A Little Dose Will Do Ya

Getting prescriptions in the military is pretty simple. I has allergy problems and neither Claritan nor Zyrtec did anything. A quick trip to the clinic and I’ve got a big bottle of Allegra. The best part is, it helps. It’s a good idea to do some of your own research though. Many of the doctors in the military join to avoid traditional residency. As a result many are not yet board certified. Now I don’t know how much this impacts on drug policy but it doesn’t hurt to hedge your bets.

Here in Afghanistan malaria meds are mandatory. I was given Doxycycline as my malaria prophylaxis. I wasn’t too fond of it. Eat one on a nearly empty stomach and feel seasick, not fun. So anyway I was picking up allergy tablets and decided to ask about different malaria meds. They handed me Mefloquine so I promptly went online to look into it. I found a great site for travel medicine (www.traveldoctor.co.uk). I discovered that Doxycycline is only approved for use up to 6 months. Guess what, guys here for a year have been given… yup, you got it Doxycycline!

It reminded me of the stink over Anthrax shots. It was in and out of the courts for years. Eventually a judge rules that enough shots had been given to military members (many illegally and or under protest) that it had been effectively tested for general use!

Just call me guinea pig! I can’t even recall all the vaccinations I’ve been given. I know there’s been Yellow Fever, Typhoid Fever, Cholera, Anthrax, Smallpox (yes that disease confined to US and Russian labs since the early 70’s) and who all knows what else. I’m pretty much set to hang out in any hellhole Uncle thinks the press won’t visit. When you sign on the line it really should be in blood. You really do agree to die if asked. Kinda weird. Very weird that I find myself writing this. Whod a thunk it!

Business and Politics

One of our carriers visited me today. He showed me documents that caused him concern. The copy that his driver presented to him was different than the one the military processed for payment. Funny thing, on his copies the fuel delivered was greater than on the government’s copies. It was pretty obvious to me but being polite in such circumstances takes the ability to hold a straight face. On his copies twos had been changed to sevens, zeros to nines, etc. I politely pointed this out but told him I would look into the issue further. I think it was all a ploy to fish for additional business. Near the end of the meeting he began asking about other types of transport jobs. Alas I only control fuel. This is such an odd business environment. It doesn’t help that US government contracting officers are so incompetent. Many of the problems we have here result from poorly written and poorly managed contracts. People think they can sit behind a desk in DC and write a relevant contract for Afghanistan. Sorry, but I’m here to tell you, it can’t be done! They need to make significant changes when contracting for this theater. I’ll throw in my two cents when I out brief a few months from now but I don’t honestly expect any of it to change. It’s not that I’m jaded, I’m just realistic. Well OK and a bit jaded!

The business environment here for importers necessarily involves the Afghan central government as well. I don’t have much direct interaction there but one of my buddies does. This may surprise the average American. A number of Afghan Gove officials are funded by USAID. That’s correct kiddies your tax dollars pay to run the Afghan government. Now if all ran well that might be excusable. If all ran well. The various government ministries routinely work at cross purposes to each other. This hampers bringing military supplies into the country I can only imagine the impact on commercial goods. Many of these same USAID paid government “servants” also actively solicit bribes. Now that’s an interesting concept. The US Govt. pays them and in addition they try to solicit bribes from the US Govt. Come to Afghanistan, step through the looking glass!

As much as I love the Afghan people, I don’t hold out much hope for the broken, puppet government we have installed. I do feel the country still holds promise but not if politically modeled after modern America. The central governments of Afghanistan have always had limited reach. America’s ethnocentric view of the country resulted in supporting a strong central government, central police force and strong military force. Not to piss in anyone’s popcorn but these concepts are foreign to Afghanistan. It’s time to suck it up and learn the way Afghanistan functions if we want to succeed here. The tribal regions of Pakistan have much more in common politically with Afghanistan than does America. We should be doing everything we can to bring peace at the village level and providing them the means to maintain that peace. Not an easy task. This country has typically existed as a loose confederation of villages, tribes and provinces. Gee, sounds a bit like the founding of the US doesn’t it? Strong states and a weak central government. I find it amusing that an avowedly conservative US Administration chose to ignore the conservative ideal of America (strong states weak central powers) when modeling their new and improved Afghanistan. Rather than building up the provinces they threw everything at the central government staffed by their own lackeys. Is it any wonder the government isn’t working here?

