Rant

I wish I could complain about the massive amounts of work I needed to get accomplished this week. I wish I could complain about the hum drum, day to day monotony of performing too similar tasks for days on end. I wish I could complain about an overly needy client confronting us hourly with nonsensical fire drills.

I got none of that. Wishes and fishes, you know. Strange that I’d waste mine on complaining.



In another light, I’d wish there was no official United State military presence in Afghanland (call it “Afghan-bland” in this, the Week of the Bored. More refined, I’d wish that all of our troops and equipment were returned to native (and territorial) soils. Perhaps we could return once we’ve figured out how to resolve our global foreign policy fuck-ups without mighty displays of brute force. Fat chance.

The unintended consequences of bringing all of our troops home would be interesting, no doubt. Imagine if you will, a sudden influx of half a million very well trained fighting men and women, each oathsworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Perhaps the resistance would get organized.

On the other hand, they could be a half million inappropriately trained fighting men and women suddenly dumped into the surging unemployment rolls of the double dip. And it’s not just the soldiers, sailors, and Marines, but the hundreds of thousands of contractors who will be stateside again without the benefit of a cush job that pays triple wages. Beyond that are the hundreds of communities that manufacture the weapons of war, and the thousands of communities that provide support for the hundreds of communities that manufacture the weapons of war. And don’t forget the tens of thousands of bureaucrats that “manage” the whole mess or the small town international engineering firms that provide planning and design services in support of the effort. We’d all be neck deep in shit.

True fact - the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex squanders over eighteen gazillion dollars annually on themselves and their egos with the only real benefit of having more of the People on the dole.

So there’s my first complaint/wish – regardless of the consequences, everybody comes home. From Afghanistan and Iraq, from the Middle East and other Asian regions, and from Europe, Africa, and the Americas. We defund it all. The eighteen gazillion dollars in annual savings would go a long way to closing the federal deficit. Then, when Germany, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia and Israel have to start paying to defend themselves, the balances of trade might shift a bit in our favor, giving the half million highly trainable fighting men and women some of those sweet manufacturing jobs that everyone keep raving about.

Like I said before, fat chance, but this is a wish, remember?

Perhaps we could take everyone who’s already on the dole in America and send them here to do the tens of thousands of jobs that are currently being performed by local labor or by the Eastern European labor imported by Fluor as a part of their multi-Billion dollar support contract? Sure beats them sitting on their asses, watching Peoples Court and pretending to look for a non-existent job.

For the most part, I’ll be happy just getting on the plane tomorrow. This week has been dismal, but only because we’re so good. You see, this mission to Bagram involved a small team and a 75% plan set, which we would review with the client, then take CONUS to tweak for the final submittal. As it turned out, there were close to zero comments. As such, the meetings were brief. So brief that the pre- and post-meeting pleasantries took more time than the unpleasantries of project discussion.

Anyway, that was ancient history, days ago. In the mean time, we’ve visited a dozen and a half small project sites, mostly for something to do, as there’s little more information that we can glean in the field than what we had when we dropped out of the sky on Sunday. And drop out of the sky we did, which is a phrase that in this case means, “Who the hell are you and where do you expect to sleep?” Relax, already, Miss Should Have Been Trained For This. We’ll take our normal suite.

We’ll take the vehicle you offer, as well, even though we haven’t passed a base driving test (recently) and have no real destination. Ah, but it’s something to use to have something to do, and sure beats walking around the 10 mile perimeter on our sightseeing excursions.

This was my third trip to and through Bagram, so there aren’t too many holes I haven’t stuck my nose into. One of our crew, though, was on his first visit here, so we made sure to take him to the Haji Mart and the PX, and to the Green Bean for froo froo coffee beverages, and ultimately to all six DFAC’s, where the food doesn’t change too much, but the scenery and people are slightly varied. One thing I won’t do again is get an omelet at the north grill line at the main DFAC, as the cook appears to have just stepped from the pages of Stereotypic Lunch Lady Quarterly and frankly, I’m a little frightened. I fully expected ashes from her cigar to spice my breakfast.

Tonight we’re going to check out one of the local bands (our local project manager is their mouth harpist), then take another long stroll down Disney Road back to the hooch, where I’ll watch the clock and wish for more thrills and adventure the next time around.

And there’s sure to be a next time, as peace has yet to be declared, and I’m still a few years from retirement.

Lastly, happy anniversary, Sweetheart. I’ll be home soon.
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Tons and Bergs

Over the past three summers, I’ve spent more time in airplanes and airports than on the saddle of my motorcycle, flying close to 200,000 miles and almost always to places hotter, grittier and more uncomfortable than the Oklahoma Panhandle in mid-August. This doesn’t leave time for Great Rides. In fact, I rarely have the opportunity to get lost going home from work. With the time I thought I’d have this season, I had hoped to try a local scavenger hunt of sorts, something I could schedule at a moment’s notice, and that wouldn’t take me too far afield so that I could accomplish the task as day rides, as opposed to getting lost for a week.

Enter the Great Lakes Motorcycle Club’s Titanic Grand Tour. Ultimately, it’s an excuse to get out and ride to places that you’ve never been to before, cleverly disguised as a contest to collect “Welcome to,…” signs at cities and towns ending in “Ton” or the various spellings of “Berg”. The big winner gets a gift card, the value of which won’t even come close to covering the fuel required to chase down these locations, let alone the set of tires worn down to nothing but chicken strips and belts in the attempt.


