The Satirist at War

Final Word

2012-01-22T22:08:00.004-05:00

There are two hours left before my Honorable Discharge paperwork takes effect and I officially leave Active Duty. No more paychecks. No more direct purpose in life. No more of anything Army. I'm back to being my own man. I offer as evidence of this, a beard I grew for the occasion.

Thanks to all my loyal readers, especially Lorraine who was probably the only person outside my immediate family to read all of my posts. For that reason alone, I wish her a lucky life and happy existence. Thanks to everyone who I served alongside. Thanks to those leaders who mentored me, and who showed faith and confidence in my ability to lead an Airborne Platoon (Michael Fenzel, Sean T. MacRae, Robert McChrystal) and a Mountain Infantry Company (Willard Burleson, Russ Lewis). Thanks to all my peers and battle buddies, but especially Justin Quisenberry, Dave Fedor, Marty Peters, Joe Corsi, James Krause, Wyatt Cooper, Brad Israel, Mike Taylor, John Principe, Matt Adkins, Steve Bartkowski, and Greg Ambrosia. I've already given Mike Carson and Brian Graham more than enough thanks in the earlier posts, and they go fishing without me all the time, so, I don't feel like rehashing that here, and it would only be insincere.

This will be the final post on The Satirist at War. I may begin a new blog to record and detail my life as the next chapter unfolds... but for the time being, that's all. A hell of a time. 2005-2012. The best of times, the worst of times.

Rest in peace, Jeremiah Pulaski. Rest in peace, David Boris.

Bonenberger out.

Toxic Leadership

2011-10-30T17:00:00.002-04:00

There's been a lot of discussion about "toxic leadership" in the Army recently, and not a second too soon. The worst thing that can happen in the military is that a leader takes command in an organization, and runs it into the ground with awful and inhuman "leadership philosophy" and a palpable ambition for personal achievement at the expense of his subordinates. I've seen it happen before, it's just terrible. The new "360-degree assessment" push is a great idea, and I'm sure it won't go far enough... there's no way to keep all the Patton wannabes out of command, it's just impossible. There should be, though, because I've seen other great leaders, combat leaders, who don't act like narcissistic, self-obsessed babies. Anyway, below are a series of questions designed, innocently, to illustrate toxic leadership. Perhaps reading the questions, you will be reminded of some personality or another who fits the bill. If the person it reminds you of is you, well, it's not too late--stop being an asshole, and start looking out for your subordinates goddammit!

1) Unit suddenly experiences higher than normal suicide threats. Leader states that he has knowledge of this problem, because suicide threats and incidents spiked when he was at his last unit.
Toxic: yes or no?

2) Leader deals with problem of suicide by delivering lecture to assembled unit, where he takes the opportunity to accuse his soldiers of ingratitude due to their lackadaisical efforts and short work-week
Toxic: yes or no?

3) Rather than take responsibility for institutional failures, Leader blames every problem on "the guy before me." Even months after the departure of the last guy.
Toxic: yes or no?

4) Leader openly badmouths subordinates who are leaving the institution for any reason, even mandatory professional development, but especially former managers who worked with Leader's predecessor who are leaving the institution for good. This rather than, say, praising those who have served before him.
Toxic: yes or no?

5) Leader makes outrageous public claims about combat experience that are contradicted by others who served with him, then questions the combat experience of those who have proven experience in the department, and derides them for lack of knowledge, preferring to follow his own counsel.
Toxic: yes or no?

6) Leader talks incessantly about the Alma Mater he graduated from, and draws unfavorable comparisons with other institutions that he feels are competing with him. Remarkable only in that nobody else above the rank of 2LT pays much attention to a university, as we've all been to war and nobody cares about this sort of thing anyway.
Toxic: yes or no?

7) Leader uses every meeting and LPD as an opportunity to speak at length about himself, often at the expense of actually making decisions, or professionally developing subordinates (unless personal aggrandizement can be said to develop others).
Toxic: yes or no?

8) Leader takes credit for all of his subordinates' successes, and heavily criticizes their failures in public--rather than the other way around (the other path--give credit to subordinates, take responsibility for their failures). Additionally, tasks subordinates with missions, does not follow up on said missions, then criticizes them when the missions are not executed according to his wishes, again (of course) in public.
Toxic: yes or no?

Man Looking At Thing He Doesn't Understand -- Menil Collection -- September 2011

2011-09-04T11:10:00.007-04:00

The background for this story, which may seem unrelated to the military at first blush (but I assure you is totally, intimately related to the Army), is long and complicated. The full telling would probably require me to start far, far further back, and go much deeper than anyone would like--I'll meet everyone more than halfway by going back in time to the first time me and Art Galleries crossed paths.

It was the mid-80s, and Andy Warhol wasn't dead yet. I was crazy about dinosaurs, so everywhere I went with my folks, they were forced to take me to a museum that showcased dinosaurs. This may have taken a toll on their will to live. That did not factor into my decision to vocalize this infantile need for dinosaur. So, when we went down to Washington, D.C., to the Smithsonian, it's no surprise that the first place we visited was the National Museum of Natural History. There was a triceratops out front, even then. I don't remember going through the museum, but I remember being done with it sooner than I wanted--and being brought next, not to more dinosaurs, but to a place my parents called the Art Museum. The Smithsonian American Art Museum, to be exact. I didn't know that then.

This was an awful, traumatic experience--transitioning from the terrible lizard to Cy Twombly. Ripped away from those entrancing bones, those footprints chiseled into the stones of time--Tyrannasaurus Rex teeth, as big as my head--and put in front of a bunch of boring paintings, of god knows what. I'm sure I was a crying terror; I have no idea how my parents bribed me to behave. Perhaps I was beyond bribery, and I was punished instead. That would certainly help further explain my suspicious, even hostile reaction to most art (and especially to anything after the Surrealists).

Fast forward to Italy, 2006. Myself, E. Nelson, J. Quisenberry, and P. Thomas had taken the train from Vicenza down to Venice, to spend a weekend debauching on the main island. It was October, so, the weather was cooling down, and the tourism had fallen off in a serious way. This made debauching a bit problematic, as there were fewer people to share in the debauching, but it also cleared out the streets and bars so that serious drinking could take place. I want to say that some kind of training event was tied to this celebration--a rotation at Grafenwoehr, or something like that--it wasn't E. Nelson's imminent departure, that was later.

In addition to committing ourselves fully to the idea of getting ahold of as much of that good wine as we could lay hands on, E. Nelson (backed wisely by P. Thomas) insisted on our attending an exhibit at the Palazzo Grassi before diving into our cups. Quisenberry seemed skeptical, and I know I expressed nothing but hostility for the idea. At some point one has to put away one's own desires for the good of the group, and sensing that everyone else had committed to the idea at some point, I went along with the visit. There was some modern exhibit that included Japanese anime pornography, a robot that had been picked on and alienated by everyone in a high school and had developed a social inferiority complex, and a statue of Hitler as a man-child, kneeling penitently in a corner. I believe there was also an animal that was sliced into pieces, the slices of which were kept seperate and anatomically correct by means of glass boxes. The exhibit was--thought provoking at best, confusing at worst, and at no moment did I feel inspired or enlightened.

We met up downstairs, and gathered to procure our coats at the coat check. While waiting for my coat to be brought back, I took a seat--rashly, with the insouciance of youth--on the check-counter. Nobody was in the room. Barely anyone was in the gallery. Before the coat-check attendent could return, two of the people from the front desk, a guard and a ticket-lady, walked into the room. They saw me on the counter and were shocked. They told me to dismount, at first in Italian. I did not understand them, told them so, and continued waving my legs saucily. The lady spoke to me in broken English, and told me that sitting on the counter was forbidden.

I guess the argument that followed, and the things I said--things about facists, and Nazis--were the product of the seeming incongruity between the allegedly mind-blowing, boundary erasing artwork on display upstairs, and the boring, hidebound, illogical rules downstairs. It's not like I was hurting anyone by sitting on the counter, yet my actions alarmed the Italian curators, as though I was indicative of the worst sort of danger, some violent, chaotic impulse. So I attempted to fulfill their expectations by using a language they would understand. Eventually my coat came and we all retreated to the outside--everyone was convinced that I had been irrational, and my stance was at best selfish, and at worst put us at risk of incarceration. My mind was at ease. When presented with a situation like that--an art institute that displays avant-garde works yet insists on enforcing draconian rules without regard for circumstance or context--I will take advantage of the opportunity to subvert their existence, by doing my own thing, which should be in keeping with the intent of the artists who are on presentation. And if not, screw them.

To return to the topic of the post--at long last, I had opportunity to re-engage with this sort of behavior. This time, the location was Houston, Texas. I and A. Rose were going into the Menil collection, she holding a nearly-done ice coffee, and I carrying a cup of scalding hot coffee which I needed to interact with the art, yet which was still too hot to drink. Rose turned to me and said "I don't think they're going to let you take that in," as we crossed over some sort of metal trench-system in the grass outside the institute. I said "We'll see," and prepared myself for battle.

Sure enough, when we entered the vestibule that served as the terminal for both wings of the Collection, the man sitting at the counter said: "you can't bring those coffees inside, you have to dump them out. The bathrooms are over there." There was a cushioned seat in the middle of the vestibule with a group of college- and middle-aged couples lounging at it, and a pretentious looking older man was picking up pamphlets about the Collection, and still managing to look down his nose at Rose and I. I wanted to respond to the ticket-guy, and also to the pretentious dickhead in front of us, so I said: "But if I don't have the coffee to drink, the art is too boring, you know? I can't look at the art without something to keep me awake. I mean, that stuff will put me straight to sleep." I said this loudly enough so that everyone could hear.

The group of people sitting by the cushioned seat rose almost as one and began scattering to the different galleries. The pretentious man froze, grimaced, flushed, then went about deliberately picking up the rest of his pamphlets, but with an air of violent disapproval. The ticket man, to his credit, laughed, and said: "well, why don't you finish your coffee at the seat, over there. I won't say nothin'." I thanked him--clearly this was the limit of his authority, and walked over to the seat with Rose, who was going to wait with me before discarding her now-empty cup of iced coffee. Before we could even sit down, we were intercepted by a curator, who had waddled out from behind a partition that was holding the Surrealist painting one sees in the back of the picture in this post.

"You can't sit there with that coffee," she said. "Thas off limits." I had been on the verge of sitting, drinking my coffee in peace, and interacting with the Menil Collection, but--and already knowing the sort of strange, mind-bending Modern and Post-Modern (and possibly, if I was lucky, Post-Post-Modern) Art I was like to see--I couldn't let the situation go as it had unfolded. I pointed at the cushioned octogonal couch. "There? I can't sit there?" I said. "With my coffee?"

"No," this woman said--a tremendously obese woman, I noticed, not merely fat, but the type that would have difficulty moving quickly, and certainly was in no position physically to prevent me from doing anything--"You have to drink the coffee over there." She pointed at the ticket counter. The ticket-man was assiduously avoiding eye contact with me, his authority trumped. Rose began to say "But the man over there said that--" before I interrupted her. "Don't worry, don't worry," I said, not wanting to incriminate the Just Man who had, in fact, attempted to help me to the limit of his ability. "the cushion," I said to the fat woman, "tough to clean, huh?" She laughed, one of those corpulent, nauseating laughs of the morbidly obese: "Yas, yas," she said. "I's espensive, very espensive." I went along with the joke. "Probably more expensive than most of the art in here, am I right?" We shared a laugh over this one, while the pretentious man, who'd experienced a temporary victory in seeing me routed from comfort, now had to flee the building in shame-faced defeat.

The lesson, here, is either that I'm some sort of total social malcontent, which I don't think is true, or that Art Galleries where one is supposed to be totally serious and interact quietly with masterpieces of the sublime are also home to the most ridiculous, anti-humanist laws and rules, most of which seem to exist in direct counterpoint to the message their artwork would like to send.

JRTC

2011-08-23T22:12:00.005-04:00

The recent events in my life can be summed up as follows: I changed command, a little more than a year after taking command. This is unusual in the Army--normally one gets a good deal longer to command a company, but having publicly decided to leave the Army, it was decided that I had no more use for a slot that would better be occupied by another officer who would be making a career out of the Army, and I was unceremoniously removed. The logic of this is sound--why would a system, an organization, want to develop someone who will be leaving? A coveted management position is normally awarded to someone who holds promise, and I did not hold any promise in the Army (because I am leaving). The down side of this is that there is a degree of disloyalty inherent in removing me from a post to which I brought only honor and reputable service--but despite the lip service paid to loyalty, and especially institutional loyalty, as always these things come down to personality. I remain content with the knowledge that the officers I served under and with in Afghanistan respected me, and would have preferred that I remain in command.

At the same time, it's a huge weight off my shoulders, and a great opportunity--I have months to set my affairs straight, and plan in exhaustive detail how I will leave the Army, and pay attention to the people I care about.

This is being written after a JRTC rotation at which I "walked" a group of soldiers and officers from the 25th ID--the airborne unit in Alaska. We'd heard a lot about them in Italy, they were the other "non-Bragg" Airborne unit, and there was a good deal of cross-pollination between them--and I was very impressed. The only observation I had was that there was this idea in the leadership--nobody I saw at the Company level--that the goal of JRTC was to "beat" the simulated bad guys (JRTC is the training exercise one must go through to validate your operational knowledge and procedures before deploying to theater). The best attitude to have in a place like JRTC is: "what, of the things that we do, can we do better?" rather than "we must defeat the enemy." This is an attitude that springs from pre-war Army, according to the older sergeants, when the only chance a leader had to prove himself was how he performed in a simulated battle. LTC Lewis, at our JRTC, did (as I remember) an excellent job of stressing that it was more important to validate procedures and protocols than to fake-kill the enemy... and from what I saw, things worked out very well for the Companies during the exercise, and in combat as well. That's how it's supposed to work, and it worked. Instead, in this exercise, it really felt like a lot of the learning opportunities were wasted because of the massive focus on "success," defined as a body count.

The heat throughout was incredible, and during the short periods of time between planning and execution of missions, the only thing anyone really wanted to do was to sit in the shade somewhere quiet, and try to avoid sweating through one's uniform. I began a war against these red wasps that infested the O/C living quarters, and ended up killing 17 of the creatures, as well as 5 "mud-daubers," these odd wasps who would occasionally fly into the improvised mosque carrying paralyzed spiders with which to feed their young--other than this, there was little to do to pass the time save the standard fare of story-telling, and generating reports. All told there was little in the way of work to be done, in no small part thanks to the efforts of one of the better NCOs I've ever worked with, 1SG Brian Schembera, my counterpart and the Team lead. I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

The experience overall was great, in the sense that I had an opportunity to take the lessons I learned most recently in Afghanistan, as well as in my first deployment, and apply them for a group of guys who were headed over there. It was probably more useful for me than it was for them, because their commander was a guy who'd been to some of the same places I had, and was totally knowledgeable--my only use from that perspective was simply to validate what he'd told his guys. For me, though, seeing guys go through an experience I'd been through, and knowing where they were headed--I really liked it, and I think it was a great way to help further the transition out of and away from the military.

After the exercise was over, we got put on the last flight home, so had several days to kill. I don't know what everyone else did--I assume, being responsible officers and sergeants, they stayed on Fort Polk and worked out or otherwise obeyed protocol--for my part, I grabbed a ride out to Houston, and stayed with my girlfriend for 4 days. When I get back to Drum, I plan to shamelessly demand time in compensation for the inconvenience of having been placed on this detail in the first place. Owing to the institutional disloyalty displayed in my removal from command based on chickenshit institutional logic or "leadership theory," I feel no shame or lack of conscience in spreading this deception--rather, an abiding sense of the correctness of the universe.

4th of July, 2011

2011-07-05T01:00:00.006-04:00

I am in Houston, on the 8th floor of an apartment building. I have watched an excellent fireworks display celebrating the birth of our nation. I learned, reading the New York Times, that my experience in Afghanistan has been, in some small way, folded into the national dialogue about the war, and war in general. I was standing on the balcony, thinking about this, and about the people I served with, and the end of war, and the people whose lives were ended by the war, and artillery pasting hills, and firefights, and the feeling of a bullet zipping by my head, and I leaned over the balcony, still holding my scotch, and looked over toward the ground, 8 stories down, and I couldn't remember how long it took to reach terminal velocity but I'm pretty sure it's less than 8 stories--have you ever done this? It felt like someone was tugging on the upper half of my body, like I was in danger not of jumping, but of floating over the balcony, and then thumping down on the sidewalk. After entertaining that awful fantasy for several moments, feeling the tug of gravity over the balcony, I walked inside and finished my scotch.

I have attended numerous briefings and sessions with Army-appointed psychologists who ask me if I have "suicidal ideations," talks with the Chaplain, talks with behavioral health specialists. I'm not the smartest guy in my Company, although I am the Commander. I'm leaving command in a number of weeks. This may be related to the fact that I'm getting out of the military, I'm not sure. But what is a "suicidal ideation?" Is it a graphic picture of one's own death? Is it hoping for one's own death? Or fearing it? I keep coming back to this idea, the simplicity of death, a release of the only inhibition keeping me or anyone else walking around--the , and then it's all over, like the whole thing was a dream to begin with. Do I think about dying? All the time. Do I think about literally killing myself? No--it would be a crime against nature. That's not what I was put on this earth for, to raise my hand in self-slaughter. The difference here is that I understand and accept that I don't desire it to happen--but there's this constant idea in the back of my head that it could happen at any time.

I often jest, when pointing at a particularly old person who's driving, that they're trying to escape death. The fact is, death is one step behind all of us.

I don't like this logic

2011-06-26T20:14:00.011-04:00

Of note--and this may be more suitable for a twitter message than a blog, but doing the blog regularly is enough trouble for this distracted guy--I've been hearing a lot of the following logic, applied toward helping policy-makers decide whether or not to do something:

"England and the Netherlands and New Zealand do XYZ. They like it fine. We should do XYZ too."

Last time I checked, we an army that a lot of people call the best ever. Not just because of the equipment, but because of the level of education and training, and ability to implement advanced strategy. Since when did we decide that our best chance at improving was to look at armies that are on the downward path? Armies that are getting smaller, and in almost all matters, look to us for guidance and inspiration?

I hate this logic, and think that the people who use it do not have America's military's best interests at heart. The only time we should examine other countries' military forces is either when something isn't working with ours--and there's nothing that's broken, we're winning the wars we need to--or if we need a quick "upper," by examining the keystone-cops comedy hour that even a cursory examination of most of our allies inevitably produces. I do not include the Australians, British, Germans, French, or Canadians in that math, they all have very good and professional armies (still, I wouldn't take anything from any of them).

Cultural Relativism is racking up the wins.

Leaving The Army

2011-05-08T16:50:00.009-04:00

This post is a long time coming. It took a great deal of reflection, and soul searching, but after carefully considering everything that's happened during my time in the Army--as one friend would say, the accomplishments or achievements, the relationships begun and ended, the comrades met, the battles fought, it's time to lay down my rifle for good, clean the body armor one last time before hanging it up on the wall, and sincerely hoping never to take it down again. It goes without saying that should events warrant, I will always be prepared and willing to take up weapons in defense of the Homeland. Now, with the full measure of experience, I would do so with great trepidation, knowing the sacrifice and cost that war exacts, unfailingly.

Most of the readership at the time of this posting knows me well enough to have some exposure to my reasons for doing so--for moving on with my life--but for the record, I'm going to do the best I can to record my reasons, both personal and professional. As one place is as good to begin as another, I'll hop in with no particular order or agenda. The only way this will be organized is, loosely, into reasons that I think are personal versus reasons I see as professional.

PROFESSIONAL REASONS FOR LEAVING THE ARMY

1) I can no longer stand to exist in a hierarchy. Hierarchies that depend on privileging time over experience--and probably any hierarchy, honestly, even meritocracies, encourage people to treat others poorly. I'm tired of being exposed to that treatment, and I'm tired of feeling forced to interact with others as though they were something other than humans. I'm tired of establishing limits on generosity. There would be no place in the Army where I could avoid this dynamic. I know that it'll be damned hard to find places outside the Army where I can avoid this dynamic, but I'm going to try. If, reading this, you feel that I'm being naive--screw you. You're being naive.

2) The Army offered me the best possible situation, by allowing me an opportunity to compete for a slot teaching English at West Point, or doing something called "The Olmsted Scholarship," a way to learn another language and serve as a liaison officer with a foreign military (this would have been the French or German Army, for me). My command, LTC Russ Lewis and COL Willard Burleson were exceptionally supportive, and bent over backwards to make sure that I stayed Army. I weighed my options and decided it wasn't enough. Why? To do either of those things would have required me to commit to 7-9 more years with the Army, which would have put me at 14-16 years in, at which point I'd certainly have needed to serve another 4 years to retire, as a Lieutenant Colonel. But, if I was going to stay in the Army so long, I'd have wanted to be a General. So I would have retired a failure.

3) The best place to be in the Military is the Army Infantry. I will expound on this momentarily. I could not have stayed in the Army Infantry without gunning for General, and being a person I didn't like. But if I was going to stay in, that's what I'd want to do. So I couldn't do it. Does that make sense?

4) They say that once you're done with the Army, the Army's done with you. I've had occasion to experience that, now, but before making my intentions known publicly, I had plenty of occasion to witness it. There's something awful and cold about an institution where you can pour your soul into its gears, and then have to watch as they all offer you the famous cold shoulder. Knowing that I could experience that at any time--15, 20, 25 years from now, depending on my success--but that best case scenario I was only delaying the inevitable--why not just get it over with?

PERSONAL REASONS FOR LEAVING THE ARMY

1) To explain my personal reasons for leaving the Army, one must first understand why I joined in the first place. Really, it comes down to aesthetics. To begin with, more U.S. Army Infantrymen have died for freedom than any other collective group in the U.S. Military. I guess to me, feeling connected with the history of America--not some imagined or neatly / aggressively-marketed history was the most important thing. The U.S. Army Infantry, to me, is a group of mostly anonymous soldiers, without any pretension or conceit, doing the best they can with a Bad Job. All wars can be described, to the Infantryman, as essentially this--a Bad Job. Some meet the task with joy, most resent the hell out of it, but above everything else, everyone shares in the hardship, the lack of glory, the dirt. Those groups who approach war as not a "Bad Job," but rather a "Glorious" or "Desirable" Job, are profoundly misguided. Those who glamorize war are dangerous.

1a) The Navy never appealed to me. Maybe it was the organizational aspect of it. Maybe the aesthetics. I never desired to be a part of a unit that could be sent to the bottom of the ocean, where there are sharks.

1b) The Air Force never appealed to me. If I was going to enter war, I wanted it to be personal, I didn't want to sanitize it, or hold it at bay through technology and buttons. Or experience a technical malfunction and die in a ball of fire.

1c) The Marines never appealed to me. Just seemed to be more bravado than was necessary. Like, all that energy proving their relevance must be coming at the expense of something, right? The bullets don't care if you're excited about running into them or not, they get you dead regardless. It seemed like the aesthetic of the Marines was more about "we're Marines and you're not," and less about "we're at war and that's important."

1d) I was not physically fit or mentally tough enough to be an Army Ranger. Maybe I would've had a shot when I was 18 or 19. But I'm not sure. In any case, Ranger School proved to me that I could gut it out, but that was a very near thing.

2) Greatness, and the pursuit of greatness, rests in doing something that you love. I stopped loving my work in the infantry sometime in December, between getting pinned down and nearly killed in two separate incidents over the course of one week (the low) and conducting the first joint German / U.S. offensive air operation ever (the high). When you peak too early at something, it quenches some of the fire--my peak, in the Army, arrived at the same time as compelling reasons not to do the thing I've been doing. Sure, I could continue to fake it in some other position, but that's not how I want to go out. 20 years of service, knowing that I'd be hiding out somewhere, hoping not to get put back on point but needing to be on point.

3) I can't stand being told what to do anymore, or knowing that anything I say in public can be held against me or my profession. I want to be able to state my opinions. I feel like I've been suffering under an enormous weight these past years, having to essentially stick to scripted talking points for everything. It's been positive as a lesson in discipline and self-discipline, but especially when it comes to making statements about policy or politics, I should be free to give free vent to my opinions.

4) I have stories in me that need to get out.

5) Raising a family in the manner and place I would like will not be possible in the military. To have a shot at being a father--and being the type of father I want to be--I must leave, and not worry about 3 or 5 or 7 or 10 years from now having to move to another life.

6) Of course I'll miss the money and the health benefits. Who wouldn't! I'm going to have a year to figure out if I can write a book or not, and after that I'll be screwed... back on pauper avenue. F***! Still not enough to keep me in.

Snapshot European Vacation

2011-04-22T06:14:00.002-04:00

This morning my friend Adam and I woke up at 1000, and ran up Montmarte, did a set of cardio (push-ups, abs, squats), then jogged back. The weather's amazing. His bar, Candelaria, is beautiful, and awesome, and I spent the better part of my first 20 hours in Paris in its basement, drinking bottles of that good champagne with him, catching up on old times.

My french is coming back a lot faster than I thought it would, especially as I spent so much time bagging on the french, and comparing their culture unfavorably with German culture. But things are so nice, and relaxed here--I can't invest negative emotional energy. Having a great time, keeping it up, and enjoying life as much as humanly possible, because I'm here.

Coming Home [NFP]

2011-04-04T08:17:00.005-04:00

Sitting in an obsessively clean business hotel in Phoenix in my sweaty work-out clothes, watching the sun come up after a night of willful debauch. Waiting for 8am, so I can pull my suit on, and attend the funeral of one of my best soldiers, who killed himself recently during a shootout with the police. The air is dry, but hot as sin, and it feels almost like a sauna. Yesterday I drove around looking for a decent chain restaurant, and found one I and some of the Lieutenants used to patronize back when we were figuring it all out back in Benning--Carrabas--decent food, but this awful ridiculous ambiance of either some imagined Italy or a 40-year-old's understanding of 1950's Brooklyn / lower East Side. While I was sitting at the bar, the bartender, a young woman, asked me what my name was. I told her, and she told me hers. I thought this was unusual. She went on to repeat this with the other customers, and when she was leaving shift, she gave the woman replacing her on shift a brief on all of our names. So it turned out to be some kind of corporate thing. It's a good idea, but it put me in a strange mood. The UConn lady Husky's were getting beat by Notre Dame in woman's basketball, and Syracuse was destroying Duke in Lacrosse. A biker couple came in, and I decided that I'd be doing some serious drinking later that night. I ordered a Miller Lite to kick things off, had my dinner, then excused myself and went driving. Phoenix--really, Glendale, that's where I am right now--is in a desert. I think this has a negative effect on the people who live there, the choices they make. Aesthetically, the place is a wreck. Everywhere you look there's green being fostered artificially, there are new buildings, there are massive automobiles. I can't think of a less appropriate place for gaudy, conspicuous displays of consumption than a desert. Shouldn't the houses all be small, and useful? Made of mud, maybe, with solar panels bristling, and maybe some sort of wind capture device? Not that it's windy in Phoenix, but the two days out of the year where it is, you could get enough extra energy to scrape by... That's the level of attention to detail and conservation that should be going on here, but instead everyone blows money on inefficiencies, trying to convince themselves and each other that they are living logical lives in a well-chosen location. Mall after pre-fab after McDonald's, with plenty of undeveloped desert peeking through the cracks. An event reminded me to get back to my hotel and get down to business as soon as humanly possible. It shouldn't be terribly surprising to learn that I was thinking about Pulaski--or at least that thoughts of his life were rattling around in the back of my skull. A motorcyclist on one of those Harleys from the 70's where the person almost looks like they're being stretched out on a rack--arms fully extended to reach handlebars, feet so far forward that the person could almost be lying down. So--all the nausea I was feeling that had been directed toward our way of life here, all the excess and waste--it came back on me, double, in the guise of a courageous young soldier who came back to this landscape, and went haywire. It doesn't surprise me, seeing where he died, it doesn't surprise me at all. It kills me, it's so terrible, that he got out of the Army for this place... saying that he was an adult, and made adult choices, and accepted responsibility in the only way that a man can when the only other option is surrender (to slay himself with his own hand), these are poor consolations. I returned to the hotel, which, although it's a Courtyard by Marriott, has a bar. I decided that I was going to drink heavily and aggressively, and that's exactly how things worked out. Bar tab was $25. 6 drinks. You can't beat that! I was very entertaining, regaling people with my brilliant observations on society, and delivering witty and relevant social commentary. I never wanted to leave, but although the spirit was willing, the flesh was confused, so I staggered back to my room and passed out watching Jim Carrey in "Yes Man," which resembled "Liar, Liar" both in concept and execution.

Return from Afghanistan

2011-03-16T16:58:00.005-04:00

For the last time, I'm telling you...

I'm back.

I've tried to wrap my mind around everything that's happened here, with varying degrees of success. One cannot imagine what it's like, looking back on a year of one's life like it belongs to a stranger--like the person who was making decisions, and moving his arms, and talking, was not oneself--this person did things, said things, that no civilized human would do or say. The events that happened to and around him were often absurd, sometimes tragic, very occasionally horrible--and to reconcile what he knew was the proper way to go about evaluating and interacting with life with the awful things in front of him, he developed a massive, thick, callous and obscenely inappropriate, cavalier attitude toward it all. That was me. That's where I stand now--watching a series of slideshows of my life, pictures of a man I recognize but with whom I have nothing in common. Or, the person who sits, and drinks, and interacts with his family has little to nothing in common with this other man.

The deployment of a Company, 126 soldiers, part of a Battalion, part of a Division, part of the entire effort to stabilize Afghanistan against the Taliban. A small slice of what happened in the opening years of the 3rd Millennium A.D. Largely irrelevant. Back here it all seems so incredibly, tragically unimportant--worth a quick handshake and sympathetic ear--or the expectation of a long story--none of those things mean much. They certainly don't balance out the sleepless nights, there or here. The feeling of distance, the impossibility of communicating even a small slice of went on in any kind of significant way. It breaks the heart.

I hope that the future cures me of this awful, maudlin mood. I'm sure everyone goes through this kind of thinking, but it just seems so unproductive and pointless. What the hell is wrong with me?

Current Army Lingo

2011-02-09T00:07:00.004-05:00

As I'm sure readership is tired of the same washed-out, complaining vein of thought I've been peddling lately--everyone has their problems, right? I'm making an effort to write a more lighthearted post, without the melodrama of contact, or the pitiful, self-indulgent discussions of my current emotional disposition. What do I have to complain about, really--my body is whole, and I've got a full belly of FOB chow.

This post will discuss some of the various sayings or phrases I've heard this deployment that stuck with me, for whatever obscure aesthetic reasons.

1) Fanning Balls. This means "doing something other than working," or anything that doesn't involve firing one's weapon. Particular emphasis implies that what one is doing is not useful to the group, or contributing nothing to the war effort. In use:
"What did you guys get up to on the last patrol?"
"Nothing, just sitting at checkpoints, fanning balls."
or
"I won't be coming on this mission, I'll be on the FOB fanning balls [or just f.b.]."
or
"Then so-and-so got his vehicle stuck and we had to sit around fanning balls for 8 hours while a wrecker got out to us to recover."

2) Blow into [sthg]. This means to energize or otherwise invigorate a project that has encountered difficulty, or will probably be difficult.
"We're having trouble tracking down what happened to the generators after they left camp for Bagram. XO, I need you to blow into this, get to the bottom of things, figure out where they are and who's got accountability for them."

3) Some of the many ways to euphemize getting yelled at: Nuked, detonated, lit up, blown in place [strangely sexual metaphor, here, must be unintentional], tore [sic] out of the frame, slam-dunked, torn a new one, f***ed five ways from friday, destroyed, skullf***ed, annihilated, taking HEAT rounds, taking hits, getting flamed, getting torched, "having words with the boss."

4) Taking a sh**, or taking a dump. This means breaking. Things that can and have taken a sh** this deployment: my computer (lost everything on the hard drive, but saved by my discipline in backing up the system on CDs), my vehicle, comms (on numerous occasions, usually when I can least afford to lose it), other peoples' vehicles, Internet, the cell phone network.

Important to note that bathroom activities have their own series of euphemisms, which I will not use or explain here, as to do so would be a low thing.

5) "Shucking and jiving," "Cutting and jabbing," "Making it happen," "Working the mojo" "Working it": Ways to explain that one is making headway with a problem that is difficult to define or quantify. Also, ways to say that one is making headway when in fact one is not making headway.

6) Smoke and mirrors: The active and conscious attempt to deceive another party as to what one has done, or failed to do. In use:
"That was a hell of a brief, everyone seemed really impressed."
"Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors."

7) Other ways to underline the importance of doing something, and doing it right: get personally involved, dig into it, figure it out, nug through it, get into the weeds, get into the TM / FM, [this is] a no-fail task, [this is] my number one priority [it is possible to have numerous "number one priorities" at the same time], do the head-check

8) To finger-drill [sthg]: to do an inadequate or half-assed job.
"I need you to conduct rehearsals on movement to contact under NVDs [night vision devices]. This is important, we'll be out for a few days with no vehicles, so you cannot afford to talk through it or finger drill the rehearsals--actually do them, and do them until they're right."

9) Pushed to the right: delayed.
"Sir, when are we SP'ing tomorrow?"
"We're not. Mission's pushed to the right 24 hours."

10) Shelved, tabled: cancelled.
"Sir, when are we SP'ing tomorrow?"
"We're not. Mission's shelved. Pushed to the right indef."

11) Dust off the plan: Mission that was cancelled a week or more ago is now no longer cancelled, again.
"Hey, I need you to dust off Operation Success, it's a go."...
...
"Sir, when are we SP'ing tomorrow?"
"We're not. Operation Success is back on, so our other mission is pushed to the right. Dust off your balls, we're getting blown in place."

