Still making news

Even back in the states, it seems I can't get into the news without it being for something bad.

Air Force grounds training planes

Still, it's nice to be back in the traditional Public Affairs world. I seem to have retained my touch.

As for Texas, it's a nice place. It's certainly more crowded than any place I've lived, but that could just be San Antonio.

The new apartment is a step up from the B-huts of FOB Gardez. The fact that there's a huge shopping center not a mile away from my new home is a nice change too.

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Travel’s end

This entry is actually a few days late, but in my own defense I’ve been pretty busy.

We left Gardez on March 15th, then spent the better part of 10 days jumping around Afghanistan and the surrounding countries, trying to catch a ride back to the States. We finally landed in Baltimore on the 26th, and the team split to go their separate ways on the 27th. For me, that meant flying back to Omaha and Offutt AFB, the station I left 15 months ago.

A lot changed back at Offutt. Only a few people were left in the office from when I was there, but they were happy to see me back. The entire command staff up at the wing had changed, and new buildings had sprung up all across the base.

I only stayed at Offutt two nights, just long enough to in- and out-process. Normally people don’t do both at the same time, but I already have orders for San Antonio, and it’s time to start heading that way.

There’s not much to say about my deployment that hasn’t already been said. I remember wondering, way back last January, how well I would weather spending 15 months with the Army in a combat zone. I’m happy to say that things ended up very well -- this assignment went better than I could have hoped, and I’ve been generously rewarded with both experience and actual awards.

When I left home I had seven ribbons on my rack. The next time I put on my uniform I’ll have 16, including two Army Achievement Medals, an Air Force Combat Action Medal and a Bronze Star. That’s a bit more than most junior captains can claim. More important, though, the next time a flyer talks about being "at the tip of the spear," I’ll be able to just roll my eyes.

I have a new respect for the Army now. Their leaders are the best I’ve ever seen, and their focus on results is a refreshing break from the corporate Air Force. I still thing the Air Force does some things better than the Army (including how it treats its people), but there are definitely things the services can learn from each other. Hopefully after serving with both, I’ll be able to combine the best of both worlds.

This will be my last blog entry in this series. While I’ll probably continue to write entries from San Antonio, obviously they will no longer be about Afghanistan or my adventures there. Hopefully I’ll get another chance to go on a mission like this one, and I’ll be able to start a new journal to detail those adventures. Until then it’s back to life-as-usual here.

To everyone who’s followed these entries, thank you for your interest and the occasional kind words. Knowing that there were people back home who cared about our safety was one of the things that made our jobs easier.

Farewell, and thanks for reading.

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Manas, again

The last time I was in Manas AB in Kyrgyzstan, it was on our way into Afghanistan. Manas is basically a waypoint, a base with a large enough runway to accomodate all the airplanes that won’t fit onto the dilapidated airstrips of Afghanistan.

Unlike last time, I’m actually spending several days here. On our way into the theater, I was only on the ground for a few hours before we flew to Bagram. I’ve been here for almost a week now, and I’ve still got a few days to go. Apparently the Air Force is more concerned with moving people into the fight than out of it (which is fine by me -- I get paid the same either way).

With any luck, I’ll be back in the states by the middle of the week. Just one more annoyingly long flight to go.

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Coda, pt 1

It's been almost 48 weeks since we arrived at Bagram Air Field, the main point of arrival for units entering Eastern Afghanistan. In just under three weeks, we'll start our long journey back there on our way home.

There are still missions left to run here, but over the next few weeks our replacements will slowly start to take over for us. Already they are getting settled into their new rooms and learning their way around the FOB.

This is the beginning of the end of our time in Afghanistan. Soon we'll be home.

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Winter school

It's been more than three weeks since my last blog post. That's much longer than I normally allow, but the past three weeks haven't been filled with the sort of activity that makes for a good blog.

For most of the past year I've been going out on missions several times a week. In the month of February, I've been outside the wire twice.

Most of this drop-off is due to the fact that the PRT is preparing to leave, and our most important task now is to prepare for our replacements. So instead of going out on missions, I've been sitting at my desk working on continuity paperwork. I can assure you it's as exciting as it sounds.

