Soap Box

Oh Five Hundred and watching the jets depart and getting more confident and anxious all the time that I'll soon be gone.

And the clock ticks - tick tick tick tick tick tick.


Mom writes (in part): "late last night I finished "Three Cups of Tea", where Greg Mortenson just agreed to bring his schools plus projects into Afghanastan. I urge you all to read this book if you haven't already. Next to Michner's "Caravan", this is probably one of the best books to describe this area of the world.

And continues: "How truly awful it is that governments reneg on promises to the people for such basics as schools, pencils and paper and most of all, developing a trust and yet spend willy nilly on constructions of agrandizement. This is not to say that housing, mess halls and aid stations are not critical if we have troops in place. But all the US promises of aid for the citizens have never materialized -- nor have the local governments' promises.

That is truly the largest difference I've seen here in my comparatively brief stay. My work here is completely military in nature, improvements to either support the mission or to support the troops. I haven't seen any of the more humanitarian projects that I'd seen in Southwest Asia. Perhaps they're there. What is somewhat likely is that there is no organized national infrastructure to reconstruct here, so the people projects are smaller in nature and located in the thousands of tiny villages scattered throughout the country.

Or perhaps all of our funding is going to support the war machine - a fine example of our government reneging on promises to us. Even in Iraq, where we spent $50 Billion on Reconstruction, we still spent a Trillion on the war. With that money, we could have moved every Iraqi into a nice foreclosure somewhere in Southern California. We could do the same thing here - place every Afghani on the U.S. Government dole and call it a day.

Then go home.
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Room for the next guy

Down to the hours, now, and not a moment too soon. The Marines are here, you see, and there’s not much room for anyone else. Since the second night, we’ve been in this pre-engineered metal building towards the center of things. It a simple building, with fourteen rooms in a row and latrines on each end. Much nicer than a tent.

The first week we were in it, “they” started to tear out the bedroom furniture in one of the rooms down the hall. Much banging and dust later, they had installed desks and fiber and copper and coaxial cabling and turned it into an office. After one was complete, they move to the next, then the next, then the next, to the point where the last stick of furniture was removed from the third to last room this morning, leaving our two hooches as the only ones left to be assimilated.


This afternoon, we got the “get the hell out” note slipped under our door. I suppose they waited long enough. We’re just hoping our flight leave as planned, as we’d have to bunk back in the RSOI tent if things don’t go as planned.

And they might. Who knows? A British Harrier aborted a landing the other day and fell onto the runway, apparently causing a bit of a mess of mechanical parts and metal pieces and a few unexploded bombs and missiles. The pilot escaped minimally scathed. Unfortunate result, though, was that runway was closed for a while and the other half of our minders, the soon to retire Light Colonel, was forced to stick around another day.

What was cool was that they took all the damaged boomy stuff out to the desert and blew it up, which makes a huge cloud and big noise you could see and hear from most any place. By late yesterday, air operations seemed to normalize, so we’re somewhat confident that planes will depart from Kandahar tomorrow. I even sent one of my boys to the flight office this afternoon to make sure, and emailed the folks in charge of the airline.

My intent is to leave, get to Dubai, and have about ten hours of beer. A simple plan, really, but hinging on circumstances beyond my control.

For instance, the force posture changed this afternoon, there were detailed tests of the Big Voice, and folks started dragging out their vests and helmets. I found a Major we know near the Dutch Café who verified the situation and suggested that we get out of town as soon as possible.

Well, of course, we’ll get out of town as soon as possible, just as soon as the plane gets off of the ground.

In the mean time, I’m thinking it’s all a drill. Yesterday we had a Lieutenant General in the non-office hooch across the parking lot. He could have been staying in the same hooch as Toby Keith, Ann Curry, or Tommy LaSorda did when they were in town last month – not to imply that Toby Keith, Ann Curry, and Tommy LaSorda stayed in the same room, but this is the internet, so it must be true.

Our neighbours, it seems, are commonly VIPs, since these are the VIP digs at Kandahar (those that aren’t offices). The SECDEF was here last week, too, on his way (perhaps) to fire the general who used to run the show here. This Three Star wasn’t the new Afghanistan Commander, but he (LTG Sam Helland), is the Commander of U.S. Marine Corps Forces in the Central Command and the Commanding General of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I looked it up). That seems pretty huge. Yet there he sat, on a picnic table at the KAF, thinking commanding thoughts no doubt.

I was headed to the laundry, thinking laundry thoughts.

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Turn to the Left

Again, down to a mere handful of days before redeployment. Probably a good time to stop and reflect, but I’m still working twelves and free time isn’t so plentiful. There’s snippets here and there, including the few minutes after an email session between when I’m done with my business and my coworkers are ready to head to chow, just like this one.

For this twice daily task, we’ve ensconced ourselves this evening in the Dutch Café, mostly because it’s freaking one freaking hund-freak-red and freaking four degre-freaking-es outside, and we just walked forty minutes from our office/conference room. Secondarily, because they serve very cold fake beer here and, like much of Kandahar, it reminds me of something much better at some other time in a much better place.