I'm sure there's more stuff out there. I can't think of any right now.

Wrapping Up the North [NFP]

2011-02-06T03:07:00.003-05:00

When 1-87 was dropped into Kunduz Province, it was the first time an American unit had been deployed to the area for violent purposes since the initial invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban. Since that time, years ago, there was substantial work done by various NGOs to bring improved transportation, infrastructure, electricity, and all sorts of great projects to better the lives of the Afghans living up North. Over time, however, the Taliban infiltrated the area, and when we arrived on scene, the only safe areas in Kunduz were the paved roads, and the city centers. Some places, like Archii District (where the stoning took place), were completely off-limits--that's where helicopters went to get shot down. It was a black hole.

Starting late December, 1-87 (specifically, my Company and C Company) went on an all-out offensive to clear out the insurgent stronghold in the middle of the Province. The Taliban swore we couldn't take them down, but at the end of a 10-day mission (already discussed how we and the Germans did a joint air assault), there I was, shaking hands with the Cobra [Company] Commander at our limit of advance, with the insurgents in full flight back to my area. A couple weeks after that, Alpha Company followed its Afghan counterparts as they cleared out both Imam Sahib and Archii Districts. There are no insurgent strongholds left in Kunduz Province, we have been completely successful. Total victory.

Strategically, Kunduz Province is supposed to be one of the most--if not the most--insurgent-contested Provinces in the North of Afghanistan. It's "the bread-basket" of Afghanistan, and has several historic population centers. It's definitely a place where Afghans could, if they needed, strongpoint against the Taliban--a place that should be a beacon of what's possible for the rest of Afghanistan. Our victory here, if exploited properly, could prove to be what ends up pointing Afghanistan in the right direction. It could also just be shadows, and we could lose it all. I think the next couple years will show us if we've really driven the insurgents out for good, or if we just gave the Afghans a couple more years of grace time. Either way, we accomplished the mission we were assigned, in famous fashion. It's going to make re-integrating with society so much easier, knowing this time that we did our job to the best of our abilities--and tasted sweet success.

Now, thoughts turn to redeployment. The most dangerous time of all--a few last patrols, so close to going home, the area seemingly secure--this is when one is particularly on edge, so especially over-careful. The only things that remain to be done are cosmetic--important to the next guys, important to me, and the guys, but ultimately not part of an immediate strategic imperative. So my eyes scan restlessly over the road, across the trails in front of me, in the distance, evaluating the smoke in the distance, searching the faces of the population for signs of hatred or approval. I wonder if I'm holding on to this danger-sense, reveling in it, knowing that if things go according to plan, I will release it for the last time in some weeks, and never invite it back--have I come to depend on it? Will I be able to let it go? Or has it wormed its way inside me?

The worst part, again, is the ongoing lack of feeling. I broke out of my funk for a couple weeks after the big missions were completed successfully, but now here I am, back in the haze--nothing particularly grabs me, and I have to shake myself to get any real thinking done. I consider the various things that must happen in the future, but derive little pleasure from them. Food offers little comfort. I can't imagine drinking under these circumstances, as drinking is something I do when I'm full of joy, and right now, I just feel empty. Bored. Simpler--too simple. For the time being, I do what I must, concentrate on the mission and bringing everyone home, and hope that when I get back to America, I will rediscover how to laugh and cry.

Gluck Ab (NFP)

2011-01-07T03:29:00.009-05:00

After 11 days in the field, the following accomplishments may be added to the Alpha Company Guidon, while in my custody:

1) Drove insurgents out of Gor Teppa Valley, crushing the heart of the insurgency in Kunduz, and thus RC-North

2) Conducted first joint air assault in history between the US and German armies--their 3rd Company--I learned that German Airborne units, since their inception however many years ago, sound off with "Gluck Ab" on their way out of an aircraft

3) Conducted mission with panzer support

4) Raised "Old Glory" above defeated Taliban Commander's Compound, waved it as vehicle convoy came forward

5) More inspiring charges and pre-dawn raids, which, all told, temporarily filled up my need for action and glory.

Of course, we came back and I learned that we've got another big one. If the last mission was the big knockout blow, this operation will be the coup de grace--in this fight, the boxer is not knocked out, but is actually murdered in the ring while prostrate--not sure what weapon would suit the analogy, now--by a dagger? Never having been in this situation before, with the enemy in full flight, tottering on the precipice of complete, comprehensive defeat, I'm not sure how to describe it. I can say that the feelings associated with total victory are amazing. I hope all this is getting reported accurately back home!

Meanwhile, you're probably wondering what about the operation smacked of dishonesty, and idiocy, and foolishness. What chapter I've pulled together for the grand book this time. I hope you're wondering, anyway, because if you're not, you're going to hate this post (by the way, can anyone tell that I've recovered some of my vim? It's great, having it back).

And so now is the perfect time to describe the "CDS Drop." The CDS, or--I think--Combat Delivery System--is just a plane paradropping supplies to a unit cut off from ground resupply. A big plane--usually C-17 or C-130--flies over an area, and drops whatever pallets are required, full of ammo, or construction materials, or food, or water, or some mixture of all 4. Ideally, the equipment drops near your position (you secure a drop zone for this purpose), and you recover it all with machinery, as it is invariably heavy and unwieldy. In the event it shouldn't matter--when CDS is being used properly, it means that your unit is in a bad situation and desperately needs resupply, so it doesn't matter if only half the stuff gets to you. The only way to get the kit to the soldiers, in this world, is an airplane pushing equipment out of the back. Whatever you get, you're happy for. That's how bad it is--in a justified CDS Drop.

So rewind back to December 26th, the day after Christmas, when I was knees-deep planning for the 11-day operation to come. The one thing I raised my hand about was this thing I saw, on day four of the Operation--a planned CDS Drop. S***, wait a second. Rewind further.

All of this knowledge comes from having seen and heard the results of about 20 combat CDS Drops last deployment, when we spent most of the time cut off from ground resupply. So I know about these things. Should've established my creds beforehand.

I raised my hand, and said, basically, "O.k., guys, I'm not trying to insult anyone's intelligence, and I know you guys have already thought through this, but

1) the farmers have started flooding the fields, what do we do if the fields are flooded"

they won't be

2) a good 50% of the time the planes come in high, and from the wrong direction, and they drop early, or late, and the pallets scatter to the four winds, and half the equipment gets pilfered by partners or by local kids

we did a test run a couple weeks ago, all the pallets landed within 30 meters of the planned area, it was perfect

3) How are we supposed to get this stuff back, we won't have any vehicles

The Afghans will get vehicles up there, they always find a way, don't worry about it

4) I'm saying this, not to hear myself saying it, but because when a CDS drop goes wrong, and in the worst possible way, you're putting soldiers' lives at risk for pieces of metal and fabric. We should have the ground route open by then--let's just use that."

got it, you've raised your concerns. We're moving forward with this.

Before we started moving, the Afghans stashed all of their vehicles at the jumpoff COP, because the road was mined. We lost an Afghan fighter to a land mine within the first hour and had to backtrack--I don't know what number that was--made a detour, and kept pushing forward. The first thing I noticed after we passed the German positions on our way down to our objective was that the drop zone was 50% flooded. Also, it was the 50% that was closest to us, so we'd have to somehow walk around it. Again, the plan to recover all of this heavy equipment was the afghan vehicles which absolutely were not moving from the COP being as how the road was not just rumored to be mined, but actually, no bulls*** mined, so, recovering kit from a flooded field in 20 degree weather over nearly a kilometer didn't seem like the best idea. As it turned out, we and the Germans got into a serious firefight with the insurgents that lasted on and off for the better part of three days. The firefight was happening directly across the flooded fields (they're smart, they knew we couldn't maneuver through it) and across another large field to our southeast (more about this field later).

After two days of wrangling with higher, I finally made it clear that the fields north were unsuitable for a CDS drop. Rather than let the matter drop, however, I was instructed to secure the southeastern field--the only alternate drop zone even potentially useful for the CDS. Remember, this is the field across which we'd been exchanging fire with the insurgents for the past three days. One says what one can, and sometimes an uncomfortable decision has to be taken up top. I guess it's a testament to my fatigue that I actually went through with it. In a series of pre-dawn raids, just as light was rising, we secured the 4 necessary compounds, and set the drop up just as the aircraft was coming in for the delivery.

The very first thing I noticed about the drop was that the plane was coming in from the wrong direction. As soon as I mentally evaluated the ramifications of this, I heard a storm of gunfire go up from the northwest (enemy held territory). The plane started pulling up. No drop. We did what we could on our end to assuage the pilot's fears, and told him to come in on the correct heading--I suppose he must have known better, as pilots normally do, some kind of pilot thing where they know what's going on better than the boots on the ground--but after circling around, he came back in on the same heading, but... from 2300 feet, instead of the promised 600. Again, he received fire, at which point he dropped early, and the chutes started scattering, a good 800m away from us (in the wrong direction--toward the enemy-held territory).

If that scenario sounded familiar, it's because I prepared you for it by predicting it, blow-by-blow, earlier in this post. Hey, f*** me, right? What do I know.

My XO secured the drop while I moved another Platoon up, and the enemy started running for the drop--no shots exchanged--we got the critical compound just in time. Took a hell of a firefight to hold on to the thing, including fires from the south, but we did it--only to watch as locals and our partners ratf***ed the hell out of the drop, leaving us only the construction material. We used a vehicle that was brought up from FOB Kunduz to transport the material back to the checkpoint being constructed--why couldn't we have just used that vehicle to bring the materials from FOB Kunduz in the first place--and called mission complete. That was how I spent December 31st, the runup to New Years. By the time I got back to the Taliban Commander's Compound, I was so smoked I racked out at 1800 and slept until 0700 the next day.

On the bright side, I woke up the morning of the 1st, shaved, and my good friend Captain Adkins, the C Company Commander, was there with cigars to take pictures of us shaking hands on the objective and smoking it out in front of Old Glory. I called out the New York New Year at 0930--the only one that matters--and we went on to continue exploiting our unanticipated success.

On the up side, having completely bashed the system and the process for wasting time and energy although I knew better (others backed me up, it's not like I was the only one, just the only one to try to stop the madness), I should reinforce that five days after the drop, I and Captain Adkins were shaking hands again at our Limit of Advance, the insurgents having all fled to my area (I was in his for this mission).

Which is where I'm headed, next.

Gluck Ab.

An Extraordinary Time Not to Write

2010-12-18T10:08:00.003-05:00

This posting is as much an admission of guilt as it is an apology for the actions that led to the behavior that earned the guilt. To whit--I never would have thought that I'd spend over a month and a half in combat, and not write anything down about it in my blog. Heaven knows I've experienced enough of the breadth of combat in the past 45 days to generate some interesting comments and commentary. At the end of it all, though, here I am, sitting in front of a computer in a crowded MWR, and finding myself incapable of writing anything interesting.

I mean, assuming that the things that I write are interesting.

The fact is, while everything was happening, I was so deeply involved in it all--so engaged--that in retrospect I suppose it was inevitable that I'd get back, from days in the field, and just be--feel--totally washed out. More exhausted, less motivated, than at any point in the prior deployment. There were many occasions on which I felt angry, or frustrated, or steeped in some other similarly negative emotion, but I can remember no time when I felt nothing. It's gone on for a good 4 days now, at this point--ever since getting back from the last of 3 long, overlong extended missions.

This is new ground for me. Not motivated, not inspired, just trying to get through it all to the end. Tired of getting shot at.

Guess that means it's high time I found a new career!

48 Hours of Blunders II / III

2010-10-28T10:02:00.006-04:00

This post picks up several hours after the last finished... weapons back on safe, everyone sleeping with one eye open, on the JTAC.

After the excitement of the night, it was a bit of an anticlimax, getting rained out of bed in the morning. Rain is something that comes infrequently in Afghanistan, and generally not under conditions where it can be appreciated in its proper context (this is to say, from the comfort of shelter). In this case, rain obeyed the cardinal rule, and waited until it was good and cold, then came down and drenched everything / everyone, further reinforcing the lucky nature of our mission. I couldn't help but notice that the JTAC had cleverly positioned his cot under a tree, so that he managed to avoid the worst of the elements--being at the mercy of concerns and worries in his sleep, and perhaps in every waking moment as well, the JTAC (as expressed by the jarring incident that woke us all hours earlier) used his hightened sense of alarm to plan for every contingency. I know that it was petty and pointless of me to notice and begrudge him his preparedness, but such is the way of things. Ultimately I suppose I would have seized on any pretext to envy the sleeper who avoided getting soaked.

Almost as soon as we'd finished packing up, wringing the water out of our gear and clothes and storing it in our bags, then throwing the bags disgustedly in the back of our vehicles, we had the day's first piece of positive news. For anyone who's worked with the Afghans--this probably goes for the Iraqis, and any other third-party national who's working on standing up a working Army--establishing an early-morning time-hack is best-guess under the most ideal circumstances. You say: "We'll all meet up at 0500, and leave at 0530," and you expect them to show at 0700. 0700's still way better than last time I was here, in 2008, when they'd show up when they wanted to, if at all. At any rate, on this day, they showed up at 0500, like we'd agreed on the night before, and they were ready to move. We did final checks on equipment, talked through the plan one last time, and began moving at 0530, also as planned. This put me in a great mood. We were moving toward the objective village and it was just getting light. Our luck, it seemed, was changing.

This was all new territory for me as soon as we turned off the main road. I don't go in much for the smaller reconnaissance operations, unless it's tied to the certainty of enemy interruption, or there's a chance something could go wrong. I leave it to the Platoon Leaders to establish their own areas, and explore the trails I don't have time to see myself--I can't be in three places at once, so I have to assume some limited risk, and besides it's good to empower them. In this case, things didn't work out the way I'd hoped--we got to the previous limit of advance, where the Platoon Leader had ceased his reconnaissance, and discovered that the culverts had been destroyed, taken down by the local villagers to build new, stronger culverts. This was good news for us two months from now, but not great news at the moment, as there was no way we were getting across the irrigation ditches without culverts. So, there we were, having invested hours of planning and coordination, standing at the edge of two great ditches with our hands on hips, strung out on a road, with no obvious way onto the objective. I told the PL to get with the ABP and figure out if there was any other way into the village, which he did. He came back after a five minute huddle, and the look on his face was promising.

"Hey sir," he said, "The ABP say there's a trail into the village..." he cracked a kind of smile, "but it's through the mountains."

I couldn't believe my good fortune. Next to clearing a village of Taliban, (which was clearly not going to happen on this day), the best thing, my favorite activity in Afghanistan, is a mountain trail recon. In the first scenario you have violence of action (the ultimate challenge for the soul) balanced with positive change you can measure, and there are few things more rewarding than seeing villagers thank you after you've booted thugs out of their town. In the second scenario you have beautiful landscapes, no chance of contact, cut off communications (so a sense of freedom and limitless potential), and no IED threat. I can't tell you how liberating that last piece is--driving without really having to worry that there might be a bomb in the road. That's the best part about off-roading. No bombs, no worries. Almost euphoric.

As you can imagine, when I heard that the ABP were thinking of taking us into the hills, I immediately leapt on the opportunity, and sent the report up to higher: "We're heading into the hills, to recon an alternate trail into the village." I knew--I mean, that trail, like the paved road, never leads into the village. It doesn't work like that. It leads to some other village, or dead-ends, or gets too narrow. Something takes you off course. In the history of Afghans knowing a secret trail through the mountains that could hold U.S. vehicles, not once has the trail in fact led where the U.S. forces expected it to. I was fine with this. In my mind, we were already conducting this village clearance sometime in the future [it's a month and counting since we tried last to reach that village--me]. It wasn't happening today. Today was going to be a fun mountain trail recon, where we didn't accomplish a damned thing apart from identifying some routes that our vehicles could use, and confirm that the trail did not, in fact (I mean, there's always the chance) run into the village.

True to form, the day worked out exactly as I'd imagined. We rolled around in the mountains for the better part of six hours, stopping to climb a couple of them. Saw a few shepards, a few abandoned qalots (one with a tree growing in the middle of it), and no end of breathtaking scenery. I saw a gray fox, although I have no idea how it could survive in a barren, inhospitable place like the hills. The scenery was amazing. The JTAC, who brought a camera, left without giving us any pictures, so, the photos I hoped to post proving what a special and extraordinary journey we took must remain the product of your imagination. The end of the reconnaissance deposited us in a small meadowed valley, which was dotted by caves--not the type I've seen in other islamic graveyards, and no conspicuous tracks leading into the valley--it reminded me more of the early buddhist caves I've read exist in parts of China. We turned around, got out, looked at the grass, made sure there was no way forward, and turned around to move back to the FOB.

Technically this qualifies as a "blunder" because we should have stayed out there. It was awesome, and put me in a great mood for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, this mood was, like all things good and joyful, doomed to an early demise, through circumstances very much outside my immediate control...

48 hours of blunders introduction: the coining [NFP]

2010-10-13T23:56:00.005-04:00

Back up to four days before the events of the two days that constitute the 48 hours in question. Now it's October 4th. A sunny day (not unusual) in autumn (quite usual) on which the Commander of ISAF and hero of Iraq, General David Petraeus, was supposed to visit for an hour (a unique experience). During combat operations it is fairly common for a General of his stature to make visits to outlying bases, but we're so far out of the loop and off the beaten path, especially up here in RC-North, that it seemed unlikely he'd make it out. We get this all the time: "be ready to brief General such-and-such on your area, he's coming today." "Are you ready to brief yet? He's coming soon!" "Hey, let me hear your pre-brief. Cause General such-and-such is definitely coming." "He canceled. Brief's off." In this case, though, General Petraeus followed through, and came out to receive the Battalion's brief.

Normally I wouldn't care much about this, nor would I have an opportunity to exploit the visit. On this occasion, however, our Sergeant Major correctly decided that it would be cool to have General Petraeus pin my 1SG with the purple heart he received from the suicide bomber incident from August. I was told to come along for the presentation, as his commander, and I did. At this moment, I realized what needed to be done, and although 1SG was not up to the task, I knew, deep down, that it needed to be done, and that I was the one to do it. I'm talking about laying a coin on General Petraeus.

The tradition of giving out coins probably goes back to the informal reward system that predated institutionally sanctioned measurements of success like ribbons, service commendations, and other official displays of recognition. There is only precedent and tradition to regulate the giving or receiving of coins, and it's all very vague. In fact, one can, generally speaking, reduce it to the following:
1) Only a Commander or his NCO equivalent is authorized to procure or give out coins.
2) Coins must be purchased with funds designated for coins, or with one's own personal money.
3) Coins normally exist only at Battalion level and above--recently, however, motivated or unified companies have taken it upon themselves to issue coins.
4) Coins are tied to some kind of achievement. One doesn't simply give them out--they are marks of recognition, given for a duty well done, an on-the-spot "good job" for something that doesn't quite merit an award.
5) During official functions, one must carry one's Battalion coin, and present it on call, or one is required to purchase a drink for the challenging party. This right to challenge, in theory, is not limited by any other considerations--in practice, one only ever challenges others of one's own rank or station.
6) Another type of coin challenge I've seen is that one carries the highest-ranking or most prestigious coin one has ever received. The challenge is issued, and whomever has the highest ranking coin wins the challenge. In theory, if the president had a coin, that would be the highest.
7) Coins are given by way of a firm handshake, appearing, as it were, almost by magic, out of the granting or awarding officer / NCO's very palm.
8) Coins are awarded by the higher-ranking officer or NCO to the lower-ranking officer or NCO, never the reverse.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, there, and there are probably a host of other informal rules and regulations that vary from unit to unit, but almost everyone in the Army (maybe even the military) would be familiar with the rules I laid out above. The last rule, and for my purposes the most important, is just a further expression of the military's hierarchical structure--only the higher-ranking officer / NCO has the right to offer any type of feedback on a subordinate's job performance. As coins are given out for duty well executed, or for achievement, they can only go top-down, not bottom-up.

The way I was thinking about it, though, I figured: "General Petraeus and the rest of the Army talk about COIN being a Company Commander and Platoon Leader fight. If he and they really believe this, than it should be a great honor to receive a mark of favor from a subordinate who is actually in a position to evaluate performance--versus, say, the President, Congress, the American Public, or some other General." I made sure to have an extra coin on me, and promised myself that if I had the opportunity, I'd hook General Petraeus up, for working really hard on our behalf and getting things right. You can imagine my elation when, after my 1SG was pinned, everyone was getting set to take a couple of photos with the General, and the Sergeant Major (to his everlasting regret, I'm sure) saw me in the back of the room and said: "Sir! Get up here! You need to be in this!" then turned to General Petraeus and said: "The Company Commander, sir." At which General Petraeus said: "Oh! Of course! Get up here!" So up I got, there.

When I arrived at the front of the room, to the envious glares of the Battalion's staff, General Petraeus shook my hand, and gave me his coin--the best coin there is, frankly. Looked me in the eye, thanked me for my service. He was taller than I'd expected, but also a bit older. For some reason I expected him to be brimming with vigor, but there was a deeper, more muted sense of power and accomplishment about him. He was lean, very lean, and his eyes were hard. He blessed me, and my 1SG, we took a couple of photos together, and then he took his leave of us, first by shaking 1SG's hand. Then by shaking mine.

Of course, in the intervening moments I'd taken the opportunity to slip my own coin into my hand, so it was that when he was shaking my hand for the second time, I gave him, for efforts above and beyond the call of duty, an immediate on-the-spot performance review. In other words, the Gator Company deployment coin--fierce gator side up. He looked at it, surprised, then smiled and said: "Now Company Commanders are giving out coins?" To which I replied: "Thanks for coming out, sir." And that was that.

48 hours of blunders PART I / III

2010-10-09T23:59:00.006-04:00

It's been a long while--too long--since I've felt the kind of post I like to write. So much frantic energy has been invested in keeping my spirits up, and the company's momentum moving forward (against everything), that it seems like I haven't had the opportunity to step back and appreciate the humor and joy of what's actually going on around me. As always, I never take this time for myself, but allow the situation to overwhelm me, and dictate my emotions. Stupid. Thankfully, I was recently blessed by a period of two days that captured all the best things in life--shared happiness, shared sorrow, with plenty of tomfoolery in between to keep things interesting.

I always have my Platoon Leaders develop their own plans when it's a Platoon mission, and if I see an interesting mission I want to jump on, I tag along with them. Obviously they have no choice when it come to participating in my operations, although I should make it clear that everyone loves my missions, and wants to go on them, not only because they're brilliant, but because they're also sure to see contact (and the best kind of contact--the one where the enemy runs off at the end of the day, and one can actually measure progress from the day's actions--not the meaningless actions I had to endure back east). This saves me valuable time, while developing my subordinates to think for themselves--I rarely tell my Lieutenants what to do, or where to go. I give them broad intent, and so long as their plans fall within my intent, they are free to do more or less what they please.

So it was that one of my Platoon Leaders came up with an interesting plan to visit a village we hadn't visited before. He'd recon'd a route on his own, and came up with a very thorough plan that was wholly supported by the ABP--there was some small chance of contact, but, more importantly, it was pushing out the area that the ABP were willing to patrol--so I figured: "great way to get off the FOB for a couple days, see some new turf, work with the ABP, reinforce easy wins." The mission was well planned and meticulously rehearsed. After all the preparation, there was one last hour-long talkthrough / "rock drill" the night before, with a chilling cold wind blowing through and making it difficult to stand still and promising an uncomfortable night for those who'd forgotten their sleeping bags. We finished the briefing, retired to the four-wall, open-air compound at which we would spend the night, posted sentries, built up a roaring fire, and waited for sleep to arrive. I was in a damned fine, comfortable mood--nothing quite like having a warm fire pushing out a bit of heat, a sleeping bag, and that all-important feeling of security. Very easy to slip out of consciousness under those conditions.

I woke up with a vague sense of alarm, tied to a shout. The fire had died down, and the illumination cycle and clouds were such that it was nearly pitch black. Someone in the compound was yelling, with a sense of urgency, which brought me fully alert. "Get him off me! Get him off me! Help me!" Still 75% in my sleeping bag, I combat rolled off my cot, grabbing the loaded rifle one habitually keeps within arm's reach when sleeping in the field, assuming we were under attack. I pulled security outward (I'd positioned myself at a sandbagged entrance--a dangerous place, basically a fighting position--I depend fully on my ability to pull better security than anyone else, based on prior experience), as everyone else came awake, and flashlights started stabbing through the darkness. I turned back--all this had taken no more than three seconds--and yelled for a SITREP. In the middle of the flashlights, one of our Air Force JTACs was shadow boxing... with his personal demons.

In talking with the New York Times reporter / photographer--very well educated pair, who bring a refreshing political / social perspective--I learned that Congress is debating what constitutes a "purple heart" worthy injury. The purple heart is typically awarded "for military merit and for wounds received in action," so, it's the "award" one receives for being wounded. Without going too far into the specifics, suffice it to say that the disagreement boils down to "what constitutes a wound received in action." The progressives argue that mild traumatic brain injury constitutes a wound, or an injury--there is evidence to suggest that these things are cumulative, and debilitating, and our definition of injury should be based on contemporary scientific beliefs and not century-old tradition. The conservatives point out that under current scientific beliefs, just about every front-line soldier in WWI, WWII, the Korean War, and most of them in the Vietnam War would qualify for the purple heart based on the prevalence of bombs, artillery, and rocket fire--the purple heart is for wounds that impair a warrior's body, not his mind, or soul. As I qualify for the purple heart based on the most liberal interpretation of the award--as do many serving in today's Army--I feel that it should carry some weight when I agree with the conservative group. If an enemy rocket bursts above me and I get a little headache, that goes away after a few days, I do not deserve a purple heart. If the stress of being in a combat environment twists or warps me, I do not deserve a purple heart. If I get nicked in the fat portion of my left thigh by a stray piece of shrapnel, or a bullet, I'll take my purple heart. The point is that the award is tied to a certain type of action, which does not include "nerves," "shellshock," or "post-traumatic stress disorder / mild-traumatic brain injury." It's getting peppered with shrapnel, shot up, stepping on a mine, stuck by a bayonet.

What started me on this particular rant was another phenomenon that I've been reading about--the phenomenon of the soldier who develops combat stress / PTSD without having deployed, or having served one light deployment in a support zone. Versus, say, deploying to an area where one is in a fight every day one leaves the wire (I'm quite a bit closer to the latter end of the spectrum than the former). Although there is medical and empirical evidence to support the validity of these "PTSD-lite" cases--made up mostly of people who probably should never have made the army a lifestyle choice to begin with, or been weeded out by selection--I tend to fall into the camp of those who have suffered, and been checked, and experienced (here Carson will say: "REAL?") real loss in combat, where everything that happens is completely arbitrary and on a certain level once you leave the wire out of your control. This Air Force JTAC who came out with us falls into the camp of people who see little or nothing of combat, yet somehow manage to be deeply affected by the possibility of combat. The stress of the potential fight of the next day overwhelmed him, and he suffered from Night Terrors.

To return to the scene... I am pulling security facing out with my rifle, JTAC is shadow boxing with demons, three soldiers are pointing their rifles at him, one of the Navy EOD-techs is pointing his pistol alternately at a gap in the wall and the JTAC, others are pointing their rifles at different corners of the compound or at doorways, and I am doing my best not to appear frantic, praying that nobody pulls a trigger, as it will certainly occasion a massive bloodletting. The JTAC comes to, looks around, puts up his arms, and says: "what's going on?" Everyone lowers their weapons. It takes a little while for the absurdity of it all to sink in, a couple guys mutter "fuckin' JTAC!" and we go back to sleep. The next day, when we get back to the FOB, everyone laughs about the scenario. Everyone except the JTAC, who finds himself the object of derision and scorn.

This incident was the funniest thing that happened to me in months.

Monthly Update--from the Edge of the Map [NFP]

2010-09-10T04:22:00.005-04:00

There is a vibe, now, in the CP--a sense that things are moving forward. Not always on schedule, sometimes early, sometimes late, but inexorably, inevitably... The feeling is captured in my new Company logo. Simply put, the soldiers in my outfit are motivated. Look at that image on the right. We're making progress, together with our partners... To the future! To victory!

It makes what happened here recently all the more demoralizing. I'd spent much of the last four weeks planning for a fairly simple, multi-stage operation by which to clear out a particularly weak and obnoxious nest of insurgents in my area. The idea came, as it must, from my partners. So I invested I don't know how many hours into assembling a force the likes of which had not been seen in my area since the days of the Russians--name a weapons platform at my disposal, and I had it there or on call. The night the operation was scheduled to begin, my partners backed out at the last minute (there was an event tied to this beyond anyone's control, which is absolutely no consolation). Leaving us to either pursue a unilateral operation with militia support--at the time I was totally willing to do this--or to hold off, scratch the mission, and wait until after the elections to try again.

The amount of buildup and investment of willpower necessary to bring something like this to life is extraordinary. 36 combat vehicles, 127 U.S. soldiers, 100 militia, 60 Afghan Commandos, plus apache gunships, F-15s, and a B-1 bomber... and to see it all come to nothing... I have never felt more deeply exhausted and spent than after the 3 1/2 hour meeting with my partners wherein it was decided, by them, at the last minute, that they did not want to do anything about a problem, after all. Words are totally inadequate when it comes to describing the precise amount of disillusionment and frustration I felt, the anger, the impossibility of it. I mean, if it had been up to me--fortunately I had the good sense to check in with higher, first--I would have taken the package with the militias and executed the operation anyway. One of the few lessons we've learned in COIN, though, is that if your partners don't want to do something, it's not worth doing, regardless of your feelings on the subject--or in other words, if taking and holding hills and dropping bombs was going to beat the Taliban, we would've been out of here years ago.

So, a setback. Retrench, reset, get ready to go back into it. More meetings. Carrot and stick. I will find a way. It is only a matter of time. We will make the progress necessary to close out the Taliban in our area, we will expand our presence, even though it's uncomfortable to some, we will leave this place better off than when we arrived here--I cannot accept another situation like the one I encountered last deployment, where our net effect on the battlefield was two massive steps backward.

Meanwhile, I'm dreaming of wine, and good food, and a relaxing evening away from this all. One day.

On Undue Influence and Access

2010-08-19T02:56:00.002-04:00

Last deployment, I had the pleasure of working with two excellent interpreters, both of whom ended up losing their jobs over charges stemming from documented cases of corruption and nefarious double dealings. "Doc" was a portly, German-educated Afghan who understood the value of a good party, and also the value of gathering as much power as possible for himself in his nebulous role as "District Advisor," I have no idea how well he was able to increase his personal prestige due to the status of his position. He understood Afghan law and was a gifted public speaker, so I never had any problems empowering him. "Dhost" was a clever and capable interpreter-turned-contractor who may or may not have used his influence to capture a near-monopoly on contracting in our portion of RC-East while I was there, but, again, my take on the situation was that he was reliable (he was) and his work was excellent, and he was on call 24-7; it didn't really occur to me to care whether or not contracting was being fulfilled in a perfectly democratic manner, especially given that, at the time, it seemed like most of the contractors who were willing to execute projects were either incompotent, hopelessly corrupt (in the bad, non-productive way), or actively working with the Taliban. Acceptable levels of corruption. I'm probably going to hell.

I had an opportunity to revisit this phenomenon in June, when I went down to the Provincial coordination center. I'd lasso'd a terp (we'll call him "Dan") into the process, and he had not had body armor, and there was none available, so he had to forgo his contract to only depart the wire wearing body armor (on a totally secure mission that our allies run daily with two unarmored vehicles), and leave in the clothes he was wearing. I appreciated his willingness to sacrifice what he perceived to be security in order to help me accomplish my mission, and I told him so. He immediately began pumping me about projects in his home town. Not surprisingly, he already had an idea for a community run (led by him, naturally) project to supply his village with electricity. I listened to his idea--the least I could do, given the sacrifice he'd made on my behalf--and it actually sounded pretty good, and happened to be in an area where we needed to do projects. I took his project proposal, examined it, found it to fit suitibility, feasibility, and the financial constraints by which we're bound, and brought him to our S-9 for a sitdown chat.

The meeting started out well enough, considering the circumstances. He reiterated his idea to have a generator in the village, operated by himself, and charge the residents money only for fuel to run the generator, based on electricity consumption. We agreed that it was a good idea, and said that we'd forward the project idea on to the Platoon Leader responsible for the area. He was disappointed, he wanted action immediately. We said that the most we could do for him, really, was to give the project to the battle space owner, and if it was as suitible as Dan claimed, he could expect to see a generator in the near future. He chewed this over, and said it was acceptable (of course it was, it was the only possible course of action). Then he asked about solar panels instead of a generator, saying that it would be better if individual homes could have solar panels, it would not require any action on his part. This did seem like another possibility, and we said that we'd pass the idea along to the Platoon Leader. He said that he knew someone in Kabul who could get the solar panels, and that the money should go through him. Inside, I began to cringe, seeing now how this was likely to go. After he talked about the wisdom of using him as the purchasing agent--impossible, of course--he added that the village could really use a mosque, too.

I stood up, apologized to the S-9 for the imposition, and thanked Dan for interpreting for me when he did not have to. He didn't seem to understand that the meeting was over so he continued talking about the mosque. I put my hand on his shoulder. "That's enough, Dan. We're done here." He looked disappointed.

There's this bottomless greed that you see opening up when a man gets hold of an idea out here. I wish I got to see more of the "let's build up the country!" and "Afghanistan is great" idea, but for whatever reason it seems to be "I'm going to get as much as I can out of this situation, be it power, money, or prestige, for me." It's either ridiculous or depressing, depending on one's perspective. Personally, now that I have an XO, I'm fairly well insulated from it all. The only time I have to interact with people asking about things is when I talk with my partners about where to build a well. I'm comfortable with that, I've already had to barter too much of my scruples away over the years in exchange for questionable activity in the name of progess.

