Eating Stress for Breakfast

NOTE: This specific posting is not about the Afghan people. This is not about life on Bagram. This is a quick sample of the issues being juggled by one person. It should probably be taken as a rant. Or, it could be looked at for what it actually is, a snapshot.

Crisis at home, daily crisis at work, life is far from boring. Here is a sampling:

A leaky fuel meter at a pipeline on base. This was an issue because KBR claimed they didn’t need to fix it based on a 13 month old memo. The key here is that their current contract is only 1 month old. Here’s the kicker, the contracting officer is backing their position. Apparently he failed basic contracting law. Too bad for uncle. After much fighting we did get them to fix it, a small gasket needed replacement, probably 10 minutes of actual work. The core issue still remains though. That is a future battle.

One of the FOB’s we direct deliver to has multiple leaks at pipe flanges and an inspection cover on a 210K gal. tank. It appears the contractor used incorrect gaskets for all these connections. Just to complicate matters a wee bit more there is a dispute involving the contractors being paid for the work. This was a contract the Army did on it’s own. They ignored all the engineering resources available to them and ended up with a crappy product. Even myself, a simple gear-head, can spot the significant engineering flaws. Oh, and just to make it really interesting the personnel in charge of fuel at the FOB don’t feel a need to take direction or answer e-mails in a timely manner.

Three days ago a pipeline on base ruptured. This dumped about 20K of jet fuel and spread over an area of about 1.5 acres. There are multiple issues involved so I can’t point to any one root cause. The simplistic cause is that the hose was abraded on a rock and failed under pressure. These hose lines are walked several times a day. The hose was changed out a year ago. We are eight years into this gig and still using flexible hose for pipelines and storing fuel in bladders, not steel tanks. The hose lines run over barren ground not in lined culverts. We were pumping form two sources at the same time and therefore didn’t notice the rupture for some time. Poor, planning, poor contracting, poor contract supervision, poor contract execution. I believe the proper term is systemic. So much for the weekly bazaar, it’s location is soaked in jet fuel.

One of our FOB’s recently changed trucking contracts. The outgoing outfit is Afghan owned and reasonably reliable but lost the bid. One of the reasons they were reliable is that they paid off the correct warlords. It would appear they are still paying those warlords. But now they are paying them to disrupt the flow of trucks rather than allow the flow. This is significant. Fuel is the lifeblood of the effort here. This is an example of Combat Capitalism at its best! This is the folly of W having placed all his eggs in one basket and thrown everything behind the idea of a strong central government. It works in America, gee I can’t understand why it doesn’t work in Afghanistan. What a quintessentially American SNAFU.

Just to put the icing on the cake home life is a challenge at 7,700 miles as well. The military refers to higher headquarters (back in the states) meddling in local issues as the 10,000 mile screwdriver. I find I am trying to use the same 10,000 mile screwdriver to get me children to do well in school. I am guessing they don’t appreciate it any more than we do. Oh well. Issues with the ex, issues with kids, teachers ignoring e-mails, car problems, loosing a renter and finding another, trying to stay in the loop on local issues like our budding neighborhood volunteer fire dept, this is life when deployed. It may not be pretty but it is a common issue for most all deployed military. I am lucky in that I only have six months boots on ground and not 12 or 15!

It helps to be motivated by stress. Many people are paralyzed by stress. I am paralyzed by boredom. Stress is good, stress helps me focus. So, all the above is not a complaint.