Rest and Relaxation??

My R&R is about shot.  One day left and another run to the storage place in Carson.  It’s been two weeks of sorting and packing.  Some items bound for eventual life on the big island of Hawaii, some items for life in SoCal until I can fund life on the island.  It’s been a strange experience.  I seemingly dropped out of the sky onto the Bu.  Coming from six months in Pakistan I may as well be on Mars.  Life here is that different.  American’s view of Pakistan is rather skewed.  Many of my friends don’t know there is any difference between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Most of the remainder thinks Pakistan is a bed of bloodthirsty terrorists with nukes.  This is what happens when news becomes a profit center rather than a public service.  No more “foreign desks” at news outlets.  If it isn’t sensational it won’t sell ad space.  It’s sad really.

 

So here I am.  In three weeks my wife moves to Hawaii.  In six months I return to SoCal effectively homeless.  I have to work at my normal employer to pay off the home on the island.  It’s a weird feeling.  I know it likely confuses most of the people we know.  But that is what happens when you are a military family.  You become pragmatic.  She has a job in Hawaii.  We have a farm there that needs attention.  It simply makes since for her to make the move now.

 

So I come back to the thought that began this dialog.  I live in a beautiful community.  It’s in the mountains next to the ocean.  It’s affluent.  We have an amazing view of the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Catalina Island.  It’s a reasonable commute to my civilian gig and quite peaceful.  So am I going to miss this life?  That is a difficult question to answer.  I have a hard time imagining life back in the city, but I as I drive about Malibu I feel it is time to move on.  I will miss my neighbors.  We have an amazing community here.  It’s the first time I’ve been such an embedded part of the community.  I am well known and well thought of here.  But… it feels uncomfortably familiar.  I am antsy.  Beautiful as it may be its beginning to look quite mundane.  Yes, time to move on.  I think my main issue is a bad case of wanderlust.

 

I feel a bit self conscious telling people I am quite happy in Islamabad.  How that hell does that even work?  Forsaking the gilded coast of Malibu for a somewhat dangerous 3^rd world country?  I wish I could provide you all an answer you would understand.  Alas, I can’t.  I am a sailor.  I am happiest when moving on every 2 or 3 years.  For my neighbors in Corral Canyon: I will always cherish the community we created after that terrible blaze.  It has been an honor of the highest order to be part of that process.  My family by this point knows that I am a hopeless wanderer.  My wife puts up with my frequent absences knowing it will pay off in the long run.  My children just know this to be what I do, for better or worse.  My mom and sister have watched this play out over a lifetime.  My friends… I am not sure what to say to my friends.  I am incredibly lucky to have wonderful friends all over this planet.  I am deeply touched by the number of friends that have offered up spare rooms for when I return.  I love you all.  Thank you for remaining in touch.  Thank you for putting up with my occasionally extreme politics.  Thank you for making my life richer. 

Cycling in Islamabad

I just got back from a short 15 mile bike ride.  I’m not allowed to ride up in the Margalla hills right now due to security threats.  So I rode along Margalla road down to F-9 Park.  It’s a huge park here in Islamabad.  It was a very busy day for all parks today.  It’s the end of the Eid Al Fitr weekend and this coming Wednesday is Pakistan’s Independence Day.  So traffic was epic.  I haven’t ridden in traffic this busy since Thailand or perhaps Indonesia.  I forgot how much I love riding my bike in traffic.  I suppose it’s from growing up riding a bike on the streets of LA.  I ride better in traffic than I do on mountain trails, and I’m no slouch on dirt trails.  Funny, most of the American’s I work with hate Pakistani drivers.  They complain about the way they drift about on the roadway and don’t seem to pay any attention to what might be behind them.  All those complaints and yet I feel safer riding along in heavy traffic in Islamabad than I ever have on the Pacific Coast Highway.  Yes Pakistanis drive much slower, but more to the point, they do pay attention to whatever is in front of them.  They look for obstacles, like pedestrians, goats, cows and bicyclists.  So it was a fun ride, and a relatively safe ride.

 

So many people were worried for me when they found out I was headed to Pakistan.  Americans seem to think I live in a land full of terrorists and Islamic fanatics.  OK to be fair, there are some terrorists and Islamic fanatics here.  Just as there are some terrorists and Christian fanatics in the USA.  Many of the people I ride by look at me with some suspicion.  No doubt I look very strange to most Pakistanis, wearing shorts and a brightly painted bike helmet, gloves and eye protection.  I ride an odd looking bike and go nearly as fast as most of the cars here.  So I can understand some suspicion.  What I didn’t expect is the number of people who wave.  Who say hello.  The parents who have their children shake my hand.  This city has a great many very friendly people.  In America we rarely treat visitors this well, especially those that don’t speak the same language.  I am enjoying my time here, half a world away from family and friends.  I’ll be back soon enough.  Not much will have changed where I work, in my home town, with my friends, but I will feel as if I’ve been gone for a decade.                    