The New Commander is [brave] [NFP]

2010-08-17T02:33:00.005-04:00

For the title, I had to edit the actual comment, which was stated as a negative, but expressed the same sentiment in that crude manner typical of the infantry soldier--the intent remains unchanged. I read it as part of the incoming commander's "Command Climate" survey, which every soldier filled out and which I read with great interest. The overall nature of the feedback was that, apparently, due to my actions under fire and the fact that we've been pushing the enemy hard (whereas before my arrival the company had been in exactly zero firefights), the soldiers are, as much as possible given the circumstances, pleased with their condition and, if not all their leadership, their new Company Commander.

Having spent so much time since being a Platoon Leader in garrison imagining that I would be a good combat leader--I do not count my time as Executive Officer, as I was, essentially, executing another's guidance--it is immensely satisfying on a personal level to know that all the boasting my friends and loved ones had to put up with over the past year was not idle. I've always been a believer in the Beowulf-boast, as most know, and the proof of that remains for all to see in the actions we have taken here on the field of battle. Quite apart from the physical proof--an enemy who is two or three pushes away from throwing in the towel and calling for truce (some Taliban Commanders who have faced me have already started this process, quietly, at the Provincial level, seeing what they can get for changing sides)--there are a good number of ribbons with "V" devices on them that are pending approval at the Brigade level. The least I can do as a commander is to ensure my subordinates are recognized appropriately for their exceptional conduct under unthinkable conditions.

Many thanks to Arvid Nelson, who sent an amazing book that single-handedly pulled me out of my post-"incident" funk, and got me back up and planning for the next mission. Eric Newby's "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush" exemplifies everything adventurous in the human spirit--also, everything loveable in that ubiquitous character from the 19th - early 20th century, the moneyed British Explorer. The amount of stupid, insanely dangerous risk accepted without batting an eye on the parts of the author and his friend Hugh makes one shudder--they attempted to climb a mountain in the Hindu Kush after three days of training in Wales, suffered through disease and hostile locals, and came through it all with a mixture of fortune and British pluck. If you have ever looked at a British expedition / explorer with a mixture of admiration and astonishment, or marveled at how some intrepid adventurer managed to brazen his way through conditions of unspeakable hardship--much of which self-induced--this book is for you.

Other than that, life is going as well as can be expected. I'm losing weight like a sick man--although I am healthy--and never managing enough sleep. My personal life is falling to shambles. I have yet to figure out how to place a single phone call, although we have phones now, and, obviously, I have access to internet (mostly government-censored). The soldiers are constantly lobbying for more free time, and more missions, and less weight to carry, and more latitude to do what they please, and I've already stood the Company up and dressed them down twice for, essentially, doing as they pleased rather than as they should. Then turning around and standing up for them when Battalion rakes us over the coals for not doing more to execute the silly, trivial tasks they feel are indispensable to winning the war (walking this way, wearing that thing, more missions, less free time, more powerpoint presentations, more excel documents, etc., etc., etc.). I'm getting T-Shirts made up with the help of my 1SG--and a Wall Street Journal reporter, who came by and interviewed me the day after a particularly trying mission, who gave me an excellent reference for a designer who will be doing a special, Gator Company only Deployment T-shirt featuring boss Stalinist strength in unity slash soldiers of tomorrow--today! imagery. In pastel.

Also thanks to Jim Danly for basically doing 95% of the heavy lifting with our Company Coins--our Gator mascot on one side superimposed on a map of Afghanistan, with the Commander's Captain bars and the 1SG's NCO stripes on one side, and our "hard-core" PT Failure / UCMJ habitual offender mascot, "Puffy Gator" on the other. Jim came up with two great Latin phrases, one for each side: "We Achieve" for the good, and "I do What I Want" for the puffy.

A final thanks to everyone who's sent care packages (now share packages). Gator is very healthy, now, with everything from tasty snack treats to hygeine products and batteries. The soldiers feel loved & appreciated, which is important, and I am busily writing thank-you letters--for all those who sent packages / letters / cards, you will receive correspondence in reply. For those of you who have not, well, we're obviously doing all right; there's no need (at least until November for the Christmas push)--personally, of course, I always look forward to hearing from friends and family, and do my best to answer mail in a timely and like manner. For Mike Carson--you are dead to me.

The future looks bright, although there isn't much sleep involved. I can't complain!

Commander (NFP)

2010-07-18T09:10:00.008-04:00

I've been on two patrols to my "troubled" district, Imam Sahib, on the border with Tajikistan. Before changing command, myself and the outgoing commander left on the 11th on what was supposed to be an overnight visit with the personalities there, but didn't come back until the 14th... On the 11th, with me riding in the back seat of the commander's vehicle taking notes, we were moving to assist retaking a police checkpoint that had been overrun by the enemy when the convoy hit a mine, found itself fixed in a minefield, and began taking accurate indirect fire from an enemy 82mm mortar. A section of .50 calibre MG'rs suppressed and facilitated our safe retrograde. The second day we took another route, and ran straight into a massive, well-laid ambush... I dismounted with a squad of infantry and took part in a four and a half hour running gun battle over two and a half kilometers of fallow fields and flooded rice paddies, firing the first shots with my rifle in combat against an enemy I could see... then, brutal compound-to-compound clearance with assistance from militia (these militias are the guys in civilians who show up with machine guns and RPGs, and, apparently, switch sides every year or so--I had a group with a former insurgent commander who'd lost his thumb, his group suppressed a position while I and a fire team assaulted / fragged an enemy MG nest). I fell into chest deep water almost immediately after dismounting, and soon thereafter ripped the crotch out of my ACU pants--the benefit of wearing underpants, in this situation, cannot be overstated, although it went against years of experience in the heat... The third day was spent baking in an Afghan compound we'd secured, sweating in the 130 degree heat and looking warily to our North, South, and East awaiting some sign of the enemy--who had, wisely, decided to regroup. Humorous highlight was watching as a soldier inadvertently freed three goats in the compound; the goats made a beeline for the owner's vegetable garden, and did some heavy damage while the old codger (keep in mind this was a compound from which we'd received fire) ran about chasing them, ineffectually. I was not the commander for this mission. Day four we returned to the base, and the next day, I assumed command of the Battalion's Alpha "Gator" Company. As soon as the glow had faded, a half-hour later after the ceremony, I was tasked with taking my company to the site of the battle, and pushing further East. So it was 24 hours later I found myself moving in a convoy of five platoons, with every type of mortar in our Democratic arsenal, EOD engineers for IEDs, scout snipers under my command, and approximately 200 mixed Afghan militia, police, and border guards. Not surprisingly, the enemy wanted nothing to do with us. We reached the objective, which had a magnificent view of the Oxus river, now called the Amu Darya, and a country where life was visibly better... then headed home. The enemy selected the exfil, in a race against darkness, to test my well-laid plans--and test he did--but on the second day of my command, and my first operation, the enemy was defeated. Not for the last time--but the first by my hand. We took no casualties.

I have had no more than 4 hours of sleep in a day since July 10th. For those of you who know me, I know this seems incredible, but it is true--I am filled with a sort of infinite, boundless energy. I talked with the other commanders about it, and it seems to be some weird company command thing. At any rate, after a long year of waiting, and working, it's game f***ing on. All of the boasting, all of the promises I made to myself, the way I knew I was training to act, the things I have committed to doing for the soldiers, for our effort--I am doing them now.

It feels magnificent!

Changing Command Part I: The Changing

2010-07-06T11:02:00.003-04:00

The process has officially begun. As of the writing, I'm 90% done inventorying the massive stockage of equipment that comes with a Rifle Company. One of the attractions of being a Commander in a light infantry unit--quite apart from the increased level of physical fitness, and higher morale / discipline--therefore harder missions--than in mechanized or armored formations--is the supposed ease of inventories. Supposedly, being a Commander with responsibility for Bradley Fighting Vehicles or Tanks, one has much more to do with maintenance and property accountability than in a "light" unit. With the advent and dependence on HMMWVs, MATVs, MAXXPROs, COUGARs, and any other "light" vehicle I may be forgetting, the game has changed, and for the worse: I am spending a great deal of time climbing around in what amount to light wheeled fighting vehicles, peering at serial numbers for all kinds of equipment. The whole thing is tedious, but necessary. It must've been nice, in WWII, to show up at a Company and ask everyone to hold up their rifles, then their compasses, then their bayonets, then have the officers hold up their pistols. That was it. And if a man lost his weapon, that man paid for it.

In any event, I finish my inventories tomorrow, sign for the whole 40 million dollars worth of mess Friday, do a couple patrols with the outgoing commander, then take command of the company on the 15th or 16th. After so long, waiting, I'm a little amazed it's finally happening. The Brigade Commander is flying out; this means, of course, that I will have to be prepared to deliver some kind of O&I brief so that he feels comfortable with me taking the reins. I've been looking at Imam Sahib and Khanabad so long, I could give him a brief tomorrow, with no notes.

Missions that are in the planning phase include:
1) Panzer / German support. The crown jewel. This will happen.
2) Island clearances incorporating boats, and amphibious assaults. Suck it, Marines--you haven't done a beach seizure since Korea, and I'm doing your job with Mountain Infantry in the North. Winner = me.
3) Interdiction in the mountain passes. Donkeys and handcarts and porters--oh, my!

In short--slogging through the details, preparing for the fun. Setting the conditions for success.

On the Disgrace of GEN McChrystal (not for Posting on the Sandbox)

2010-06-24T18:53:00.008-04:00

Deciding to keep this blog open, and severely limit readership to people I can trust, has been a great idea. I need this post, I love to let people know my opinions, even if it's a small, trusted audience of people I know--and Lorraine, who I do not. Here's how it works: a need to speak frankly with people back home builds in me for some days, or weeks, or after an event, and then bursts forth to fill the page with words. I mention this because while the New York Times people have been pressuring me for access to my blog, I've steadfastly refused them, and as a reward am blessed with continued access to the only audience I've ever really cared about--my friends, family, and loved ones.

Now. If this were public, I'd probably lose my job. Certainly my command. Fortunately, I can discuss the situation with you... the situation being General McChrystal's forced retirement.

This is what I wrote the day I read the article--about a minute after reading it:

Michael Hastings, the article's author, deserves a physical beating that investigators describe as "savage, the type of remorseless assault suggestive of a large bloodthirsty animal, not a man. Human morality shudders at the type of awful damage inflicted on his system." Something that would leave him on a dialysis machine. I don't know what deep-seated personal dislike for General McChrystal led him to write what he did, but it was certainly that--perhaps in high school Hastings was beaten up by a jock that resembled General McChrystal? McChrystal screwed Hastings' mother? Hastings flunked out of West Point, or had always imagined he'd be the next Erwin Rommel, and meeting McChrystal experienced some primitive, senseless rage that caused him to destroy a great man?--but there is no question that the article was written and published out of a personal motivation to destroy a man's career. It was written and executed perfectly to do so, and it has.

I guess I was angry.

I'm glad I didn't go with my gut, though--which is why this blog post is pretty late--over the past week I've censored the rest of my original post, as it was the product of passion, and not well thought out. The reason I offered that brief excerpt from an exercise in spleen-venting was just to give you some idea of the betrayal and anger I felt, reading what amounted to a serious, near-criminal invasion of privacy. If you're reading this, as some are, and thinking: "but that's the job of the media, how could you blame the media for General McChrystal's statements," you should know me better than that. I'm not blaming the media, just Michael Hastings. I hope he does not profit from this, although I'm sure some angsty, embittered organization will empower him to do further "investigative journalism." For my part, if he ever wants to go undercover to investigate a hospital for criminal malpractice in their ER ward, I will be more than happy to oblige him with a very convincing cover story.

Reading the article, I felt that the case against General McChrystal was at once undeniable (he erred) and overblown (he did not err as badly as the article wanted its readership to believe). As a man who has met and spent time with General McChrystal while deployed--when he came out unannounced to visit his nephew, then my commander, at our FOB on the border of Pakistan last deployment--with no escort, no b.s. Distinguished Visitor shitshow that you see with most pompous and arguably useless three and four stars who are only seeing you to justify their paychecks--I can say that the version of him that was painted by RS was so biased as to resemble propoganda. I saw none of the primping, preening, aggressively neanderthal posturing described by Hastings; absolutely none. On the contrary, I saw a man who favored austerity and simplicity--simplicity of speech, and of purpose.

So what to do with his statements, and the way he comes off in the article? Didn't he put President Obama in a corner, from which the only possible escape was to can the insubordinate General?

The only statement that I read in the RS article that actually, directly addressed President Obama was the one stating that General McChrystal's first impression of him was "A deer in headlights." Perhaps this is, actually, such a massive transgression of protocol that it required his resignation. I am inclined to think that it merits a talking-to, or a public admonishment, together with a public show of humility, and continue on. The senselessness of it all is what causes people here in Kunduz to speculate that General McChyrstal must have actually wanted to be fired, that he engineered the event himself, knowingly. That's a pretty unsatisfying answer, too.

My own two cents (developed with input from Jim Danly, Arvid and Eric Nelson, and back-and-forth on the FOB here) is that General McChrystal was, in fact, out of touch with the policy favored by the administration: counterterrorism, rather than counterinsurgency. A brilliant, well-written opinion about this dynamic can be found at the following link, penned by my Whitewood pre-school nemesis Ross Douthat of the New York Times (he and I ran different gangs, and used to hold dust-ups on the playground during recess every day--his claim to fame was his battle cry, an impassioned if nearly inarticulate nasal wail: "Rooosss Dooou-that!" Should a man be held to a definition of him formed before he swapped teeth as a child? Yes!):

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28douthat.html?_r=1&ref=rossdouthat

Without wandering into dark conspiracy-theory military industrial complex corridors, suffice it to say that the powers that be, through the deniable mouthpiece of Vice President Biden, have made it clear that they feel the insurgency is unbeatable. Our best shot is to contain them through aggressive counterterror operations, relying on Delta, SF, CIA, and the assets that enable them to operate. I am a lowly Captain, and do not presume to imagine that I know better than they--I'm sure this is a feasible course of action. I do not, however, feel that this war is unwinnable using the counterinsurgency strategy. On the contrary, I feel that we're doing better than ever, thanks in no small part to General McChrystal finally coming in and cleaning house, getting rid of the fat, pissing off the douchebag failures who never contributed any meaningful or successful strategy to the discussion (Eikenberry, cough cough), and finally making all of our allies march to the beat of the same drum.

In other words: we're doing pretty damned well up here. RC-N, which has been quietly going to s*** for the past 5 years, is turning around, and I'm pretty sure--I know I'll be doing everything in my power to see that this comes to pass--that in April 2011 we're going to see the government in near-total control of the Provinces for which we are responsible, and with the active support of a good 70% of the population in those provinces, which is more important. The dismal, doomsday predictions of people who have their microscopes trained on Iskandahar and Marja, and extrapolate the security situation in all of Afghanistan therefrom, should take a broader view of things. What's at stake, after all, is not 500 American lives over the next 3 years--it's 32 million Afghan lives, of whom 16 million are women who we will be condemning to lives of unspeakable misery if we abandon them now.

To say nothing, of course, of the spiritual plane, the level at which the skein of our fate has become entertwined with those of the people of Afghanistan--to leave now will be to accept weakness and failure into our national soul in a way that has much more lasting, negative impact than it did in Vietnam. As I'm wandering into deep water, and am not a particularly adept diver or swimmer, I'll leave that nebulous and easily-destroyed idea where it lies, undefended.

I mourn the retirement of a great battle leader, who was leading us forward, with a good chance of ultimate success. He brought it on himself, but that doesn't make it any easier. I pray that General Petraeus, who spoke at my Ranger School graduation, can lead us to victory in the coming months. At least two focused districts--my own--will be as close to pure green as I can get them. I offer their security and safety as tokens of respect on the grave of a great man's career.

And... as I have trusted my readership with access to this blog, I also pray that nobody uses the opportunity to bring me low. If you disagree with anything I've written here, feel secure that they are my private opinions, shared with a private audience, and not for public consumption. When I am asked in public what my feelings are on this matter, President Obama did what he felt was right; I obey his will.

Postscript:

Bud Light Lime? General McChrystal must've been joking...

It Happens to be Memorial Day

2010-05-31T12:06:00.003-04:00

I walked into the chow hall today and could not help but notice that it was festooned with American flags, streamers (red, white, and blue), and other pieces of celebration. I asked one of my colleagues, with whom I was eating, what the occasion was. He informed me, with some surprise, that today is Memorial Day.

Three days ago there was a massive "TIC" or firefight that consumed the Battalion. Elements from almost every Company were involved. It lasted 18 hours. None of our guys got scratched, somehow, though a couple vehicles got shot up. Sometime around two in the morning, the Battle Captain, 1LT F, walked in to my room and said: "Sir, I'm at tracer burnout." He looked it, too. I knew how he felt. I felt the same way. The next day, sometime in the evening, I walked into the Battalion TOC at the same time as 1LT F. I asked him how things were going, and he said: "Better than yesterday. You know?" I said: "What happened yesterday?" And he said: "The TIC, don't you remember?" I responded: "I'm just thinking about today. Today's good." He laughed. "The key to deployment is taking it one day at a time," I said, leaving the TOC. This was the lesson Afghanistan had to teach me last time, and has been the lesson I've been learning ever since. Saying it, experiencing it again like this, I feel that I truly understand what it means to take things as they come, and to live in the moment.

Having said that, of course, I am also aware of how precarious and fleeting that experience is.

So, happy Memorial Day. A day on which I went on patrol, and got some stuff done, and had bbq for dinner, and slipped out of the office to write this post before prepping for tomorrow's mission. A pretty good day.

Flavored Milk

2010-05-18T12:04:00.009-04:00

It seems a hoplessly mean thing, to complain about so trivial a matter as milk, especially when the food here has been so superior to the fare I had last time. I've only seen Chicken Alfredo (also called "Achtung, Pfeffer!" and "Pepper Surprise") and Shrimp Scampi (also called "Shrimp-flavored Butter with Oil") served two and four times respectively since I've been here. These meals were staples of my experience in OEF Eight, and I am grateful for their relative scarcity. Few things are so profoundly depressing as lack of variety in food, when the only thing one has to look forward to in a given day is food, and the care-free time one has to oneself while eating. Bad food puts a damper on the enjoyment.

As irritating as it is to be presented with poor fare, one finds it infinitely worse when a good meal has been ruined through inattention or misfortune. So it was that a recent lunch of corn dogs was spoiled when the plate was jostled and I lost two of them to the dusty ground. Rather than enjoy the one corn dog I had remaining, I found myself lamenting the two that had been lost. At dinner last week, the cooks prepared steaks--you can imagine my enthusiasm, standing in line, seeing the healthy portions heaped onto the plates ahead of mine--waiting patiently for my particular steak to be prepared--carefully watching the well marinated, seasoned beef placed on my tray--taking it to the tent to teat--and discovering, upon tucking in, that it was improperly cooked. My rare steak, which was taken from a particularly well-fed cow, waas mostly fat and gristle, and so, while my dinner companions heartily munched and chewed their well-cooked meat, I spent most of my time searching fruitlessly for edible portions.

Returning to the subject—after an analysis of my eating habits since arriving in theater, I’ve placed myself on a diet, by which I have lost a good deal of fat (alongside my usual workout routine). This magical and effective diet (which I should market, were the functional elements of it not discipline and toil—I am told that these elements do not play well with the masses) consists of the following: I limit myself to a Spartan breakfast of an apple, and a bowl of granola or bran with milk. Army milk is not the milk you may be thinking of—unsurprisingly, rehydrated powder of some kind that will keep for years, enduring huge variation in temperature, until opened. Not what I’d choose were there some other, fresher option, but sufficient given my circumstances, I can not (and do not) complain. Until now.

Another element from my last deployment that I remember well, is the common theme of “deprivation” and “what’s got is not what is wanted,” (or, more accurately, what’s got on the outlying FOBs is that which is not wanted at Bagram or the other major logistical hubs). This phenomenon leads to there being fresh cheese readily available to the major FOBs, but almost never seen at outstations. While Bagram and other big FOBs have a limitless stock of Gatorade, and Mountain Dew, and Doctor Pepper, the smaller FOBs and COPs make do with Diet Pepsi, water, and sugar-free Rip-Its (an energy drink that one covets only because other energy drinks are unavailable). And, appropriate to the subject, while one never wants at the supply hubs for white milk, it is far commoner at the satellite FOBs and COPs to encounter banana milk, strawberry milk, and chocolate milk (the precise relationship that these flavored milks bear to the fruits or foods that the name on the box implies is a mystery; the best answer I can give is that, like the budding abstract painter who attempts to influence his intended audience’s reception in a particular direction by naming his painting suggestively and obviously, the company producing these milks names them based on how they would have the consumer interpret the drink. This is wise, as, were one to judge the flavor of the milk based purely upon the milk’s taste, one would be forced to conclude that the milk had been mixed, not with bananas, or strawberries, or chocolate, but with the contents of the cow’s bowels, and that the cow in question had been suffering at the time from some awful digestive malady. This is not to deny that there is something of the banana, or the strawberry, or chocolate, about these milks—the one is colored yellow, and has a sickly-sweet aftertaste; the other is colored red, and has a similarly sweet taste to it; the last, of course, has a brown coloration, and, again, is quite sweet, much sweeter than a natural milk could possibly hope—the milks are flavored. But that is not the point.

The point, as I see it, is that nobody cares for these flavored milks, though they arrive in great quantities, greater than the quantity of white milk, which in any case is the one milk anyone can tolerate. Milk being resupplied every two weeks or so, one goes long stretches of time without access to white milk, and thus, without access to cereal, save eaten dry, with mouthfuls of water to wash the grain down. You may find this complaint spurious, or observe that it must be a privation that applies to all, or conclude from the great supply of milks purporting to have a particular flavor that these flavors are in great demand; I do not disagree with any of it, and admit that these exact thoughts had crossed my mind in puzzling through the problem. I will address these ideas individually:

1) Complaint is spurious
a. People dying every day of starvation & bullets flying every which way & home foreclosures. Understood. One can only complain about the things over which one has some limited control, even if the full measure of that control is to say: “I shall not drink this.”

2) Flavored milk is in great demand
a. The supply of white milk lasts two or three days, at which point it’s all gone. Flavored milk lasts as long as it takes for those three or four people who like it to drink their fill, and for the cooks to dispose of the excess crates to the locals, who, based on experience, will gratefully eat or drink nearly anything that has sugar in it.
b. I have never heard, not once, anyone complain that there is not enough flavored milk, although I have heard people complain that there is too much of it, and not enough white milk.

3) An excess of flavored milk and a lack of white milk is a privation that applies to all
a. One never finds Bagram or the other major bases short when it comes to milk. I have not spent a great deal of time there, so it is possible that my visits have just been extraordinarily fortunate.

Until the Army finds a solution to this problem—perhaps the problem is insoluble [although the solution I have heard in the chow hall, and considered proposing myself, seems rather simple, which is to say, stop producing or buying so much flavored milk, and produce or buy more white milk]—I will be eating two to three bowls of cereal a week (depending on the breaks), and nursing a bitter resentment toward the company that produces flavored milk. Some of the blame rests with me, and the other soldiers who deployed here last time, and, when afforded the opportunity to complain in the post-deployment AAR, forgot to mention that an adjustment to the milk supply was a high priority.

I have been taking my Mefloquin

2010-04-30T04:33:00.002-04:00

Let me begin this by saying that I don’t particularly believe in dreams (I chose my words with care). Dreaming is a bit like fantasizing. One has a certain amount of control over the time, and place, and events that one lives out in one’s dreams, much as one may exercise control over a fantasy. This is what I have experienced, at any rate, and explains the difference to me between a dream, which is a narrative that I construct (consciously and/ or subconsciously), and a nightmare, which is a narrative that is constructed against my will. Why else would I subject myself to the horror of knowing that something unpleasant is going to happen and being powerless to stop it?

Having said that, dreams are an important part of my life, and I pay attention to them; they are like signposts, the precise direction and meaning of which must necessarily remain obscure 90% of the time. When they are healthy, I am healthy; when they are sick or offensive, there is some part of how I am living that attrits my soul. Within that general framework, then, I remain aware of dreams without depending on them, without dwelling on their possible significance, save as a form of wish-fulfillment.

There are, every once in a while, dreams that exercise a particular power of fascination, and capture my attention well after the fact. When I awake from such dreams I am able to remember them in detail, and the associated mood / emotion (this can be a good thing, as in the flying dreams, or a bad thing, as in the maddening eye of chaos is upon me descent into paranoia and despair dreams). I had one of the latter the night before I flew back here, and one of the former sometime around Christmas.

There is another type of dream that falls into neither camp; it is neither joyful nor horrible. When I was younger, this dream revolved around Yale, and was characterized by a certain sadness that I was not there, or that I could not go there, or that I could not go back—this sadness was measured by the overall experience of the dream, which was rich, and moving, and good. I would call it nostalgia save that I was having these dreams as early as the 8th grade. An imagined future utopia of learning and acceptance that somehow existed in the past—in my dreams… I’ve never been able to puzzle my way through that, save that it was obviously very important that I attend the institution.

Which brings us to the topic: a dream I had three days ago, which I took the unusual step of recording, in detail. Now, this dream, to put it in its proper context, is similar to the Yale dream in that it has the same unreasonable nostalgic emotion attached to it, and is the third in a sequence of similar (and distinctly-themed) dreams. I will restate it here, as near as I can to how I recorded it at the time so as not to lose any of the areas I invested with significance:

I return to Bermel with a Cavalry Troop. We conduct reconnaissance as we arrive at the Bazaar, whereupon we discover that the old FOB has been incorporated into the Bazaar. Rather than on the flat portion of a wide valley, the FOB is now at the base of a massive hill that slopes gently upwards. I understand that the top of the hill represents the border with Pakistan, but this is never expressly considered or comprehended. The FOB resembles a fort with three levels, in an alien architecture that reminds me of the Star Wars buildings from the original movie. There is a cave system to our southeast, a bit up the hill. Much further up the hill and due East is the village of Mangritay, which is a conflation of Malakshay and Mangritay—the two insurgent villages are, in the dream, a fort—an actual castle-like structure with walls—still an insurgent stronghold. There is a rudimentary awareness that the unit we are replacing is leaving Bermel from what we now realize is a completely new and improved FOB that is integrated with the Bazaar—the old FOB is still more or less where it always was—a bit further east, closer to the danger. We push onward and are then in the old FOB. I walk through the old familiar corridors, visit the artillery emplacements, the guard towers, live and breathe what it was like to spend months away from everything except the expectation of imminent contact. At this point, there is an imagined patrol further up the hill, dangerously close to the Mangritay area, and as I realize this in the dream, they take contact and our unit responds. I regard the element in contact as a cautionary tale against moving too quickly against an enemy that is known to attack at certain points close to their fort. We push East, up the hill, and drive the enemy back to the fort. The decisive point in the battle comes as a result of us having a device that in the dream is described as a “German Marder,” but bears no resemblance to the actual vehicle. In the dream it’s a wedge-like tank with enough room for three people, with a 20mm cannon in front, two medium machineguns on the side, and a .50 calibur machinegun in the rear. The tank itself has two treads that are pointed out from the rear in a rough v-shape; the crew compartment is a box in the center. This is a machine that could not actually move forward without tearing itself apart were this not a dream. Having driven off the insurgents, we and the attacked element form a company-sized element of 100 and decide to attack Mangritay. With the presence of the Marder, we are able to knock holes in the walls and move easily into the fort as defenders fire from windows and walls. Inside the fort the insurgents have retreated to the building in the middle, where they throw grenades down staircases. Having suddenly realized that the Marder is vulnerable and that we are too weak to push further, we withdraw and establish a perimeter around the fort, and I dismount from the tank. I walk from the perimeter off to the south, where the hill begins to slope downward, and I can see into a valley below. In the valley there is a massive Afghan village, and outside the village two factions of Afghans are fighting on the plain in slow motion. One side is wearing gray and white, and the other is wearing green and white. As they shoot each other, they methodically pick themselves up and continue fighting. I call back to the perimeter, trying to alert the unit to the scene unfolding before me—it is exceptional—and as soon as I do so, the insurgent leader of the fort (who looks like an Arab Sheikh and nothing whatsoever like an Afghan) indicates that these are all insurgents who have been waiting for the signal to attack. At this, they stop fighting each other, look up and see us, and begin moving up the hill to assume an offensive against us. I sign the retreat, and the unit, with the Marder guarding the rear, pulls back… past the old FOB, to the new one in the village. On my way back I see a procession of figures I recognize from earlier dreams, the one that stands out to me is a woman I identify in the dream as “Harlequin, the governor’s mistress.” We enter the new FOB and do laundry, then wait in an improvised chow hall by the helipad for helicopters to evacuate us, our position is untenable. At this point we’re talking about financial responsibilities of soldiers. I find myself sitting next to my 1SG—a man I have never seen before in reality, a light-skinned African American with blue eyes who vaguely reminds me of Kid from Kid ‘n Play—I dispense advice I consider to be good. Having never spoken with the 1SG before we have not had an opportunity to gauge each others’ opinions about things, and he contradicts me publically and unprofessionally. At first I consider being diplomatic, but something about the way he’s saying what he’s saying and his demeanor makes me feel, quite strongly, that it is a way to establish who's going to be the boss, so I decide on delivering a verbal thrashing in public, and do so, pointing out that he was not fighting with us earlier, and thus not a credible source for anything. After dressing him down in front of the soldiers, the first CH-47 lands, and a team of soldiers gets in. This is when I wake up.

In the end, I must conclude that I have been searching for Afghanistan, driving toward it with the same longing and intensity that I dedicated to finding Yale—I am here now, and happy, and fully aware that a year from now I will have to leave Afghanistan… not that I couldn’t stay, or come back, or any number of equal potentials—but because it is a time in my life, a chapter that is drawing to a close. Seeing it unfold before me, the dramatic emotional highs and lows, the intolerable, boring winter months—all of it—and knowing that it will never play out like this again—I will never have access to this kind of intoxicating uncertainty and control—the joy of making right decisions that save peoples' lives, the despair of watching, impotent, as people die or are hurt… knowing that, in this moment, I am doing something tangibly good to affect the efficient and positive state of the universe, bringing peace and stability to a strife-torn land—and knowing that my soul cannot support another such expenditure of energy—another phenomenal burst of emotional and spiritual involvement. Knowing this because the last deployment nearly broke me, and this one promises to take me back to that point, and a little further.

I still have no real idea what comes after Afghanistan, after the Army. There is a certain old stereotype, of the retired soldier living out his days on a small plot of land. Having sacrificed the best years of his life spilling blood into the dust, he finishes out his years tilling the land, bringing things out of the earth, living simply, in peace. This is not the story that turns into a revenge narrative when an old friend from the past shows up with a grievance that requires righting—or the British come and burn the land, causing the soldier to forsake his vows and take up arms again against his better nature, redeeming himself in violence (why is this narrative so compelling)—in this story, the retired soldier dies, peacefully, alone in his sleep, and his house crumbles slowly to dust around and over him—the inevitable end-state of all human effort.

Deployment Metrics

2010-04-17T02:01:00.003-04:00

Average liters of water consumed per day: 3.7
Paces from hootch to TOC: 83
CONOPs written or edited: 51
Meetings attended: 18
Song Most Listened to: "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk
Next most frequently heard song: "They Threw Me Out of Church" by Wesley Willis
Briefings constructed and / or delivered: 5
Average hours of sleep per night: 6.4
Girls schools attacked by insurgents in Area of Operations: 3
Email messages sent: 11
Phone calls made: 0

Kyrgyzstaaaaan! [shaking fist toward sky]

2010-04-11T07:35:00.002-04:00

The first timeline (hardly comprehensive, regrettably) of the events that unfolded last week in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. My source has requested that he remain anonymous, as what he disclosed to me is still officially confidential. Students of history, or those who are just curious as to what really happened, how it really unfolded, are encouraged to read ahead.

0915: Protesters begin massing near key government buildings.
0930: News organizations pick up story, begin reporting developments.
1000: Police open fire on protesters. Beginning of Revolt.
1030: American military strategists become aware of massive vulnerability in their key logistical hub for Afghanistan just as the surge is getting underway. America! Fuck yeah!
1100: Corrupt president flees country, etc., etc., etc.
1130: "Opposition" declares transitional government, guarantees that so long as U.S. provides them with more money, the base at Manas is safe.
1200: Air Force representative declares Manas closed until further notice.
1201: "Kyrgyzstan situation" first used as excuse to avoid an undesirable social obligation--by a deploying U.S. soldier
1300: President gets update on seemingly unconnected event from Jack Bauer, who declares the developing nuclear emergency in Boca Ratan, FL, "under control," but warns that "we need to find President Bakiev in the next three hours, or it's going to be a hot summer in Florida."
1500: My dad calls to ask if I'm o.k.
The Next Morning: Our Rear-Detachment hears about the situation after I call to ask him whether he's been following the situation or not

Chickens, Cats, and the Beginning of what Jesus from The Big Lowbowski Would Call Bush League Psyche-Out Stuff

2010-03-14T18:34:00.002-04:00

Last time I went to Afghanistan, there was this thing the soldiers did, they got it from the older NCOs who'd been with the unit for years, this thing where they'd meow like cats, and then say, "here, kitty, kitty," then yowl. I asked one of the NCOs what it meant, and he told me a story about how they'd had a cat in Iraq, when the unit airdropped in to seize the airfield, and the cat disappeared, but for the next two deployments they were always asking after this cat. Even when they weren't in a place where there could possibly be a cat--come to think of it, especially in those situations, like up at the COP--they'd give these cat calls. "Kitty? Kitty!" This was the first exposure I had to deployment psychosis.