In January, when the snow is still on the ground, biker’s thoughts turn to spring, and start plotting how best to waste fuel and burn up tires. So, before my international travel schedule got in the way, I did some research and plotted all of the tons and bergs within about 350 miles of home. Then I arranged these into ten different day rides, 550 to 820 miles in length, each containing 8 to 21 locations. Since the wife was working again, and I had alternate Fridays flexed, I figured I could pick up about 130 locations and 7,000 miles on my days off. It’s just a guess, mind you, but I was guessing that a minimum of 150 locations would be required to win this contest. I needed just 25 to qualify for the t-shirt.

Fast forward to August, I had seen more and more of the Sandbox, but achieved little more than 2,000 miles on the summer. I had swapped the FJR for a GSA, but was gone too much to get to know it. Worse yet, I hadn’t even qualified for the t-shirt. With more travel coming up, I knew my season was winding down, so I modified one of my remaining eight routes to pick up some adjacent sites from another route and reloaded the GPS. If all went as planned, I’d pick up 23 Tons and 2 Bergs in a 670 mile day and still be home in time for supper.

If all went as planned. Famous 455th to 459th words.

Perhaps I should have set an alarm, but I ended up getting out of the house about an hour later than originally scheduled. Not a mile from the house, one of the GPS’s started routing me home again. Eventually I figured out that this was because my inbound and outbound routes were coincident for the first and last three miles, and Ms. Garmin simply assumed that I had intentionally intercepted my inbound leg, asking me to make a U-turn as soon as possible and complete the route. It would not be the last time she made this request.

Once we had resolved our little misunderstanding, she and I became much more cooperative, finding Afton with no problem, entering on a twisty rural/residential roadway from the north. However, minor roads rarely have the Welcome To sign, so I had to head out of town on some county pavement and scan behind me for the plaque. Once sighted, a quick U-turn (and another request to make a U-turn as soon as possible), stop on the shoulder, neutral, kickstand, dismount, gloves, camera, rally flag over the tank, snap snap, stow camera and rally flag, gloves, remount, select first gear, mirror check, U-turn, and back on the road. The entire process takes about two minutes. The two minutes, of course, begins once I found the sign.

Data collected and I was off to Weston, enjoying what for the most part was a nice early morning. Not too cool and well overcast so as to keep the rising sun out of my eastward facing helmet. I found Weston right where I was supposed to, except I never found a Weston sign. Not the green DOT sign, not a “Weston, home of the Underachievers” sign, not even a post office (those being the three accepted signs). I found the bar. I could have registered my turkey there, but I couldn’t claim it as a Ton. I moved on to Irvington, then rode the very enjoyable length of Wisconsin 88, crossed the Mississippi at Winona, and recorded Stockton and Lewiston.

From there, I should have headed a couple miles south and got on eastbound I-90, but the ramp was closed, and I ignored the advice of the flagman, heading further south, past the “road closed 10 miles ahead” sign and ten miles down CR-25 to where the road was closed, where I turned around and flogged back the ten miles, then headed west and south until I could find an open road and another bridge. About this time, the rain had caught up with me, and I hightailed it to Houston, Chaseburg, and Newton, outrunning the wet.

Midmorning now, and I was in full swing. The day was fine, the bike was running well, I had established my rhythm in my bonus hunt, and Ms. Garmin and I had our relationship back on track. I was thoroughly into the moment and enjoying every minute of it. The forest, rolling hills and twisting roadways of the northern reaches of the Driftless area in full summer are spectacular, especially with the sights and smells of active agriculture permeating my noggin. As well, the variety of dead things on the road remind me that I’m not in the big city any more.

Dead deer are ubiquitous, city or country. Dead opossums, pheasants, raccoons are mostly country dead things. The eight dead chickens were a surprise, as was the beaver. I don’t think I’d ever seen a dead beaver before, except as a display, or as a hat. One sparrow I killed myself, or it killed itself as it flew into my chest. Sad, but better a small bird than a cinder block.

It wasn’t all dead things. It never is. On this day, I saw a couple variety of hawk, either an adult Golden or juvenile Bald Eagle, scores and scores of sandhill cranes (I’m sure they weren’t whooping, despite my earplugs), and I braked hard for a couple of small deer (go figure). As well, there were the usual farm animals; cows, ducks, horses, Amish. Lots and lots of Amish doing their Amishness; driving wagons, using draft horses to make hay, working in the barnyard, looking plain, smiling and waving – always smiling and waving. Driving their buggies, smiling and waving. Weeding the garden, smiling and waving. Using a push mower around the farmhouse, smiling and waving. They look so happy. Makes me want to trade my cube for a non-electric, non-plumbed house in the country. Well, maybe I’d keep the plumbing, but I’d love all the smiling and waving. I’m sure they’ll be fine come the Dark Times.

One definite advantage to that lifestyle is that Road Closed signs don’t seem to apply because, on my third attempt to find a way into Kingston, I was again thwarted by the road under construction, but out of the dust trots a happy horse, pulling a sulky of sorts, operated by a smiling and waving, plain clothed, Lincoln-beard wearing believer. Personally, I didn’t believe the road was open, so I turned around, only to be greeted by another request to make a U-turn as soon as possible, and found an even longer way around.

At Clifton, I blew passed the sign before I knew it was there, gave a steady squeeze to the binders and made a U-turn. I made another U-turn at the sign and was immediately greeted by a barking farm dog who, I believe, believed that the farm, the road, the sign, and all that he surveyed were his to protect. Fine, the last thing I need is another dog bite, so I headed to the other side of town, where I made another U-turn, not for the Clifton sign but for the lack of it. Next I tried the third side of town to the same effect, and another U-turn, and back to the start and yet another U-turn. By this time, the dog had settled in on the farm’s driveway, and I figured I’d have about eight seconds to either swing a leg and skedaddle, or,… or,… Fortunately, the mailman cometh, and beast was distracted.