I am a military officer and businessman by training, not a politician, not a political scientist. So if you feel I shouldn’t be offering advice for the future of Afghanistan feel free to stop reading now.

This is a country of very tight local ties and very loose national ones. This is not America or Europe or Iraq. This is Afghanistan and needs an Afghan system. We (the West) need to quit assuming we know what is best for the world at large. We don’t! The solution here is to fix the infrastructure, work on education and encourage trade. Forget the government entirely! If we enable a working economy, a self sustaining economy, the people of Afghanistan will act like people everywhere. They will work and feed their families and worry about their children. Movement of goods encourages movement of ideas. Education encourages movement of ideas as well. Steer clear of teaching anything remotely religious. Teach Pashto, Dari, mathematics and economics, biology, environmental studies, etc. If the children are raised to recognize their inherent interdependence on one another the next generation will be less inclined to go to war. If the economy is functioning the government will evolve. Anyone recall how long America went without a functioning central government? There was a six year gap between the end of the American Revolution and start of Washington’s presidency. Did anyone have to force a government on us? My point is simple. Afghanistan is a wonderful land full of resources, amazingly resourceful people and a rich history spanning millennia. Afghanis given the opportunity to live in relative peace and pursue a livelihood will evolve their own government. It may not be what we envision but then it’s not our government to live under, is it!

Every Day is Exactly the Same… sort of

Monotony can make life much easier. No need to think much about schedules. Every day repeats itself. Hours blur into days blur into weeks blur into months. The time slides by. The funny thing is how even chaotic and very high paced jobs can feel monotonous at times. Working without a break contributes to that. Life at Bagram is punctuated by the Crisis De Jour the odd personnel change an occasional trip. This might all sound odd given my last post. The truth is that monotony (at least in my head) does not necessarily equate to boredom. My life has become monotonous many aspects of my job have as well but my job can also be quite interesting.

mo·not·o·nous --------adj.
1. Sounded or spoken in an unvarying tone.
2. Tediously repetitious or lacking in variety.

I had to pull up the definition to make sure I wasn’t completely off the mark. The second definition: “Tediously repetitious” is right on the mark. Even the odd crisis become repetitious. It’s a very odd way to exist. I don’t bring this up as a complaint. It is more of an observation. Much of it is my own doing. Get up, exercise a bit, shower, phone home, off to work. Work is full of reports, spot checks, crisis interventions, analysis then it’s back to the chu (my converted ocean container) on the computer, phone home, sleep repeat. Time goes quickly. Life on the outside continues, jobs change, kids go to school, neighborhoods meet, all in a parallel universe. Cest le vie.

I lost my assistant. He went back to his job in Europe. There was a week gap before his replacement arrived. From a work standpoint I now have to do the entire job while I train my new assistant. Personnel changes make such a difference at work. The level of performance isn’t the biggest impact. The personality change is. My last assistant was so very different from most people I know. Of European decent, raised in South America born an American, he is a practical joker, stubborn, bright, funny. All in all he was a great companion in this very odd existence. Now I have to get used to someone very different. This is Navy life. People are always coming and going. I don’t know that you ever really get used to it but you adapt to it all the same.

When the new guy is up to speed I need to take a trip. Even a short jaunt to Kabul would be helpful. I need to recharge. It’s funny, spending too much time here on Bagram I can feel the “us or them” mentality creeping into me. I think of road trips and I get a tiny bit apprehensive. That apprehension is new. It’s bad. It’s caused by the unknown. I need to reconnect with Afghanistan off the FOB, out of the up-armored metal beast. I need to be back on the road like a tourist. An Afghan friend of mine recently went for a long hike on the old Kabul city wall. I’m going to ask him to take me. It’s older than the Great Wall of China. What a crime to bring so many foreigners into such a storied and ancient land only to keep them pinned up on a FOB. I don’t like being fenced in.