I'd put the "Here, kitty" incidents out of my mind until recently. When we were at JRTC training up for the Iraq deployment that never came (boots are on ground in Afghanistan, just like last time), I was writing missions for other units to execute (a deeply satisfying job), I heard what sounded exactly like a cat meowing. At first I didn't think anything of it, then I heard it again. "Son of a b***," I thought. "It's finally happening to me... in training, for chrissake!" Then one of the commo guys walked by the office, looked at me, and offered yet another meow. Sounded just like a cat.

That was in August, and it's March. The cats went away for a while while we were back in garrison, but I don't need to tell you that, as the unit has been deploying for a couple weeks now, the cats are back, in full force. What surprised the hell out of me was that my shop, the S3 section, has begun making animal noises, too. Mostly clucking, though a couple of the NCOs make a sound like an animal in pain. A kind of moaning. Like a cat or a dog when it's irritated.

I have not participated in this, I feel somehow that in doing so I'd be giving the worst kind of example, because it is crazy. It's funny, of course, to hear people clucking like chickens, and acting, really, crazy, and treating it seriously would just make the whole thing more ridiculous, but if treating it seriously would be a minor concession, joining in would be a major concession. I don't know exactly what to do about it, but the last unit I was with had it, and did it, and ended up fine so far as I could tell, maybe better than most, so I'm just going to ride it out. Maybe it's a good thing.

Iron Grave

2010-02-25T21:58:00.004-05:00

When our unit deployed to Louisiana to conduct our pre-deployment field exercise, an action that cost me August 2009, there were many trivial stories that went untold. The romance of the **********************. The story of the time I decided, as a sort of joke, to wear my full combat outfit during a notional rocket attack. The time I got into a shouting match with our S2, a junior Captain with little experience, who wanted to send a Platoon on a no-notice, unbriefed, out-of-sector mission because "that's how we did it in Iraq." I won that argument once the decision makers got involved... train as you fight. I dedicate the following Nietzsche quotation to you, CPT F---: "Selig sind die Vergesslichen: denn sie werden auch mit ihren Dummheiten 'fertig.'"

I cannot remember the logic behind titles here. I do know that I spent a lovely weekend in Venice with Francesca, attending a wedding in the church at Torcello, between two friends of hers, a woman named Francesca and a German from Bavaria named Mattias. It was a lovely time, and leaving broke my heart, as always. This is the problem with going to Italy--one is doomed to leave.

Underway: Operation Enduring Freedom (surge edition)

2010-02-11T19:44:00.006-05:00

Consider this the first, at long last, post in my long awaited second series: Operation Enduring Freedom (surge edition). When I walked off the CH-47 onto FOB Bermel (now FOB Boris) nearly two years ago, I was filled with the all the excitement and anxiety one might imagine in a man--more of a boy, really, in retrospect--who'd spent most of his formative years reading and re-reading histories of the wars that criss-crossed Europe from Odysseus' time on. This was it! Finally, I was doing what I'd read about so long! I was come to the place of battle, where the best warriors are put to the trial. The empty sporting contests of high school, the impotent, uselessly channeled savagery of martial arts or boxing, the increasingly hollow aesthetic consideration of professional sports... All preludes to that one great contest of wills that ends in the death of the enemy, or of yourself. I was full, in other words, of childish nonsense.

But times, they change, and I endured a grueling 15 month deployment. Now, on the cusp of another 12 months in Afghanistan (from what I can tell, under substantially more austere conditions), with the salient experiences of the last looming prominently in my memory, I recall a passage, one of the most wretched and moving in Shakespeare:

Pin. Titinius is enclosed round about

With horsemen, that make to him on the spur;--

Yet he spurs on.--Now they are almost on him;--

Now, Titinius!--now some 'light:--O, he 'lights too:--

He's ta'en;--and, hark! they shout for joy.

Cas. Come down, behold no more.

O, coward that I am, to live so long,

To see my best friend ta'en before my face!

It is an awful thing, to have to watch helpless as death reaches out and takes a man you know. And even if you don't love the man like a brother, there's still a shiver--a knowledge that death's about that penetrates to your core. That passage from Julius Caesar captures such an episode in excruciating agony, seen from afar, experienced without a say--but it's always like that, even when you're an arm's length away.

Even worse--much worse--than that unavoidable moment, is the waiting. I think the training is supposed to--not to condition you to be used to it, but to weed out those who absolutely, simply cannot stand having to wait for things. It does enrage a certain personality type. Not having thought about it much, but knowing basically what it looks like, I couldn't say much beyond "I'd know one if I saw one." These people are generally quite meticulous about organizing themselves, usually quite fit, very disciplined... save when it comes to standing around waiting for something to happen. Drives them bonkers. We had two people like that drop in Basic, one in OCS. An inability to let go, or turn off.

Which is a bummer, because one suspects they'd do great in combat, if they could just get there! Well, for me, I just try to stay enthusiastic about whatever my mission is. I thought I was going to Iraq--I'm excited to go to Iraq. Change of Mission to Afghanistan--Great! I'm going back to Afghanistan! I can fight there! Leave in January--it'll be tough, but I can make the necessary preparations. I'll be ready. Now it's February--no problem. Sounds like a really fun, flexible mission. Next I suppose it'll be March. Doesn't matter. I know it's coming, and when it happens, I'll be ready to go. Just means I'll be coming home a little later than expected. So long as I don't miss my 15 year high school reunion in May 2011!

It seems like such a silly, trivial thing to be concerned about--high school. I missed my 5-year reunion because I was knee deep in finals and papers. The 10-year hit just after I got back from Ranger School, and it was a near thing, a very near thing--I really thought I was going to go. Actually that was a minor motivation for me getting through it all--to be able to bask in the attention. Selfish. Well, one thing led to another and when the weekend rolled around, I was just dog tired, still, and horribly out of shape, still 10 pounds under weight. Couldn't do it. Stayed back and, in doing so, opened up the opportunity to go to that Reconnaissance Course.

That's how it ends up working, too. Everything happens more or less the way it's supposed to, I'm convinced. It doesn't make tragedy any easier to deal with, practically speaking, but there is some comfort when you consider that there is a momentum to life that one sees only in retrospect. So, feeling like going to a high school reunion--that the time is right to finally show my face again--well, it'll happen when it happens. High school was an excellent example of something that seemed tedious and excruciating while it was happening, but laid the groundwork for any academic success I had in college. It'll be the perfect bookend to an end to my Army / War experience--this is where one begins thinking about reentering the world of family, and career, and children.

But that's all ideas. Now, there's a plane waiting on Wheeler Sack AFB in the future, ready to wing me back to Afghanistan. The North. I can barely contain myself.

Veteran's Day

2009-11-11T13:27:00.003-05:00

I don't remember the last time I actually celebrated Veteran's Day. I was the adjutant in Italy last year at this time, and even if I'd had the day off, I'm sure I must've been in the office, diligently banging my head against a locker by day, and sucking down as much scotch whiskey as my stomach could hold by night... the year before, of course, all those awful things happened around the same time--

A drinking buddy, then 1LT Matt Ferraro died in an ambush up in Konar with 6 other soldiers.
A friend, mentor, and one of two Commanders on our FOB on the border of Pakistan was killed in an IED strike. RIP CPT David Boris.
CPT Boris's gunner, SGT Adrian Hike, died in the same incident. I remember him specifically because he actually had a backbone, and was pretty squared away.

This week, like last week, I've felt like I'm alone with all these ghosts--I don't know why it should be any different in 2009--I think a Fallen Soldier's wife said it best in a Facebook wall post, when she wrote:

"They say it gets easier with time, it seems to be getting harder with time. Thank you for all you do and all you have done."

I read that while scrolling through the comment list generated by a roll-call-style list of all the Soldiers who didn't make it back from First Rock, and it really hit home. It seems to be getting harder. It reminds me of reading Junger's excellent but awful, moving In Stahlgewittern--at the end of the war, when he's looking back on all the comrades and friends who didn't make it to the armistace. The fact that that war was for nothing was irrelevant--it was the human dimension, the idea that--where did that person go? Why are they gone from my life, never to return? How is this possible?

This gets at what it means to be a veteran, what this day means for us, those who have visited the hell on earth and lived through it to bring our stories back to a homeland overrun by young men who know nothing of war. We have been forced to endure the hardship of loss--irrevocable loss, loss of friends and comrades--and we have been forced to endure it long before our time, repeatedly.

It wears on a soul.

Ascendant

2009-11-08T15:41:00.003-05:00

I awoke in a lovely Brooklyn apartment early this morning, to the sounds of a good friend’s family sleeping, after dreaming all night about war. Opening my eyes and looking around, I was surprised to hear a voice that had been silent for some time... My soul said,
Good, you’re listening to me.
It’s time for you to leave.
Go.
I collected my things and slipped out. Picked up my car and began the long drive home, listening to music as loudly as my speakers would play it. I’ve noticed that there’s no way to exactly replicate what it feels like to be blown up; an explosion is an unnatural physical experience that cannot be contrived mechanically. The closest thing I’ve found is Heavy Metal or orchestral symphony with bass drums on full blast; washing over you, the bass caresses you with distant echoes of the titantic effects of exposure to overpressure. Presently I began wondering why I required this sensation, and my soul spoke again:
You have gone too long without nourishing me. I hunger.
I knew before my soul spoke again what would follow--a single word--
Struggle.
An imperative that reverberated through my being.
I sped on, considering how I might feed my soul--reflecting on how I’d been neglecting it, going out of my way to ignore its needs, stuffing myself with bread, meats, cheese, and wine--
reveling in the bounty of civilization, heavy with fruit.
My thoughts drifted over the events of the weekend, and the past week, and I found myself shouting along, weeping, to Vera Lynn’s “We’ll Meet Again,” the song that sent so many soldiers in World War II off to their fates. Kept seeing the faces of the soldiers from Fort Hood, and smelling the burning bodies of my brothers in Afghanistan. Hearing the screams of the wounded. Seeing again the mist of humanity hanging eternally before me, then smeared across my memory--the Blutshuld of failed leadership, of my failures as a man to prevent horror from harming my countrymen, the impotent, local judgement of callous, capricious gods above. Blood crying out for vengeance, a sweet potential cut short too soon. I crested a rise, somewhere between New York City and Albany, and saw two great mountains in the distance.
You’ve found it. Climb the highest peak.
Ten minutes later, I exited the highway, and made my way to a gas station near the base of the mountain on the left. Explaining myself to the attendant, I asked him whether he knew how high the summit was, or if it had a name. He knew nothing. It didn’t matter. I changed into my shorts and running shirt in the restroom before realizing I’d forgotten to bring shoes with me--
You need nothing.
I walked out, and the attendant told me that I’d be cold. I thanked him for his unsolicited advice, walked out, locked my clothes up, and started jogging up into the forest.
Faster.
My legs burning, my arms and shoulders aching as I dragged myself up and over Cyclopean boulders. Harder. Keep going. Don’t need to catch your breath. Gulping down air, my heart pumping, spent, weak, not even halfway up.
Your heart is Vulcan’s furnace. It is great iron pistons, deep beneath the earth, the lame god hammering heavy instruments of war. Your heart throws up great sparks with each beat. You are not tired.
I kept going, cresting a great stone on the summit with a monumental effort of will, and collapsing on the ground, my muscles shaking uncontrollably. I listened to the silence of the wind, submerging myself in the cold air and waiting for my soul to speak again, as I knew it must. And it did.
Look.
I saw the fields and towns of New York spread before me. Countless people going about their daily lives, secure in their worlds, enjoying a beautiful Sunday morning. Private joys, private sorrow, the spectrum of human existence. I was alone on a mountaintop, steam smoking from my drenched, spent body. Dependant on nothing, apart from the world, finally alone with myself. I remembered the words of that ageing hostler in Innsbruck, who, seeing my name in the registry, said that it was a mountain name, and my people were from the mountains. My body’s suffering brought me that warm glow of satisfaction from a job well done, a bit of exertion. My soul spoke again.
Struggle.
I started down the mountain, my feet ragged and bleeding, my chest torn by branches. Stumbled down the long, exposed ridge, then back into the forest. Faster. I came upon a great pine tree, and my soul stopped me again.
This one.
I paused long enough to regain some strength, and began climbing, pulling myself up where thick branches could hold me, until I was twenty feet up. Cut in fifteen different places, and my running shorts torn from the thigh down on the right side, I leaned against the trunk.
Your shoulders must be wide enough for one hundred soldiers, my soul said. What would you have done if you had been at Fort Hood, looking the shooter in the eyes as he brought his pistols up to end your life?
I knew the answer immediately;
My skin is iron,
My back is an oak tree,
My shoulders are great plates of stone,
My arms and legs are pistons,
My fists are hammers,
My heart is the Forge of Vulcan.
I would have walked toward him, accepting each of his bullets into my body without breaking stride, seized him by the neck, raised him from the ground, and squeezed it until his eyes bulged in their sockets, and his feet kicked their last. The final earthly scene, for him, would have been my eyes, a wolf’s eyes.
I must become a wolf again.
More.
I climbed down, dropping the final ten feet and landing awkwardly on my right ankle.
My ankles are steel ingots, beaten by the fire god in his lonely depths.
I sprinted down the mountain, as fast as I could, pushing myself to the point of dizziness, and pounded into the gas station, soaked in blood, dirt, and sweat. Got in the car and started driving again.
You have sought to nourish me with idleness and distraction. I require the following things:
I require sorrow.
So you must harvest your sorrow that is grown into its ripeness.
I require your tears of bitterness and despair.
So you must pour them into a cup. You will fill the cup to overflowing.
I require dirt, and hardship, and misery.
With these, you will prepare a feast for us.
From this feast, I will be nourished.
From this feast, I will draw strength.
When I am strong, there is nothing that can defeat you. Nobody can out-will you, nobody can out-work you.
Staggering into my apartment, I opened the refrigerator for water. After two cups, my soul spoke again:
“Struggle.”
I changed my running clothes, put on shoes, and began jogging.
Faster. It’s not enough. I need more.
The two great howitzers at Bermel; their 155mm blasts, the barrel sinking deep into the gun’s chamber to hurl hundred pound shells miles across the desert, into the mountains; the terrible effects of their blasts, the sacrifice of human company for everything.
I ran three miles in nineteen minutes, my legs screaming in protest, my head throbbing. My heart thumping like those artillery pieces--more, faster. I ran down to the one hill on Fort Drum, 1/3 of a mile long, and ran down and up it nine times, sobbing with pain by the end.
I need more. You’ve starved me.
I shuffle-jogged five miles back to my apartment, and fell down inside my apartment. More--I did two hundred push-ups in sets of twenty-five, on my knees by the end. More--I did crunches until I could barely lift my head off the ground.
Then I lay on my back, looking up at the ceiling. I couldn’t do anything else, I was physically incapable of making more than half-hearted gestures with my arms, or to raise my legs to my chest. I started to laugh; for the first time, really, in a good while--the first time since the last time I had a good, long, joyful laugh. I laughed for minutes, my body warm with pain and effort. It was enough for the day.
You must prepare yourself, now, for what comes.
I showered and changed, thinking about what this meant--prepare for what? I unpacked and meticulously repacked my four duffle bags for Afghanistan. I discovered that I’d neglected to pack my tough-box, so threw the remainder of my hiking kit, my firelight stove, my extra uniforms, everything I knew from experience I or my soldiers would need. I packed my espresso machine, one of those tiny essentials that would keep me energized on the coldest, or hottest, or damnedest day. I reorganized my body armor, picking through the medical pouch and removing two worthless bandages, replacing them with an extra tourniquet. On to my magazines. I brought out my special H&K magazines--best money can buy--disassembled them and cleaned them, then left them to dry. I replaced my helmet chinstrap with a new one, and my helmet cover with the cover I’d been saving for this day… I brushed down all my pouches, and packed my rucksack. Then I stacked everything neatly by the door.
You have sacrificed everything good in your life; you have put Isaac under the knife before God could offer up a ram in his place. You have made yourself alone, and hungry. You are reverting to your natural state--as a wolf, a hunter of men. Your teeth have been dulled on grain, your legs slow with beer and ease. We will sharpen your teeth on the bones of your enemies, and your legs will grow swift again with constant use. I will drink deeply from your sweat and anguish, and together, we will ready ourselves for that great struggle--the only true struggle--of man seeking to murder man, of life seeking to preserving life. Like the victim in the Rite of Spring, your good, social self is now gone; that part of you is hidden under the heavy snow of winter that will soon cover the North Country. Do not mourn its loss; in sacrificing it, you have prepared your soul for those conflicts that can only be met with an individual will, alone, in the mountains. And when the snows melt, you may depend that she will be resurrected--as she always is.
Now, how will you feed me tomorrow? Be careful what you promise, I am not so forgiving as you‘re accustomed.

Tomorrow I will rise at 0500, and go lift until 0600. Then I’ll run five miles. Then I’ll catch up with the work I lost Friday. After work I will lift again. At night, I will jog two miles and stretch for an hour.

Nobody can out-will me. I will cut off my right arm rather than accept defeat.

I am ready for our administration to give the order to Afghanistan: “Forward, march!”

For the Republic.

The End of Heartache

2009-10-15T21:12:00.002-04:00

My unit came off orders to Iraq this afternoon. This frees us up to go to Afghanistan if the administration decides that it's in the country's best interests to remain committed to pursuing counterinsurgency in Afghanistan while building infrastructure in the country. Below are a list of reasons why it would be a better idea for me to spend 12 of the next 15 months of my life back in that blasted land. In no particular order.

1) We made a committment to the people of Afghanistan when we invaded their country and toppled the Taliban regime. Unless we feel comfortable allowing adulterous women to be stoned to death, or women in general to receive no education, or whatever non-muslim culture remaining in the country to be savaged and destroyed; unless we feel comfortable going back on a promise we made to a country filled with poverty, devoid of natural resources, enmired in hopelessness and ignorance; unless we are comfortable with an idea of ourselves as individuals who are not capable of making promises as a nation--we must stay for a little while longer and give these people the legitimate shot at development that we offered them when we first put boots on the ground in 2002.

2) If we abandon Afghanistan, it will fall to the Taliban, which will give the insurgency that is building in Pakistan a safehaven from which to stage attacks. A vulnerable Pakistan--a country that boasts nuclear capabilities--is not in our interests. By remaining in Afghanistan, we allow Pakistan some breathing room in its struggle against extremist Muslims in their country.

3) The Afghan people like us. We may be percieved as invaders or occupiers by SOME of the Afghans--which should not come as a surprise, unless one has the political naivitee of a 6-year-old (many people in our own country felt as though the Bush administration was essentially a foreign occupation)--but my experience was that the big gripe from the villages on the border was that we didn't have enough soldiers to offer them protection. Everyone wanted roads, everyone wanted wells, everyone wanted their lives to improve, and RECOGNIZED that the Taliban and the criminal networks operating from inside Pakistan were robbing them of vital economic opportunities. Americans were welcomed by children and village elders alike--everywhere we went, we were handing out HA and making friends. There was absolutely no confusion as to what our motivations were; we built schoolhouses and mosques, and gave out oil, food, fuel, and clothes, asking for nothing in return. NOBODY I talked with confused us with the Russians. Those people who seem concerned that we may be perceived as an imperial power must have some sort of personal issue that causes them to see the world in those terms; it was not the reality that I experienced during the time I lived there. The biggest impediments to progress, when I was in Afghanistan last, were institutional on our side, and corruption on the side of Afghans. Which brings me to my next rambling point...

4) Recognition on the part of Afghans that their government is corrupt, and that there should be a different result than the one they got, is a mark of political progress. Corruption has been the norm in Afghanistan for as long as anyone can remember. Tribal chieftens, Taliban, Communists, Monarchists... all this country knows is corrupt governmental models. Here, for the first time in recorded history, we see the people of Afghanistan legitimately outraged that their political will is being thwarted. This is not a moment for hand-wringing on our part, but rather celebration--we have measurable proof that Afghanistan is beginning a true political, democratic / republican awakening. Good job, us! Let's stick with it a bit longer and see what else develops. Rather than throwing our hands up in disgust and walking away, leaving these people to the depredations of the savage, murderous Taliban.

5) The administration's tactical alternative--"counter-terrorism" versus "counter-insurgency," was last experienced strategically during the Clinton Administration. Its failure led to an incident we remember every 11th of September. The bottom line is that firing missiles from Naval vessels and targeting specific terrorist cells with Delta operatives is the smallest, least effective type of band-aid, besides ignoring two crucial factors--
*The Taliban and Al Queda are friends. They are seperate entities, but should not be treated as such. If the Taliban [a grass-roots organization capable of being fought only by counterinsurgent tactics] retakes Afghanistan, Al Queda will have a safehaven there for as long as it takes for the Taliban to be toppled, or topple Pakistan.
*Our intelligence gathering assets are impressive to us, and our allies, and that's about it. Unless they are employed in direct support of tactical operations, they're pretty shitty. That's a fact. Even then, many's the time when those unmanned drones totally sucked. And we're supposed to believe that pulling eyes off the ground, and putting Delta / SOF A teams on standby on airfields up to an hour away is going to be capable of defeating a mountain-based enemy with robust and politically invulnerable safehavens? I feel like I'm smoking crack cocaine in an alternate dimension. I mean--this is what our administration is seriously considering... throwing missiles and bombs through UAVs and specifically targeting individuals / camps with crack squads of highly-trained soldiers. If you think this sounds like a good plan, please watch "Blackhawk Down," then get back to me.

6) General McChrystal is a f***ing genius. If he feels that we can do the job with the resources he requested, let's get it to him, stat, and let him go. He's got the right idea, and is a just man. What more could you ask for. Our allies--the British, no less!--think this is worth fighting for. Sweet Jesus, let our great country and this noble purpose not be unmanned by the British of all nations.

Bottom line: we can do right by ourselves, by the Afghans. Let's do it. And be out 5 years from now.

The Private Time

2009-09-21T20:49:00.004-04:00

So, for a variety of reasons, my blog is going to be private for the next year and a half. This will limit my public exposure as a Commander who is putting forth opinion when it is, knowing me, not my place to do so. The people I have invited to read my thoughts:
*people who expressed an interest
*people who might be interested
*family members
*old friends
Limiting my exposure allows me to post more or less according to my conscience. As that's what I was doing before, it probably won't impact the content much. I never published the worst stuff anyway because it didn't seem right to expose friends and family to the emotional hardships and tragedies of a deployment--or even possible, using mere words. I will continue to attempt to convey the humorous side of my time in the Army, on the one hand getting theraputic effects from writing, and on the other hand feeling like I'm keeping some kind of rational perspective on life in a place where--well, you've all heard me talk about it or read what I've had to say through emails / letters--a place where the agreements of civilized society give way to the rule of the strong, of might makes right. When confronted by the tragedies that spill forth from these primitive, fatal struggles, what is there left to do but laugh? Nothing, unless you want to cry about it, like a baby. Which I don't.

To close out my first private post, I have the following announcement to make: I'll be deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan (once the president makes up his mind) in the next three - five months. Not sure what that will look like. You can expect monthly postings during fighting season, and more regular postings during the winter lull.

Welcome back.

P.S. I'm still an alcoholic.

Preparing to Deploy

2009-08-31T13:48:00.004-04:00

As my responsibilities have increased, I find less and less time to reflect, and thus less time to write. A beneficial side-effect of this has been that I spend more time reflecting before I write, which has meant that in previous months or years, where I might have posted frivolous or half-formed ideas, now I limit myself to well-thought-out expositions. Or, at least, thought-out.

My current Battalion is at a crossroads. We are part of one of 2 "light" Brigade Combat Teams that I'm aware of that are on the roster to deploy to Iraq. Light, as everyone is (I'm sure) aware, means not motorized or mechanized--hypothetically, we get around on foot, which makes us (again hypothetically) well suited for just about any environment except the desert or the plains. Cities--good. Mountains / hills--good. Forest--good. And so on. In fact, the "light" unit of which I'm a part is technically a "Mountain" unit, so that leads one to believe even more that we would be tasked with a deployment to Afghanistan rather than Iraq. On the other hand, there's a lot more that goes into a deployment than what appear to be the facts as stated, and the bottom line is that there's really no way to tell where we'll be 6 months from now. So, we train, and prepare for any eventuality.

If we were to go to Iraq, it would be under very--to me--strange circumstances. We're supposed to be pulling out, if I understand correctly, so our combat role will be that of mentors--and previous readers of my blog know how that experience plays out... Meanwhile our administrative role will be to account for and ship home (or to Afghanistan) as much gear as we can get our hands on. I fully anticipate arriving at a FOB in Iraq and looking out over a motor pool of hundreds of vehicles--Bradleys, HMMWVs, M1A2 tanks, to name a few--and have to sign for, inventory, and ship out the lot. This will be somebody's responsibility--whoever's the last one on the ground. Like a complicated game of musical chairs. I'm reminded of George MacDonald Fraser's experiences with the British Army in what was then Palestine... bizarre, unaccountable police actions mixed with administrative and logistical snarls that serve to reinforce life's absurdities, rather than fill one with the fire of combat and battle. Which, of course, was one of the reasons I signed up in the first place, being essentially no more mature, emotionally, than a 12-year-old.

I'm doing a better job of seeing old friends and family than I did last time around, in part because I understand, having gone through it before, how things like that gnaw at you when you're away, and in part because being in the United States makes visiting much easier. Still have quite a few people to see, so if you're reading this, and you're on the list--get ready! I'm going to try to see you in October / November (unless we're changed to Afghanistan in which case there's a little more time). I'll never forget what it was like to hear that my grandfather had passed, two months before I was supposed to see him over leave... Besides, this will be one of the last times I get to see friends on the terms we're comfortable with--an upward trajectory, with life still in front of us. We've all had time to realize some of our dreams, but are not so far along the path that we're locked in, or can feel that life's passed us by.

On one final note, I've "visited" Louisiana, now. Looks a lot like Georgia!

Roddick, Doobie Bros.

2009-07-06T11:37:00.004-04:00

After a weekend of exaggerated drinking and telling of tall tales, I found myself, on Sunday afternoon, watching Andy Roddick playing his guts out at Wimbledon. Somehow, against odds and expectations, Roddick was in the middle of the match of his life against his nemisis, Roger Federer. Roddick, playing steadily, had battled his way to within points of taking a championship from Federer, who was plying his usual brand of superlative, deity-level tennis. Behind me, a guy was talking about how tennis purists had always loved Federer because of his technical mastery and versatility, while they'd disliked Roddick for being basically a one-trick pony. Not a tennis purist myself, I'd always disliked Federer the way all emotional human beings dislike robots, and liked Roddick because he is someone that I can relate to. Watching the match, hoping to God that Roddick would be able to pull it out, and that Robot Federer's algorithm for hitting returns would break down, or a ball bearing would come loose, or who knows what. Instead, Federer wore Roddick out. Very disappointing. I found it interesting that every time a shot was contested for Federer, of which there were probably about 10, in every case but one the slow-motion replay computer awarded the point to Federer. The computer was sponsored by Rolex, or, Rolex seems to have had a hand in it, as their name appeared every time the computer gave its ruling--usually in favor of Federer. Federer, who is the spokesperson for Rolex, and featured in several ads during Wimbledon. None of the reviewed calls were particularly momentous, or weighty, but overall, I can't imagine that the effect didn't slightly favor Federer. This impression of a large system somehow set up to favor a certain particular individual winning was reinforced in the awards ceremony, when the officials interacting with Roddick seemed reserved or outright cold, whereas they were very friendly and familiar with Federer. Two ads that came on immediately after Wimbledon both featuring Federer and congratulating him on his accomplishment further reinforced this feeling--though I'm sure Roddick had advertisements filmed and waiting in the wings should he have won. The thing is, it's very difficult for me to get worked up watching Roger Federer do what he appears to have been built to do--win tennis championships. I'm sure the tennis community is very pleased that he broke Pete Sampras's record, and earned another shining trophy to add to the rest. I'd much rather have watched Andy Roddick, a tennis mutant, reach past his natural ability and prior limitations and, in a moment of rare human sublimity, break through that obstacle which had never been overcome, to find his measure as a man. Talking with my girlfriend about this, she pointed out that the game was "fair," that both players had played according to rules they accepted, and that the end result could not be contested--Federer won. My counter is that it's not a matter of the game having been "fair"--it wasn't "just." Not in a real sense. How can it be justice to see a man who--in a weird way--cares nothing at all for the sport of tennis--win against someone who stakes their entire being on the game? This was evidenced during the award ceremony, when Roddick was doing his best to hold back from tears of legitimate grief, yet somehow managed to gracefully assert himself, and concede defeat. Federer got up in a custom track suit he'd had fitted for himself, gaudy in gold, wearing the number "15" on it, and had to be prompted by the interviewer to acknowledge that he'd just played a match--one of the greatest matches of all time--against a longtime rival. His response was a very lukewarm acknowledgement of the facts, then a curious comment intended to console Roddick--something to the effect of: "don't worry, I lost a bitter 5-set match last year, I know how you feel." Roddick, in a moment that was not fully captured by the cameras, shouted back: "Yeah, but you'd already won 5 times!" Tell me--can Federer possibly know the depth of grief experienced by Roddick--to have come so close, heroically close, only to end again in defeat? And to make light of the experience, as though it were merely a matter of arranging ones and zeroes differently? As though Roddick had something other than the unfulfilled promise of a career interrupted by Federer's own rise? Not that Federer knows any better--despite his years of studying humans, he is still incapable of understanding that thing they call love, so he cannot, by extention, truly understand grief, either. That evening, I was watching highlights when the old Doobie Brothers song "What a Fool Believes" came on in the background, and I was momentarily overwhelmed by the moment--the loss of time, of opportunity, the ultimate end of all things.

Reading, reflecting, and the last 6 months

2009-06-15T12:58:00.004-04:00

Graduating from the Maneuver Captain's Career Course June 9th, I had occasion to examine the past 6 months--what I'd accomplished, how much spiritual progress I'd made toward enlightenment, old ladies helped, things of that nature. Taking stock of things, here's a comprehensive list of the things I did, over the last 6 months, that made an impression:

1) I learned that I don't know how to fish. In learning that this is actually something of an art--I spent two hours throwing my line at the water feeding worms to the lake while a little African American lady of 80 showed up and within 5 minutes had two catfish on a leash tied to a root (a neat trick I would never have thought of)--I also re-realized that procuring food is an art form. An art form of which I lack any real awareness. As concern over the imminent apocalypse has, if anything, only heightened over the past year, I'd do well to do something. Like learn to fish. Or start a vegetable garden.

2) Read 10 books for pleasure, 5 of which were magnificent (Germany: Jekyll & Hyde, Blood Meridian, Bluebeard's Castle, and Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds). Would be 6 except I'm still working on "The Golden Bough." Totally blowing my mind.

3) Had occasion to observe that one profits from hard work and diligence, though neither of those were ever part of my experience for long, or at the same time.

4) Finally understood why Nazis were so horrible, and inexcusable. Saw obvious parallels between Nazi regime and the former political regime; also, with the current mania for "saving the environment" and eating healthy. Then broadened my perspective, and was able to see parallels with political extremism on both sides of the spectrum, which seem to exist more for the emotional satisfaction of their adherents than any feasible political reality.

5) Spent as much time as possible with friends and family, making good on a promise I offered downrange.

6) Saw Tampa, FL.

7) Have a clearer vision of my limitations as a human being, and how that affects the way I interact with others, and especially the ones I love. Still apparently incapable of doing anything about it, whatsoever.

8) Managed not to drink all of the great wine I brought back with me from Italy. In fact this was only possible because I gave a portion of that wine to my father, and had been saving another portion as a wedding gift. Which, truth be told, came close to not being saved on several occasions--willpower won out after all in the end.

9) My metabolism has recently tanked. Will I finally become one of those people who's obsessed with counting calories? Can my existence truly be reduced to the type and amount of food I eat, and when I eat it? Will my suddenly-squishy waistline (despite the usual regimen of working out and 5-mile runs inter-spliced with totally unhealthy food) begin behaving? Fat jokes are starting to lose their lustre.

The biggest lesson--or, most prominent--has been seeing how self-interest, petty-mindedness, and fear play into the development of extremist politics. I know I've seen reactionary groups branded as "adventurers" before, and thanks to a certain amount of guilty role-playing experience when I was an adolescent, I'd mis-identified those terms as having something to do with a noble human sentiment to explore. This is not the case. An "adventurer"--this term is also often seen with "opportunist"--when assigned to fringe politics and the political arena, means a person who actually believes in (or identifies with) no concrete political agenda. Someone whose sole allegiance is to power, and the novelty of experience. Someone whose chief pleasure in life is to see the great brought low, the respectable maligned, the proud humbled, the rich brought to penury. On the leftmost side of the spectrum, these types revel in exposing the "American-led international corporate conspiracy" and its figurehead, "the criminal Bush." On the right, it's people who can't stand the current President, and insist on maintaining the corrosive fiction that President Obama is Muslim, or other such obvious nonsense. These people--on the right and the left--really both just hate moderation, and the stabilizing influence of government. Their desire is chaos, and strife--preferably the sort that brings them financial and social status. They'll settle for the sort that brings everyone else the misery that apparently fuels their hateful rhetoric (Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck spring immediately to mind--I can't believe I've been hearing that first windbag since I was a high school student in 1995). And whereas the left lacks popular demagogues, most of them being overeducated liberals & etc., their mouthpiece of ennui would be the New York Times-reading Northeastern soccer mom or espresso-fueled college sophomore fresh out of his class on Marx’s theory of history/capitalism.

