There are also a lot of really sharp people here, people who have been places and done things that most folks on Main Street can only imagine.  One of the things I like to do is to sit in the DFAC over a plate of Mystery Special and ask them some kind of leading question, like, "so, how did you come to be in the State Department?"  The responses will often just blow you away.

I was talking with one guy about the Mohammad and Mohammad trip (see previous post) when I asked that question.  It led to an hour and a half discussion.  He had done security for the Peace Corps for years, covering third-world countries over a huge area.  He'd also been involved in border security operations in Texas and New Mexico.  Before that, he'd been in Special Forces, and had been a Ranger in Vietnam.  (I had to drag that last bit out of him - guys who brag about being in a group like that are often making it up.)

I talked with a young woman who's covering education development in the province.  She was a teacher for two years before joining the Peace Corps and spending five years in Africa.  She worked in rural villages for a couple of years before managing logistical support for Peace Corps volunteers over a wide area.

Speaking of the Peace Corps, we have a lot of former volunteers who are now with USAID and working throughout Afghanistan.  They've been stationed everywhere: Central America, Southeast Asia, Africa, you name it.  The stories they can tell about the people they worked with, and villages they lived in, are amazing.  And very human, too: on a one-to-one level, people are basically people, everywhere you go.  It's how they do their "people-ness" that differs and makes things interesting, frustrating, funny, counter-productive, dumb, and innovative.

There's a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant in my office.  The guy's a ball of fire.  He used to run the Silent Drill Team at the Marine Barracks in DC.  If you've never seen the Silent Drill Team, it is a world-class performance: complex, close order drill with impeccable precision, carried out in silence.  The hard work and discipline that goes into it is unbelievable.  Our work is not nearly that intense, and he doesn't have to drive himself that hard anymore, but he's still on top of everything.  Don't cross the Gunny!

Actually, there are quite a few retired military guys out here.  They're all guys - haven't met any retired military women in this area.  They come from a variety of backgrounds: Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force; officer and enlisted.  One guy in my office was on the same Navy ship that I was on when we did the exercise Teamwork 84 and "invaded" Norway in winter of 1984.

I could go on.  There are a lot of people out here with incredible backgrounds and abilities.  Most of them are a lot of fun to work with.  A few are dickheads and a couple are way out of their depth.  But that's life, isn't it?  On balance, I've got a really good crew.  Can't ask for much more than that.

Oh, and to follow up on my last entry.  Either Mohammad or Mohammad called Abdullah and they agreed to meet at a place that the handlers, Bob and Alice, hadn't planned for.  Then Abdullah blew off the meeting.  Meanwhile, Bob and Alice discovered that their office in Kabul had a branch down here in Kandahar, so they used their branch office to make the trip arrangements.  Which is what they should have been doing from Day 1.  You still can't make this stuff up.

Dealing With Idiots

When I was going through training, quite a few of the instructors said that working with the Afghans was easy and fun, but working with Americans was a pain the royal keister.  This past week, I've really come to appreciate those remarks.  It has continually amazed me how people who should know better do things that just make no sense.

For example, early this week some Americans in Kabul decided that they needed to come down to our area with some senior Afghans to visit a particular location.  To keep my own butt out of the wringer, I'll call the Americans "Bob" and "Alice", and the Afghans will be "Mohammad" and "Mohammad".  Not their real names, of course, but real names give away organizations, which causes embarrassment, which would come down on Your Trusty Correspondent.  And embarrassing organizations is not my goal in this post; rather, I just want to highlight the kind of things we tend to do to ourselves.

Anyway, the real issue is that Mohammad and Mohammad needed to come down to resolve an issue that is essentially an Afghan problem.  Bob and Alice are there to "facilitate".  In practice, "facilitate" too often means "do it all" and that's what was happening here.  Instead of Afghans solving their own problems, we have Americans arranging schedules, transportation, setting up meetings, yadda yadda yadda.  I have seen that, when Afghans decide to resolve a problem, they're pretty good at it; but if they think we'll do it all for them, they'll let us.  Bob and Alice haven't seen that yet.