Shia Mosque Bombing Thwarted

Life continues to be curious.  Yesterday I left work around 4:00.  Our new roommate rode with me.  He is still getting his bearings so I asked if he knew about the 4^th entrance to the diplomatic enclave.  He didn’t so I decided to show him.  It’s a bit of a drive as the main entrances face the city while this one faces the small village of Nurpur Shahan, North East of the enclave.  It’s a nice drive through an area vastly different from the rest of this city.  You go through the local bazaar area before turning south on 3^rd Ave toward Murree road.  It was a nice drive, saw donkey carts, many people, cows, goats and horses wandering about.  The rest of my evening was completely uneventful. 

 

 

Then a short while ago, just before 8 AM my phone rang.  It was a guy that works for me.  He was calling me to let me know his flight was diverted.  They should have landed at Islamabad but were diverted to Lahore.  Not only that but they were forced to deplane.  The claimed reason was weather but, while it’s raining right now, it isn’t particularly bad weather.  So I decided to go online and check the news.  Apparently there was a threat and search at Benazir Bhutto airport over 22 hours ago that the authorities are now saying was “training”… doubtful.  The more interesting article was about a thwarted mosque bombing yesterday afternoon.  A heroic security guard got in a shootout with a very well trained suicide bomber at a Shia mosque.  He managed to kill the would-be bomber but was also wounded and died later at the hospital.  This was in the little village of Bara Kahu about 2 miles east of the village we drove through yesterday afternoon.  I’d be lying if I said this was not a bit sobering.  It pissed me off as well.  This sectarian crap is as evil as it gets.  Killing one another because “MY god and kick YOUR god’s ass” or perhaps it’s more along the lines of “YOU are worthy of death because you don’t pray EXACTLY the same way I do”.  No matter, the perpetrators of this crap, the leaders of this evil will burn in hell, or be reincarnated as lowly insects or in some way, no matter your belief, will be punished for their deeds.  I genuinely like Pakistan.  I am greatly disappointed that my ability to travel about and see more of it is being hampered by an evil that plagues the good people of this land.       

AFP Photo, dead bomber next to grenades, bullets, etc.

Scope of my Job

4 July 2013

For those of you that might wonder exactly what I do over here, perhaps I should provide something of a snap shot.  I begin writing this post on a 747 flying back to Islamabad from Karachi.  I was there to attend a two day carrier meeting.  It was primarily to discuss the access issues for freight traveling between the ports down at Karachi, and Afghanistan.  While that is not in my swim, lane several of the carriers I work with, bringing freight into Pakistan, were there and I needed to meet them.  The consulate in Karachi is a bit like a voluntary jail.  The buildings are new and quite nice, lots of shiny marble, new furnishings, strangely wavy glass windows (ballistic), etc. but most of the grounds are covered in gravel.  Lately though they have replaced some of these with lawn, not out of a concern for aesthetics but to reduce shrapnel if some dumb ass decides to drop a few mortar rounds on the compound.  That doesn’t seem to be likely right now… but then again.  To enter or exit requires ID checks and several imposing gated zones.  Access to the actual city is limited to a narrow corridor between Jena International and the Consulate.  Should one wish to see any of this narrow slice of city it is necessary to arrange an up-armored vehicle from motor pool, with a driver and bodyguard.  We went out to dinner last night using this arrangement.  The food was fantastic.  The traffic a mess, the city itself is dirty and unkempt.  Karachi is home to a tad over 22,000,000 people.  Large sections of the city have been completely abandoned by the police to the criminal gangs, which helps explain the murder rate of 8/day.  Not the safest place and nowhere I will likely return as a tourist.    

Well, that got away from me a bit; I was going to explain my duties.  I was sent here to be the head logistician for the Office of the Defense Representative Pakistan (ODRP), Security Assistance Office (SAO). We have security assistance programs in many countries.  They facilitate the sale of US produced defense supplies to these countries.  This accomplishes several goals.  It keeps US defense manufacturing lines open without DOD spending funds on excess equipment.  More importantly it makes for closer ties and some degree of influence with the military in these countries.  We help Pakistan acquire military equipment and they assist with policing the Indian Ocean, fighting insurgents in the tribal lands and working to secure their nebulous borders.  If you recall the military response to the invasion of the Swat Valley by the Taliban a few years ago, this was possible because of the support we provide.  OK, OK I know, that explains why I am here in a very big picture sort of way, but still not what I do.