To Torture or Not to Torture

2009-05-26T10:46:00.001-04:00

I know that it is not my place to speak on the issue of torture, or, for that matter, anything having to do with policy. As a commissioned officer, I’m pretty sure that expressing an opinion is at best bad taste, and at worst some sort of punishable offense under UCMJ. At the same time, I find myself unable to keep quiet regarding the recent, literally dumbfounding statements regarding torture from the former Vice President, Dick Cheney. And as it is, in reality, a matter of conscience, and not of policy, I will not keep my mouth shut.
Where to begin. I suppose the best place to start would be with Cheney’s position. Simply summarized, his idea is that torture gets results, therefore we should use it. He doesn’t go much further than this, and doesn’t need to. He could bring up any number of examples of actionable intelligence gained through torture. If he’d considered relevant historical precedent, he might have pointed to the Algerian revolution, wherein insurgents who were captured had 24 hours of usefulness to the French before their associates could reset their operating procedures—once the French Paratroopers began resorting to torture, they were much more efficiently able to expose the Algerian insurgent networks, and gained limited tactical advantage while the insurgents adjusted their operating procedures.
Cheney is absolutely correct in that regard. When you capture a bad guy, who you know knows something, and who refuses to tell you anything out of orneriness or simple-minded dedication to some cause or another, torture can actually produce information. This, unfortunately, is not in dispute among people who have access to all the information. It is also entirely beside the point. Speaking as someone who was almost certainly party to torture on any number of occasions when handing captured or suspected insurgents over to ANA or ANP elements, and knowing that they were probably about to be tortured, I feel particularly qualified to speak on the subject, and to identify where Cheney is so completely wrong, deluded. In short, he thinks the ends justify the means. Much more on that later. For the time being, I want to concentrate on the other side of the torture debate—that we should not do so because it is not a reliable means for extracting information.
Anti-torture laws, in their infancy, seem to have been written in the mid-17th century as a reaction to the witch-manias of Western Europe. Germany started the process (strange to think of Germany as being liberal, but before Bismarck (famous for his belief in Ends Justify the Means) united the German states into the Reich we loved to hate until it was permanently dismantled in the mid-1940s, the German states were the cutting edge for intellectual trends—good and bad), and England and France followed suit. The whole thing came about, according to apocryphal legend, when a German noble was brought to a monastery by two monks, to see a phenomenon the monks promised would be worth the watching.. At the monastery, the monks were holding a man accused of practicing witchcraft. With the noble watching, the two monks questioned the accused about his unholy activities as he was being tortured. At first the man proclaimed his innocence, but after a good bit of torture, loosened up and was vastly more pliable, eventually confessing to everything the monks suggested. Included in these suggestions were the revelations that, in accordance with the leading questions the victim was subjected to, the German noble in attendance was also a witch, a Satanic confessor, a Warlock, so on and soforth. Convinced by this show, the German noble threw his weight behind anti-torture legislation, as, clearly, the demonstration proved that a man might be induced by torture to say anything whatsoever.
But—and I want to make this very clear—this fundamental problem of torture—of the possibility of hurting innocents to no good cause, or of getting bogus information—has never slowed people who believe in torture. Because once you believe that the ends justify the means, well—the ends justify the means. You can rationalize any approach, so long as the utilitarian endstate is acceptable. I guess that would be something like if you have to kill one person, you’d better be saving two people. Like in the movies, where the hero just needs to torture that one guy who has the code to stop the bomb from destroying London, and the bad guy had killed his partner or love interest earlier… the ends justify the means. It’s a narrative that has been reinforced since before we saw the twin towers come down. Since before Dirty Harry. I don’t know how long that revenge-impulse, the impulse to see justice done to an evildoer no matter the cost, has been rampant in Western Civilization, but it’s powerful… very powerful.
To reconcile myself to the “ends-justify-the-means” camp, I tried performing the following thought experiment. Imagine that your wife and baby daughter have been kidnapped, and are running out of oxygen somewhere. They have 2 hours to live. Somehow, you’ve managed to track down the one person who knows where they are and how to rescue them—but he won’t talk. Would you use torture? I thought I would... until it occurred to me that, in a bizarre SAW-like twist of fate, the guy I was going to torture had been placed in a similar situation and if he just held out from telling me for two hours, his wife and child would go free… one of those “prisoner” dilemmas that make criminals of us all.
These things can get complicated!
The more I thought about it, and why it was that Cheney’s comments about torture bugged me so much, the more I felt that the whole thing was a logical end-around. It was all smoke and mirrors. The fact is, if you have a bad guy, and he won’t talk, and you can get information from him using torture, why shouldn’t you? Why is that law even there? He’s a bad guy, we know he’s not innocent. So who cares if he gets tortured a bit?
Then I realized… the anti-torture legislation isn’t there to protect innocents from being tortured. Practically speaking, it helps that that’s a side benefit, but that’s not an emotionally valid reason not to torture someone—that he might be innocent. In time of trouble, we never bother with that anyway. The reason we have made such a great attempt to make torture taboo in our culture is to protect ourselves.
Think about that for a little while. To prevent us from turning into beasts, that wantonly inflict harm on other humans—whether for a good or an evil end—we must not be a culture that tolerates torture. We must view it as evil, and reprehensible. And on those occasions that we do use it—as we inevitably will—the useful information we gain from bad guys, the nuclear bombs we prevent being detonated under the president’s chair or whatever—it doesn’t make the torture right or morally acceptable. In torturing, we have bartered away a piece of our humanity, an important piece of ourselves.
And I guess that’s what really gets me about Cheney, sitting on television and telling me that torture was o.k. and is o.k. because it gets results. Having crossed the line into moral relativism and ends-justify-the-means thinking, he feels compelled to drag everyone else across with him. His vision of America is a very limited one, and accepts no responsibility for the transgressions it provokes. Worst of all, it actually elevates “ends justify the means” to a virtue.
Why not? Why shouldn’t we think of ourselves as a culture that embraces “ends justify the means?” We let the military do it—why not extend that privilege to all arms of the government—to the culture, too? My two cents: we shouldn’t do it because every time that has happened as a reaction to some perceived slight, or some real attack—as a reaction, that indulges a certain desire for revenge—the nation giving in to those dark, understandable impulses has produced wholly unacceptable results. The Germany after World War I was so fixated on proving that the Great War was an aberration, that they gave political power to the one group that promised to destroy anything, and anyone, who got in their way—the Nazis. The ends—a German victory in WWII—was supposed to justify every piece of petty thuggery that the Nazis committed—all in the name of Reich, in the name of redeeming the Germans’ honor. We know how that one turned out. The Socialist middle-step a society would have to undergo before transitioning to Communism… ends justify the means. Firebombing hundreds of thousands of Germans and Japanese in cities with questionable military use. Ends justify the means. I could spend the rest of my life drunkenly screaming examples into an abyss, three will have to suffice.
I included what I hope were a pretty wide variety of “ends justify the means” examples from both sides of WWII to demonstrate, not that “ends justify the means” isn’t capable of getting results, but to demonstrate that the results one achieves when compassion is not a part of the decision making process are at best deeply flawed, and at worse no better than the wrong one is seeking to prevent. Put another way: believing that the ends justify the means turns you, bit by bit, into whatever evil you thought it was you were fighting against.
So the real problem, in my opinion, is not that torture might affect innocents. That’s part of it. The real problem is that once you give yourself entirely over to a philosophical world view that favors utility over compassion, you tend to care less and less about the means, focusing entirely on the ends. Whereas, at first, you were allowing some people to torture probable bad guys, just a few years later your entire organization had no moral issue with employing torture, under just those circumstances. At the beginning of WWII, bombing cities was considered beneath a civilized nation (not “of questionable use / efficacy,” but morally unacceptable). Within two years, both sides were bombing cities as a means of carrying out strategic aims.
Once you look at a problem and come to the conclusion that “the ends justify the means,” you are probably setting yourself up for taking part in some type of very real human tragedy, as an aggressor. And one of the great things about America, and being American, feeling connected to the better part of our shared tradition, is that we are not the aggressor. We’ve acted in that capacity before, but we’re at our best as a people when we’re trying to stay out of war, not find reasons to be in it. It’s also what allows us to fight with such vigorous abandon when we are pressed by an evil foe—we have the certainty of moral right on our side, which resonates throughout our culture and adds to our combat power in ways we cannot fully take into account. The proscription against torture is one important piece of that puzzle—something that helps us conceive of ourselves as good people, who don’t make choices based on a result we think it may get, but based on whether or not St. Peter will be putting it on the plus or minus side of his reckoning column on that day we visit him (as we all must) at the Pearly Gates. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I will be called to account for the sins I have knowingly committed against my fellow men.
Why does Dick Cheney have such a problem with simply accepting that he authorized something that was morally objectionable? Why can’t he say that he was wrong, but that at the time the information was more important to him than being morally pure? That’s how I see it—a soldier that shoots an enemy in the face rather than die himself has still quite clearly killed when murder is a crime against nature, but nobody I know would die to prove that point. But for Cheney, it was actually right to torture. I just don’t see how that follows. Maybe psychologically, feeling as though he’d been bullied and made to eat sand by the twin towers, Cheney felt that it was more important to become the bully than to ever have to feel weak again.
Now I’m beginning to lose focus, and this isn’t supposed to be a rambling consideration of the motivations of Dick Cheney. All I wanted to do here was to get my thoughts on torture down, for the record. Most leaders in the military believe that it’s o.k. to torture a bad guy if you think it’s going to lead to information, though I doubt many will go on the record saying that. My stance is, though it has not always been, that torture must always be unacceptable, to protect us from turning into the beasts we seek to destroy. In those situations where we torture anyways, we must do so understanding that the information or good results that we have gained from torturing another person are balanced by the fact that we have tortured—and are absolutely wrong for having done so. Not just a rhetorical trick, but an actual, honest reckoning.

On my mind

2009-04-20T20:15:00.007-04:00

I was looking over my portfolio of memories from Afghanistan, and thinking about how it was back then--the good parts. Few and far between. One of them was smoking cigars with the other officers. This was normally performed outside, or in the restaurant after it had shut down for the day, but on this particular occasion my roommates were all out on various missions, so we had the big room all to ourselves. A bunch of guys came over and smoked the place out so badly that it reeked for days. Sitting around, taking an hour to relax and enjoy simple camaraderie... this was the one unequivocally pleasant memory to survive deployment. We never smoked in ACUs, only PTs, to reinforce the relaxed atmosphere.

The coffee filters were used as ashtrays. The plastic bottles as spitters and butt receptacles. We generally smoked cigars recommended to us by our S4, AG, who survived the now-famous water-landing in Manhattan with his girlfriend (fiancee). Most of the time was spent complaining about the absurd, unrealistic events that happened thanks to a higher entity who must remain unidentified.

Because I was forced to write the Battalion's history, which was never published, but have a massive copy of it on my hard drive, I was thinking about publishing it in Chapter format on this blog. I need to revise it first to ensure I'm not compromising OPSEC, and scrub the names. That'll be a good way for me to keep this fresh, and start climbing back into writing.

I spent nearly a month sober--March, meaning I missed St. Patrick's Day again--and in the process was able to complete a rough draft of a fictional chapter I've been thinking about since leaving Afghanistan. My friend and roommate Mike Carson--an individual who has been featured before in this blog--insists that no good literature was produced after WWI or WWII until 5-10 years after the war was over.

Larry King Live Style...

No peaceful culture has ever boasted a well-dressed army.

Sports were intended as a peaceful substitute for warfare, not a replacement.

A society of cows will be content with itself. A society of wolves will consume itself.

A country that believes itself invulnerable is weak.

And soforth.

Anarchy in the U.K.

2009-04-04T09:52:00.006-04:00

For legal purposes, I'm calling this story fictional. It never happened. Unless you were there, and remember specific events.

This particular story occurred some months ago, when I was visiting London. I did not publish it at the time because I had not procured official dispensation to travel to London--I did not request authority to travel because I knew that it would be denied. The risk one accepts in a case like this is that something horrible will happen, and the hammer of justice will be unceremoniously dropped on one's head.

The Army's policy for *pass* and for *leave* is a little bit complicated. In the civilian world, from what I understand, if there's a 3-day or 4-day holiday, a civilian can do pretty much whatever he/she wants with that holiday. Fly to Europe, for example, and squander 1 full day in travel. One is limited by one's own willingness to spend money and endure discomfort. It's not that way in the Army. Quick, basic definition of the terms...

1-Leave. Leave is like vacation days. You earn a finite amount, and are allowed to spend them in emergencies, or during designated holiday blocks.

2-Pass--this is a holiday that does not count against "leave days." Can only be up to 4 days long. Is not supposed to be taken immediately following "leave," as that defeats the purpose.

When you're a civilian, you don't have to tell anyone where you're going for vacation, but most people do anyway, for a variety of reasons. It's a three day weekend, you want to travel to Canada for some completely inscrutable reason, you tell one of your co-worker friends, and your supervisor. They say something like:

"Got any plans for the weekend?"
and you say
"Yeah, I'm traveling to Canada to bet on Moose races."

if there's follow-on to that conversation, it probably deals with whys and wheres, but not in too much detail. You're not, it's important to note, *asking for permission.* You're stating a fact--"this is where I'm going."

In the Army, it's different. It has to be. In the old days one couldn't travel too far from one's unit because if something critical happened, one needed to be a horse ride away. As a soldier, as an officer, whomever. Requesting specific information on a "leave" or "pass" form was important because it allowed the Army to track people down in case there was a serious problem. As an individual in the Army, it is your responsibility to ensure that people know where you are at all times, and how to get in touch with you in case of emergency. This could be as specific as someone calling to tell you that a red cross message arrived telling of your grandfather's death, or as broad as China declaring war, prompting a general recall of all soldiers and officers to their home bases. Now you have a fuller understanding of the risks involved with traveling sans permission in the Army. if anything goes wrong and you haven't taken pass, you're in huge trouble. If you're responsible for soldiers, traveling without permission is absolutely inexcusable. Criminal. You're actively evading responsibility--it's horrible. If you're not responsible for anyone but yourself, though, it's a little different... In that case if nothing goes wrong, you're in NO trouble, and you've gotten to do what you want. This phenomenon of "managed risk" is more common than you'd think in the Army, and especially deployed, when every positive action is counterbalanced with a series of knowable but unpredictable variables.

So knowing that I had a finite number of days until I deployed again, and seeing an opportunity to travel, but not wanting to spend leave, I made an executive decision and told nobody, and requested no pass, assuming instead that nothing bad would happen. Or that if it did, it wouldn't be so bad that I couldn't handle it.

At first the trip went effortlessly. Dinner, theater, walks around downtown London... I remember looking around and thinking: "This is amazing! I'm in London!" Happiness and self-satisfaction were the words of the day. Everything was suffused with that warm glow of adventure and audacity. I was at peace with the world.

Myself and my companion found ourselves at Starbucks after watching Sir Derek Jacobi do Shakespeare. Everything still magical. I was looking up at the menu and deciding what to order when a drumming on the window grabbed my attention. I turned to see what was going on. The vague shapes of what I assumed were hooligans moved on the other side of the glass; it was dark, so difficult to pick out particulars. One of them took a chair and started striking the window, and so my companion and I decided to displace to a more secure location. As people were slowly and efficiently filing out of the Starbucks, the chair came through the glass, and the people--no longer hooligans, but anarchists, rabble--began throwing things inside the Starbucks. By this time everyone had left save the employees, who'd barricaded themselves in the back. I stayed nearby in case the anarchists decided to try to hurt somebody--there were at least 40 of them, and looking back on things I don't know how I expected to help anyone--clenching my fists and watching helplessly as private property was wantonly destroyed.

It occurred to me, standing there watching the violence, that if I were somehow involved in the incident in any official capacity, that the particulars of my situation would have to come out. The criteria for "something bad" happening was very close to being met. Once the police showed up, we left.

From that point on, the night took on a sinister bent. A vagrant minstrel accosted me, and was particularly rude when I refused to subsidize his alcoholism. A bitter wind picked up. Conversation became strained. London was a foreign city. I didn't belong. But I didn't really want to belong, either... not to a city that had gangs of anarchists roaming around destroying chain coffee shops (they hit another one a few streets over, I learned later).

The only other major incident was running into a couple of Washington lobbyists on the plane ride home and getting drop-dead drunk with them, then missing my connecting flight and being forced to fly to Columbia, South Carolina. At this point I rented a car and drove home, arriving in time for morning PT early Tuesday. As though I'd never left at all...

Italy, Afghanistan, and Alienation

2008-11-30T06:09:00.003-05:00

For a long time, if anyone asked me what it was like living in Italy, I would tell them that it was unpleasant. That I didn't like living in Italy. That I did not like Italians. That the whole thing was a horrible deal, and I couldn't stand it--the reason I've been working so hard to return to America at all costs (alongside a love for America). The experiences I draw on to support my desire to leave include intolorent or prejudiced treatment at the hands of native Italians (specifically Vicentini), the near-impossibility of getting anything accomplished quickly, the driving, and stores never being open. A general discontentment with an unusual culture.

The objections to Afghanistan were similar, though one imagines that had I not been in a war zone it would've been different. Bizarre culture. Difficult to get work done. Shoddy worksmanship. The existance of a barrier beyond which one could never, as a foreigner, hope to explore.

But as I prepare to leave Italy for good, now, and leave Europe, I've started to reflect on it all, and realize that it was never about Italy--nor, as one inevitably fears, was it ever really about me. The problem with being an officer in Italy would be the same in Germany, or France, or even England. The problem is that you go to work at 5-545am, then work until at least 6pm and as late as 930pm. And when you get home, you're absolutely wiped out, with enough energy to grab a beer and a bite to eat, then veg out in front of a video game or a book before hopping into bed and doing it all over again. You don't get a real chance to study Italian, or see any of the Italian culture apart from the nightlife--interesting, but in my case, I've seen it before.

So the problem is me. I went to Italy and successfully recreated the same exact scene I've been living in since college. Going to war only encouraged the worst kind of disconnected behavior. At some point one wants to ask God for reprieve, or respite. I wonder what awaits me in Sunny Georgia, at the Captain's Career Course...

On the Mend

2008-11-18T13:33:00.002-05:00

A lot of people have told me about the dangers of alcoholism after a deployment, and over the last three months I've had ample opportunity to sample those dangers firsthand. Fortunately for me, I appear to lead a charmed life, and almost nothing of serious or lasting consequence has happened to me; this, although I now no longer believe myself to be invincible. Hard, watching that illusion shatter. Anyway, I thought I'd write something here because of a nugget of information that was presented me recently, saying that the real fall comes in month the 3rd--this month, for me! This is the one I need to watch out for. And, strangely enough, this is the month I've chosen to stop the destructive night-in-day-out binge drinking that has earned me the envy of peers and subordinates alike. Sometimes, undeserved respect...

One of my fellow Platoon Leaders, a guy we'll call "KB," not at all my type of guy (tons of integrity, a man of faith, true to himself and to others, can't tell a joke to save his life), was talking to another coworker, we'll call him "Captain S," and he said: "I could tell the parts of the Battalion History that Adrian wrote drunk, and the parts he wrote half-drunk, because of the tone." I thought to myself: "the hell you can, KB you old s-of-a-b--I didn't write a stitch of that drunk. You think I write when I'm drunk? Why no posts on the blog, huh? Besides--I cry when I'm drunk. Or become very touchy-feely and sociable. It's either or and there's really no way to predict which guy's coming out. When I hear about how somebody got into a horrible accident when they were 15 years old and broke their legs, this brings out all sorts of unfortunate mental images / sub-conscious cross references with my own life, and then, well, I'll probably excuse myself to the restroom for a moment to collect myself. Another popular move is getting out of a taxi in front of my apartment with several buddies and moving tactically through the street using different types of overwatch, under the mistaken impression that we've "taken contact" and are maneuvering up the main Vicenza street of Corso Palladio. Attention Vicentini: keep your eyes peeled between 3am-6am for this event, Fridays and Saturdays.

The big thing, though, has been writing. I haven't been writing during this binge. I cannot restate that enough. It's so weird, I feel like--well, right now I have shin splints in my left leg, from over-training (I was down to 7 minute miles for 8 miles, trying to get that up to 12 miles, from an intensive training program that aimed to get me into marathon shape... without ever having to run an actual marathon). So I feel, writing, like I will feel the first time I get to open it up again on a good long run. It feels great, even if I'm writing about nothing, or ranting about people who appear to be destroying the dream.

Woah--is that the germ of an idea for a chapter in a humorous book, or perhaps a college-aged humor article? People Who Are Destroying The Dream. It's a little soft in the middle, but the heart's right.
*Thomas L. Friedman (See my last post)
*Congress (anyone with a passing familiarity with Roman history should be getting chills)
*Clarence Thomas (The conservatives were outraged that Bill Clinton had sex in the Oval Office! Well--it's better than getting shut down in the Oval Office)
*Tom Cruise Haters (First people hated him because he was supposed to be secretly gay, and now they hate him because it turns out he's an openly gay Scientologist. A man's sexual preference, like his religious preference, should be private matters)
*France (still at it after all these years)
*Manny Ramirez (you broke my heart, Manny, but not as much as Pedro or Johnny or Derek or Roger or Wade... etc. etc.)
*Wall Street / Corporate America (if you have to use war as an analogy to describe what you do, you're in the wrong line of work. Stop deluding yourselves!)
*The New York Giants (Still bitter I never got to see an undefeated season. Thanks for nothing, New York. I'm not even a Patriots fan)
*Bill O'Reilly (Come on!)

Now I feel better about myself. I'm going to let myself write whatever I please, in the public forum, for a couple weeks, see where it leads. Hopefully I can get back in shape for the big push.

Thomas L. Friedman is a Buffoon, a Coward, and probably in the pocket of Big Business

2008-11-14T02:32:00.010-05:00

NOTE--I am reposting this after I learned that taking it down didn't prevent people from reading it. Also, after learning that General Clark agrees with my assertion that the auto industry is integral to our security.

Since returning from the deployment to Afghanistan, a few things have happened, in my life and also (of a distant secondary interest) in the world. I considered writing about myself and events as they unfolded around me, and several occasions attempted to do so; in the end, I decided against it. Not only have I not posted on the blog, I have not been keeping journal entries, or writing letters, or doing much of anything that requires heavy contemplative-class thinking. The weekend, which is when I would normally do things of this nature, has been dedicated instead to traveling, alongside a juvenile, three-month drinking binge the likes of which has never been witnessed before in my life. And so, with nothing worth writing about save an extended retreat from emotional reality, this public record went on a brief hiatus.

And now that the s*** is hitting the fan, I'm coming back. Really, forced out of retirement by that chubby mustachioed scribbler from the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman, and his bizarre vision for our country. I've read this guy's opinions for most of my adult life, and gone from loving them (his ideas on why we should not go into Iraq, land mines, and attitude toward Israel) to not understanding them (let me save you some time if you're considering reading his book about the world being flat: don't, it's terrible, I couldn't finish it downrange--I finished Moby Dick and James Joyce's Ulysses, but this was "A Boring Bridge Too Far"--the consensus among all the Officers I spoke with in the 173rd who tried reading it) to hating them (advocating bailing out the investment banks because not to do so would hurt the little people, then advocating not bailing out Ford, GM, and Chrysler because... it might hurt the little people, but the companies' poor leadership deserved to suffer).

I'm writing an angry blog about Thomas L. Friedman. Yes. That's actually happening. The guy. What do you want? He asked for the government to bail out New York City and they did. Now he's asking that the government not bail out Michigan and Ohio. I love New York City, I do, and I remember what happened the last time the economy tanked in the 70s. Who can forget? The Big Apple was briefly ruled by competing gangs, and then became a prison island until Bernie Goetz and Kurt Russell defeated the Boss Pimp. Nobody wants to see that happen again. On the other hand, letting the Midwest automotive concerns die would be a massive mistake that could have far-reaching implications. And it surprises me that Friedman, who considers himself something of an expert on foreign affairs, wouldn't consider this.

Simply put, the automotive industry has played a huge role in every major war we've fought against a technologically advanced enemy. The first tanks were tested at Ford*, and during WWII, the auto manufacturers shifted production to bombers, tanks, and jeeps--whatever the government needed built--building up the necessary materiel to win the war. Heavy industry isn't a luxury for the world's superpower--it's a necessity. And when we get rid of our ability to mass-produce an Army that can fight any other Army in the world, and an Air Force that can defeat any opponent in the sky--we go the way of the Romans, who had to rely on others to fight their battles for them. That's all well and good until you get a serious threat like the Huns, at which point the only thing you have left to do is watch Washington burn from the surrounding hills and think: "Where did it all go wrong? I mean... I thought we beat the Russians!"

The thing that really kills me about Friedman the foreign correspondent-turned economic savant is this: he advocated bailing out his investment bank buddies, and is telling the Midwest to go f*** themselves, that their excesses are nobody's fault but their own--horrible, greedy lobbyists. Does he know any sophisticated, hapless, debonair executives from Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley? Or any lobbyists? He excused the worst excesses of investment banking to the unrealistic market demands, generated by the market itself--but paints the auto manufacturers as leading American consumers astray with $1.99 gallons of fuel and SUV marketing. Come on!

Living away from America for so long, I understand how one could come to hate it a little bit--hate it for being different from what you remember, hate it for having to see it through the eyes of other people who hate it, hate it without knowing that you hate it because you no longer really know it. That, a little bit, was what living in Japan was like for me--finding myself finding fault in America, and realizing that I could contribute in a real way to the vision, the idea our founding fathers had for this great land by participating in a national struggle in a meaningful way. Sacrificing years of my life alongside people from Michigan, Alabama, Texas, Montana, and every other state I never otherwise would've seen or interacted with, I've come to appreciate better that America is more than a global obligation. It's small town regular guys who like cars with big engines. It's guys who hunt (I'm from Connecticut, enough said on that topic). It's a desire for the government to stay as much out of a man's life as possible. All of those things, plus the limited sphere you see and understand when you're from New York City--or suburban Connecticut. You see all the needs of the world, and you can either say: "We can do more for them!" or you realize that "We need to do more for ourselves."

So global banking? Whatever. We're all going into a recession, together. Got it. Let's stop lying to ourselves about that and pretending we can stop it. We can save a pretty penny by capping all those fancy banker and investment banking salaries for executives at $1 million. Give the rest back to the taxpayer. Then, sure, fire the management at GM and Chrysler, government-mandate the replacement team. We could go all day with this. When we send a message to the middle third of our country that we could care less about their livelihoods, whether or not we understand their way of life, or care about them, we risk crossing the boundary into a real Depression--culturally, individually. American Industry--f*** it, right Friedman? Who needs it!

I guess being downrange I had a different perspective on a lot of things. You realize, for example, the importance of having robust heavy industry that employs competent specialized laborers. A large portion of Taliban weapons are knock-off AK-47s that are made in home shops in Pakistan. They're capable of firing bullets, but not accurately or for very long. Contrast them with our Colt-manufactured M4s, which I've seen fire 200 rounds as accurately as a soldier could fire them on burst and semiautomatic before they needed to be cleaned. It's the difference between a Japanese Mitsubishi Zero and a P-51 fighter, or an M1 Abrams and a Russian T-80 with reactive armor. You gut GM, Ford, and Chrysler, and when that big showdown does happen--only a blind fool would ignore history on that count--where are the skilled technicians to build our insta-army, the one we cranked in WWII? But then, it's always the people that get forgotten in this type of question--the invaluable human resources that cannot be replaced, and which are overlooked until it's too late, and we have a bunch of new-hires standing around looking at the robotic assembly line scratching their heads while an angry and paranoid Russia rolls upto and then over France's border and we're battened down behind the Atlantic thinking: "Thank God it's not us! Anyway, the Germans had this coming to them... for their atrocities in World War II. At least we're safe over here! Oh, wow, I can't believe the Russians took England! Who saw that coming?"

Anyway, shame on you Thomas L. Friedman--using your writing talent and intellect for evil, rather than good as you once did. Perhaps you should consider limiting your discourse to topics with which you are more comfortable--the foreign sector--and leave economic issues to those who understand them? Otherwise, with your ill-conceived, visceral attacks on this and that, you leave yourself open to equally ill-informed visceral counterattacks such as the one that I've just written.

On a happier, more hopeful note, Obama is our President-elect. I keep reading about policies and positions that he's making/taking or plans to make/take and thinking: "that's a great idea!" It's going to be a tough 4 years, in some ways, and in others--great. Very excited. I think in this case it's awesome that the rest of the world now thinks we're great again. Just goes to show how much importance people attribute to our leadership, and why we were having such a tough time of going it with partner / allied states. And for all the crap that Europe usually gives us about how progressive they are, and how backward and bigoted we are, can you imagine a black Prime Minister in France, or Italy, or a Turkish Prime Minister in Germany, or a Pakistani Prime Minister of England? Didn't think so. You're welcome, rest of the world--once again, we've shown you how it's done.

*I have no idea whether or not this is true, but in the spirit of writing about things that are a bit out of my league, I'm going off a strong personal hunch, rather than doing any real research. Part of this is because any research I could possibly do would be biased toward proving myself correct. This way I get to do that, but without the time wasted researching "the truth." Whatever that is!

Attention Media: Please Forget about Afghanistan Again

2008-08-07T05:19:00.004-04:00

I wrote this two months ago and upon further review it looks post-able.

The New York Times ran a story today about the 500th American death in Afghanistan. This benchmark is significant because now there are, month-by-month more deaths in Afghanistan than in Iraq. Some council put out a big report on how we are not "winning the war" in Afghanistan, which was also significant because apparantly everyone believed that we were winning... uh... "the war." Whatever that means. Big news.

In the interests of portraying how I feel about all this nonsense, I'm going to do a bit of media journalism of my own, starting right now. Commence dropping of "truth bombs."

*when I was leaving for Afghanistan, and even home over leave, most everyone engaged me in the following conversation: "Are you in Iraq? No? Afghanistan? Oh, thank God, at least you're safe." They were wrong about this, but it never occurred to me to correct them.

*before we left for Afghanistan, May 2007, I don't know what the death toll was, but I'm pretty sure that, if you compare number killed (such a valuable and important statistic) in Afghanistan versus troops deployed against a similar number in Iraq, the numbers wouldn't be that far off. Furthermore, consider that up until this point most of the units in Afghanistan have been "elite" units (save the Marines, who up until it started getting media attention again were taking a mulligan).

*comparing Afghanistan to Korea (the "other" "Forgotten War") demeans both conflicts for what amounts to a convenient tag line.

*I understand now, better, why the media should not be allowed onto battlefields, or really to report any topical information whatsoever unless carefully screened by politically savy government censors. Why? How could I endorse such a chilling, remeniscint-of-totalitarianism-slash-antidemocratic-against-free-speech idea? Because things happen in cycles, but people invest meaning in immediate things, in first glances, in pictures. We're not winning the war in Afghanistan? Bulls***! That's the flavor of the day. Just like we're not having any effect in Iraq, right?

Say Goodbye to Afghanistan

2008-07-16T15:04:00.003-04:00

To all my friends and family who supported me and the other Sky Soldiers through this long ordeal away from the country and culture we hold dear: Thank you. I'm coming home.

To "G.S.," the guy on the top floor of my apartment building who won't allow satellite t.v. and always calls the Carbs on us when we throw weekend parties and play the music too loud: uh-oh! Guess who's coming home?

Meetings

2008-06-19T10:52:00.004-04:00

The inspiration for this post comes from several discussions I’ve had over the past ten days; some with co-workers, some with friends. The subject of these conversations—verbal, written, and in some cases play-acted—has been meetings. As redeployment is just around the corner, and I am an Executive Officer (responsible in garrison for the most boring, frustrating part of a Company’s life: coordination), I’ve been logging no less than four meetings a day for over a week, now.

War is hell.

The importance of meetings, and the extent to which they are detested, can be seen in the proportionately large number of ways there are to say “meeting” in Army-speak. You have:
Meeting—A meeting.
Huddle—A small meeting of those chiefly responsible for the mess that needs cleaning up.
Pre-huddle—A small meeting prior to the actual meeting.
Synch—A meeting.
Azimuth Check / Map Check—A meeting to make sure everyone’s “on the same page” or “tracking.”
Breakout Session—A small meeting after a bigger meeting, consisting of a few key personnel.
Sidebar—A small internal meeting during the actual meeting, usually conducted "offline." Often includes unkind remarks about the meeting's moderator.
AAR or “After Action Review”— an official meeting the purpose of which is to identify what went right/wrong with a mission or Operation. Usually a waste of everyone’s time.
Hotwash—a meeting the purpose of which is to identify what went right/wrong with a mission or Operation. Less formal than an AAR. Generally identifies what actually went wrong.
Sit-down—A meeting.
Pow-wow—A meeting.
Skull Session—Where the “heads” get together to plan “the movement piece.” Typically involves chalkboard / colored chalk or dry-erase board with minimum two colored dry erase markers.
IPR or “Interim Progress Review”—A meeting to gauge progress on a particular project.

I understand that in attempting to catalogue the different types of meetings, I’ve thrown out some other words that people may not be familiar with in their Army usage. Here, then, are the other terms I’ve used and their definitions:

“on the same page”—an expression that designates comprehension
“tracking”—same as above
“offline”—not during a meeting, or whispered during a meeting
“heads”—leadership
“the movement piece”—the fun part of the plan
“nug it out”—to figure out a problem.

Meetings. Lord. I’m typing this up between meetings. Sometimes, a day is so thick with meetings, I'll roll through three or four, get into a fifth, and be asked what the progress was on the item asked about in the first; of course, as I've been in meetings since the issue was identified, the progress will be: “none.”