Outside of Portage, I found myself waiting to pass a couple of Lifestyle Riders with their pillions, all four unjacketed and unhelmeted. Then came the rains. The hard steady rains. The big raindrops at seventy miles an hour sharply intersecting exposed skin rains. They stopped on the shoulder pretty quickly, presumably for some raingear, but I could tell that they were already soaked through. I rode on, happy, dry and warm.

Ultimately, the detours and missing signs added about 130 miles to my day, arriving home well after dark but before the severe weather. Discounting the unsigned towns, the f-ed up and ignored detours, and the flyspecks that my mapping software thought were towns but weren’t, I collected all but three of my target towns. Combined with the few I had previously, I should qualify for the t-shirt, but not nearly to the extent that I had hoped for at the start of the season.

I’d like to think that I’ve got five more weeks to collect more Tons and Bergs, but I’ll be back to the Stans in a week and a half, and that effectively ends my portion of the contest. On the plus side, the bulk of my day was spent on lettered routes which, in southwest Wisconsin, mean twisty well signed two-laners, mostly untraveled and begging to be flogged.

Summers aren’t nearly long enough.
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Fly, boy

My current office is in an increasingly dusty/dirty construction trailer, sitting on one of many mismatched and broken chairs. The nicest looking ones seem ready to snap off at the pivot and the overall wheel radius is smaller than normal, so you take a chance in leaning back and putting your combat boots up on the desk. The second variety is too narrow except for the narrowest of asses, like taking a seat in your old elementary school. Fortunately, the arms seem to break off at will, making it a little easier to remove yourself. The third set has neither arms nor wheels, or rubber stops on the legs, so that the sound of them sliding across the tile raise such a screech that we banned them from use. Such is the nature of third world chairs, they’re pieces of crap.

Through the window is the construction of KCC Phase III, most of which is a block of grey, windowless concrete, three stories tall. Three or four hundred Turkish supervisors and Afghan workers scurry about, currently finishing up the mass concrete, assembling the pre-detonation/blast roof, and getting a start on the interior finishes. Their laydown yard is an inefficient mass of piles and stockpiles, trailers and equipment, scaffolding and assembly yards. Surprisingly, the Turks brought in a shiny new tower crane from China for the effort, which will leave country as soon as the work is complete.

In all, the contractor is using about every available open space on this end of the camp, taking care not to pile reinforcing steel on top of the mosque, inconveniently located on some prime real estate. Mosque coordination should work out for this project, but will be much more difficult when Phase IV enters the construction phase. Phase IV, my work, will double the finished floor space on this 15 acre camp, adding another 300,000 square feet.

During Phase IV, it just won’t be this end of the camp that looks like a construction site, but the need for suitable laydown space will eat up every nook and Afghan cranny. In the States, a contractor could schedule deliveries for the day he needed them, but that’s a little harder when your Russian steel gets trucked in through the stans, and your specialty parts move here through the Khyber Pass. Even if they got close, perhaps to a yard down the street, materials still need to spend a day getting through camp security, as we’d hate to have an exploding load of toilets.

It’ll be a mess, (the Phase IV work, not the exploding toilets, although the exploding toilets would also be a mess, it’s not the mess that’s the subject), but when it’s all over, we will have a huge administration center in the midst of Kabul. I’m not privy to what exactly we’ll be administering here, but I’m sure it’s critical to the war and peace effort and one that is absolutely unable to get suitably perform CONUS, where we have scores of wholly unsuitable military administration facilities.

Apparently, there’re some 1,000 persons on base. Our proposed improvements will allow for a population of 2,000 persons, with a surge population of 2,500. I can only imagine what a surge of 500 administrators looks like, probably a lot of flailing manila folders and Cat 6 cables. Sounds ugly. Even uglier if we don’t get the Green Bean erected in due course, as fru fru coffees are critical to unnecessary administration.

I never see all of the thousand we’re supposed to have today, except for some mass PT event yesterday morning when about 300 filled the courtyard. Otherwise, there are claims that the DFAC is too small, yet I’ve only stood in line once. They say the shower facilities are inadequate, yet I’ve never had to wait. They say that there’s a lack of parking, yet ten spaces are used for the basketball court.

No, my biggest complaint is that, despite being in the middle of Kabul, there’s no sight of the city, it all being hidden by T-walls and twenty-five foot sniper screening. I know Afghanistan is out there somewhere, because I saw it driving in and from the top of one of the existing buildings on our first day here, but the way this camp is configured makes me think that there is nothing besides the camp and the job to improve the camp.

Perhaps the next time, I’ll get to see more of the countryside.

The LOGCAP contractor came into the tent this morning to complete hooking up the air conditioning unit that's set idle since we arrived. I guess this means it's time to leave again. Wheels up in hours.



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My 200th post! Collect them all!

They sent me here with a new team this time, only two with prior Afghanland experience, but everybody’s worked in this section of the world before. I’ve got an electrical, two architects, and three civils, including myself, which strikes me as one civil too many. In the contract, I’m actually a “military planner”, but I’m pretty sure that only means “skilled kibitzer”. Mostly, they’ve got me assigned as team leader on this one, not quite as glorious as project manager, but I don’t have to deal with the Company accountants.

Our project manager, safely ensconced in the home office, needed someone to watch over the production team in country – to make sure they get in and out of theatre, find their billets, show up for work, bathe regularly, and don’t make nuisances of themselves. I don’t really have much of a technical role, which leaves me obligated with the task of cat herding.

Seriously, all of my team are experienced and skilled professionals. They know what’s expected of them and take the necessary steps to accomplish their work. They are self sufficient, but perhaps to a fault, which is where the cat herder comes in, to ensure that they don’t go so far off of the reservation that they can’t be recalled if need be.

