Monday, 24 November 2003

08:00 – Baghdad. Whereas I have become more or less accustomed to less than ideal sleeping conditions, some of our group becomes more and more frustrated in having to sleep en masse. Adding insult to this condition is a very strong perception that an improved billet is only a bribe away. Just make the correct deal with Laura in billeting and you will soon find a cozy two-man trailer in which to sleep. There’s a few other issues with billeting, but I’ll leave that story to Chuck, who had had enough one day last week and composed the following nastygram to the Lieutenant Colonel who oversees billeting. [It’s been edited for time, grammar and content and to fit your screen. Neither writes that well.]

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Sir,

I am writing to you in disgust and shear amazement of how the billeting assignments are handled. The billeting office is the most corrupt institution I have ever witnessed. It’s obvious that certain individuals in that office are swapping “trailers for favors”.

Why is it that people who have been here for months are falling further down the list? Why do we all get different stories and extremely rude responses to our inquiries at billeting? Why is “Laura” assigned to an entire trailer half (as per your hacked billeting database) while our female peers are still waiting for a place to live? Why are there empty trailers when people are still housed in the Chapel? Why do you contact people with paper flyers on their bed? Why don’t you send out public e-mails to explain the situation?

I am not the only one with concerns, questions and a great deal of consternation caused by such incompetence. We must have some positive action to demonstrate that corrupt sector administrators are brought back in line - checks and balances to ensure proper procedure is followed. We can continue to wait, but only if there is proof that you have control over the sector.

I am trying to keep my group in Iraq to rebuild this country, but they are threatening to exit if conditions are not improved. There must be some headway in billeting to demonstrate to my group that they will be fairly considered for a place to live through a consistent and appropriate procedure.

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To this, the Colonel responds,…

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I am appalled at your lack of professionalism and willingness to attack hard working folks. Your unprofessional attitude in writing something like this without knowing one iota about the process of personnel prioritization, with no understanding of what is really going on, slinging accusations and insults, and listening to rumors, innuendos, and hearsay is not what I would have done, but it is something I have come to expect from people here. [Holy run-on!]

The list you refer to above is NOT my billeting list; it is CJTF-7’s list that they control separately. Therefore, your information is based on a bad foundation. [It is nice to know that the Coalition Joint Task Force, i.e. the Army, has bad information about where U.S. citizens are sleeping at night. It’s less nice to know that this information can be easily hacked off of the server.] Here are some insights for folks who only have to worry about one thing in life.

The waiting list is based on date of arrival. An individuals place on the list occasionally changes based on the accuracy of the input data. If data is not entered in a timely manner, it will cause a fluctuation. We will work on that. Another variable is people not signing in when they arrive and deciding to sign in later on. We trust people and again use the date they say they arrived in country when placing them on the list. I do not condone rude behavior by my folks and will address that, but be sure that your folks are not being rude as well, because my folks are subjected to mistreatment daily.

Laura has a residence in the KBR camp, she does not live in any trailer here. In fact, she has been living in the Chapel because of fears of mortar attacks. Trailer 12, if it is in the transient camp as I suspect, is not supposed to have anyone in it. We are still working on getting transient trailers secured and hooked up to sewer facilities.

I do not have empty trailers that are habitable. If you know they are empty, and think we do not know, a nice visit or e-mail would be sufficient to ensure we remedy that situation. We have trailers going up everyday, but they are not completed yet.

What exactly would you like to hear? That the ministries have decided to bring as many people over as they can with a complete disregard for the logistics involved? That the same people complaining about billeting arrangements are the same people that do not check out of their billets so I can have the room re-assigned to the next person on the list. [Huh?] Instead, they hand the key off to their buddy? Which explanation do you want?

Your accusation of incompetence should stop right where it is. I know I am NOT incompetent, and the folks I have working billeting are not incompetent. They have to deal with whiny people all day long; they get pulled in 100 different directions all day long and they are working their butt off to try and provide a service to a bunch of ungrateful prima donnas. Your accusations of corruption trouble me, because you conclude this without any proof, using only your single-minded perception of life.

The only proof needed here is from you. If you can provide proof of wrongdoing, it will be handled. But you are NOT owed proof and we are not accountable to you.

I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force. I am here voluntarily to help provide a support structure to a group that has no idea how to do it themselves. [Wasn’t that the point of Chuck’s diatribe?] I serve my country based on my commitment to my nation and the belief that we are here to do the right thing for another country, NOT based on where I sleep or the amount of money I make. I cannot comprehend that people would leave Iraq because they are on a waiting list and think there is corruption in a lowly billeting office. Look in your own office and how you do business, I bet I could find “favor trading” there too.

We have been working hard to fix this problem [What problem?] without help from the people we support. Organizations like yours have shown up, laid down a list of demands, and expect everything the same day. In case you have lost sight of reality, we are in Phase III Combat Operations. This means that bad guys are still shooting at us. This also makes it hard to get the needed supplies and equipment to get the mission completed. We also had to deal with bedding down 750 people after the Al Rashid attack—a task we did smoothly with only a group of incompetent and corrupt individuals [He admits it, eh.]. We have projected 2000 bed spaces coming due with in the next 2 ½ months. We projected, purchased, and built housing without your help or input and it will meet all our needs. You should think about thanking these folks for what they are trying to accomplish for you instead of ridiculing them.

Seymour.

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Apparently, Chuck found the Colonel’s button and pressed way hard. This argument was quickly forwarded to portions of our group. I found it relatively amusing, but thought that cooler heads must prevail if ever we were to ever get a housing upgrade. As such, I thought it best if I wrote Chuck’s response.

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Colonel,

I understand your commitment to both your country and her mission in Iraq. However, I also understand that many of us here are not driven solely by a similar sense of duty, but instead by a mixture of adequate compensation and a strong sense of service. Service being a voluntary response, whereas duty is more of an obligation.

As an “Ungrateful Whiney Prima Donna”, I fully understand that to ensure our best efforts, to ensure that this important work gets done, we must be treated with a level of care such that our performance is not compromised. If we are too distracted by this housing situation (or the condition of the bathrooms, or how the need for additional office space overrides our need for a safe place to sleep), our performance will suffer, and our job will not get done efficiently or effectively.

Most CPA employees do not share your rugged history of roughing it for the Country. They instead are accustomed to a basic level of service, provided on a consistent basis. No one here believes that we are anyplace else but an active war zone, and only a nimrod would believe that providing housing and provisions for such a large group is not a substantial undertaking. The purpose of this communication is not to belittle your performance, but to express the great level of frustration that we feel when dealing with the billeting office.

Since I know of individuals who have accepted rooms in trailers without your knowledge, and I know of individuals who have moved down significantly on the billeting list, my assumption is that these are not the only examples and that this may be indicative of the performance of the entire organization. My basic desire is that additional housing units continue to be erected, that KBR secures and maintains control over their housing inventory and that forthright information regarding the status of billeting be distributed on a regular basis.

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And today I got the keys to my new trailer.

However, the best to come out of this is that the “Ungrateful Whiney Prima Donna” label is wildly amusing, and we call each other that all the time. Whenever we get around to developing a unit insignia, we’ll include the following:

Vagitus Ingatis Reguli.