If I’m forgetting anything, let me know.

A candid assessment of our situation

2008-06-12T15:02:00.004-04:00

Popped down to the bazaar yesterday for one of my last patrols (if not the last patrol), and when I got back, the FOB was abuzz with rumors of an impending visit from G1, to inspect living conditions. This on the heels of a visit from IG that had been prompted by someone who, according to rumor, had described living conditions on various FOBs and COPs in our AO as "deplorable," or something like that.
The first thing I'd like to point out is that I've seen deplorable living conditions a few times during my sojourn in the Army, and those instances have all had the following in common:
1) outside in the sand or mud
2) heavy precipitation
3) stinging / biting insects
4) lack of food and/or water
Our FOBs have beds, or at least cots, air conditioning, and well-prepared food. Who goes to Afghanistan and expects a four-star hotel??? There's no pleasing some people, I suppose.
The next thing--and this is important--is: how did I know that G1 was coming for an inspection tomorrow? I guess the logic must be: "if they know we're coming, and they're s***'s jacked up, they're *really* bad." I've seen this on countless occasions--a "Distinguished Visitor" will fly into the battlespace, we'll know far in advance, prepare a highly-scripted briefing, and said visitor will come away with our well-spun version of the truth, which is always more complicated than can effectively be summarized in a one-hour brief. And yet, General after General comes through, speaks to a few high-ranking officers that have been preparing for days to receive him, then leaves, beaming, full of satisfaction that he's doing a good job.
The military cannot hope for accurate and effective top-down assessments if this is allowed to continue. We are sabotaging ourselves and our ability to self-criticize effectively by coreographing this type of event. If I were a General, or a Congressman, and genuinely interested in soliciting honest battlefield reporting this is what I'd do:
1) grab a blackhawk and an apache from a primary hub
2) fly, unannounced, around the battlespace, visiting COPs and FOBs in no particular pattern
3) spend 3 or 4 hours at a single location, and speak *privately* with a representative cross-section of NCOs and low-level officers, before speaking with the commander. Why? If nothing's going wrong, that'll show. If, on the other hand, there are corrections that need to be made, the time to identify those corrections is not during a powerpoint presentation from the very individual / individuals who have the most at stake.
In this fashion, we, the military, could identify problems BEFORE they spun out of control, rather than waiting for some tactical or strategic disaster and performing "After Action Reviews" to brainstorm solutions. Often, a serious military reverse is the last act in a long-unfolding drama.
Then again, institutional change is painful; if nothing's wrong, no change is necessary. And, of course, every individual in the institution has some vested interest in keeping things the same--the closer you get to the top, the stronger the loyalty to the institution. Few leaders succeed who *question* the institutional capacities and functions of the Army--though to question those capacities should not automatically be construed as disloyalty. So you get to the top, and you're not thinking: "is that 240B broken?" You're thinking: "I'm glad everyone's doing great out here. I'm going to get you more air conditioners."
My solution would be an independant arm of the military, with its own dedicated air assets, composed of three retired four-star generals / admirals per theater, (with personal security detachments) who would be reinstated with full privilage of rank, and lifetime appointments similar to the independant judiciary we enjoy.

Back from the most brutal mission I've ever experienced

2008-05-24T08:24:00.002-04:00

Two dramatic events from my most recent Operation, both of which bear remarking on. The first is that I was part of a rout involving a Battalion-minus element from an ally that will remain nameless. The second concerns a series of incidents that occured on a mountaintop somewhere in Eastern Afghanistan. The picture is of me on that mountaintop, as coincidence would have it, not long before the first of those incidents. I'm looking to the South, and I don't like what I see.

You'll see.

So, for OPSEC reasons, I can't go too far into detail with either, but we'll begin with a description of the rout. For those of you who have never imagined a rout, or read of another's imagining, a rout occurs when two elements clash, one is soundly defeated, and runs away without concern for anything, anything, but getting to safety. The other element is then left in sole possession of the battlefield. You remember the child's game "King of the Hill," when that one fat kid got up to the top, and pushed everyone down until he was the King? It's not like that. That's defeat, because you want to go back up there, but you know you're going to get pushed back down again. No, a more appropriate analogy would be when you were playing baseball by Old Man Collins' place, and someone hit a screamer through his living room window. Everyone dropped what they're doing and scattered, as quickly and far as possible from the wrath of Old Man Collins, 'cause you knew what he'd do if he got you: he'd yell at you for a while, and take you to dad, who wouldn't yell, he'd just look really serious, and then he'd tan that a**. The terror of being caught, the rush of bodies away from a beating, that's what fuels a complete rout.

The unit I was with was a Battalion-sized element of not-American soldiers, and what happened was this: we were in a village with strong insurgent activity. We handed out some HA, got some Shura action in, did a bit of engaging of Village Elders, and, on the way out, decided to split up. My element went South, and the Battalion went North. We were supposed to link up at a nearby Madrassa. Well, we conducted our part of the movement, but just as we were pulling up at the Madrassa, there was a boom, a machinegun chattered away somewhere to the East, and the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by allied soldiers streaming westward. Running, speeding by in 5-tons and hilux trucks, screaming away from whatever contact had clearly terrified each and every one of them. Leading the charge was the Battalion Commander, a short, belligerent chap, who saw death, wanted no part of it, decided discretion was the better part of valor, and to damn with his soldiers. I was almost struck by a hilux, then again by a 5-ton careening wildly through the woods. It was chaos. 300 meters to my West, where the road turned, I saw a traffic jam of allied vehicles trying to get away from the contact, and one lonely MRAP fighting its way East to my position.

So myself and another MRAP headed East, and eventually were followed by two more MRAPs. Heading into certain contact, with people running in the opposite direction on every side was one of the strangest but most excellent experiences of my life. I remembered for some reason a scene in Empire Strikes Back where the snow-speeders move in to take out one of those giant "Imperial Walkers," while the routed rebel army flees away from certain destruction. We secured the Eastern Flank, and, our rear safe, over the next two hours were able to rally the shattered forces, gathering them up over some five kilometers.

The second incident, or series of incidents, occurred on a mountaintop overlooking three insurgent-friendly villages. The actors here were myself, an Artillery Captain, a Reservist NCO Medic, a terp, and 30... uh... allied soldiers. A Platoon's worth. On a mountaintop means 1 hour from the nearest reinforcements, so you'd think that pulling security would have been at or near the top of everyone's priority list, what with the insurgents and all. Well, myself and the Artillery Captain were the only ones in full kit until I reminded the Medic that we weren't in Kansas anymore, at which point he donned his body armor and helmet. Meanwhile, the 30 soldiers were drinking tea, sleeping, wandering away from their equipment (it is surreal to "walk the line" and discover three rucksacks, an AK-47, a Draganov, and an RPG-7 with spare rounds, look around, and not a soul in sight), and generally screwing off, save for four, which were diligently pulling guard. I'm not saying that everyone should always be pulling guard. But on a mountaintop, alone, without hope of reinforcements... I don't know. One can only do so much, suggest so often, before one is reminded that it's three against thirty. Alone on a mountaintop that kind of logic is difficult to argue with. When people don't like being told what to do, there isn't much one can do. So we established guard shifts for the night, I took first watch, followed by the Captain, then the Sergeant opted for the last one. "Wake everyone up at 0400 local, for stand-to," I said. "that way we can be ready to move locations at first light if we need to." An enthusiastic "wilco!" was the reply I received.

My shift raced by under the glare of a beautiful full moon that filled me with anxiety that we'd be attacked and overrun, then it was the Artillery Captain's turn. Off I went to my position, to sleep fitfully among the jagged rocks. Next thing I know it's 0420 local, and the sun's rising. I throw on my kit, grab my rifle, and walk, as calmly as I can, over to the radio where someone should be pulling guard. Sure enough, there's the Medic, stretched out in his fartsack, sawing logs. I woke him up, perhaps a bit more rudely than I would have under different circumstances.

"I'm so sorry, sir, I swear it won't happen again," he said, after a bit of instruction on why it's important not to fall asleep during guard shift when one is alone on a mountaintop. At any rate, he would not be pulling radio guard with me around ever again. I couldn't sleep secure at night for two days afterwards, nodding off during the day when exhaustion was too much.

I heard that the Battalion Commander who, like Sir Robin of Monty Python fame had "Bravely ran away," was drinking tea one day while I was one thousand meters above him. An officer who'd conducted a "security inspection" of his soldiers informed him that most of the soldiers were lounging in the open, or not pulling guard. His response was to turn away and ask a subordinate what time he planned on preparing dinner. When the next, logical question was posed: "what do you plan to do in the event of contact?" his answer was merely that "we will fight," which, based on experience, seemed the least likely scenario. If only he'd answered truthfully... it would've sounded something like this:

"I will run, as fast as I can, in whatever direction looks the safest. My men will become confused, and, in the absence of any clear orders, follow my example. My first thought will be to preserve my own hide at any cost; after that, I will think of the horrible things that might happen to me if captured; finally, I will consider refining my path of flight as necessary, and consider jettisoning unnecessary personnel so that my personal HMMWV might travel faster."

It is a minor miracle that I'm still alive. The good news is that, at this point, we have so weakened the insurgents that they cannot even exploit our weaknesses--the jab is the only punch they have left to throw.

Another Fighting Season Is Upon Us

2008-05-08T14:37:00.005-04:00

As Spring Training was winding down, and the Red Sox were in Japan tussling with the A’s, we started finding IEDs in the roads again, the Taliban started ambushing convoys, and the FOBs and COPs closest to Pakistan started getting rocketed. Couldn’t help but think about how much I’d rather be sitting in the nosebleed section at Fenway, sucking down a flat, overpriced light domestic beer, than looking into the mountains… wondering when / where the next hit would come.

This post is going to be a rambling discourse on that idea—what’s going on back home? It all looks so strange, so removed, over a year after I left with my unit for this area, home is unspeakably, terribly distant. I don’t pretend to speak for everyone. The analogy of the previous paragraph doesn’t even hold for most of the guys out here, who seem to loathe baseball—too slow for most soldiers. They prefer football, UFC fights, wrestling. Me, if the devil appeared tomorrow and offered me an indestructible arm, pinpoint accuracy, a 100mph fastball plus a wicked breaking ball and 10 years of Diabolic dominance of the diamond (starting with my ETS), I’d sign in a heartbeat. Then head down to Fenway and start mowing down the opposition.

I watched last year, the whole season, from the sidelines—out here, I missed seeing it in person. I missed seeing the Sox win another series. Now it’s happening again, I’m missing baseball season, the best time, May and June when everyone’s just playing to play, everyone’s fresh, there’s no pressure of looming pennants, it’s all open. Reminds me a bit of high school, that period of development when everything was still couched in terms of potential, when most obstacles were lying around waiting to be surmounted.

One more point about baseball (before I move on to another topic of whining), concerning rivalry and the Yankees. I live closer to New York than to Boston, and though I’ve been a fan of the Sox since 1985, when my dad and one of his buddies took me up to watch them play against (lose against) the Twins (got to see Puckett that one time), I’ve attended far more Yankees games. From my position here, seated just below the abode of the elder gods, at the feet of the highest and least forgiving mountains in the world, allow me to say that the ridiculous squabble between the Yankees and Red Sox is just that. I would give anything to be able to enjoy a lazy summer afternoon at Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park, and plan on doing just that when I return. Ah, but one sees with such clarity from this elevation—from this situation.

The other thing I’ve been following—much of the military has been following—with great interest is the progress of the election. While I cannot make my personal views on this public knowledge, though I would dearly love to do so, I’d just like to point something out to the Democratic side of the house. The competition between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama is healthy and good for the Party, the Party needs criticism and soul-searching, and it pains me to read about pundits screaming for Senator Clinton to leave the race, to concede. Senator Clinton wants to be President of the most powerful and greatest country on Earth, the United States of America, not Class President. Why should she concede? If I were in her position, and within striking distance, only death would stay my hand, or the final tally. And on the other side of the house, I fail to see how defeating a worthy opponent weakens Senator Obama if he does secure his party’s nomination. The candidates are simply expressing confidence in themselves, and their ideas, and that confidence will be magnified no matter who wins. Throw in the towel, admit defeat, cry uncle… Good Lord! Hey pundits—if you know so much about what’s good for the country, the party, how to run a campaign, how about running for President yourselves.

That’s what I thought.

And not discussing my politics, or what policies I support, is just the tip of the iceberg... the worst part of being out here is not really being able to discuss what goes on out here with anyone except fellow officers / senior enlisted. But I suppose that's for the best--to see everything that happens out here, one needs not only to experience it, but to live it. And living it is quite plainly hell, so it's best that many people not be able to relate. I guess it's just something that has to be lived with.

Paved Roads part II

2008-04-27T06:02:00.005-04:00

When my Commander told me I’d have an opportunity to do a bit of traveling with a Platoon, I was very enthusiastic. Going on patrols, no matter how limited (and the patrols I lead are very limited, owing to local circumstances I’m not at liberty to disclose due to OPSEC), is great fun, and helps move the time along nicely. At this advanced stage, 12 months into our deployment, one can’t help but be hyper-aware of the clock, and the calendar. So, while leading patrols was going to be something that entailed a good bit of extra work on my part (something I detest), the payoff—to wake up one morning, filthy, exhausted, but one month closer to redeployment—looked well worth the sacrifice. Having made my decision, and acutely aware that any time one balks at an opportunity, one is rightly branded a coward, naysayer, or worse, I enthusiastically said: “count me in!”

The first leg landed us a bit to the North, in one of the largest FOBs in Afghanistan, and which I’ve made mention of in previous posts. The 1SG of the Company I was previously a part of (before I moved to the “Band of Brothers” Company) took us to this FOB in November, and assured us that it was connected to other areas of Afghanistan via a developed network of paved roads—these assurances, sadly, were all for naught at the time. When our patrol arrived there recently, I was surprised to see that since November they’d laid a good 10km (at least) of paved roads. Driving those ten short kilometers was a short but surreal experience (locals would still pull off to the side of the two-lane road and stop while our convoy passed… but instead of dirt roads, we were on paved roads, you don’t usually see people pull over to the side of paved roads unless there’s some kind of emergency--can you imagine people pulling over to the side of the road while you were driving along I-95 from New Haven to New York? Not unless you're a cop you can't), a little bit of what passes for what I recognize as civilization goes a long way out here. It’s easy to associate a winding, broken-down trail with ambushes and insecurity—less so a smooth, clean, black stretch of road.

We ended up staying at this FOB for a few days, longer than the one night we’d spent on my previous journey. After two weeks in the mountains, without showers or port-a-johns, the transient tents we’d stayed in had seemed like godsends—who cared if the mattresses were a bit saggy, or the showers didn’t have hot water, or the chow hall was terrible. It was out of the cold, and nobody had to pull security, so it was glorious. On this trip, however, I was to become intimately familiar with the “transient” tents, and the whole “transient” culture on FOBs.

Here’s how it shakes down. The first day you get to the FOB at which you’ll be living “in transit” for anywhere between two and ten days, you’re so grateful not to be on the road anymore, to have made it there without having lost any men or vehicles, you don’t care that the conditions are mean and squalid. The morning of the second day you wake up with a sore back that you immediately blame on the thin, spring-y mattress and the fact that your bunkmate has been shaking the structure by tossing and turning on the top bunk the entire night. You realize that the chow at your FOB isn’t so bad—or, is, but it doesn’t matter because the chow’s (clearly) bad everywhere. By the third day you’ve abandoned hope that you will be able to find anything to assuage the tedium other than the prospect of 30 minutes on an MWR computer once a day. You realize that you’re being treated like the proverbial “Red-Headed Stepchild” and begin to foster a powerful dislike for the inhabitants of the FOB where you’re a transient. [side note—I was originally going to write “Wandering Jew” instead of “Red-Headed Stepchild,” and really feel that it captures the sense of alienation better—the transient feels that as he's been out fighting the war on terror and risking his neck in a series of uncomfortable / downright dangerous situations, he's entitled to a princely reception and great treatment, while the FOB denizens are insensitive to his plight, instead treating him like a leper—I was waved off this phrase by a friend of mine who says that the phrase “Wandering Jew” is not politically correct. I guess the Red-Headed Stepchildren of the world have a few more beatings to endure before that particular turn of phrase becomes taboo, too, at which point I’ll have to fall back on biblical comparisons (Job) which I’ve always felt are weak, and obsolete archaisms like “Rented Mule” which nobody can relate to].

In fact, the only thing that made living as a transient on the FOB tolerable was the fast-paced and, strangely for the ARMY, well-paced training. We had about enough time in a day to get 8 hours of training in, plus tend to the myriad of tasks that needed to be accomplished in a very short amount of time, with the overall result being that at the end of the day we were pretty well exhausted, and in no position to worry overmuch about not having enough to do. This was a good thing, as I’d neglected to bring my computer. And then it was over.

One last remark on this episode. Leaving the FOB, on our way home, about 5km into the mountains, I had a feeling I'd never had before, which was that I really, really hoped that we wouldn't take contact. This thought had never occured to me before. I've never gone on a patrol and hoped that the Taliban would not be home, or out to lunch; I've never thought: "Lord, I hope we don't get ambushed today." When I realized that I was thinking this, I became nervous, because--well, isn't that just the way? The one time you don't want to be ambushed or shot at, there you are, in the middle of WWIII. Except this time, when nothing happened. We got back to our home base with no issues, I spent the next two hours in meetings and post-patrol coordination synchs, then started gearing up for another patrol. By the time that one rolls around, hopefully I'll have kicked this depressing impulse that tells me "contact isn't worth it."

Codes and Children

2008-04-03T02:20:00.013-04:00

Walking to chow from the gym this morning, I saw something peculiar. One of my interpreters was carrying a very young female child that couldn’t have been more than two years old, walking in the FOB. I immediately had three thoughts, one of which was that it was the first infant / toddler I’d seen in months, the next being: “what business could a two-year-old possibly have on our FOB?” and the last: “I guess the two-year-old can’t cause any harm.” In leaving that last thought alone, I was taking a calculated risk, because the children in this region are a pack of some of the most dangerous, desperate, fearless criminals the world has ever seen.

In the past 11 months, I’ve had many occasions to interact with these notorious desperados, so have drawn some conclusions from what I’ve observed. From the time a male child here can walk, he is encouraged to conduct pilferage on a grand scale. By the time he’s running, at the age of four or so, he is so accomplished a thief that he can carry his body weight in other peoples’ possessions, while trundling along at a good fifteen miles per hour. I have seen this happen on numerous occasions, even though it sounds like a stretch of the truth. Below is more information about these miniature crooks...

1. When you see two or three kids—usually, a couple of 10-year-olds and a 5-year-old—this is just the advance group for a much, much larger group of 30-100 children. If you’re in a valley, you’ll encounter this giant group of children everywhere you stop… the same group. The group is capable of massing on you within 15 minutes, even if you’re in an isolated village that’s 10km from the nearest road. You will notice the same faces in this group in every village, though the children will claim not to have seen Coalition Forces in “months” when asked by the terps.

2. These kids have the incredible ability to store any and all H.A. you give them; where, nobody knows. I have seen two jingle trucks full of H.A., including two giant rugs bound for mosques, cleaned out within minutes, and the group of children was still standing there with their hands out. Einstein and Stephen Hawkings posited the existence of other dimensions… is it possible that these children have puzzled out the secret, and use the other dimensions to store the tremendous amounts of swag they receive from us? It seems unlikely, but in the absence of any other reasonable explanation, one wonders...

3. Regarding the habits of the children—there are two general types of children, the “Mishtahs,” and the “Givmes.” A Mishtah will introduce himself as such, then proceed to demand either “pin,” or “shill.” Example: we roll up to a village, set in security, and get out to distribute H.A. We encounter two ten-year-olds and a five-year old. One of the ten-year-olds steps forward; he’s a Mishtah, as we learn presently.
“Mishtah.”
“Sallam Alayqum.”
“Mishtah.”
[to terp] “hey, Abdul, tell the village elder that we’re here.”
“Mishtah, pin. Pin.”

“No pen! Sorry, no! No pen!”
“Pin, Mishtah.” [points to my map marker in my left sleeve] “Pin.”
“I need this for me. No. No pen.”
“Mishtah, pin!” and so on.
Givmes will simply extend both arms, palms facing up, and repeat the same phrase over and over again: “Givme.” It’s of interest to note that one does not usually encounter Mishtahs and Givmes together owing to some deep-seated animosity between the two types of children… when they do accidentally come into contact, a violent confrontation is bound to erupt, which the Mishtahs usually win. This is not to say that the Givmes are always on the receiving end… when they outnumber Mishtahs by a good Four or Five to One, the Givmes will attack without hesitation. And then, heaven have mercy on those poor, outnumbered Mishtahs!

4. You don’t see too many little girls in the group, and when you do, it’s at the behest of the male children. They understand that nothing tugs at a soldier’s heart better than a dirty, little angel, who reminds him of his daughter or sister, so he will sometimes give her a soda, or a pack of cookies he’d been saving for that night, thinking he’s done some good. The moment the little girl takes possession of the treat, however, the boys will descend on her as one, and beat her senseless, taking the treat from her unconscious hands and delivering several parting kicks as they scamper off to enjoy the bounty.
Being a girl in Afghanistan, in the rural areas, seems like a miserable existence. Karmically, it looks to be about two steps higher than a mosquito on the reincarnation chain, so if you want to see me in my next life, 50 years from now, that’s where I’ll be… a 5-year old girl on the border of Pakistan.

I never did find out what the child was doing on the FOB, but haven't seen her since, and rather than court some inscrutable, convoluted lie, I've just let the matter drop with the terp.

An Incident in New York City

2008-04-01T07:36:00.002-04:00

Before I enter into my post, I’d like to give a quick shout out to two veteran characters from this catalogue of immaturity and failure—two officers to whom failure and frustration are great, old friends—“Graham” and “Carson.” They were in Iraq on 15 month tours, and have since returned to Ft. Benning, for the Captain’s Career Course in the first case, and as a “M.I.” whacker in the second. This would be an ideal occasion to wax eloquent on any number of topics having to do with friendship, but the fact is, I mention them only because they threatened to stop reading my blog if I didn’t put more of them in it. Two readers is, I think, something like 75% of my total first-year readership (Carson claims to read each post twice, so he’s been counted twice—add Graham and me and you have the Four, which constitutes the 100%, taken together). Concerning myself with audience seems conceited, and it did not factor into my decision to begin / continue writing in a public forum, but hearing that it’s something I have, and might lose, I cannot help but take steps to correct the deficiency. If this trick works, it may seem advisable to write an entire book that is just a list of friends and acquaintances, by name, divided by chapter. Half this book would be the list itself, the other half being dedicated to the index, so that anyone might find him or herself with the greatest of ease. Otherwise, navigating one’s way through the following chapters would be an impossible chore: “drinking buddies,” “enemies on whom I’ve sworn undying vengeance,” and “women I’ve loved… and lost.”
And if that’s not enough, I hereby promise that, should the three of us visit Paris after my return from Afghanistan, I won’t call Graham out when he whines about every little thing that doesn’t suit him; this is one of his only noticeable characteristics when sober (an unusual state for him), so it bears mentioning. As for Carson, I promise never again to bring up the time he embroiled me in a vicious fistfight because he was stumbling drunk, assaulting strangers and shouting racial slurs in Buckhead, Atlanta. The details of this altercation—who it involved, how long it lasted, how we managed to fight off a rightfully-enraged city and avoid the police—I’ll leave to the reader’s suitably lurid imagination.
It was through talking (and thinking) about training, and the odd characters I met during IOBC, that inspiration struck today. There was an “exchange” student from a Middle Eastern country (that will remain nameless) in my class who we’ll call “WB” to give him some measure of protection from censure, and he was a regular fount of wisdom and knowledge about Middle Eastern Culture, which of course was highly prized among the Second Lieutenants, who fancied themselves experts on all things Arabic and Muslim after several brief conversations with WB.
A noteworthy event involving WB and myself happened several years ago. I was in New York City for New Year’s in 2005-2006, and met up with him and another IOBC classmate / unapologetic socialite who’s been mentioned here, Hemmann, for some party Hemmann had a bead on, which was better than the idea I’d had, which was to sip champagne in solitude and contemplate the way of things. We rendezvoused at an apartment that WB was staying at with a couple Middle Eastern friends who were not affiliated with the military. The apartment belonged to a cousin, or something, who worked in New York as a hairdresser, and was very well off judging from the furnishings. He’d generously lent it to WB for the holidays as he was out of the country on business. When I arrived everyone was drinking beers except this one skinny, intense guy named “Faizel,” who was another, different friend of the hairdresser who owned the apartment. Faizel was in a seperate room, engrossed in a computer game that he was playing / watching on a great Plasma Screen T.V., but I was at an angle to it and thus not in a position to observe the action. I tried to get in closer, but, seeing my interest, Faizel made a face, leaned over and closed the door. Used to this sort of reaction from people (though, in fairness, it’s usually from a woman, and after I’ve done something a bit more tangible to deserve the door / open-handed slap / piece of dishware to the face), I thought no more about it, grabbed a beer, and started catching up with WB and Hemmann. Unsurprisingly, they had a few amusing anecdotes to dispense, and the next half hour passed in pleasant reacquaintance.
As anyone who’s been in this position can attest, drinking beer does two things to one: encourages frequent trips to the bathroom, and necessitates trips to the liquor store when the stocks run low. In this case, the one and the other conspired together such that, as I was in the bathroom when the decision was made to get additional liquor, I was nominated to ask Faizel if he’d like anything to eat as I was now closest to his computer-fueled fantasy world.
It’s possible that I would’ve done things a bit differently if I hadn’t been drinking heavily on and off all day. The liberty that alcohol gave me regarding social niceties, alongside a conviction that Faizel’s lack of polite attendance deserved some fitting answer, encouraged me to barge into the room to solicit his order rather than leave him his privacy and ask through the door. Then, if he was really that intent on his privacy, he would’ve locked the door, right? Well, he hadn’t, and I didn’t feel like being treated like a servant, so I opened it, and in my most overbearingly social manner, barged right in and asked what he’d like to eat.
The expression on his face was a mixture of anger and surprise, which struck me as a bit odd at first, but seemed a piece when I looked up at the Plasma Screen T.V. and saw that the game he was playing was a “flight simulation” trainer. I had just enough time to watch as he flew something that looked like the cockpit of a Cessna directly into a skyscraper in a generic city setting but was probably Chicago, or New York. I looked at Faizel again, but the situation was simply too absurd to be taken seriously, so I treated it with the mockery and derision one might expect. “WB, did you know that your friend Faizel is a terrorist?” I yelled. This basic refrain became the object of merriment everyone focused on for the rest of the evening, though my continuing to “take the piss” out of Faizel didn’t make for the foundations of a solid friendship. Come to think of it, that was the last time I was invited to meet and associate with WB or any of his friends. I know this is exceptional because everyone else has enjoyed repeated invitations to visit him in [his Middle Eastern country], whereas I have not—I’m guessing this has something to do with not wanting Faizel’s Hezbullah cell to take its revenge on me. In any event if you’d have done any differently in my situation, please say so, I think I handled it rather well all things considered. Anyway, computer flight simulators are terrible, boring games, so he deserved all the mockery he justly received.
Later that evening I was able to seduce a Japanese student studying in the city using the limited Japanese I’d picked up during my travels in the East, something that hadn’t happened when I lived in Osaka, which just goes to show how chancy things can be. At the time I viewed my success with the ladies as a sign from God that I was making the correct decisions in life, but events were to disprove that theory in short order.
The degree to which this entry strikes you as credible and entertaining should not be one and the same. Unless you’ve correctly perceived it to be so many accumulated half-truths and self-promoting exaggerations, and derived no entertainment whatsoever from the rambling, in which case you’ve got the mixture about right.

Bravo, Prince Harry

2008-02-29T22:13:00.004-05:00

I was disappointed last year when it sounded like he wouldn't get a crack at Iraq. Bravo to Harry for getting out there and nabbing some experience in one of the most dangerous provinces in Afghanistan. Bravo to the British Press for keeping it under tabs. Early reporting suggests that it was the American media that outed the Prince... have to say, if this is the case, it's extraordinarily disappointing. Let the boy become a man, and choose his own path in life. It's not his fault for being born into his position... sometimes I think that we Americans are coddled, assuming that the rest of the world enjoys the liberties that for us are both a blessing and a blasted prison. While I'm sure his duties were carefully controlled, given the unpredictable nature of the war in Helmund, it speaks very highly of his character that he would make such a concerted push to do something that to him seems to have been very important. I can relate.

Good thing the Drudge Report hasn't discovered that *I'm* out here, despite the pictures I've posted (and will post here) proving, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that I'm in Afghanistan and have been for nearly 10 months... a huge story the American media has somehow managed to keep the lid on despite what for them must be an unimaginable urge to "let the cat out of the bag..." Mixing ideas is a clear sign that fatigue has set in, so I'll sign off.

I served under the same command as a Prince! Awesome!

Nine Months in the Rear View Mirror

2008-02-21T23:15:00.005-05:00

In his book on Infantry Tactics: "Infantry Attacks," Erwin Rommel discusses, among other things, the feeling one experiences leaving one's first unit; the unit that forms most of one's ideas about leadership. I'd already experienced that gut-wrenching feeling during training in Germany, when our Company Executive Officer was (correctly) fired for gross incompetence, and I, as the Senior Platoon Leader, was moved into his position, saying goodbye to the Platoon I'd trained and trained with for 8 months. My Platoon Sergeant had already left the unit, which was hard, too; he was, as NCOs go, an outstanding mentor and tutor, and the whole thing felt sudden and contrived. As evidenced by Rommel's observations nearly a century ago, this is the way of Armies--leaders are constantly rotated through different positions, for professional development, and as a way of keeping fresh ideas and motivation in circulation. Make no mistake--I don't have enough time in the Army to make any kind of criticism about how they conduct personnel moves, and it seems that these moves are always justified--all I'm saying is that change, and movement away from the soldiers one has grown to know, intimately, is unimaginably difficult.
So I come to the story at hand. After a year and a half with the only unit I've ever known in the Army, the powers that be said "enough was enough," and moved me into a new unit, a horizontal move into more difficult logistical position. Without going into details, suffice it to say that the new position has been equal parts challenging and rewarding; new location, different scenery, more responsibility, more latitude to implement our Commander's vision. And, for the moment, more patrolling. So many faces had joined and left my old Company since last July when I joined it, it didn't even feel like leaving C Company... more like being the last one on board a ship departing for the new world.
Since leaving, two weeks ago, I've had enough physical and emotional distance to think about certain events that transpired, and today I wanted to write about one of those events, because it's been on my mind a lot lately, and not in a good way. One of many things that's been contributing to a low, low mood, among the inexorable advance of old age, an impossibly frustrating inability to be present for the people I love during their moments of hardship and crisis (my grandfather died during an Operation, the last in our family that had any direct knowledge of what I'm going through right now), and the fact that I cannot properly court the woman I love from the mountain valley prison I call home. Map onto this angst and ennuie the realization that when I return to the problems of civilization, I will certainly yearn for this time and place, and wonder why I took its beauty for granted...
In any event, so this thing I'm remembering now, and getting off my chest because along with everything else it's been putting me in a rotten mood and I can't do anything about "everything else," is that, a few months ago, we were doing a patrol (really more of a simple escort), delivering gravel to reduce dustoff on a regular HLZ site. The gravel was necessary on short notice, and we happened to have some jingle truck drivers sitting around after a delivery, so I took it upon myself to convince them to make the trip. It was a hard sell, but in the end, after appealing to their pocketbooks and their patriotism, they agreed to make the dangerous trip... once. 6 loads of gravel wasn't going to do much, but it would be better than nothing, and I figured that after the first successful trip, it'd be easier to convince them that there was nothing to worry about.
But as it turned out, there was an IED in the road. Myself and two other HMMWVs rolled right over it without seeing anything awry, or setting it off. One of the jingle trucks wasn't so lucky, and the IED blew up its cab, and sent the poor driver flying through the air like a broken rag doll, to land in a heap some 40 meters away from his cab. This driver's brother was in the convoy, and he was in bad shape, until he fainted. I'd never seen someone faint before, and had actually been under the impression that it didn't exist, as a liberal female teacher had made us read several articles proving that "fainting" was some kind of hysteria limited to Victorian Era Women, and somehow a tool of the patriachal establishment to keep women down. Anyway, this dude totally fainted when he saw what remained of his brother's body. We established security and chased down a couple shepards who were, as it turned out, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, after the Afghan Police questioned them and established their innocence they were released to their tribe.
It's my reaction to the event that's been on my mind. At the time, I remember feeling an extraordinary mixture of relief and horror; relief that the heap of skin and blood and *shattered* bones lying on the side of the road wasn't me, horror that said heap used to be a person, and that person had, not an hour ago, expressed misgivings about driving such a dangerous stretch of road, concerns that I'd dismissed out of hand as frivolous, and which I'd had the audacity to ameliorate with cash. Since that time, I've protected myself by saying or thinking things like: "well, he bought it cheap," or "guess he should've gone with his gut, instead of grabbing for the money," like it's his fault; or, quite obviously, like it's not my fault.
I'm not looking for sympathy, here, I signed up understanding the spiritual risks I'd be incurring as an officer. Nothing's simple. Since arriving here, I've attended countless Shuras, seen a couple Jirgas, watched as two towns were transformed by CMO projects and the hard work of those Afghans who are tired of ceaseless warfare and just want peace and a chance to make a better life for their families; they're making progress. That makes it all worthwhile; you talk to these people about the "Russian" times, how entire villages would be wiped out, how every man woman and child would help resist the invaders, and--everyone over 30 has seen both sides of the coin, and understands that this is different, we're here to help. The foreign jihadists, the Arabs, Chechens, Uzbeks, Turks, they're the new foreign army, working against the prosperity and self-determination of Afghanistan.
And if I didn't have that knowledge, gained from firsthand experience, to balance out the horror and hatred, also gained from firsthand experience, I don't know what I'd do. Can't imagine how those poor, conscript Russians felt, fighting for old Karl Marx's vision.