Unlike cats, though, these guys don’t sleep for twenty three hours a day. Tim and I are up at 0400 to hit the gyms before the crowds. Jim’s up soon thereafter to get on line. The others stagger up and out by breakfast at 0600. We’re set up in our construction trailer office by 0800 and hard at it well into the evening, with four or five coordination meetings and group interviews each day, analyses and inspections, hypothetical discussions, theoretical and hard design, and just plain old bullshitting.

As more detailed information is needed and time allows, ones or twos will break out and pursue base personnel, make some measurements on site, or pester the operators of the various physical plants. Armed with a schedule of the day’s events and a detailed scope of work, they’re off and doing their independent thing. Actually, they’re a relatively good group, and they don’t need much from me. Like any good cat herder, I know that they’ll be in for supper.

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C'mon, people now,...

I hang a map of Afghanistan in my office at home, decorated with small yellow flags indicating the varying locations where I’ve got my boots dusty. In the past fifteen months, I’ve collected close to a score of little yellow flags, this past week adding one more at Kabul. Despite seeing large portions of the eastern side of this country, my tours have been largely by air, and our ride in from the airport was one of very few times that I’ve been over the wire on the ground.

At Sharana, we took an exciting MRAP ride through an adjacent scrub goat pasture to site an airstrip. At Mazar E Sharif, our private security force took us halfway around the perimeter into the proposed base expansion area. At Kunduz, we trekked a few miles through secure grounds to visit a local ANA compound. During that solo week at Kandahar, my twice daily commute was from the ANA Special Forces base into the airfield.

At Kabul, though, we deplaned at the Kabul International Airport, or KIA (irony or sick joke – I can’t be sure), with half a plane load of citizens and other contractors. We used the “new” terminal which looked old, despite having been built since the invasion, and cruised through immigration and customs, before finding some seats on the arrival hall, where we waited for our PSDs to give us a lift to the FOB. It’s not really a FOB. Certainly more FOB than COB, but the Kabul Consolidated Compound (KCC, or sometimes the New Kabul Compound (NKC)) is what we call “enduring” meaning, it’s going to be here for a long, long time.

I won’t. By the time we hit the ground, we were already into single digits before we split. This is a rapid fire, preliminary design effort. Simply drop out of the sky, scoop up as much data as possible, interview anyone who gets in the way, and find the next Kam Air flight out of Dodge. Piece of cake. It’s only Afghanistan, and this is my fifth trip here, so I think I’m getting good at this.

Still, though, bags can get lost. Tim lost his flying in. Rather a PITA, considering he had some tools and measuring devices packed away that were a requirement for the successful completion of his various tasks. Ultimately, he found his black Samsonite rollaway sitting next to the belt, along with all of the other black Samsonite rollaways. Let that be a lesson – or not. If you still have a black Samsonite rollaway, there’s no hope for you and your bag should get lost.

The loss of tools would have been a shame, though, as it would have made the job much more difficult. Despite their utility, these were on the heavy side, and we fully expected to be paying a few hundred dollars to the excess baggage fee fairies. On a lark, I thought I’d ask for “consideration”, literally, and surprisingly received it. I didn’t see a tip jar or anything, just left the agent with my thanks.

To my chagrin, the KAM Air flight from Dubai to Kabul departs at 0240, when the airport, much to my further vexation, was packed to the gills. The flight, though, was at about 60%, leading me to believe that not everyone wants to fly into Kabul, and for good reason, one of which is that the mens’ room floor is surfaced with some open cell, porous material, like a sheet of spun geotextile, instead of the more usual (and infinitely more sanitary) terrazzo. Icky bubba.

Anyway,… the ride to the camp was short and uneventful, despite our route on public roads though not quite teeming hoards of Afghanis. They were busy, of course, with their own lives, uninterested in the ramblings of some gringo engineer.
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Bits and Chunks

War zone hazards can pop out of nowhere and strike when you least expect it most, catching you off guard and on your heels, three sheets to the wind and at a loss for appropriate adages. Dan and I were completely unprepared then, simply having lunch, when the chaplain major joined us for some drive-by morale-ing. He sat. He ate. He chatted. He subtly queried as to our emotional and spiritual needs. Discovering none, he chowed down and departed. It was all over before we knew what was happening. I felt good relating the story, so it must have worked.

A few nights later, Tim and I sat down next to a couple more Army dudes who revealed themselves as a psychologist and yet another chaplain. For the sake of argument, I introduced myself as the heathen, and Tim as the crazy person. Two on two, and I think we still had them outnumbered.

Standing on the catwalk of a perimeter guard tower, overlooking dense green croplands and a dusty brown adjacent village, I noticed close to a score of Afghan men working slowly and purposefully through the fields. Some of them armed with rifles, but most with crude slingshots. I'm pretty sure the Coalition would win this skirmish, if it had been directed at us. Instead of the human invaders, though, their quarry was more avian, trying to kill the birds, secondarily for food, but primarily for simple pest control.

Slightly drunk with just a hint of a stagger and strolling in the bright starlight through a German military encampment surrounded by mountains on a quiet northern Afghanistan plateau. Priceless.

Once back at Bagram, we were glad to be rid of the German fare. Granted, the DFAC here isn't great, but they will make you an omelet for breakfast, and almost always serve lettuce. On Wednesday and Sunday lunch, though, we head to the tent DFAC near the Corps office for ribs. Tasty, smoky, bar-be-qued ribs, courtesy of a select group of LOGCAP food service employees from South Carolina. Their brisket sucks, by the way (duh, they're from South Carolina) so my recommendation is to stick with the ribs. Or the chicken on days not Wednesday or Sunday. The line will be long, and the wait may be a half hour or more in the sun, rain, and weather, but those ribs, mmmm, might be the best thing about this place. However, the pleasure is fleeting, and ultimately pales in contrast to the massive waste of war. To quote Dan Savage, it's just sprinkles on a crap sundae.