So Bob and Alice are now doing Mohammad and Mohammad's grunt work for them.  That's bad enough, but they're not doing it the right way.  For example, if you're going to take a couple of senior Afghans and their entourage somewhere, particularly into a hot zone like southern Afghanistan, you need to coordinate with the local military forces.  Did they do that?  Well, if they did, would I be writing about it?  Instead, Bob contacted a mid-level staffer at my shop (not military) and asked him to make a few arrangements, like getting somebody to drive them from one spot on the base to another.  Simple stuff, really, so the staffer started taking care of it, until we realized what was happening.  Whoops!  Time to slam on the brakes and start asking questions.  When we did, we realized that Mohammad and Mohammad needed to talk to Abdullah (another pseudonym) while they were down here.  Abdullah has some say over what's going on in the area, but has been ignored, and is not happy about it.  So we tell Bob and Alice that we want these three Afghans to meet, and by the way, here's the ISAF guy ("Fred"; yes, another pseudonym) that you need to talk to in order to grease the skids for the visit.

It's now four days later and time is getting short.  Bob and Alice have now been told four times what they have to do.  They have yet to do any of it.  And it's not hard.  They just need to tell Fred what their travel arrangements are and what kind of assistance they need.  That way Fred can coordinate with the guys in the field and let the appropriate people know about the visit.  Simple.  But apparently it's too hard for them.  All we know right now is the intended date and the intended place of the visit.  And Abdullah isn't included.  Abdullah's sitting back in his office going "WTF?"  Abdullah can be a real pain in the ass to Mohammad and Mohammad if he wants to.  He might want to after this is all over.

So I sent out another note to Bob and Alice tonight saying that they need to delay the trip a few days to allow time for the proper coordination (translation: "if you idiots had called Fred four days ago, we'd have it done by now") and you need to schedule a meeting with Abdullah.  We'll see what happens.  Or doesn't.

I have to say, this is the worst-coordinated event that I've seen so far in my time here in Kandahar.  Well, maybe not ... there was that time ... no, better not go there.  Anyway, sometimes dealing with Americans is the hardest part of my job.  Working in Afghanistan is walking a fine line.  You want to get the mission done, and you want to build Afghan capability, and sometimes those two goals collide.  And when they do, people sometimes go for the expedient solution rather than the right one.

And the funny thing is, if Mohammad and Mohammad just picked up a phone and called Abdullah, a lot of the issues would be solved.

You can't make this stuff up.

Title Sequence: The Pacific

There have been several very powerful movies made about war over the past decade and a half.  Saving Private Ryan was the first in the new breed that honestly showed the brutality of combat.  That continued with the television mini-series Band of Brothers and, more recently, The Pacific.  My wife won't watch those kinds of shows.  I don't blame her.  But when the shows are well done, I'm riveted.

The title sequence for The Pacific was particularly meaningful for me.  This one featured charcoal drawings of soldiers in combat, blended into brief clips from the show, along with close-ups of charcoal being dragged over the paper, disintegrating as it went.  As an artist, and as a military vet, these are powerful images.  I watched the sequence closely every time it played.

A friend sent me a link last night to a site that described how this title sequence was created.  It's on the website ArtoftheTitle.com, a well-put-together site that discusses how movie and TV title sequences are conceived, developed, and executed.  For The Pacific, they had about 2 1/2 minutes to set the stage, establish the idea of ordinary guys caught up in a unbelievably violent world, and create an emotional involvement with the viewer.  That's a hard task.

Their use of "combat art" was unusual and very effective.  The rough charcoal drawings are exactly the kind of drawings that a combat artist would make - quick, unfinished, capturing a split-second in a violent world, or observing a soldier in a quiet moment.  I'm as moved by those drawings now as when I saw them on TV.