Taking Pleasure in the Misfortune of Others

2008-02-02T14:56:00.000-05:00

This entry was occasioned by my witnessing, for the second time in as many months, one of the great comic events of a man's lifetime: watching another human being take a spectacular fall. In fact, I'm making this entry an homage to all such events; the majesty of another human's sudden loss of dignity.

There are a few phrases everyone's familiar with: "taking a spill," "eating dirt," "going horizontal." Since joining the military I've become privy to a couple other phrases, which may enhance your pleasure the next time you witness this timeless humor classic: "taking a digger," which I think is supposed to evoke the image of a person falling so hard they fall into the ground, or perhaps memorializes what happens when one's weapon suddenly meets the soft earth. Also "eating s***," a variation on the theme of getting a mouthful of dirt.

One of the rituals of passage in Ranger School is, halfway through the final field exercise, conducting a "movement to daylight" that involves traversing 900m of swamp at night, a movement called "The Weaver." Although I'd long appreciated a good fall--memory brings me back to a harsh winter in New Haven, when a dignified professor was walking along a sidewalk that was slick with ice, and slipped, throwing a stack of papers into the air in celebratory fashion, then delivering some decidedly undignified phrases intended to emphasize his displeasure with the situation, and winter in general--it wasn't until this overnight movement that I decided that "The digger" was going to be something I relished, cherished. About an hour into the movement (it took us 4 hours)--I was carrying a SAW and 800 rounds of ammunition (which quickly turned into zero rounds of ammunition--I don't condone this sort of behavior, and am deeply ashamed of my own weakness, but the swamp swallowed everything)--we came to the first of what would turn into a seemingly endless series of deep water pits, which had to be traversed moving from one submerged tree-root to the next, in complete darkness. Warnings arrived from the person in front of you, whispered, in the form of rough guidance: "Stay to the right." "Watch this one, it's deep," "Steep drop," etc. At one of the "Stay to the right" ponds, I'm also hit with a "Watch it, it's deep," and "The roots are really far apart, be careful." I do, and manage to make my way across after some tense moments and feats of agility that were beyond my normal capacity. I pass along the information to the guy behind me, and I can hear him passing it along to the guy behind him. Then I hear a spoken (the first non-whispered words I've heard yet) "Oh, s***," and a tremendous splash. Then cursing. I remember smiling, and thinking to myself: "That's awesome." Alongside my pleasure, I remember experiencing a great, albeit temporary sense of relief, as though his fall somehow had taken the pressure off the rest of us. This, of course, was not to be, and we all ended up falling at one point or another, and the river crossing made staying dry a pointless exercise, anyway. For the purposes of this story, though, the important takeaway is that knowledge that someone else is suffering just a little worse than myself is enough to buoy my spirits enough to get me to the next challenge.

Our Dining Facility has cheap linoleum floor--delightful "blue and off-off white" design. I don't know if you're familiar with the physical properties of linoleum, but the big sell on this product is that it doesn't rot or warp when wet, unlike boring old "wood" flooring. Of course, when water gets on linoleum, the linoleum doesn't do anything special to it--the water just sits there, on the linoleum, until it evaporates. Linoleum, by the way, is a naturally slick surface (little friction). One last item of note: there are two rooms in our dining facility, connected by a surprisingly steep and unavoidable, though short, ramp. So to do a quick recap of all the major players in this drama... we have
a) one of those mountain snowstorms you read about
b) a surface that gets really slick when wet
c) said surface, at critical and unavoidable choke-point between rooms, is elevated at a, oh, say, 15 degree slope
d) evaporation does not occur as quickly when the temperature is cold, which it is.

On to the particulars. another thing I failed to mention is that all the sauces, garnishes, and spices are in room number two, as well as the toaster. This last fact, seemingly insignificant, will take on a terrible importance as this story develops. So about a month ago, myself and the Commander are eating lunch at the back of the second room, having braved the ramp. People are walking up the treacherous ramp in order to gather spices or toast bread, then settling in the room or gingerly moving back down the ramp (for some reason this is the more dangerous phase of the journey). I happen to look up as someone grabs their toasted bread from the toaster oven, and--you can never say why you watch someone, but I ended up following this guy's journey as he turned to move back to the first room. Right as he got to the top of the ramp, one of his buddies called out to him, so he turned around, answered him, talked for 5 or 10 seconds, then stepped purposefully out on to the ramp. Purposefully and unthinking; in those 10 seconds he'd forgotten where he was. His legs, naturally, flew out from under him, he "went horizontal," and fell loudly on his back, while his tray of food flew everywhere. This, of course, is the best kind of humor, so I (and everyone) laughed. The soldier bounced up, obviously ashamed, and began brushing himself off, but I couldn't see who it was. So I told him to turn around, so I could see him. It was a guy from 3rd Platoon, named Private R*****. I thanked him for the show. This demonstration of heartless insensitivity won me accolades from all present, as well as adding to everyone else's enjoyment. This is the sort of joyful camaraderie one can expect in a Band of Brothers--ceaseless fear of public censure.

Fast forward to today. We've got 8 inches so far, supposed to be up to 3 feet. Not a cloud in the sky, yesterday, either--you know!? Mountain weather!! Anyway, I'm eating lunch with the Commander and 1SG, as usual, but I have my back to the treacherous ramp. People are taking it very careful, as they should, and I've finished my meal without any incidents occuring. Actually, it doesn't even occur to me that the stage is set for a deliciously amusing repeat of that most appreciated of comic events (sadly, unaccompanied by a slide whistle, though if it happens again tonight I think I'll incorporate that into the act). Anyway we're sitting around bullshitting about Recon and Ranger School, and the stupid things we did, when 1SG, fresh off midtour leave, looks up with a quizzical expression on his face and asks: "Who's that?" Naturally, I turn to see who he's talking about, and only get a fleeting look at a greasy uniform entering The Ramp area before (cue slide whistle) Mr. Unclean Uniform's feet go flying out from under him, and his plate of food does its thing all over the chow hall. I turn around, pump my fist twice, enthusiastically, and say: "Yes!" Which everyone else finds amusing. An unscripted and honest reaction to an objectively hilarous event.

Let he without blame cast the first stone. Just make sure your feet are planted on solid, unslick ground, for if you cast and then fall, you will be mocked ruthlessly. The final indignity, of course, arrived in the evening, with nobody watching, when I was walking from my room to our TOC in the dark, slipped on a patch of ice, and did my best impersonation of Dick Van Dyck's "crazylegs" routine. I feel compelled to admit that this happened--as I knew it would--to demonstrate that I understand that nobody is above ridicule. Fortunately for me, nobody was around to see it, so it was more of a private reminder that one day, I would almost certainly be "that guy." So be it!.

The photo is a staged recreation of the day's hilarity, with me playing the part of unwitting and literal "fall guy" as one of the local workers looks on. Don't worry, it didn't actually happen to me. Yet!

Doc likes to party

2008-01-07T03:14:00.000-05:00

This post was originally much longer, but in order to render the proper degree of attention to the principle actors, Iwould have had to violate OPSEC, there was no way around it... perhaps after a suitable amount of time has elapsed, the full story may be told. Meanwhile, I will begin telling this story with a non sequiter; after all, this is a story about non sequiters, and saying whatever comes to one's mind no matter the circumstances.

A memory. Me, as a child, visiting the Stony Creek library. Stony Creek is like a sub-town attached to my already small New England town--maybe it's a village. Not really sure. At any rate, they have their own library, and when we're in 2nd - 4th grade, we're required to take occasional field trips to said library, in order to learn about books, and encourage reading. Well, Stony Creek's library isn't very big, and doesn't offer a particularly wide selection from which to choose--especially for a 2nd-4th grader. My mom sometimes worked in libraries, so I was tracking pretty well on how to navigate my way through the shelves to the good stuff--search by title, etc., and so it was that on every one of the trips I would find myself in the horror section, reading the same three pocket-sized books about
ghosts
werewolves
vampires
across the world. The books were written for children, and had illustrations. I believe that these books had a great impact on my impressionable young mind, for throughout childhood I had an abiding fear of these very creatures. Especially one type of vampire that was female and would fly into one's open mouth during sleep, and the native American vampire, which, according to the book, would punch a hole in its victims' chests and suck all the blood out that way. I guess this was particularly horrifying because the native American vampire had no distinct shape, so it was up to my imagination to supply the details--besides, with a normal vampire one could (at that time) safely assume that none were here, in America, vampirism was a European plague. The native American vampires, on the other hand... that cave in the woods behind my house... perfect vampire hideout... My parents would have never allowed me to read such a book had they found it lying around the house, but in the sanctity of the library, I was free to poison my young mind to my heart's content. Wouldn't have it any other way.

On to the story at hand. Whenever there's a dispute between Afghans, we go for our best interpreter, a guy I'll call "Doc." Doc does a good job of translating, is awesome at telling us what's going on between the lines, and is eager to work no matter the time or circumstances (this has been tested on many occasions). Saturday rolls around and there's a huge blow-up between two sets of Afghans, both of which want to do to the other whatever emotional harm they can, to provoke the other side into some physical attack, which will blow all their credibility with the Coalition Forces. We have a sit down with the two sides, myself, the CO, and--of course--Doc. The talk is long, the stakes are high, and after an hour of back-and-forth, due mainly to my keeping my own counsel (I am in a particularly bad mood due to being awoken after 3 hours of sleep) and the CO's quick-thinking mediation skills, we have a compromise in sight that looks good for everyone.

It is at this stage in the negotiations--the end stretch, when everything is coming together, that Doc gives into this weird impulse he obeys whenever the impulse arises. We'll call it the "party" impulse; it's similar in nature to the same impulse that led Leon Lett to hold out a football for Don Beebe to smack away during one of the unfortunate Buffalo Bills / Dallas Cowboys encounters of the mid '90s. Keep in mind that the meeting is still very much in progress, everyone's still at the table, no agreement has been reached about anything (though this appears inevitable--like, within the next 5-10 minutes). Doc stops translating for one of the sides in mid sentence, is silent for a couple seconds, then looks at me.

"Sir, what do you think about a party?"
I'm a little confused. "Uh... what?"
"I would like to have a party tonight. You and the Commander and LT R--- and LT D--- must come to the party."
"O.k...."
"When would be a good time for the party?"

The Afghans, of course, are sitting at the table, not really understanding what's going on--fortunately. I've seen this happen on two other occasions. When Doc gets the idea to throw a party, nothing stands in his way. It's almost enough to counterbalance his other great qualities as a terp--good knowledge of English and Pashtun, honesty, dedication--the chance that, at any given moment, no matter what the setting, he will think: "hey, I should throw a party" (this is the seconds of silence), then go about spreading this good idea he's had, making plans on the spot for the party. Once it happened in the middle of a synche meeting between us and the ANA, and he wouldn't shut up about parties until we'd promised to attend, and hashed out the particulars. So it was on this day. It didn't matter that we were in the middle of negotiating an important settlement between two factions that would otherwise be shooting at each other. What we thought of parties was similarly not taken into consideration. The only thing that mattered to Doc at that moment was that we make a solid plan to have a party, that night, and that we commit to attending the party, at a specific time.

That agreement reached, we got back to the matter at hand of resolving the dispute that, untended, would certainly have boiled over into violence. 10 minutes later, everyone was shaking hands, the matter had been resolved, the issue was over. Doc knows how to negotiate, so he holds the two disputents over the fire until they both promise to respect one another (using, I imagine, the same techniques of social hostage-taking he had with myself and the CO moments before). Before everyone went their separate ways, though, Doc had one more thing he wanted to say.

"Sir, if you could invite CPT --- to the party, it would be better."
"Sure, Doc, I'll do that, no problem."
"It will be the best party!"
"We'll be there."

The good thing that came out of all this insanely inappropriate talk of parties was that I had a flash of insight, and before leaving, invited the disputing factions to the party, which ended up being a good move. Afghans love a good party, like anyone, even if there's no booze or women there (my understanding of a "party" is understandably different from theirs--I've made my peace with that). And nobody knows parties like Doc.

A Remark on the Passing of Benazir Bhutto

2007-12-27T13:58:00.001-05:00

I was just in 1SG's room with him and the CO, and learned that Benazir Bhutto was killed. I walked outside, into the cold, and looked into Pakistan... all I could think was: "Aw, fuck. Here we go."

Shocking News About Tiger Woods

2007-12-26T23:23:00.000-05:00

This is something I wrote yesterday out of boredom. It is 100% true.

Tiger Woods the Man Kills One, Injures Two at San Francisco Zoo

If wrongfully imprisoned in a zoo, how would you escape? Would you attempt trickery, disguise yourself as one of the gawking crowd and slide away when nobody was looking? Search for a flaw, any small defect, in what must otherwise be a coffin of cement and iron? Meekly submit to the zoo’s desire to have you mate with a male tiger?

Or… would you kill a man?

I don’t think the tigers noticed me at first, or I wouldn’t be writing an explanation of my otherwise unforgivable actions on the 25th. I’m lying there in the cage playing possum, praying to Christ that the tigers have been fed recently, repeating: “Tiger, get your shit together, don’t fucking lose it, man, DON’T FUCKING LOSE IT, just THINK” when a group of three guys come up to the cage and start harassing the tigers, throwing rocks at them and generally pissing them off.

At this point I’m hidden in some shrubbery. How the fuck I got in that cage I will never know, last thing I remember was walking out to my personal putting green to take some cuts. Mentally, when you realize you’re in a cage with several giant, man-eating cats, you take a whirlwind tour through some really bad places, emotionally; places I hope I never see again. While this is happening, the tigers are pacing back and forth growling at the three guys. Who are laughing. They’re pelting the animals with fist-sized stone, and they’re laughing it up, like it’s a Dana Cook show and he’s doing the bit about crying. What happens next? Of course—one of the tigers sees me, stops, and gets into the pounce-posture.

By this time, I have some real adrenaline pumping through my bloodstream… energy like you read about. It’s mostly fear, but I’m also starting to feel rage directed at those three jokers. My body goes with the fear, and I make a desperate, running leap for freedom, inches away from one of the enraged tigers’ flashing claws. Through my ancestors’ genes, superior conditioning, and the fact that Jesus’ holy powers are at their peak on his birthday, I make the 15-foot jump, and am hanging there by my fingertips, trying to pull myself up. That’s when it gets real.

One of the guys stops throwing rocks, comes over to me, and starts wigging out. “Holy shit, dudes, one of the tigers is trying to escape,” he shouts, “run for your lives!”
I would be speechless with bafflement but for the powerful motivation supplied by fear for my life.
“Help, for the love of God!” I shout instead, thinking this will jolt the rube into motion.

Nothing can prepare me for his reaction.

“You—you’re talking? Since when can animals talk?”

“I’m not a tiger, my NAME is Tiger. I’m a man! Christ, are you blind?”

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit… you’re not going to get past this fence, you furry fuck! Die!” says the guy, who I can see is wearing a baseball cap—this somehow feels relevant—and starts trying to stomp my fingers with his boots.

Losing grip with my off hand, I muster my last reserves of strength and swing to the left, get a leg up on the wall, then quickly clamber over the fence. The guy is backing up slowly and muttering “Oh sweet lord no” to himself over and over again. I have never felt so strong or angry in my life.

I’m sure you’ve read the rest of the story in the papers by now, or on the internet… how I murdered him where he stood, then chased down his two friends and savagely beat them to within inches of their lives for nearly ruining my shot at another Masters. And I’m not asking for forgiveness; what I did was unforgivable. I’m just asking for understanding.

This is How We Do Part II: The Revenge of The Plan

2007-11-25T16:01:00.000-05:00

Every Operation, every war, has its defining moment. The point at which most motivating factors intersect; the epitome of what is at stake is expressed in one clash, or battle. In the Civil War that battle might have been Gettysburg, and Lincoln’s emotion-charged “Gettysburg Address,” still memorized by eighth graders everywhere. The American experience in Normandy during Operation Overlord seems best remembered in the Airborne efforts behind enemy lines, and the first thirty minutes on the beach when the outcome was still—sort of—in doubt. In the Vietnam War, we remember images from the Tet Offensive; our embassy overrun and occupied despite a numerical and technological superiority.

And so it was with what I’ll call “Operation Outrageous Success.” Our movement back to our home base of B***** from the [OPSEC] came to epitomize the anger, and frustration of a two-week mission, over the course of which we pulled guard, handed out truckloads of HA, strengthened our ties with locals, and, ostensibly, conducting training with our Afghan Army counterparts, teaching them everything we know. In my case, I didn’t need to teach my resourcing counterparts anything, and in fact had quite a bit to learn from them about ways to “acquire” materials for a unit.

I also equaled whatever record for boredom had previously been established, probably during one of Professor R*****’s interminable lectures on Paradise Lost my first year at Yale.

A brief aside on Professor R***** (hereon out referred to as “Rawdawg”): a brilliant man who has written great, incisive books about Swift and Satire, many of which I’ve read (and which have contributed to my development as a human being). The world would be worse without him. I remember him, unfortunately, for three interactions I had with him at Yale, two through classes, and one outside of class. INTERACTION NUMBER ONE: the second semester of English 125 (or whatever it’s called now), which he treated as a lecture. This was easily the most boring class I have ever taken in my life. He managed to take all the joy out of Paradise Lost and Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” with rambling, exhaustive discourses delivered in his trademark monotone and punctuated for no apparent reason with lengthy pauses that may have been intended for dramatic effect, but the actual effect of which was to fill his audience (me, in this case) with an ardent desire to do him bodily harm. This class had such an effect on me that I wrote, and considered posting, as a warning, around campus, a dictionary of terms with which to become familiar before taking any class with Rawdawg; that dictionary of terms is, regrettably, lost to the ravages of time, but included terms like “pre-lapsarian,” “post-lapsarian,” “comatose,” “Lindsey-Chit,” and “narcolepsy.” INTERACTION NUMBER TWO: I guess time heals all wounds, because even armed with firsthand knowledge of Professor Rawdawg’s abysmal classroom presence I still enrolled to take his course on Satire. I got a lot out of the class, once again through reading and a steady diet of coffee (I’d learned my lesson), but once again, things didn’t quite work out with me and old Rawdawg. My grade in his class did not do justice to the amount I’d learned—mostly, again, in late-night library sessions with me, the authors, and his commentary—but no matter. One thing I learned at Yale was that grades at no point accurately reflected my academic progress through the institution. INTERACTION NUMBER THREE: I propose a thesis bringing Eminem into the satirical tradition by comparing “The Marshall Mathers LP” with Swift’s poetry and drawing parallels. This idea is rejected in favor of a more conservative project involving “The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus” (an ancestor of Rawdawg’s), in which I had very little interest. Well, so much for that.

On day three, at 0500 or 0600z (?), “guarding” this [OPSEC concerns] we learn that due to operational necessities, we have to RTB. We cut one of three Platoons back to B***** with an RCP, I am not with that group. Anyway, I will speak at greater length about that incident at an appropriate time in the future. We’re sent to clear a couple towns “one valley away” in the wrong direction on our way back to B*****, and are supposed to be back within the next 36 hours. I and our FSO, CPT J----, express some concern that the expectation that we are to be back in B***** in 36 hours seems unreasonable given the constraints of mountain travel, and the fact that we’re headed in precisely the wrong direction. Our concerns will prove to have been prescient not long after…

The conversation ran something like this:
“… so we’re heading east to the village of S**** to clear Objectives 90-95, then heading out first thing in the morning once **** Company relieves us [the first idea, that we’d leave in the morning, was actually subordinate to the second idea, that **** Company needed to relieve us, and in the event, that’s how it played out]. The MPs say they know of a Mountain Pass that can get us to a paved road that leads to Sh*****, and from there it will be 4 ½ hours to B*****. We’ll be back home tomorrow night.”
“Isn’t Sh*****, like, 30km in the wrong direction from B*****?”
“The paved roads will cut the driving time down to almost nothing. Would you rather drive back through that mountain pass that took us here?”
Firstly, of course not. That mountain pass, like all mountain passes, was not designed to be driven by up-armored HMMWVs. Secondly, now’s the perfect opportunity to remark on that White Whale of Afghanistan: “The Paved Road.”

You hear about Paved Roads now and again like the Spanish heard about El Dorado. They’d seen the Inca cities, so had reason to believe that there might be moresuch cities dripping with precious metals, ripe for the taking. We’ve seen paved roads—they’re building one near The Mother Ship, and they DO exist (I saw them from a Blackhawk once) up near Kabul. Besides which, we know from experience that they’re eminently feasible from an engineering and construction standpoint, having many of them in America. This belief in the possibility of the paved road, when coupled with the unrealistic desire for speedy travel which is constantly thwarted by mountain passes and horrible, degraded trails that look like superhighways on maps conspire to create in soldiers the—unsupported by fact or plausibility—hope for paved roads which is quickly confirmed as certainty that over the next hill awaits a speedy journey by paved road. In this case, the unrealistic expectation was created by the Military Police, who are great at their job, but their job is not land navigation, in this they failed us. And we were going off their word that this paved road would take us from the bottom of the O*** Pass to Sh***** in a matter of 120 short minutes… at night.

We depart the [OPSEC] for this new valley, taking a shortcut to the North which promises better going than the notorious “Southern Route,” at sometime around noon. By 1pm, we’ve reached the end of the Northern route, which ends, abruptly, in a forest. Back to the [OPSEC]. Refuel. It’s now 230pm, and we have until 5pm before sundown. The Southern Route is said to take 2 hours to navigate, and—miracle of miracles—it actually takes a shade over 2 hours, leaving us a half hour to find a spot to make camp. When we stop, I go to the man responsible for making the call on the ground as to where we are headed the next morning—Sh***** (30km in the wrong direction), or The Mother Ship. I plead for a change in plans. Sadly, he remains committed to the idea of paved roads bringing us to Sh***** in what has now become “one and a half hours,” a number which continues to shrink, just as the anticipated quality of the promised road improves.

The next day everyone wakes up in decent spirits—we’re further away from home, but different scenery is always good for morale, and besides, we had good reason to believe that, if our relief showed up as promised in the morning, we could be in The Mother Ship by nightfall, and from there, head home to B***** the next morning.

This is another wartime bogey. When you’re out on mission, you want nothing more than to be back on your FOB or COP or whatever—the unpleasantness of sleeping outside, in the mountains, in the cold, when you could be in your heated room enjoying hot chow (instead of MREs)… home base becomes the goal, the thing you look forward to, yearn after, like a five year old hopes for Christmas Morning. Actually, the FOB is a terrible place; or, B***** is at any rate. Then, when you’re on B***** you have just enough of the outside world around to remind you of all the great stuff you’re missing, most of all booze and female companionship, and you come to hate and resent your deployed life—rightfully so. Then, back in “The Rear,” you’re flooded with mundane civilian-like concerns, like paying bills, your f***ing car breaking again, and getting off work on time to make the expensive dinner reservations you scored in order to impress that hot chick you managed to sucker into going out on a date. So deployment forces you to constantly hope for a better situation than the one you’re currently in, when in fact the only time you’re truly happy is during those three or four hours when you’ve just returned to a new place and are enjoying the new scenery, catching up with friends, and so on, before the crippling depression of everyday routine catches up and overwhelms you with its deathlike certainty.

As I mentioned earlier, our promised relief was another Company operating nearby our battle space. The situation required us to stay in place until relieved, so that although the hoped for plan called on us to leave in the morning, in reality we were not leaving until the second Company arrived to replace us and fall in on our security plan—the process of handing over complicated by the fact that Company personalities don’t often get to see one another, so there’s 30 minutes of battle handover, then 30 to 60 minutes of catching up, complaining about higher, and soforth. Needless to say, the morning’s high spirits had evaporated by the time early afternoon rolled around and our relief finally showed up. An hour and a half after we were relieved, after the man in charge had had his fill of grabass / catchup, we lined up to depart, Military Police in front, set to lead us to Sh*****.

We left at around 1pm, and everyone realized that there was only the smallest chance that we’d be able to make Sh***** and still have the daylight necessary to push on to The Mother Ship. And if we couldn’t push on to The Mother Ship, there was an excellent chance we’d be stuck there for 24 hours, which would require us to spend yet another day away from B*****—at that time, still a desirable objective. I mean, from my end, I hadn’t seen the place for over a month and a half, as I’d arrived back in country just in time to get sucked into “Outrageous Success.” Two weeks for everyone else was more than enough to make the prospect of spending any more time anywhere but B***** a nearly-intolerable prospect. With high, fragile hopes riding on the MPs’ ability to navigate us back to Sh***** as quickly as possible, you can only imagine the scene when, not three minutes after leaving our security position, deep into a web of narrow, twisting roads separating the compounds that made up the village of S****, the MPs stopped the convoy. “A.T. 2-6, this is ***-5,” I called over comms, not wanting to know the reason we’d stopped but needing to know anyway, “Um, I’m curious: why are we stopped? Over?”
“***-5, this is A.T. 2-6,” said the lead MP, “Please be patient with us. We’ve actually never been here, we’ve only been as far as O****. We’re trying to find a route through the village, but this one dead-ends in a square. We’re turning around and going to try to bounce East around the village.”
A great, fiery anger went coursing through my veins, like the time I spent all summer saving up for a plane ticket so I could go visit this girl I was exchanging letters with in high school, then when I got there, she told me that two days earlier she’d started dating one of her brother’s friends. Rage, like when waves of emotion go coursing through your body. Wanting to shatter something, or drink aggressively, pick a fight with someone bigger than me, and get my nose pushed in. At this point, I also realized that the MPs were not fit to lead us to O****, and that they would almost certainly get lost again. Still, my belief is that a man wants a chance to redeem himself, he deserves a shot.
“A.T. 2-6 this is ***-5. Roger.”
Sure enough, thirty minutes later we were turning around again, and the MPs had been consigned temporarily to the rear of the convoy pending our arrival at the O*** Pass, from which they were to show us the paved roads to Sh*****. Now, our 1st Platoon was in the lead, and they brought us without further incident to O****, a trip that took us far to the North. At 3pm we reached our 2nd Platoon, which was staged at O****, linked up with them, and approached the pass.

Ah, O*** Pass. Described to us by the MPs as “Two Tight Turns and a Cannonball Run to the bottom,” for some reason we expected a relatively easy ride. I guess we focused on the second piece—the cannonball run, and not so much on the tight turns. A “cannonball run,” for those readers who aren’t familiar with the phrase, is any long downhill stretch of road where you go faster than you should, and flirt with death therefore; for example, the stretch of Autostrada that runs through Italy into Monaco and then into Nice/Cannes. This was just the sort of road we were looking for after the stop-and-go, steep uphill, treacherous downhill, tight squeeze, ambush-alley mountain passes of the past week. As it turned out, we should’ve been focusing on the “Two Tight Turns” warning, not because our HMMWVs couldn’t make them easily—they could, and did—but because we had an “LMTV Wrecker” with us, a mobile mechanic’s vehicle about half again as long as a HMMWV—and, in the case of our LMTV Wrecker, towing a HMMWV behind it (a victim of the aforementioned mountain passes). Suffice it to say that I spent an hour and fifteen minutes at the bottom of the cannonball run (well described) alternately staring through my binoculars (thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Burke) as the wrecker did it’s best impression of the “Austin Powers” parallel parking move made famous in the first movie of that franchise, scanning the ridgelines that surrounded us for ambushers, and watching nervously as the sun dipped toward the horizon. The last thing anyone wanted was another night in a patrol base, MREs, and dry-shaving. Eventually, the Wrecker made it, to great cheering from everyone at the front of the convoy, and caught up to us, to great cheering from everyone. Lesson learned: don’t take a big vehicle up the O*** Pass, unless you feel like wasting an hour of your time. As we started to roll forward toward the base of O*** Pass, I got a call from the convoy’s de facto leader, our Company 1SG: “***-5 this is ***-7; I talked to Battalion and we’re staying in Sh***** tonight.” Well—it was better than another night freezing my bags off in two dust-coated sleep-systems beside my HMMWV. Besides, the MPs were about to link us in with, by now, what had blossomed into a veritable interstate in the minds of the convoy members.

I’ve thought a lot about this since then, and I’m pretty sure it would’ve been anticlimactic if a paved road had existed at the bottom of that pass. Certainly, nobody expressed surprise when we came down off the mountain on a dirt trail, and no evidence of a paved road in sight. Still, it bore commenting on, so I spent the next 10 minutes making unkind remarks over our Company net to the individual who’d been naïve enough to believe the MPs attractive, if obviously bogus description of the countryside. As it turned out, in many places, no road existed leading to Sh*****, so that a good 25% of our journey was spent off-roading. Further, the time we’d spent getting the Wrecker down off O*** Pass (miraculously, accomplished without loss of life or equipment, though the gunner manning the heavy weapon on the Wrecker’s turret soiled himself) had burned what little daylight remained, so most of the journey was spent driving with night vision, which, for those of you who’ve done this for extended periods of time—it turned out to be a bit over two and a half hours—totally blows. A special thanks goes out to 2nd Platoon, which despite a valorous record in combat, couldn’t manage to follow the vehicles in front of them and took a wrong turn at one point, driving 6km in the wrong direction before they noticed that they weren’t following anyone. This maneuver resulted in thirty minutes wasted; they only found the convoy after F-15s that were flying air cover for us guided them back to us using their lasers.

Sh*****. By that point, the prospect of spending another night in a patrol base had so shaken even the bravest from the convoy, that nobody complained when we rolled in, and the MPs actually did us a solid, squaring us away with tents and keeping the chow hall open. Ultimately, that’s the memory I have of those guys—they set us up proper when we got to their FOB, gave us food, water, and fuel. Hospitality goes a long way when you’re out in the sticks, it’s basically frontier rules. Their Platoon Sergeant also squared me away with some internet, which I used rather than take a shower—I did shave—when I have the dirt and stench of 15 days on me, I need me a long shower without interruption, and loads of steaming hot water. I figured I’d wait until B*****. In any case, there were some words from a woman—I guess you could say the woman—I’m totally crazy about, so that kept me going. You get word from the outside world, and it’s enough, to make everything else o.k., even after a long, impossibly long, day.

I’d just got back to the tent I was staying in—everyone was out taking a shower or cleaning up, minus our Air Force “JTAC” (the guy who talks to the planes, and brings down the wrath of God when the Taliban come knocking) when 1SG came in. He’d been curiously nonchalant during my ribbing concerning his having bitten on the old “paved road” bait—understandable, as it reflected poorly on him, he can dish it out but he’s pretty bad about taking it when the criticism is justified—but he had a look, a bad look, like the kind of look he gets sometimes when he’s just seen or heard something serious.

“What’s going on 1SG?” I said.
“I just talked to Battalion,” he said, “apparently they weren’t tracking us going to Sh*****. They want us to go back to the [OPSEC concerns] tomorrow.”
“You’re f***ing kidding me.”
“I’m going to talk to someone about this, there’s no f***ing way.”

1SG left the tent looking agitated. Me and the JTAC looked at one another and broke out laughing. I laughed so long and hard I was almost in tears. What else can you do? 1SG straightened it out, thankfully, and the next morning we were on our way to The Mother Ship. From there, the rest of the journey was pretty routine, and we were back in B***** that evening, pulled in just as the sun was going down. So went “Outrageous Success,” so goes the deployment. We’re doing well out here, and we’re doing our job… it just takes a sense of humor, sometimes. Because nothing ever goes according to plan, and the guys who thrive are the ones who can adjust fire.

Eulogy for CPT David Boris

2007-11-23T02:43:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time writing; a great deal has gone on to keep me away from the keyboard these past couple months. Some good, some bad. One of the profoundly bad things that happened, 11 days ago today, was that one of the two Commanders at my FOB was killed when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. I won't go into the details; suffice it to say that this was because of a prolonged and precipitous drop in troop numbers in our AO, a situation I attribute directly to a failure to forsee the result of [transcript redacted]. Can't say we didn't warn [transcript redacted]! Attending his memorial service, where certain individuals had the gall to speak well of him when, in life, they expressed great dissatisfaction for his work and methods, I felt an overwhelming urge to shout, or spit, or both. Having worked extensively with the man, and enjoyed a positive professional and personal relationship with him, I feel justified making a statement in his memory.

CPT David Boris, Commander of Anvil Troop here on Bermel, was a very good leader. Under different circumstances, he could--should--have been a great leader. He had the misfortune of working in a very challenging situation; he and his Troop were under no illusions as to where they stood in the heirarchy of needs. In spite of this inequity, CPT Boris was never unkind or unfair when I had a problem or issue that he could help resolve; his door was always open, even though in my position as XO of the other Company at Bermel, he easily could have perceived and treated me as an adversary. On the contrary, CPT Boris was always approachable and easy to work with.

When I was on leave I looked forward to coming back to Bermel and seeing CPT Boris; hanging out with him a bit, getting spun up on what was new with the AO, hearing what was new. For him, the war on terror was a team effort, or at least supposed to be a team effort. CPT Boris never contributed to the childish nonsense that sometimes drove ; he was not territorial, he was not small-minded or petty. There are people who say things like "The Airborne community is cutthroat, there's no room for 2nd place finishers," but CPT Boris was not one of them. He enhanced the experience of everyone around him, and was a true team player.

Captain Boris was always available to chat, and to lend a sympathetic ear. He was admired by his Lieutenants, and loved by his soldiers. I miss him, which is the best thing one man can say about another.