We've had rain here for close to two weeks out of the three. Mostly cool showers, but at any time of day or night. Mud prevails at Bagram.

Somewhat surprisingly, there have been no mortar or rocket attacks on the FOBs, COBs and bases I've been on during this excursion. It's about time. Not, "it's about time we had an attack", but "it's about time I went over here and didn't get shelled."


All told, the pace was the defining element of this assignment. It was brutal. However, we all seemed to have survived the experience, some the worse for wear. Next stop, .... Kyrgyzstan.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Wheels up in six hours. Read More......

Movement

You’d think that, since we’re living feet from an airfield overfull of military assets, and being employed by the Department of Defense, that we’d be able to catch a flight from one base to another. Not so, but that won’t keep us from trying.
It took us three attempts to get from here to Camp Marmal. The first time, we sat in a couple of pickups adjacent to the rotary apron in the rain for two hours before we were informed that the helicopter we were scheduled to ride had never left Kabul. Nor would it leave that day. Our second attempt was a little more successful, in that we actually got on the bird and were in the air for nearly an hour before our pilots found the passes socked in and turned us around. The third attempt was on a much clearer day, and we finally got delivered.

Camp Marmal to PRT Kunduz was a German Air Force flight. It left on time, and delivered us on time.

Our first try from Kunduz to Bagram would have taken us through Kabul. We were strongly hoping it would be “through”, and not “to”, as we had our fears that we might get dumped in the capital and have to wait days for our second leg. Fortunately, this flight was cancelled, and our flight the next day was a fixed wing, just for us, and non-stop. I had my doubts about the stopping when we were waved off on final approach, but one more cruise around the airfield had us safety on the ground.

Yesterday, we made our second attempt to get to FOB Shank, the first try being met with a full manifest. Since we had to be at the rotary terminal at 0400, the alarm was set to 0300, so I could download a couple of emails. We made it awake and to the terminal on time, then waited 45 minutes to reach the counter, where we were informed that our “itinerary was not supported”, which I’m pretty sure meant that we were not going to get out. By this morning, we had completely given up on another side trip during this tour, and have resigned ourselves to, now, twenty more awful meals.
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Tweet

If I can’t sleep (which is usually the case), and I have a little spare time (which is rarely the case), I’ll don a pair of sneakers, grab my laptop, and head east first thing in the morning. First stop is the PX/AAFES “mall”, where the ineffective WiFi can be accessed at slightly better speeds than at the end of the day.

After an hour or so of web based frustration, I’ll trek further east to the Dragon Gym – the same name as the gym I would use on Jamaica – and sit on a stationary bike for most of an hour, sort of watching whatever AFN is showing on the big screen, but mostly trying to achieve thought without thought for a time, a Zen like state of vibrating earbuds and frantic pedaling, counting the breaths.
Stolen gym towel in hand, it’s west to the DFAC where, despite our thrill at having meat again after our German experience, Bagram food has lost most of its luster, except for that sheen on the roast beef. Even lowered expectations are no help, and the dread looms larger with each hunger pang. Still, it’s food, and they’ve got iced tea. Really just tepid to cool tea, as there’s no ice. Regardless, it’s better than the coffee, and has the blessed caffeine.

About 17 minutes later, I’ll start the mile trek back to the hooch, passing one of my favorite spots at Bagram. Most of the time, it’s just a small grove of trees. I don’t know the variety. It’s certainly not something that grows in the Midwest. Midsized, small leafed, scraggly-assed. It was blooming when we got here, but that’s mostly finished now. What remains is an immense colony of sparrow sized birds, who appear insanely happy to wake up as a flock and to get together again at the end of the day. There are easily thousands of the small creatures, but they are camouflaged so well in the foliage it sounds like the trees are communicating. If I return from breakfast too late, the birds have already gone to work, and I miss out on the spectacle. It’s too easy to miss in the evening as well, where they reconvene for just a half hour or so towards dusk before they’re settled down for the night.

Seriously, I’m lucky to have noticed anything over the past week, where our increased workload and compressed schedule translated into sub 100 hour week. I expect the same this week, then we fly. I’ll chirp loudly then.
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Sense

Back in Bagram and well on our way to wasting the $400 Million they gave us to blow. Sorry, taxpayers, but we can’t all be Contractors. However, I can, so there’s the benefit (follow the money), and there’s the rub. Does the world really need another strategic airlift apron?

Of course, and a few more helicopter and mixed use aprons, and more dining facilities and headquarters, and hospitals for both humes and canines. And guard towers. Lots and lots of guard towers. And another 15 miles of concertina topped security fencing with intercepting vehicle ditches. I’m just not feeling the love here. Not even in the grilled cheeses which, in Baghdad, were chock full of the stuff.
One project we’re planning that’s not too secret is a $30 Million AAFES complex, building 20,000 square feet of sales floor to replace the overcrowded 5,000 square feet they use today. The most cost effective solution would be to declare victory, drag everyone home, and have them go to WalMart. Barring that, we (“you, me, us, them”) will build a big box store in the ‘Stans, where our fighting men and women (and complaining consultants) can stock up on shoelaces, commemorative T-shirts, junk food, towels, 550 cord, cameras, and digital camouflage notebook covers. At least, that’s what I bought. They’ve got all sorts of stuff that folks need, but didn’t bring or got used up while in theatre.

Mostly, the shopping serves a social need, just through the experience of browsing through aisles and racks of commercial goods. It’s a momentary disconnect from this place, and a rare state of mind.