What is so valuable about this article is the description of how they put it all together.  Part was a team effort: lots of talented people bouncing ideas off each other.  Part of it was putting together an "inspiration sheet" with lots of images - photos, drawings, prints, materials, some from war, some not - of things that they thought might be included.  This, I think, is a wonderful idea.  When I'm working on a new painting, I put lots of ideas into my head and let them percolate; often I'll do a lot of drawings, or collect some images on my computer or mark pages in a book.  But I haven't actually put them all up on a board to look at all day long.  This is something that I'm going to have to try, whenever I get a studio again.  (That day is coming ... )

From the inspiration sheet they came up with three alternative approaches.  Once they and the producers (Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg - you don't get much heavier than that) decided which to pursue, they went to work: drawing, drawing, drawing, photographing, drawing, combining, recombining, and drawing some more.  Hundreds of drawings and photos.  In the middle of it, they made some posters as a way to look at it from a different angle, and in the process came up with the iconic image of the soldier carrying his buddy.  They combined the drawings with video clips, reworked them to flow with the music, drew some more, and finally locked down the sequence and put it into final production.  Just the description of it sounded like a dream assignment.  Man, I would love to be involved in something like that!

The site has similar pages for title sequences for lots of other movies and TV shows: Batman, Fight Club, Mad Men, Soylent Green, The Naked Gun, and Zombieland, to name but a very few.  I haven't looked at any of them yet because I'm still fascinated by the whole process of making the sequence for The Pacific.

Go take a look.  If you're any kind of a visual artist, you'll find something here of value.

Panetta and the "End of Combat Operations"

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is in the news for his comments on the future of Afghanistan.  The news media have screaming headlines about the "end of combat operations" in 2013 and a full pullout in 2014.  Pundits on both sides have jumped into the fray with their opinions, which appear to be wildly exaggerated no matter which side they're on.

Panetta's remarks shouldn't be much of a surprise.  All he's saying is basically what we've been working towards for a couple of years now.  We have been building up the Afghan security forces with the intent that they take over responsibility for the security of their own country by the end of 2014.  To do that, we're doing a gradual, phased transition, in which we step back as Afghans step up.  Some provinces have already been turned over to Afghan control.  This strategy allows them to lead the fight, with ISAF forces in support for a while, until it's all theirs.

Looking forward, there are three more fighting seasons (June to October) before that happens: 2012, 2013, and 2014.  For 2012, we're still leading the fight, at least in the south and east, but the Afghan forces are taking more responsibility.  In 2013, it'll be Afghans leading most of the fighting with ISAF providing support.  In 2014, the Afghans will have it all, while ISAF forces draw down from support to an advisory and training role by the end of the year.

The dumbest thing in the world would be to have ISAF forces leading the fight right up until the end of 2014, then turning to the Afghans and saying, "Okay, it's all yours, have fun."  That's a guaranteed formula for failure.  The phased approach allows Afghans to gain experience while still having a backstop - in other words, it allows them to fail (and learn) without jeopardizing the entire country.

So what Panetta was doing was just describing how our previously-announced strategy is going to be implemented.  Whether you agree with the strategy and timelines is a different matter.  Personally, I think the timelines are a bit ambitious - I think it would be safer for the mission to extend it by a year or two.  But I'm not at all convinced that the mission is worth the additional cost.

Kabul Conference

Winter has definitely settled over Kandahar.  It's been cold, windy, sometimes rainy, and occasionally snowy.  The other day, soldiers were taking pictures of each other over at the Boardwalk, which had a light dusting of very slippery snow.  I may regret saying this in about six months, when the temperatures are well over 100, but I could do with some warmer weather.

I was getting a bit too shaggy last week, so I headed over to the Boardwalk to get a haircut.  I was hoping to get the sexy blonde Russian girl, but instead got the chubby Uzbek guy.  Oh, well, with my glasses off, I can't see, anyway, and the guy gave me a better haircut than the girl did, so I'm happy.  

There was a dance tune that came out about 1990, that had a woman hollering "everybody DANCE now" ... remember that one?  Yeah.  Well, this barbershop is staffed by Russians, so they were playing Russian music, and one of the tunes was a remake of "everybody dance now".  Only it sounded like it was cut by a platoon of Russian soldiers, who had all the rhythm and soul of a rhinoceros on vodka.  Heavily-accented Russian guys would chant "everybody dance now" with a beat like stamping around in the snow in heavy boots.  Then one of 'em would go into a drugged-out Russian rap.  Like a nightmare that wouldn't end.  I could hardly keep myself from laughing the whole time it was playing.