The Verminomicon

2007-09-08T06:21:00.000-04:00

A lot's happened since the last time I took a couple minutes out of my day to write. Notable highlights were me getting my CIB, a steady worsening in the me-interpreter relations, the death of my grandfather, and a steady escalation in the activities of our "friends across the border," the Taliban. People may be wondering why I don't write more about such things, or imagine that I'm not writing dashing stories of travail and adventure because I haven't experienced them. The fact is, writing about certain things makes me think about those things, and the things that you might be most interested in are things I'd rather forget. It's already hard enough not to think about it without my favorite elixir (which is to say "hootch" or "booze"). So, no dramatic epics of wartime heroism & etc.--just more of the same inconsequential stories.

The most recent episodes here on the FOB have revolved around the introduction of animals into our habitat. Certain types (especially younger, high-school and college-aged individuals--people that don't know any better, in other words) always make such a big fuss about us encroaching on nature, and pushing all the cute animals out of their natural habitat. What these people fail to take into consideration is how irritating it is when an animal--and more specifically, vermin--makes its way into your home. As winter's started its relentless advance, here in the mountains, every field mouse, spider, centipede, and bottle fly within a 500m radius has made living in the command hallway their number one priority. The field mice have staked out the wooden walls that seperate our community, whereas the spiders and centipedes contend for a home in our shoes, boots, and sleeping bags. Flys seem content to limit themselves to the hallways.

Everyone has their ideas on what constitutes the best system for keeping vermin out of one's room. My favored technique is to keep my room as cold as possible, in hopes that the vermin will prefer my neighbors' rooms to my own, a defense that has met with excellent success, though not without incurring no small amount of animosity from my colleagues; also, I am currently writing with gloves, a long sleeved shirt, and long pants on, all of which I will have to switch out with more appropriate attire before venturing into the 85 degree mid-day heat. Our 1SG has taken to cleaning his room obsessively since discovering an 8-inch, poisonous centipede near his shoes; he seems to feel that keeping his room pristine will deny the vermin access to the food and shelter they seek. The Fire Support Officer and our Commander have taken a more aggressive approach to the problem, emplacing numerous sticky tent traps around their rooms, and have to date enjoyed the best success, capturing, and quickly putting to the torch, three mice. The commander was lucky enough to catch a fourth mouse with his boot the other day, bringing the total number of mice killed to four.

Using poison is not a viable option with the mice, because they'd just crawl into a corner, die, then bring pestilence to our abodes with their rapidly-decomposing bodies.

Yet another piece from the humor archives

2007-08-16T05:40:00.000-04:00

I know that recycling humor is a cop-out. I'm busy. Also, this is never-before published material. Deal with it.

Rommel’s Theorem

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel stands as one of history’s greatest generals. While most people know of his reputation as WWII’s premiere German tactician, “The Desert Fox,” few realize his role in emphasizing what came to be standard military doctrine: “concentration in time rather than in space; the effect of speed in outweighing numbers; about flexibility as a means to surprise…” Fewer still saw the extent to which these strategic habits impacted his personal life and the lives of those around him.

September 1916, Italy, 5 am
PRIVATE FRANZ: But sir, we’re only 12 soldiers. That trench is filled with enemies!
PRIVATE DIETZ: And this is a recon mission.
LIEUTENANT ROMMEL: You idiots, they’re getting ready to attack. They’re all looking the other way. Just sneak up behind them and order them to surrender. Firstly, they’re expecting to attack us, secondly, they’re expecting us to be in front of them, and thirdly, it’s barely dawn, they haven’t had their cappuccinos yet. It’ll be a cakewalk.
CORPORAL SCHWAB: We’re with you, sir. Lead on.
[the men crawl up to the trench, hop down & open fire on the unsuspecting enemy]
300 ITALIANS: We surrender!
PRIVATE BERGER: Where’s your commanding officer?
ITALIAN: In that-a cramped-a bunker over there-a. He don’t-a get up-a until-a nine am.
ROMMEL: Good grief! That’s four hours from now!
PRIVATE DIETZ: What’ll we do ‘til then?
[five long seconds pass—everyone looks at one another quizzically, then smiles]
EVERYONE: WARTIME SIESTA!!! [everyone begins dancing, whooping, etc.]
ROMMEL: Oh God, it’s happening again! Nooooo!
ROMMEL: [in bed, fully clothed; springs upright, a sheen of sweat on his forehead] Aaah! Oh! Oh… [breaths heavily] Thank God, it was only a dream. [looks down at pants leg, sees cappuccino stain on thigh, still wet] No—no—no… noooooo! [diabolic laughter in distance]
ROD SERLING: Erwin Rommel. A man so caught up by the idea of time, that time passed him by. Maybe if he’d taken that cappuccino in the dream, he wouldn’t be where he is now… another helpless citizen of: the Twilight Zone.
ATTENDANT: [tentatively walks up to SERLING, takes him aside] Sir? We have a problem.
SERLING: Of course we have a problem, we’re in the @#$&ing Twilight Zone. Nothing but problems.
ATTENDANT: Um, [clears throart] it’s sort of a different kind of problem.
SERLING: Well spit it out!
ATTENDANT: It’s Rommel, sir.
SERLING: [color drains out of face] What about him?
ATTENDANT: He… well, he sort of… uh… escaped.
SERLING: [standing still] Escaped? [to self] But that’s impossible!
ATTENDANT: Apparently, the Twilight Zone had turned its attention to another individual, and in that one moment of weakness, Rommel overpowered it and made good his escape.
SERLING: Good God!
ATTENDANT: Also, while The Twilight Zone was unconscious, it seems that Rommel stripped it of its wallet and valuables.
SERLING: Even the money clip in its right shoe?
ATTENDANT: Actually, he took both the shoes.
SERLING: I feel so… violated. How could this happen?
ATTENDANT: It looks as though this time the joke was on The Twilight Zone—it never should have tried to take Rommel prisoner.
SERLING: God, I should’ve said something. I should’ve warned it.
[meanwhile, on other side of the twisted, alogical dimension]
TWILIGHT ZONE: [stumbles to now-bare feet, slowly comprehends full extent of what has just transpired—shakes fist] Rommel! Curse you! I will have my revenge!
ROMMEL: [back in reality, single-handedly mopping up Italian Army] Whatever.

April 1927, Berlin, 7:56pm
LUCY ROMMEL: Erwin, we’re going to be late.
ERWIN ROMMEL: No, we’ll make it.
LUCY: The opera house is twenty minutes from here!
ERWIN: We’ll be fine.
LUCY: I told you we’d be late, but you had to take your sweet time, dawdling around the house, looking for your favorite belt.
ERWIN: I had to have the black leather belt, it’s the only one that matches my shoes.
LUCY: So why did you need to read the newspaper?
ERWIN: [stops car] Well, here we are!
LUCY: [gets out, looks around] Is this some kind of joke?
ERWIN: Nope! And look at the time. Eight p.m. on the dot. We have a whole fifteen minutes ‘til curtains.
LUCY: I don’t see anything around here but warehouses. We’re in the industrial district.
ERWIN: What are you saying?
LUCY: Being on time does us no good if we’re not at the right place, you meathead!
ERWIN: [slaps forehead] Of course!

February 1991, Connecticut, 5:21pm: Saved By the Bell Episode 103: "The Prom"
ROMMEL: Eeep! Zach, you told Jessie and Kelly that you’d go on dates with them on the same night? You’re dead!
ZACH: Quiet, Rommel! [pauses] I know.
ROMMEL: What are you going to do?
ZACH: It’s gonna be tricky, but I think I know a way to pull it off.
ROMMEL: How are you going to be in two places at once?
ZACH: That’s the easy part. You’re going to pretend to be me at the costume ball, while I’m at the Prom. The question is whether you can keep a secret.
ROMMEL: Uh-oh, here comes Slater.
SLATER: What’s going on, Preppie?
AUDIENCE: Ooooooh!
ZACH: [looks meaningfully at Rommel] Oh, nothing. How’s life with me having Kelly?
ROMMEL: Take that.
SLATER: Oh yeah? Well I have news for you, Preppie. She’s going with me to the Prom.
ZACH: Since when?
SLATER: Since she figured out you were going to pull the old switcheroo on Jessie.
ZACH: What? How’d she find out? [turns to Screech] Screech?
SCREECH: I had nothing to do with this, honest.
ZACH: Then who?
SLATER: It was him.
ROMMEL: [on short-wave radio, calling for artillery barrage on Zach]
ZACH: Curses! [to Screech] His credentials placed him above suspicion, you understand my mistake.

Cooking in the kitchen, 1935
ERWIN: [reading cooking instructions] …then bake cake for an hour at 350 degrees—an hour? But the guests will be here any minute! Hm. Well, if I cook the cake for ten minutes at five hundred degrees, I might just be able to see the job done all right. God, this Pepperidge fellow’s so slow he couldn’t fight his way out of a trench with a battalion of tanks behind him. [sticks cake into oven, ratchets heat up to 500] Now we’re cookin’!
LUCY: [calling from other room] Erwin, darling? How’s the cake coming?
ERWIN: Schmerzen! [calling to other room] Err, it’s, it’s delicious, honey, simply, yes, it’s almost done. Well!
LUCY: What’s that? [approaching footsteps]
ERWIN: Ooh! Ooh! [dashes to kitchen door, blocks entrance] Well, hello there, dear. [grabs shoulders, begins walking with her into other room] How’s things in the dining room?
LUCY: Fine, dear. You know, you’re getting flour on my blouse. And those oven mitts go very well with the rest of your outfit.
ERWIN: Wha—huh? Oh, right. Back I go.
LUCY: [turning with him] And I need some napkins for the dinner-table.
ERWIN: Oh no, you can’t go in ther—I mean, I’ll get them for you!
LUCY: Is something wrong, Erwin?
ERWIN: Ah-ha-ha—of course not, no, the cake’s fine.
LUCY: But I didn’t ask about the cake. [tries to sneak around Erwin in passageway]
ERWIN: [blocking her attempts] Now, dear, don’t let’s be rash, now, the frosting’s just a bit unfinished you know, and—[looks back at door, sees smoke billowing out from under crack] Good God! [pivots her so that her back’s to the door] What’s that? I think I heard the doorbell ring.
LUCY: Well, get it then.
ERWIN: I’ve got to finish cooking the cake, I’m afraid it won’t turn out right and then everything will be ruined, dear, just ruined!
LUCY: It can’t be all that bad. [spinning around] Erwin! What’ve you done!
ERWIN: [Dashes into kitchen; emerges blackened by soot moments later, carrying charred lump on plate; slumps to sitting position on floor
LUCY: Oh, dear. What happened?
ERWIN: I was behind schedule so I tried to cook it faster. The recipe said one hour at three-fifty, I thought I could cut it to ten minutes at five hundred.
LUCY: Five hundred! Erwin!
ERWIN: I guess I wasn’t thinking very quick. I’m a horrible cook.
LUCY: [sitting down beside him] Well, you are getting better you know.
ERWIN: You don’t have to rub it—wuh?
LUCY: Remember that time you put the bread batter down outside the oven and waited for an hour, expecting it to cook? At least you put the cake in the right place this time.
ERWIN: Hey, you’re right!
LUCY: With cooking, you can’t concentrate your energy solely in time—you have to distribute it with space. And allow it to cool.
ERWIN: [scribbling furiously in notebook] I—see.
LUCY: Can I see what you just wrote?
ERWIN: [grinning like an idiot] Sure, honey! And I owe it all to you! [shows detailed drawing of French border, complete with placement of divisions & division-types; one division, labeled “I, Rommel” and designated by a crudely-rendered tank, appears to be rolling over French border]
LUCY: Erwin, sometimes I feel as though I don’t know you.

January 1945, Germany
FIELD MARSHAL ROMMEL: Treason? This is preposterous! I’ve neither said nor attempted anything against the Fatherland, or even against our Fuhrer for all you know. Where is your evidence?
GESTAPO AGENT ERIK: We have witnesses.
ROMMEL: Who are they? Prisoners of war? Show me these so-called witnesses.
ERIK: They—they’re—
ROMMEL: Precisely what I thought. We’ll see what the courts have to say, and you can bet the German people will side with Rommel on this matter.
GESTAPO AGENT KARL: Here are your options, Herr Rommel. You can take your chances with the courts, a course of action which may well endanger both your life and reputation and the lives and reputations of your family. For you will be convicted. Or you can take this pill.
ROMMEL: What happens if I take the pill?
KARL: We guarantee you a State funeral with full honors, protection for your family, and no word of your treachery.
ROMMEL: When I die, you mean.
KARL: Yes, after you die.
ROMMEL: I’ll take the pill.
KARL: [handing Rommel the pill] You’ve chosen wisely, Herr Field Marshal.
ROMMEL: [speaking softly to himself] Man, what chumps! I’m in perfect health. [swallows pill]
ERIK: The cyanide will have done its work within a minute.
ROMMEL: Oh, shit! [gets out of car, begins running away]
KARL: Why is he running? He already took the pill.
ROMMEL: [Cresting ridge; to self] Good thing I took that universal antitoxin before leaving. [shouts over shoulder] Hey guys! Time’s up!
ERIK & KARL: [look at each other, then at seat, where bundle of lit dynamite lies nestled conspicuously between the cushions] Zoiks! [try desperately to extinguish fuse by blowing on it, strategy does not work & car explodes]
ROMMEL: [peers over ridge, kneels and pumps fist] Yes! [jogs down incline toward road & approaching motorcycle w/empty sidecar] Hi! Hi! [waves arms]
INDIANA JONES: [pulls up, motorcycle idling] Good timing, Herr Rommel.
ROMMEL: [hopping into sidecar] And even better timing, Herr Doctor, if we wish to stop Hitler from completing the ritual of the Knights Templar and summoning the Devil to earth. Do you have the map?
JONES: [pats pockets] Uh… [reaches under hat] Right here.
ROMMEL: Then off we go, to save the earth yet again.
JONES: And if the British try to stop us?
ROMMEL: [derisive laughter] Then we shall smash them!
[they roar off down road to fork; take arrow pointed toward Berlin]

Absurdistan

2007-07-23T00:43:00.001-04:00

I'm not going to enter into a lengthy criticism of this book for two reasons. One, it was a gift, and the giver of the gift was obviously acting on a mixture of instinct and recommendations from reliable sources. Two, I didn't (couldn't) finish the book. After the first chapter I skimmed, and skimmed, followed a couple ideas that looked at first glance like they had potential (this potential, and my hope, was invariably extinguished after a few pages) and ended up wasting a couple days of my precious life.

But temps fugit, and I have a mission in 30 minutes, so this is going to be brief for now. Let me give you a sample of the type of abominable 1st-person narrative that is to be found everywhere in "Absurdistan": "Emerging from the food's thrall, I noticed that the demographics of the Spawning Salmon pontoon were changing. A group of young coworkers in blue blazers had shown up, led by a buffoon in a bow tie who played the role of a 'fun person,' breaking the coworkers up into teams, thrusting fishing rods into their weak hands, and leading them in a chorus of 'Fi-ish! Fi-ish! Fi-ish!' What the hell was going on here? Was this the first sign of an emerging Russian middle class? Did all these idiots work for a German bank? Perhaps they were holders of American MBAs."

Do not read this book, unless you're an idiot. And for heavens sake, if you do, don't like it. Or you'll be pretentious.

The Signpost

2007-07-08T03:11:00.000-04:00

It had been quiet for a couple weeks, with nothing more exciting to write home about than a couple rocket attacks (which, living on the most heavily-rocketed FOB in Afghanistan, hadn’t raised any eyebrows). When things are quiet for too long, soldiers tend to get a bit stir-crazy, probably from the accumulated aggression that, under normal circumstances, has a morally-acceptable outlet: enemy soldiers. Stir-crazy is the only way to account for the bizarre, ridiculous thing that happened recently.
It all started, innocently enough, with a dispute over wood. Simply put, there wasn’t enough wood to build what everyone wanted, and, as human nature and the way of things would have it, everyone wanted to build something different, and in such a way that made compromise (of course) impossible. The FOB was generally divided into two camps: those who wanted their personal space improved, and those who wanted better equipment. As is so often the case with situations like these, things quickly came to a head when one party—the party with easiest access to the construction materials—decided to end the argument once and for all by building what they wanted regardless of the other side’s opinion. In fairness, the other side would have done the same, had the roles been reversed—I’m not trying to favor one side over the other.
In my defense, I was ignorant of the dispute until it was already set in stone, and the two sides were set on a collision course. The first I heard about it was during lunch, the day before everything went down, and it was brought to my attention by the chief proponent of the Build-Better-Equipment side, our Company’s 1SG.
“Did you see what f***ing [X] Co built?” he said, with a glimmer in his eyes I’ve seen only in soldiers and members of fanatical religious sects, “a f***ing signpost!”
I replied that I hadn’t, while trying not to give the impression that I didn’t care. Not that I didn’t, just that I could see where this was all headed, and wanted to be as far away from the whole thing as possible. As an officer, it is my responsibility to stop tomfoolery with rules and overbearing, speeches the likes of which father used to give when I’d come back after midnight stinking drunk—NCOs know this, and thus have built up a substantial collection of “unwritten” rules that frustrate officers in their job, which is to say that, had I expressly forbidden any interaction with the signpost, it would have been taken as a gesture of bad faith, and earned me the contempt of both sides.
“You know what I should do,” he continued, “I should cut that b**** down, and make target stands out of it.”
Trying to diffuse the situation, I took a different tack, which was to suggest that he not cut it down—that instead, he talk to the leader of the Improve-Living-Conditions-and-Morale camp, the other Company’s Executive Officer. This suggestion was discarded out of hand, in a strongly-worded defense of his position that I've paraphrased so as not to offend anyones' sensibilities.
"We don't have enough target stands to train, and they're building a signpost? That is stupid," was the gist of his argument. "Therefore we should take the wood they're using to build the signpost for target stands, so we can train." In any event it was clear at the time that this was his way of venting, and did not in any way shape or form constitute his desiring to physically thwart the other Company's Executive Officer, or XO.
Maybe that was the point at which I should have stepped in and said, “Absolutely not, to cut it down would be a crude gesture, far beneath us; this is a sordid, dastardly, unthinkable scheme” but then, to suggest that our 1SG, or anyone in our Company, would actually stoop to such an act would have been to display a lack of faith and trust in them, and to be quite honest, I didn’t think they’d actually do it. Instead, I offered the tame-by-comparison: “That sounds like a terrible idea,” which of course was overlooked by everyone present.
Curious as to what had provoked our Chain of Command to such vitriolic, insulting outbursts, I went outside and cast about for the thing that had been described as “huge, towering over the TOC.” After a couple minutes lucklessly searching rooftops for the signpost, I finally located it—a rather skinny and subdued (1) , if tall, signpost, with three signs, one pointing toward a town in Wisconsin, one to Las Vegas, and one to Cincinnati. The Company Artillery officer, leaving the chow hall behind me observed that it looked flimsy. We laughed, and went about our day.
It’s a tribute to the routine that all I remember of the afternoon and evening are that a meeting happened, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out why my internet mail wasn’t working, and an even greater deal of time making up for lack of internet connectivity by talking with people on different bases over the phone. Here in Afghanistan it’s a bit of an ordeal; there’s a 3-second pause between when you say something and when your counterpart hears what you have to say—good-byes are invariably awkward, and society suffers from the confusion. Then I watched “Rambo 3” with the Commander and First Sergeant, read a bit, and packed it in for the night somewhere around midnight. Signposts were the last thing on my mind.
When I rose the next morning, early so I had some kind of chance at an open washing machine (clothes get dirty here something awful), the threats of the day before were completely gone. So I was surprised when the other Company’s XO met me at the entrance to the showers / washing machines with a wild look in his eye, and violence rolling off his tongue.
“I just want you to know,” he said, “that this is war. Your Company and my Company… it’s on like Donkey Kong. You started something you can’t finish. I’m taking this all the way to the top. You guys are going down. You want a war, you’ve got it.” (2)
He must’ve seen that I had no idea what he was talking about, something I tried to reinforce and emphasize by giving voice to my feelings with a suitably impassioned and slurred: “Dude, I just woke up,” because he moved from readying his fist to appraising my condition. Apparently satisfied by what he saw, he backed down.
“You know what your 1SG did last night?” he said.
I could guess, and said so, inwardly doubting that the 1SG had, in fact, physically cut down the signpost himself—for one thing, 1SG likes his sleep, and for another, why cut something down when you can have someone do it for you, or simply encourage someone to do your dirty work for you? I was pretty sure that 1SG’s public announcement over lunch the day before had been the factor responsible for the lopped sign-post; he’d been quite clear as to his wishes. In a dramatic twist that nobody could have seen coming, though, the signpost’s demise had not resulted in target stands.
“Your 1SG cut down the signpost, carried it out to the shit-burn barrels, and lit it on fire.”
Well, my XO colleague had a point—chopping down a piece of his property then covering it with shit and burning it did seem like an unforgivably aggressive action—a declaration of war. The realization that this whole incident was now out of the realm of the ordinarily mischievous and now some kind of weird, primitive statement took me aback, to the point where I thought it might be best if everyone understood where I stood on the issue.
“I know this goes without saying,” I said, feeling for some reason miserable about myself, and a bit like a weasel, “but I had nothing to do with this.”
“I know you would never do something like this,” he said, making me feel worse. “But it’s beyond you, now. I’m just telling you: you guys are getting nothing from us. Nothing.”
I was quiet for a moment, feeling a bit terrible. “I’m sorry about this. And I’m sorry I can’t do anything about it.”
“I know it wasn’t you, man,” he said, and passed me on the way out of the bathroom.
I set my laundry in, shaved, and headed for the courtyard. I was curious. I wanted to see what it was I hadn’t done, and what the 1SG had instigated. The burned piece was leaning on the wall beside the base of the post; some brave soul had rescued it from the shit-burn barrels. My colleague had taken the time to put a sign on the base of the signpost which said: “only cowards play games like these,” which I guess was his return-salvo in this game of wills; even though I wasn’t involved, I couldn’t help but grin at the absurd enormity of it all. After all, we’re in a war zone. I had half a mind to hop into the middle of it by lighting the “cowards” sign on fire, something that would surely have stirred emotions yet more, but held off.
My mature side getting the better of me, and thinking there might be an easy, graceful end in sight, I proposed to my Commander and 1SG that we literally mend the situation; “Why don’t we put the upper half back up ourselves,” I offered, “show them that we’ve buried the hatchet, that there’s no hard feelings.”
“There’s no hard feelings here,” said 1SG. “But if they put it up, it’s getting cut down again.”
“Not by me;” he was careful to say. “by whoever did this.”
Looking at the broken halves of the signpost today, I took a moment to reflect on it all, trying to make some kind of sense of the childishness, put it into perspective. Eventually, I decided that on the whole it was an amusing diversion, and that it would probably play itself out until the emotions that led to the situation’s creation had dissipated; also, that it wasn’t the sort of thing one could affect for the better. The events of the day confirmed my suspicion, as accusations flew back and forth, threats were made of involving battalion, and ultimately, nothing happened. Such is the way of things. The broken half of the signpost is still lying on the courtyard, a monument to the egos of everyone involved.

(1) these things are never as big as they’re made out to be, or as one imagines them; my mind’s eye had created a billboard, a hulking monstrosity, when in fact it was little more than a 12’ 4x4 with a couple of street-name signs on the top
(2) One of the stranger effects of being at war is that, due to the amount of warlike images and phrases in our language, people turn into factories of unintentional self-parody. I read once of a man in WWII observing his friend, who’d been shot, to shake his fist at the enemy and yell: “They got me! Those dirty rats!” Personally, I blame sports and movies for conditioning our responses to certain stimuli.

RAMBO IV: A sneak peek

2007-07-01T05:22:00.000-04:00

Don't ask me where or how I found these excerpts from the upcoming movie. I think the many gross inaccuracies, coupled with the fact that I failed to do any research before writing this, should insulate me from charges of libel. Or fraud.

Rambo IV
Some scenes from the latest sequel, in which John Rambo must return to Afghanistan, to help disarm the very Mujahadeed he helped before

SCENE I
“The Pitch”
General Trautman [in uniform, knocking on apartment door]
Colonel John Rambo: [Opens door] Sir! To what do I owe the pleasure?
Trautman: We need you to go back to Afghanistan.
Rambo: I’ve been pretty bored recently… I’m in. What am I doing?
Trautman: (surprised) Uh… really? Just like that?
Rambo: Yeah. Things have been pretty slow at Rambo & Cohen Consulting, LTD. I could go for a little action. Care for a scotch?
Trautman: Sure… man! I kind of thought I’d have to sell you on this one, John. You put me off my stride!
Rambo: Those days of tortured hesitancy are over, sir. [pours drink, hands to General Trautman] So where am I going?
Trautman: South… Paktika province. It’s the hottest area in Afghanistan right now, rumors of a big Taliban offensive. And… the warlord down there… it seems you fought with him against the Russians back in the 80s.
Rambo: Not Abdullah Buhdullah Ramen!
Trautman: The same.
Rambo: Well… I can’t promise fast results, but I’ll see what I can do. I think I remember his tactics good enough to put a hurting on those guys.
Trautman: Also, I need you to promise fast results.
Rambo: Sir, it’ll all be over within two hours.
Trautman: Excellent.

SCENE II
“The Flight through Memory Lane”
JOHN RAMBO: [Shouting, to be heard over roar of Russian helicopter’s blades] IS THIS THING SAFE?
VLASIK SVERNYKSLOT: WHAT?
RAMBO: IS THIS HELICOPTER SAFE?
SVERNYKSLOT: HEY, YOU’RE COLONEL JOHN RAMBO!
RAMBO: HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?
SVERNYKSLOT: YOU SHOT ME DOWN WHEN I WAS AN ATTACK PILOT, BACK IN THE 80S! WITH A BOW AND ARROW!
RAMBO: THAT WAS YOU?
SVERNYKSLOT: YEAH! THAT WAS SOME SHOT!
RAMBO: WOW… HEY, NO HARD FEELINGS, RIGHT?
SVERNYKSLOT: OF COURSE NOT. THAT SHOT WAS ONE-IN-A-MILLION. I USED TO PLAY THE NINTENDO VIDEO GAME TO TRY TO MAKE THE SHOT, BUT I COULDN’T.
RAMBO: I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THAT GAME. THAT WAS HORRIBLE!
SVERNYKSLOT: SOMETHING THAT ALWAYS CONFUSED ME… WE RUSSIANS THOUGHT, WHEN YOU CAME TO AFGHANISTAN, THAT YOU WERE GOING TO BE HELPING US IN OUR WAR AGAINST THE INSURGENT MUJAHADEEN… IT WAS AN ALMOST IDENTICAL EXPERIENCE TO YOUR VIETNAM WAR, DOWN TO THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WOUNDS THE SOLDIERS EXPERIENCED AND THE FACT THAT OUR SOCIETY BLAMED US FOR LOSING THE WAR. BUT YOU FOUGHT AGAINST US. WHY, JOHN RAMBO? WERE WE BOTH NOT SOLDIERS?
RAMBO: WE’RE FIGHTING TOGETHER AGAINST THE TALIBAN NOW, RIGHT?
SVERNYKSLOT: WHAT, IT TAKES BLOWING UP THE TWIN TOWERS FOR AMERICA AND RUSSIA TO GET ALONG?
RAMBO: NO, THAT’S NOT THE MORAL OF THIS MOVIE. KEEP WATCHING. THE ENDING IS A SURPRISE!
SVERNYKSLOT: YOU’RE A CYBORG FROM THE FUTURE, TO RESCUE THE POW’S, RIGHT?
RAMBO: [Draws knife, hold it to pilot’s throat--eyes momentarily glow red] WHO-TOLD-YOU!

SCENE III:
“The Hostages”
ABDULLAH BUHDULLAH RAMEN: So, Americans… you think you will escape? There is no escape from the justice of Allah!
MIKE SMITH: We’ve been prisoners since fucking 1969. Can’t you just let us go? We weren’t even attacking you when we got captured… we were overrun by the Viet Cong.
RAMEN: Yes, and then you were given to us as slaves in 1984, and we tricked the Americans into believing that you were fighting alongside us against the Russians. But now, you’re old men, and used to slavery… it is all you have. All you will ever have!
JIM JONES: The American people haven’t forgotten about us! You’ll see! John Rambo will be here to rescue us!
RAMEN: Rambo doesn’t even know you exist. Now, I’ve spoken long enough. Get back to work refining that opium!

SCENE IV:
“The Helicopter”
SVERNYKSLOT: [In Russian Attack Helicopter, again] So, John Rambo! We meet again! And this time, you’re out of arrows! Put down the POWs and back away. You’ve lost!
RAMBO: Never! [draws and throws survival knife at Svernykslot’s helicopter; chopper explodes with great force, knocking Rambo and POWs to the ground]
SVERNYKSLOT: Oooohhh… the humanity!

SCENE V:
“The 'FOP'”
RAMBO: [walking toward chow hall; wearing ACU pants, non-regulation boots, long, flowing locks, unshaven, no shirt on, filthy]
SERGEANT MAJOR D: [jumps up from chair outside chow hall] OH HELL MOTHERFUCK NO! NOT ON MY FOP!
RAMBO: [breaks Sergeant Major’s neck, throws corpse to the side, walks into chow hall anyway]
EVERYONE ON THE FOB: [wild cheering]

An appropriate, measured evaluation of recent events; no emotional reactions whatsoever

2007-06-24T11:16:00.000-04:00

I read the New York Times today, online, as is my wont when not engaged in brutal, hard-core soldiering. It's not the same online; you don't get that new-papery smell, and it's tougher to eat a donut when the powder could get on your keyboard. Also the download time is ridiculously slow here on the frontier, so I find myself reading only the most important, interesting news. No more are the days when I can flip through the New York Times and waste a half-hour on some article on the plight of the sub-Saharan chimpanzee... no, now it's: "What's up with Afghanistan?" "What's up with that beautiful seductress... Hillary Clinton?" "What's up with that beautiful seductress... Paris Hilton???"

I've already written an invective-laced blog regarding the shame that is her life story, (1) but it bears mentioning that, fast on the heels of other, more stunning and important news (2), news that Larry King had won the bid to interview Ms. Hilton after her release from prison was met with a mixture of disgust and anger. "All the news that's fit to print." Is news that a guy who talks to famous people has struck an agreement to... talk to a famous person? Or is this just one more manifestation of America's unhealthy obession with the beautiful rich girl who went to prison because she was bad (but this time she'll have learned a lesson, this time) (3)?

What is happening to our society?

I included a photo I took when myself and a couple of university friends, Natalie and Jeff, were up in New York celebrating Jeff's birthday, and walking around at "The Gates" exhibit. I thought that was a great example of how a society can gather together in united appreciation for something cool, even if it was kind of lame. Somehow, saying "remember 'The Gates?' Wasn't that kind of interesting?" is still infinitely cooler than saying "remember the time Larry King interviewed Paris Hilton after she was released from prison?"

I remember the first time someone told me about Paris Hilton... looking back on it, I was an English Teacher in Japan, and the hubbub was over some pornographic video she'd made with her then-boyfriend. Or something like that. Honestly I didn't pay much attention, I was just curious as to why everyone was talking about Paris Hilton, a name that was completely unfamiliar to me (4) and which I incorrectly assumed to be of some importance.

(1) part of author's bitterness is probably due to messy breakup with said wealthy heiress, whom he allegedly dated at some suitably vague point in the past

(2) not clear at this point whether the author is discussing the news that one of his friends from IOBC and Ranger school--a friend who appears earlier in the blog--has been permanently blinded by a sniper in Iraq, or the factually-inaccurate description of a recent operation as having resulted in Afghan civilian deaths--or possibly a combination of the two

(3) this time

(4) this assertion seems to lend credence to the interpretation that author has fabricated his romantic relationship with Ms. Hilton, in addition to an unknown amount of other material in his blog. In fact, it's difficult to seperate what is "fact" in this blog from what is "fiction," outside what can be corroborated through analysis of mail and emails from the time, courtroom testimony, video footage, and anecdotal supporting evidence.

This is certain to get me into all kinds of trouble

2007-06-18T21:11:00.001-04:00

*Note--I wrote this in 2007. I was not drunk, so I have no excuse. I should be deleting it. But what the hell. -2012 Adrian

So, yo yo yo, we wuz rollin' in our g-ride when some n***s who was straight-trippin' tried to smoke us. Yeah, they got our ride, but we got their lives. That's what happen when you mess with the U.S. posse. Foo'--we represent! Who the f**you think you are, n***? We roll 6-12 deep, and smoke fools with bazookas. You don't want no part of this. West side in the m****f****ing house, g, s**t's about to get RECKLESS.

N*** you want to roll on us? We roll so deep we rollin' in choppers. Got some grill on that bad boy, steaks, bbque, pork ribs, all kinds of hen' and OE. Only thing we missin' now is fly h*s and freaky b****s. Welcome to our f***ng hood, n****, it gets lonesome here no foolin'.

Some peeps from the East side tryin' to come into our hood, steal our money, take our lives. Bi*** please. We told them we could settle it like respectable n***s, or get into some ignorant gangsta s***. Calmer heads had their day today, there's too much dyin', sometimes you gotta take a step back and talk. Other days, you let your neener and AK do the talkin'. You try to take my weed, I'll take your place.

Going back... to the West side. Yo, later G, 90 minutes and 3 wrong turns from now, I'll be chillin' in my hood, all smoked up with that hellafied chronic. Still bangin, hangin' those crazy tunes out tha window. You want tha bomb, we'll give you 2000lbs worth! Go axe somebody, m***f***r! ISAF out.