I often have another one when I leave our B-hut midday. There’s a brief period when I’m approaching the door from the inside of the hooch where I can’t see the other bunks and piles of luggage, gear, and other kit, when it’s cool and the lights are dim. For just an instant, it’s just me and a door and a knob. Me, door, and knob could be anyplace, anyplace large enough for a knob, a door, and me. It’s still and calm, and I hesitate reaching for the knob.

And then I’m outside, and there are streaming, steaming masses moving down the sidewalk, ten feet off of the hooch stoop. Five feet beyond that, Disney Road is full of vehicles small and large, from Gators to MRAP’s, HMMWV’s to Jingle Trucks, cargo vans to busses. The landscape is full of expeditionary buildings and CONEX boxes. What isn’t paved is rock and dirt. It’s bright, and dusty as hell, and you can’t hear a thing when the pairs of fighters run down the airstrip.

Then I remember pretty quick where I’m at.
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Flight

Ask anyone who knows me. They’ll tell you. They know me.

I hate to fly.


I know. This is sort of a pain in the ass for assignments like this, where the entire thing starts with thirty hours of air travel, and is ultimately peppered with short hops in country every couple of days. The big birds aren’t too bad, provided there’s not too much turbulence. I actually enjoy helicopter travel (for the most part), as you can usually open a window if things get too stuffy.

It’s the smaller, fixed wing aircraft that really heap on the anxiety. It’s not the size so much, or the fact that you’re crammed shoulder to shoulder and knees to knees with the rest of the cargo, or even the tactical takeoffs and landings (those are sort of a thrill). Mostly, I think, it’s the claustrophobia brought on by almost total lack of windows. This would also explain my avoidance of cube farms and interior conference rooms, but that could just be a work thing.

Regardless the cause, I would like to do without all of the small military cargo aircraft, but this plan doesn’t always shake out, so I’m now sitting in a corridor in the local Role II (plus) CSH looking for a few doses of Dramamine for the flight out of here tomorrow. The medic at the front had nothing of the sort, so he led me to a chair in the sick call line where I started as number three, but am currently number two, with Germans before and after, and with little to do but sit and wait, which is fine. It beats a seat on a C-130.

For all appearances, this is a nice hospital, and the result of some well directed German overspending. Not that I ever want to be admitted here, but Role II generally means they can perform life saving and stabilizing surgeries, and then ship most of their patients to regional Role III facilities within 24 hours for further work before the wounded get airlifted to military hospitals in Europe for treatment and recovery. It’s a first class operation, and probably much better equipped than your local county facility except for, perhaps, their pediatrics unit.

Better yet, they’ve got doses of Dimemhydrinat in the easy to use Reisetabletten formula by Ratiopharm. I’m good to go.
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Hesco Bar. Wunderbar.

We’ve been at a lower altitude for the past few days, generally less than 450 meters, so the headaches have subsided. The food, while awful, gets better with every lowered expectation, so I’m not dreading it so much anymore. As of this morning, I’m caught up with the project effort to where I want to be.

So far, so good.


I still can’t get on the wonder web effectively, which is why these don’t appear in real time sometimes, but I’ll try a new plan this morning. My camera self destructed as well today, while I was taking an early stroll about the perimeter, peeking over the battlements on occasion to see what lays outside Coalition control. We’ve no more meetings here, and our flight south isn’t until tomorrow morning, so it’s a good day to stop and smell the roses.

And I did so right after breakfast, and may do again at lunch, as the largest rose gardens on the camp are next to the DFAC. They’re scores of plants, and beautiful, but sometimes overwhelmed by the adjacent lilacs, which you can smell many meters away. There’s also a local hardwood which flowers this time of year, and makes the shade ever more appealing.

None of this is natural, but the Germans have a vegetation and landscaping plan for this camp, and irrigate these plantings on most of the major thoroughfares. In another eight years, there may be enough established shade to almost make the summers tolerable. Of course, there’s the war and all outside, but that doesn’t particularly mean you can’t have a garden spot and a couple of beers when you get home at night.

Or does it? The Germans appear resigned to be here for the long haul. They’re spending a lot more per square foot on the buildings they construct, and seem to be prepared to make a career out of this place. The Americans are more frantic in their development, and are continuously subject to the needs of the moment. This forced expediency causes untold inefficiencies, as this year’s work may have to be relocated to accommodate next year’s crisis.

Perhaps the Germans are just more realistic about their involvement here. We aren’t leaving any time soon, that’s for sure, so you might as well be comfortable while you wait.
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Hinterlands

Up at 0400 in Mazar E Sharif to a surprisingly quiet 200 man tent (actually, there were a few women, but they were camouflaged just as effectively as the men). I could have slept a bit more. Instead, I used the early morning to take advantage of an empty shower trailer and then went back to bed. For a brief moment, I considered wandering over to the perimeter fence to watch the sunrise, but looked at my feet and, seeing a pair of flops, decided against the hike.

After an unsatisfying breakfast, I headed to the office. At Camp Marmal (which is only slightly easier to say than Mazar E Sharif), the Sergeant Major secured for us a couple of table in a big open MWR space, only two extension cords away from a power source. We had barely started the day’s work when word came that our outgoing flight, scheduled for tomorrow, was moved up by about 26 hours, leaving us with about 90 minutes to reschedule and have a meeting, blow off two more, pack up and get to the airfield. Like someone said early in this process, “the scheme of maneuver is fluid.”

Despite the accommodations, I sort of liked Marmal. The Germans had a certain respect for a base master plan that the Americans cannot seem to fathom. Whereas as Bagram, any empty space was filled with vehicles, a maze of CONEXs, or pallets of materiel, the Germans maintained their open spaces, resulting in a less cramped feeling when moving about, more in tune with the open expanses of Afghanland right over the wire.