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.

Good Days and Bad Days

The other night I was woken abruptly at 02:30 but a jet making that sounded like it was doing a very low pass or touch and goes. When it passes the usual roar of the engines changed into a high pitched scream I haven’t heard before. In my semi-conscious state I expected to hear an explosion. I was sure the jet was crashing. I lay there afterward, wide awake and shaking. It’s a hell of a way to be woken up.

When the day finally broke I began the work day with a depressing argument. It looked like things were just going to go downhill from there. Now a few days later I read that that same day I was so rudely awoken somewhere between 30 and 120 villagers, womes, children, elderly were accidently bombed in a fight between US and insurgents in the West of the country. I have no idea when the battle took place of if the jet that left me so shaken took part. The coincidence still leaves me uneasy.

A few days ago we had lots of rain. We had been having thunder storms for several days. This day though it just rained steadily all day. At the beginning of the work day we heard that one of our fuel trucks was stuck on the road near the pump house. Around 10:30 we headed over to check the progress on getting it unstuck. By then it had been freed but the road was a mess. The ruts were almost 2 feet deep in the mud. It was bad enough that the KBR personnel who run the pump house weren’t allowing any more trucks to use the road fearing more would be trapped. This had stranded about eight trucks at the pump house. Not good for the drivers or our fuel operation. The drivers were hungry and don’t appreciate sitting around. Now, to add insult to injury there is a construction area just past the mud-soup road that offers an alternate access to the pump house. Unfortunately since the construction is ongoing no one was allowing the heavy trucks to use this access. We made sure food was enroute, halal MRE’s, and went off to see what we could do to help the situation.

My assistant and I went straight to Public Works and spoke to a senior NCO who agreed to dump gravel on the road. He was unable to do other work that day because of the rain and was happy to help. He promised to send several truckloads of heavy gravel and a front end loader to spread it around. After lunch we headed back to the pump house to check on progress. When we arrived the road was still a mess and the drivers were still sitting around. We went and spoke to the foreman at the construction site to explain the problem and ask who we would need to get permission from to allow the trucks to transit the site. He was going to call his boss but decided to take the initiative to allow the trucks to pass. As we stood by guiding the trucks through the site they all had big smiles and gave us a thumbs up. About the time the last truck exited the gravel trucks began showing up to fix the road.

Two days later, we went to check on the road. The weather had been sunny and dry. When we got there we were amazed at the quantity of gravel dropped off. The deep ruts were filled. The road looked completely different. As we stood there checking it out a push of six or eight trucks arrived. As the drivers lumbered past they were all grinning and again gave us thumbs up. I have never seen drivers so happy. It was a nice feeling to have had an impact, however small.

War Porn

War Porn is what the Major called it when he walked into our office. Our TV signal went away a week or so ago. No more news updates at work. So what to do with a flat screen TV and no TV signal? The solution was to hook into the Predator UAV feed. What the hell is the Predator UAV feed you ask? According to the Major, porn. The Predator UAV’s are unmanned planes that fly around spying on things. They look like a cross between a wasp and a glider. Besides the advanced cameras gear they also carry Hellfire missiles. The technology is fascinating. These small aircraft will fly at something like 20K ft and zoom in on a person walking down a trail or track a vehicle in a busy neighborhood. They flip between b&w, color and IR views. It’s amazing because the view doesn’t look like it’s from a moving aircraft. These things are so far overhead the picture looks like it’s from a stationary platform. Truly amazing stuff and pretty damn useful for battlefield info I suppose.

It’s easy o fall in lust with the technology here on display. There are cameras on portable towers that can read a license plate at 10 miles. Very useful for counting fuel trucks waiting to enter the base! Down Disney Drive from my office is the Robotic Repair facility. In addition to remote control tractors used for mine clearance there is frequently a guy out front testing a small remote vehicle with a camera on top used to investigate suspected bombs. These are all very cool toys that any 14 year boy would want. Some of these are pretty useful when used correctly. As it turns out the cool looking remote control tractors didn’t pan out. The five sets in country have been sitting for about a year. They are too slow for road clearance. MRAPS with high tech versions of WWII mine rollers work better. They could use them for mine field clearance but Afghans with shovels employed by the HALO Trust seem to have that wrapped up.