This is my Happy Place exercise. For instance, the other night, the Superior roast beast was a little on the dry and uninteresting side, yet it reminded me of some very tasty pot roasts of my youth. One more? The Chilled Tea we get some nights is overly lemoned and rapidly sweetened, but it reminds me of rides through the South and one particular little barbeque shack in the shade. Again?

Well, it’s really just a food thing. The dust and rocks and smell of the sewage mistreatment pond don’t remind me of better rocks and dust and shit. The rows and rows of military hardware don’t remind me of softer and happier wars. And the thousands of armed men and women trooping about don’t remind me of the happy Midwesterners I left behind,… or do they?

In Iraq, it was pretty easy to know what side folks were on. Soldiers in uniforms carried weapons, civilians did not (at least, not openly). Here, U.S. servicemen and servicewomen are always in uniform (even the Physical Training, or PT, togs are uniform), and they always carry their weapons. However, the KAF is a NATO base, which means that there’s Canadian and Britons and Bulgarians and Romanians and Germans and a few more and the damned Dutch, and they are all pretty lax when it comes to uniformity.

On duty, NATO forces don their uniforms and weapons. Off duty, though, there seem to be no such requirements, so it’s not uncommon to see a group of dudes in board shorts and logo T’s sporting assault rifles and packing 9’s in thigh holsters. It’s like going to the gun range on amateur night, and a little disconcerting.

When in street clothes, there oftentimes appears the need to let one’s true identity come out. There’s some rebellion against the uniform in place. Hence the surfing gear, or brightly colored blouses, or Hawaiian shirts. They should just find holsters to match their madras.

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Twitter

I’ve moved my morning campsite recently, north a hundred meters from where I used to spend the predawn hour and the hour that follows, in an attempt to get a better connection. I’ve given up on the free WiFi altogether, as I’ve experienced nothing but frustration with it of late. I’m pretty sure it’s as a direct result of Nu Surge ™, as hundreds of troops are arriving daily and all of them need to update their Facebooks and video Skype their loved ones.

Further down the boardwalk puts me closer to the source of DutchNet, away from the crowds at Tim Hortons, and separated from those who feel obligated to ask when Tim Hortons opens. Every day, though, and it was starting to get annoying – the continued requests for opening hours, plus the queries into how I seem to have a connection while they are struggling with FreedomTel.

This is better. There’s half of a picnic table (someone sawed off the other bench and nailed what’s left to the interior Boardwalk handrail) and barely adequate light coming from one of the few working solar street lamps and the security lights from the Subway.

Ra makes his appearance from across the square, so I get a fresh sunrise every day. With all of the dust, you’d think they’d be more colorful, but you’d be mistaken. As the gloom departs, more of the little local birds start their day, picking up the orts and pieces of whatever that the humans deposit through their own cycle. I wouldn’t peck at the ground for these morsels, but the birds seem to enjoy it.

This morning, it’s mostly little sparrows, with mottled brown and tan feathers, light tan breasts, underbellies, and collars. They flock when there’s a particularly large cache of food, but they’re mostly loaners. There’s a few light brown doves this morning as well, and a couple of small, blue headed dudes who stay clear of the loudly typing human. Here and there are other species that look like black and white Jays, some smaller stilts, some high flying swallows and a few more that are hard to distinguish. In a brown desert, most of the birds are brown, and there’s not that many of them.

In the early dark, the songbirds hang in the few trees that survive at the KAF and make a ruckus. A nice ruckus, really, and besides my footfalls, the only sound I hear for my first long walk of the day.

In a meeting the other day, some blowhard consultant embedded into the Air Force instructed us very adamantly that we would need to enclose our solid waste tipping/sorting floor. Apparently, God himself spoke though him, and we would provide doors around the entire facility to control bird populations. He believed that huge flocks of little birds would flock to our recycling area, followed by vast numbers of crows, which would then draw raptors to feed upon this tremendous bird population. The raptors, in turn, would fly two miles from their new food source and get sucked through jet engines.

Maybe. It just occurred to me that perhaps the small number of birds already scavenging off of our largely unexposed dumpsters at every DFAC at the KAF would somehow be indicative of the current trend in bird populations, and that it really wouldn’t be much of a problem. At least, not much more of a problem than we currently have, which is on the slightly more than zero side.

So the other night, at a briefing about our proposed airfield work, I asked the Colonel who operates the US side of the airfield if he felt that this bird thing was going to be an issue. He laughed, which apparently did not sit well with the Major apologist to the blowhard consultant. He later huffed, “there’s lots of opinions out there.”

I thought of telling him that the only bird problem he had was sitting on the colonel’s lapel, but thought better of it. The Major still owes me some data and, although he may end up giving me the Heisman, I’ll try to behave for another day or two in hopes that he comes through.

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Twitter

I’ve moved my morning campsite recently, north a hundred meters from where I used to spend the predawn hour and the hour that follows, in an attempt to get a better connection. I’ve given up on the free WiFi altogether, as I’ve experienced nothing but frustration with it of late. I’m pretty sure it’s as a direct result of Nu Surge ™, as hundreds of troops are arriving daily and all of them need to update their Facebooks and video Skype their loved ones.