As the Chief of Logistics my primary duty is to coordinate the movement of military supplies from the US to Pakistan.  We have a consolidation site in the US that became more of a warehouse when relations soured after the Salala incident.  I have an NCO there to process receipts and pull freight for shipments.  I also have a LtCol and SSgt to assist with the process on this end.  We set the shipment schedule, the mode, and the specific items to be shipped.  Since I have arrived we made 2 shipments by chartered 747.  I hate those.  They waste funds that would be better spent purchasing more military hardware for the PAK Mil.  We also recently received our first ocean shipment in over two years, 26 forty foot containers (FEU’s).  There are some significant challenges with this process.  The Government of Pakistan requires a Non-Objection Certificate (NOC) for imported duty free freight.  It is quite the cumbersome, bureaucratic process to get these approved, even for items going to the PAK Mil!  Pakistan has hundreds of years of bureaucratic training from British Colonial rule.  If you have ever watched the movie “Brazil” it will provide insight into the Pakistani bureaucracy.  If that were my only challenge it would be sufficient but the method of prioritizing the freight we call forward was not well thought either.  It was prioritized based on the preferences of the US Army, Navy and Air Force reps working with their PAK Mil counterparts.  This allowed some freight to languish at the consolidation site to the point where shelf life is now an issue.  I am in the process of reordering all the freight in FIFO order with exceptions made for shelf life and justifiable reasons, like items needed for contracted training programs.  We also have a contracted warehouse in Pakistan that is used primarily as a cross dock.  Once shipments arrive this is where they are broken down for onward movement to specific units.  My SSgt spends a significant amount of time there.  Now you would think that since that is logistics bit is a pretty complex tasking it would account for all my time.  But wait, that ain’t all…

As the head loggie, I also own housing and vehicles.  Most of us at ODRP are on temporary orders so we share group houses out in town.  These are arranged through the Embassy.  I have the honor of housing assignments, coordinating maintenance issues and ownership of the furnishings, or rather my MSG does.  She also manages our leased vehicle fleet.  We share cars and rotate them regularly to limit our visibility.  It shouldn’t surprise me but a significant portion of my time goes to the houses and vehicles.  The last area under my dept is End Use Monitoring.  I have a Navy Chief over that.  When we provide military items to a country it is not without strings.  We monitor items to ensure they are stored securely enough and that 3^rd party nationals don’t have unapproved access to them.

As part of the straight logistics portion of my responsibilities I also make short side trips when we deliver cargo.  I sign for the US Govt., meet the military officers in charge of the unit taking custody, have tea and biscuits (the English meaning there), and then head home.  As with more management positions most of my time is dedicated to providing information.  That has been something of a challenge.  With personnel rotating every year, continuity is tenuous at best.  Add to that a lack of skills in Excel and Access for most active duty military and it was quickly apparent I need to rebuild all our databases to make data mining more effective and efficient.  It’s going to be a busy year for me.  Busy but fun.  There is plenty to do and my actions have a dramatic, immediate and visible impact.  It will be interesting to look back next year to see if I have been successful, or have fallen victim to “Brazil”.     

Houses: over a dozen

Vehicles: several dozen

Cost of a 747 charter: about a half mil

Value of goods on a 747 charter: $40M to $70M

Goods in storage: over $300M

Personnel managing the process: 6                 

Good Strangers and Terrorists

Here are some random and unconnected thoughts about the place I now live.  Today I was riding my bike along a trail at the base of the Margala Hills.  OK, yes I was riding alone again.  Not that it matters.  Anyway I had been riding for over an hour and probably looked pretty crappy given the 108 degree temp.  So along I ride on a flat section of trail and I notice 50 meters ahead a local collecting fire wood.  He had several stacks of 2 to 3 in diameter by 3 ft long branches.  These were laying at the edge of the trail.  His motorcycle was on the trail and another bundle was already placed behind the seat.  I was unclipping because I figured I’d have to walk my bike to get past him.  When he saw me, first he moved the bundles from the trail, and then he removed the bundle from his bike so I could make it past.  I thanked him as I rode by.  He was so polite and cared about not inconveniencing as total stranger.  It is small encounters like that that make me appreciate my neighbors. 

But, this is still not the safest of places for Americans.  There are standing threats from the TTP.  Terrorist acts happen every day in Pakistan.  Luckily they generally don’t take place in Islamabad.  So when we travel on official business to nearby cities it is with military escorts carrying H&K G3 battle rifles.  We move about on official business in up armored Chevy Suburbans.  They tend to stand out, unfortunately.  Around town we drive locally leased vehicles, low profile = safe.  Still whenever I pull onto our street I scan the parked cars for anything that looks out of place.  It’s a rather odd habit and it still catches me off guard when I do so.