What the Germans have wrong, completely wrong, is food, and what we had at Marmel, while unappetizing, was haute cuisine compared to our current billet at PRT Kunduz. Breakfasts here consist of a variety of sour beverages, the worst coffee in theatre (so I drink the tea), various rye breads and hard rolls, fatty cold cuts, some processed cheeses, and cold cereal with plain yogurt. Lunch and dinner look like breakfast, except that the cold cereal will be swapped for mysterious soup, there’ll be some stewed entrée, and a couple of cold salads will appear that would elevate Orval Kent to the rank of culinary genius. They do serve a lot of fruit at every meal, but it’s a tossup as to whether it’s ripe or not.

If you can ignore the looming dread prior to every meal here, it’s actually one of the nicest places I’ve been to in country. Again, the Germans have designed the camp with plenty of space to enjoy the view of the mountains in each direction. Our billet (six of us in a ten man CHU), is comfortable enough. The bathrooms sparkle. We even have a nice conference room reserved for our use.

And there’s beer.

Unlike the Americans, the Germans aren’t saddled with General Order Number One, which bans (amongst many things), the possession and use of alcohol by US troops and in US facilities in theatre. It’s not like I’ve been Jonesin’ for booze, but it’s banned, so I want.

Every night, then, we’ll head to a local bar, each developed and run by separate units, and have a couple of German pils, lagers, or haffe weizens. Typically, these are sized somewhere between Meisters and the Corner Connection. They always have a television or three, tuned to yet another football match. Oftentimes, there’re pool or foosball tables and lots of local furniture.

The bar itself is constructed expediently which, here, means they’re some of the most temporary structures on the camp, pieced together with scraps and excess. There might be 2,000 troops here, and probably a dozen bars. Some of them are very nice, and you’ve got to wonder if there wasn’t at least a little theft or reappropriation of materials. I don’t think about it too much, as there’s still a mess of work to accomplish, and I’m more than pleased just to have the facilities available.
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Exhalation

Seven days on the ground. Still breathing heavily, but starting to catch my breath.

Some of it’s the fact that the higher altitudes here leave me somewhat breathless, both figuratively and physically. Right now, I’m at a German camp, FOB Marmal, just southeast of Mazar E Sharif, with an elevation of, who knows, much higher than the 950 feet I’m accustomed to. Add to it the helo flight over the mountains from Bagram to get here, which took us to just about the vertical limits of both machine and unpressurized flight. High altitudes give me world class headaches, and a little nausea, and some shortness of breath, which should pass about the time I head for home.

Another some of it is the view. Stunning. Simply stunning. Great rugged escarpments crashing into snow capped peaks. Barren mountain plains at odds with verdant, irrigated valleys. It’s a beautiful place and, as the saying goes, “it’s a nice place to visit.” Sadly, there’s a 3,000 person military encampment in the middle of it, and the mad collection of b-huts and hangers unnaturally contrasts with the simple tailoring of an Afghan craftsman, or the mud plastered walls of his simple house.

Last part of the some is that we’ve been running full bore since we arrived, with far less decompression time than I’d like for both myself and my team. This started even before we mobilized, as the client cut weeks off of our preparation time, squeezing more than three weeks of effort into about eight days. He also cut a week off of the back end of the schedule, further concentrating our efforts on the ground.

Right now, though, I’ve got a free hour, sitting on my crappy mattress on my borrowed rack in a 200 man RSOI tent on some little base in northern Afghanland. It’s a dark base, so outside, you can see all of the stars, and when the Tornados aren’t buzzing the airfield, you’d think you were somewhere near the end of the world.

Breathless.
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Last Supper

It's almost habitual that we eat our last supper outside of the shit at the Irish Village in Dubai. It's surprisingly Irish for the Middle East, with pretty good mutton and some insanely dense soda bread - if you like that sort of thing. By and large, it's an opportunity for a few pints of Guinness before heading to someplace that, alcoholwise, is drier. As an added bonus, they've got a few caustic Irish lasses doing the serving, so if you get too drunk, they'll tear you to shreds.

Not so this trip. The eruption at Eyjafjallajokull forced us into a more southern crossing of the pond, entering Eurozone airspace around southern Spain, and delayed our arrival here by more than an hour. Then, when one of our equipment crates failed to find the luggage belt, I was pretty certain that alternative dinner plans were in order.

Is one missing bag out of 18 good or bad?

Let's say bad.

Worse was that it contained my Mechanical's personal protective equipment,... which he'll be needing real soon,... in freaking Afghanland. One thought was that we take the detachable ballistic codpieces off of the vests of the five sets that did arrive and fashion something Gilligan Islandesque to at least protect his, er, cod, but none of us are that good of a seamster. Besides, a good vest are only a fourth of the system. He'd also need the helmet, ceramic plates, and respirator to make up the full set. The trip's young, though. We'll figure something out.

Now, when my Mechanical (a different Mechanical) lost his bag flying in for Afghanland II, we went through the same motions that we're doing this time - report it to the authorities and follow up, follow up, follow up - but his bag never arrived. Never. As in never ever. It's probably still out at JFK, crammed behind a pile of trash in the boiler room.

My hope is that this time will be different. Besides, the lost bag is really a hard sided plastic crate crammed with seventy pounds of mission stuff. And, we didn't fly through JFK, so it's likely holding up the lunch fridge in the boiler room at Dulles.

And the lunch fridge mentioned in the last paragraph leads us back to the supper conversation. That, in the bidnezz, is called a segue, provided I stay on topic and don't drift further and further away, a likely result and effect of a nine hour lag. Anyway. Supper. Right.