The latest high tech gadget for Bagram is a new power plant. We currently use a large number of leased diesel generators for our power needs. This is not the best system. It is dirty, loud, ugly, not at all glamorous or the slightest bit high tech. Worse of all it doesn’t meet the growing needs of the base. So, lets go with a high tech solution shall we? Why not high tech is always better!!! I know, turbines, we need turbines! So, let’s take a quick look at the cost breakdown for this no-brainer.
OK I am told we spend something like $20M annually to lease the current rigs. That sounds excessive! Owning our own generators should be an easy sell. You may ask what the cost is of the turbines. I could tell you that. Unfortunately, I would not be able to tell you the cost to purchase piston driven rigs. OK, perhaps I’m being picky. Lets look a bit closer.
Well it says the fuel will switch from diesel for the current generators to jet fuel which we have much more of. That sounds good. What, you say we currently burn jet fuel in our “diesel” generators. Oh.
Alright then how about the cleaner burning turbines. The change out of a gaggle of piston driven engines for greener, cleaner turbines should be a significant benefit. It will clean our air right up! That alone should justify turbines! Oops, I seem to have forgotten that the Afghans in this area burn tires as fuel to bake bricks. Well there’s that and the open pit incinerators KBR runs on the other side of the base. So, I suppose a somewhat lower level of exhaust will help even if no one notices the difference. Alright, lets cut to the brass tacks. These high tech engines will use substantially less fuel, right? Right? Please tell me I’m right. The original justification told me they would be more efficient!

I suppose my first clue that something was amiss was the request that we provide six times more fuel for these newer, more efficient, engines. A bit of digging and asking questions didn’t get me far. The initial request for fuel misstated our current consumption more than two fold. A new presentation for the turbines indicates they aren’t that wasteful… well to be honest the numbers are still a bit fuzzy. In fairness I won’t completely drive the bus over this project quite yet. I am yet hopeful these new engines won’t suck us dry of fuel. I still don’t like the math but from what I’ve seen the US military, the Army particularly, can’t cost analyze its way out of a wet paper bag. I think wet tissue paper would actually challenge them!
My worry is that this is an ill conceived project picked only for its gee wiz factor. I’ve seen this before. I expect I’ll see it again. But for now, I will sit back, watch, hope I am way off base on my own analysis…and continue to dig. A bad decision I can live with. An egregiously poor decision based on fake facts to satisfy someone’s personal whim? That decision I would have a great deal of difficulty living with. Time will tell.
Gee, hope I don’t get in trouble for writing this!

I Love Dark Clouds

There was a beautiful thunderstorm yesterday. We went out to check on a reported leak at the pipeline and the sky was dark with clouds and blowing dust. The entire sky to the southwest looked as if night had fallen. It was warm out making the landscape seem eerie. The leak didn’t amount to much so we took the opportunity away from the office to visit the tank farm being constructed and photograph birds. As we took our time lightening began popping off in the distance. Next we drove over to the maintenance yard to have the slow leak in our tire repaired. While we were there the first drops began to fall. By now we needed headlights on. As we drove back to the office a dumpster across the street blazed away, probably the result of some careless smoker. The lightening began hitting within a half mile, the rain came down cooling the ground and dampening the dust. It was a wonderfully magic day.

Martial Training Discouraged in a War Zone?

I was interrupted the other night. I am trying to get back into shape so that I will have a better chance of successfully scaling Mt Whitney this August. I want to try the Mountaineer’s Route. So, anyway, I’ve started jogging (& walking) at night. After my run I do some Chi Gong and Tai Chi Chuan. Apparently I was reported and MP’s in an up-armored Humvee were sent out to investigate. They were told a suspicious person was practicing martial arts. Seems a bit weird to me, all these military personnel and one person practicing martial arts is suspicious and worthy of closer scrutiny. I could be wrong, but martial arts, in a martial environment….hummm seems like a no-brainer.