Mountain Biking the Margallas

I haven’t gone shopping for rugs yet.  This morning I got off to a late start.  Last night I went to play dominos and some silly card game at one of the other houses.  I was cajoled into staying later than I’d planned.  Not a bad thing though as this morning was a bit of a nasty thunder storm… not nasty as in ugly, rude or in a sexual way, just a serious downpour with lightening and stuff.  So the ride began a bit late.  I rode to Chilla Gah Imam Bari, a Muslim shrine where a local Sufi used to dwell back in the 17^th century.  I had to leave my bike near the bottom of the path up the mountain.  An old gentleman that didn’t speak English told me I couldn’t take my bike.  He also conveyed that it would be safe to leave it, so I did.  It was a nice walk up.  Many nice people, some make jokes in Urdu, usually kids.  I don’t mind as many people were happy to shake my hand and a few took photos with me.  By and large these are very nice people, much like people everywhere.  After visiting the top I collected the bike and went for another ride.  I went way up trail 5 to the top of Pir Sohawa road at Monal.  OK to be honest most of way I was carrying or pushing the bike, lots of big rocks, stair steps and it’s steep.  I made it to the top and took the road back down. I’d been wanting to ride down this road since I first saw it, steep curvy, looks like a blast for a bike.  There are several steep switch backs and I was hoping to take a nice fast run… oops, cheap tires, slippery road like an LA freeway after the 1^st rain, I spilled it on the 1^st switchback.  Luckily the slippery road surface doesn’t just cause rubber to slide, skin does as well, so the road rash is not as bad as I’d feared.  It is a strange and surreal moment, shoes clipped into pedals, knowing the bike is going over and then sliding across the lane; the realization that your skin is being rubbed off as you slide toward the guard rail.  Luckily there were no cars near the turn and I stopped short of the guard rail.  As I was putting my chain back on the chain ring a car stopped to see if I was OK.  Funny, I can rub soap on it to clean it up but water stings like a son of a bitch.  Anyway I rode more carefully the rest of the way down.  Though I did pass a couple of motor scooters on the way.  At the bottom, near 7^th Ave. a kid (boy in his 20’s I’d guess) on a motor scooter, began riding along with me.  He saw my right arm and was concerned.  I told him I was fine.  But he kept pace until we were at Atta Turk road where he was headed to the parking lot for trail 3.  Again some random kid, was genuinely concerned and quite nice.  These are good people, most of them. 

Pill Boxes and Sand Bags

Driving in to work this morning I decided to use the Saudi Shams gate to the diplomatic enclave.  We alter our routes for security reasons and it had been a few days since I used that gate.  When I made the last left hand bend before the U-turn at the barricade I saw an unusually long line of cars waiting to enter the enclave.  Usually there is very little traffic at this gate.  Oh well, so I slowed after the U Turn and joined the line.  The school kids were showing up as many local kids go to school on the enclave.  A kid about 5 was trying to kick start a motor bike next to the curb on my left.  I idly looked across the street to my right and studied the housing on the other side of the large wall.  In front of the wall was a sand bag emplacement just past the curve in the road.  As I looked at this structure I remembered all the bunkers and pill boxes that were in Sasebo, Japan when I first lived there.  Those were remnants of WWII.  Gun emplacements to protect the home port of the Japanese Imperial Fleet.  The sand bag structure I was looking at now was built to protect against civil unrest in a city that did not exist when those Japanese pill boxes fell silent. 

This caused me to think about how we treat one another.  Why is violence such a prevalent element in all societies?  I am unaware of any country, culture or religion without violence in its past.  We write books and make movies that have truly frightening villains capable of unspeakable evil.  Perhaps that is one of our downfalls.  We view evil as so distinctly satanic that we miss the point.  Evil and violence are not an abrupt manifestation of the devil.  These things build over time and have seemingly innocent beginnings.  People grow up and are slowly turned into beasts without even recognizing it in themselves.  How else do we account for the imprisonment of the entire Japanese population of the US during WWII or the attempted genocide of European Jews or the current spate of suicide terrorism based on Wahhabis belief’s.  These are not acts carried out by demons from hell.  These are atrocities carried out by normal people.  People just like your friends and neighbors, like you.  It isn’t all that difficult to get a crowd of people excited enough to do something evil while all the same feeling they are on the path of righteousness, that they have good reasons to act as they are.