Due to lack of time, we decided to eat at the restaurant at the Traders Hotel, in which we are esconsed for the night. It's a nice hotel. Quiet, clean, free q-tips. The wait staff had a little difficulty in my request for a table for nine (my crew, the client, and two more Companymen who are headed in on a different assignment tomorrow), but once they compared the number of people standing at the table to the number of chairs present at the table, they got the idea.

The menu was prix fixe, with choice of entree, sides and starches, and one of a selection of four gravies.

Four of them. Four distinct and individual gravies. Mein gott! I was stunned.

And if that wasn't enough, on the desert buffet, next to the torts and cheesecakes and cookies and those little shredded wheat, fig paste and honey things they make over here that I could eat forever, was a bowl of gummy worms.

I wonder if they'll survive the trip in my pocket?


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Play Ball

We headed south to watch baseball. To commune with fifteen thousand sports fans, enjoying the warm climate and cold beers. To cheer for the hometown team, and root for quality play. To sit outside in the sun and watch a bunch of men hit a ball with a stick. To squirm and continuously reposition our collective buttocks on immeasurably hard plastic and aluminum seats.

That last one wasn’t really our intention, just an unintended consequence of the field conditions. Towards the end of the day, I’d be getting up every half inning to recirculate, and then sit down with another dollar beer. That’s right. Ball park beers – for a dollar. Five Bolivars, actually, but close enough to a buck, especially considering the eight to ten dollar beers at any professional stadium here. They weren’t huge, though – probably ten ounces – but that made for most all of them being served well cold and fully carbonated.


Plus, you could get them past the seventh inning. In fact, one evening, the game required a tenth, and you could still get beers. Or, if you didn’t feel like another beer, you could get a bottle of whiskey delivered to your seat, which sure beats trying to sneak it in past the AK-47 wielding, riot helmet wearing, carbon fiber cup snuggling (I made that one up (I hope)) national guardsmen at the gate.

True that. They sold a number of whiskeys, some recognizable, some not so much, like the very popular “Something Special” which, surprisingly, is a Seagram product. Anyway, for about 200 Bolivars, staff would transfer the contents into a fresh 750 milliliter plastic bottle, fill the decorative box with ice, and deliver both, along with a few plastic ice-filled cups, to your seat. From that point, the neat-rocks-mixed choice was yours, as was the choice to get stupid drunk a la American Sports Fans, which no one did.

Sadly, not every spectator could get booze delivered, only those in the upper deck and VIP seating (generally between the bases). They also got better concessions, but only if you believe “better” means tasty chicken breast sandwich vice tasty steaming pile of grilled tripe.

Mmmm,… organs.

The baseball wasn’t bad, either. Essentially, the Caribbean Series pits the champion teams from each of the national leagues of Venezuela, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico (actually, a territorial league) in a double round robin tournament. Each ticket bought you use of one seat for both afternoon and evening games, after which you had seen all four teams play. As expected, the Dominican Republic crushed, Venezuela was embarrassed, Puerto Rico was poorly supported, and the Mexicans got quite loud (one of their fans brought his sousaphone).

Overall, it felt like Double A ball. But there’s something to be said for Double A ball played out of doors, in 85 degree weather, with dollar beers, in February.

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PTO

There’s only so much snow I can handle, and that amount diminishes with each passing year. Snow used to be fun, with the sledding and snowballs and snow this and snow that. I suppose it was around when I bought my first driveway that the pleasure began to wane. For a number of years, I even entertained the thought that just an inch, every few days, would be fine throughout the winter – just enough to whitewash the winter grime.

Now, with increasingly thin blood and the steepest driveway ever, I’ll do what it takes to minimize my exposure, including a few years in the Tropics, my winter excursion to war torn Iraq and last week’s trip to Caribbean Venezuela, where the weather back home was, quite seriously, the very least of my concerns.


Not that I had that many concerns. I had some, but not many. Cash was one, as local ATM’s were occasionally available, but not accommodating. However, I could make a wire transfer to our hotelier, who would swap my Federal Reserve Notes for black market rate Bolivars. On occasion, the Visa would work, but costs really weren’t so bad that I needed to carry huge sums of cash to get us through a day on the beach, or an evening at the ball park.

Security is always an issue. There’re places in my own metropolitan area that I won’t go into unprepared, so why would I travel to Hugo Chaves-land and not maintain a high degree of situational awareness? Venezuela is known for her high crime rate and the kidnap and murder rates there are definitely worthy of some concern. However, if you behave like a soft target, you will get targeted, so we didn’t do that. We kept to main roads, minimized our public drunkenness, took care in selected our taxis, and tried to return to the compound at a reasonable hour. Ultimately, besides a couple of unsuccessful pickpocketing attempts by others, we survived unscathed.

Language was a problem. However, when the various skills and vocabularies of four gringos were combined, we could usually order a meal (“pollo empanadas, por favor”), secure a couple of beers (“dos cervesa Solara por el camino”), hail a cab (“taxi!”), or shun some beachside higglers (“no gracias, no gracias, no gracias, no gracias, no gracias, no gracias,…”). In general, there were fewer English speakers than any of the other places I’ve traveled, which makes me again regret taking Russian in High School. At the time, no one knew who was going to win the Cold War, so I thought it prudent if I could speak the language of our potential new overlords. In retrospect, Spanish is the Lingua Franca of most of the Americas, and much handier. Next time – really – I’ll try to get some more formalized training.

But snow? Not a concern. Too much sun was the real problem – if you could call 85 degree, partly cloudy days on the beach a problem – which I most emphatically do not. Again (to get the point across), it was 85 degrees and partly cloudy,… every,… single,… day. In the translated and summarized words of our Venezuelan hosts, “you need another beer with that?”
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