A couple of days ago, two of us went up to Kabul for a conference, along with several military staff guys.  We'd asked for a flight in the afternoon, so we could get some work done here, then fly up, settle in, and attend the conference the next day.  Nope.  Military Air is a logic unto themselves.  Instead of an afternoon flight, we had to show up at 4:30 am for a 6:30 am flight.  Ugh!  I like my beauty rest, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.  Let me tell you, a flight line at 6 am on a cold winter morning, with a stiff wind blowing across the field, is no fun.  But our flight left more or less on time and the plane warmed up quickly.  We flew in a C-27, which is a new addition to our inventory and a nice little cargo plane.  Unlike the bigger C-130, there's plenty of room for passengers to stretch their legs.  

We arrived in Kabul in mid-morning and quickly got settled into our plush 5-star accommodations at the NATO base at the airport.  This turned out to be a tent with a dozen bunk beds built out of 2x4's and old wooden pallets, with the heater set on "fry" and the bathroom in a converted container about 50 yards away.  A couple of us then went exploring, which didn't take long, and we found ways to keep ourselves sorta busy and entertained for the rest of the day.  That evening, our whole group got together and went over to what turned out to be a really good Thai restaurant on the base.  Yes, I said "really good".  Definitely the surprise of the trip.

The conference went pretty well.  We made some good contacts, especially with the Marines from Helmand Province next door, and swapped a lot of ideas.  The Marines are doing some things that we could/should do, and we're doing some things that they should be doing, so we had some good discussions.  As usual in a conference, there were a couple of speakers that I just wanted to hit the "Delete" button on, but that's to be expected.

Coming home worked out pretty well.  Military Air told us to be at the terminal at 7 pm for an 8:30 flight and the plane showed up an hour early.  I was back in my own little room in Kandahar by 10 pm. 

So now it's back to the office so I can catch up on emails, write a trip report, and find out what has hit the fan.  I've been out of the office for two days, so I know something did!

A Rather Blah Week

When one day is pretty much like the previous one, it makes it hard to find something interesting to write about.  My big thing lately has been health issues.  I've had four colds since the middle of November.  Four very different colds, so they're not the same bug.  It settles in, I feel like crap for a week or so, have a few days where things are normal, and then the Dreaded Post-Nasal Drip starts again.

I felt so bad the other day that I went over to the clinic, convinced that something more insidious was at work.  (I can be a bit of a hypochondriac sometimes, and when I'm not feeling well, I'm a real wuss).  The docs checked me out and gravely informed me that it was "viral".  Translation: it's just a cold, you twit.  But they loaded me up with meds not available in the PX and I feel better today.

I'm not the only one having troubles.  Everybody, it seems, has had at least one cold, and quite a few have had ongoing sniffles or congestion.  We think it's due to the air here at KAF.  It's really dirty, loaded with the talcum-powder-like "moon dust" so prevalent in Afghanistan, as well as gravel dust, diesel exhaust, smoke from the incinerators, particles from the poop ponds, and lots of other really nasty sources.  One guy that I was talking with yesterday felt fine during several weeks out of the country, but within two days of being back at KAF, he was fighting a sore throat.  Those who have been in Iraq think that the air is generally dirtier here.  I believe it.

Things at work have been ... well, unremarkable.  What's there to say?  I go through a hundred or so emails a day.  I talk with State Department guys and military guys about this or that operation.  I research an answer to a particularly vexing question.  Then I go answer a bunch of emails based on the research and discussions with the state or military guys.  I go to the DFAC.  Periodically I go to the gym.  Once a week I'll do my laundry.  Pretty exciting stuff, huh?  And you thought I was riding around in helicopters and MRAPs all the time, meeting Afghan government officials, and drinking chai with Taliban!  No, reality is much more mundane.

But at it's core, it's still a pretty rewarding experience.  I'm playing my small role in trying to make this place functional.  Sometimes, I'm just trying to prevent yet another screwup by somebody who either doesn't know better or (worse) doesn't care.  But it's all striving toward a goal that really needs to be met.  Will we?  Don't know.  But I'm doing what I can.  Despite all these damn colds.