Further down the boardwalk puts me closer to the source of DutchNet, away from the crowds at Tim Hortons, and separated from those who feel obligated to ask when Tim Hortons opens. Every day, though, and it was starting to get annoying – the continued requests for opening hours, plus the queries into how I seem to have a connection while they are struggling with FreedomTel.


This is better. There’s half of a picnic table (someone sawed off the other bench and nailed what’s left to the interior Boardwalk handrail) and barely adequate light coming from one of the few working solar street lamps and the security lights from the Subway.

Ra makes his appearance from across the square, so I get a fresh sunrise every day. With all of the dust, you’d think they’d be more colorful, but you’d be mistaken. As the gloom departs, more of the little local birds start their day, picking up the orts and pieces of whatever that the humans deposit through their own cycle. I wouldn’t peck at the ground for these morsels, but the birds seem to enjoy it.

This morning, it’s mostly little sparrows, with mottled brown and tan feathers, light tan breasts, underbellies, and collars. They flock when there’s a particularly large cache of food, but they’re mostly loaners. There’s a few light brown doves this morning as well, and a couple of small, blue headed dudes who stay clear of the loudly typing human. Here and there are other species that look like black and white Jays, some smaller stilts, some high flying swallows and a few more that are hard to distinguish. In a brown desert, most of the birds are brown, and there’s not that many of them.

In the early dark, the songbirds hang in the few trees that survive at the KAF and make a ruckus. A nice ruckus, really, and besides my footfalls, the only sound I hear for my first long walk of the day.

In a meeting the other day, some blowhard consultant embedded into the Air Force instructed us very adamantly that we would need to enclose our solid waste tipping/sorting floor. Apparently, God himself spoke though him, and we would provide doors around the entire facility to control bird populations. He believed that huge flocks of little birds would flock to our recycling area, followed by vast numbers of crows, which would then draw raptors to feed upon this tremendous bird population. The raptors, in turn, would fly two miles from their new food source and get sucked through jet engines.

Maybe. It just occurred to me that perhaps the small number of birds already scavenging off of our largely unexposed dumpsters at every DFAC at the KAF would somehow be indicative of the current trend in bird populations, and that it really wouldn’t be much of a problem. At least, not much more of a problem than we currently have, which is on the slightly more than zero side.

So the other night, at a briefing about our proposed airfield work, I asked the Colonel who operates the US side of the airfield if he felt that this bird thing was going to be an issue. He laughed, which apparently did not sit well with the Major apologist to the blowhard consultant. He later huffed, “there’s lots of opinions out there.”

I thought of telling him that the only bird problem he had was sitting on the colonel’s lapel, but thought better of it. The Major still owes me some data and, although he may end up giving me the Heisman, I’ll try to behave for another day or two in hopes that he comes through.

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View to a Hill

I never did make it out to a FOB. Two of my boys did, but just barely, then they got stranded there overnight while negotiating a return flight. And the rest of the team? Caught in Detention (our term of endearment for our austere wooden conference room at the edge of the base). I’d still like to see something outside of our camp here, but duties call, so my only exterior view will be through the perimeter fence.

If I want the view, all I need to do is walk up to the fence and look out. There’s no sniper screening on most of it. There’s only one layer of fence. There’s electronics associated with the fence, of course, but it seems like such a fragile thing, this single chain link fence, that separates me from the rest of Afghanistan.


Kandahar Airfield is a dust bowl, with more rocks than you can shake a gazillion sticks at. Much of the outside, though, when you don’t look south towards the desert, is irrigated and green. There’s water here, but it’s all underground, and takes some effort to bring it to the land. There’s mountains out there, too, but they are miles away and only on the rare clear days can you see much detail with the naked eye.

The biggest one, or perhaps just the closest one, lies to the northwest. You can see it from most anywhere on the camp. Likewise, someone on the mountain can probably see most of the camp. With such a vantage point, it seems a shame not to launch a few missiles from there.

So they do. Two or three times a week. After they hit, the Giant Voice activates, and we go back to sleep. I suppose that should be “after *it* hits”, as there’s never more than one projectile, and the attack is over before the Big Voice even clears its throat. As I’ve seen before, the Bad Guy’s aim is pretty bad. They use cobbled systems, and Gerry rigged timers to send a lot of duds this way. The ones that actually blow up impact randomly across the camp.

So, assuming 2,000 square meters of destruction (about a 50 meter circle), about 14 square kilometers of base and 2.5 attacks per week (one of which actually blows up), my odds of being in the wrong place at the wrong time is about 1 in 50,000 on any particular day. Probably worse than getting whacked in a car crash, but less likely than being bored by something surfed through randomly on commercial televasion.

That’s not the point, just a digression. The point was that I can walk up to the single chain link fence (with associated electronics) and look at Afghanistan. I can drive across the tarmac at numerous locations (if they’d let me borrow the car) with only a “Mandatory FOD Check” sign to keep me in line. I can walk deep into operations buildings without anyone checking to see who I am. In fact, the only time I’ve ever needed to show my identification since I arrived is to enter the local trinket bazaar the base hosts every Saturday morning.

Surreal as ever.

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