The picture up above is in the courtyard of the Gardez Girls' High School, which we visited the other day. One of the PRT's smaller projects is a winter class for about 60 girls at this school -- unlike in American, Afghan schools are closed during the winter. The girls attending this class were selected for their academic achievement, and get to spend their winter learning a wide variety of subjects, from English to computers to chemistry.

The school isn't exactly state-of-the-art. There's no electricity, and the only light is whatever they can get in the window. The single computer the class uses is powered by an extension cord connected to a residential generator (the main source of power in Gardez).

If you look on top of the building in the background of the first picture, you can see what looks like a massive bush growing on the roof. That's actually a pile of several hundred chairs and desks, reduced to their metal frames and tossed up there to get them out of the way.

Literally every school I have visited in Afghanistan has a similar heap. The furniture, when delivered, is promptly torn apart and the cushions and seats are sold for scrap. The metal frames apparently have no value, and are left behind.

That is the sort of everyday corruption that plagues Afghanistan. Not even the smallest things are safe from individuals who care only about how they can be converted into cash.

The more I think about it, as I write this post, the angrier I get. When I asked about a similar pile at the boys' high school in Gardez (dumped in the front lobby, apparently without any concern for discretion), I was told that they had 'broken' and were being stored there because there was no way to fix them. The sheer transparency of that lie is grating.

I think tomorrow I will have a conversation about this. Petty corruption is probably the least of Afghanistan's problems, but allowing it to take place without any response is worse.

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Minimum operating temperature

I got back to FOB Gardez on Wednesday after two weeks in Zormat, playing a part in Operation Sarmaayey Melee (Pashtu for "National Treasure"). S&M, as we called it, was the largest kinetic operation in Paktya since Operation Anaconda in 2002, and the largest ANA-led operation ever in our province.

Zormat, as returning readers might remember, is the hottest district in Paktya. It was on one of Zormat's roads last August that PFC Goode was killed by an IED. Zormat has experienced IEDs, mortar attacks, and acts of intimidation against the local populace by the Taliban (i.e. nightletters, kidnappings, etc) at a rate far, far beyond any other district in our area of operations.

We had several embedded reporters with us for the operation, who have already done a much better job of describing the operation than I could. If you get a chance, check their stories out.

FOB Zormat is a bit more rustic than Gardez. Until the last few days of the operation, food was served take-out from a small tent. The latrines were small but functional, until the water cistern on top froze, at which point they were simply small.

A word is in order here about the cold: temperatures in Zormat plunged into the mid-negative 20s at night. Venturing outside wasn't just uncomfortable, it was outright painful and avoided as much as possible even during the day, when highs approached zero. Ice built up on the inside walls of our barracks, and anything left outside for more than a few minutes froze, including mustard packets and even muffins, which I hadn't thought was possible until I tried to eat one.

Still, I had it easy; I only went out on a few missions during the operation. Most of the soldiers were out daily, and quite a few (including several companies of ANA) spent the entire two weeks outside. Compared to them, I've got nothing to complain about.

Without going into too many details, the operation was a success. Zormat has changed dramatically since August; attacks began to fall around October, and by mid-December had stopped completely. While the winter is partly responsible, other parts of Afghanistan near us are still seeing Taliban activity, so we're clearly doing something right.

On the last night of the operation, as we were preparing for a massive shura that would end up drawing between 800 and 1000 people, several of us on the command staff played around with the armbands we were issuing to the ANP. Not exactly officer stuff, I'll admit, but we were a bit loopy by that point.

The commanders here love to say that "IO is 70 percent of the fight," and while I'm not sure it's worth quite that much, it does make a nice catch-phrase.

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RTB time now

Just putting up this quick note to let people know that I'm back in Gardez. Expect a full recap tonight or tomorrow, depending on when I get some sleep.

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Brief interlude

I haven't been able to update this blog as much as usual lately. The primary reason is that we're essentially snowed in here in lovely Gardez, but I've also been extremely busy working on some upcoming projects.

One of those projects will be taking me away from Gardez for a couple weeks. My next update probably won't be until early February.

I can't really say much more about what we've been doing lately. It will, however, probably be big enough that people will hear about it from sources other than this blog.

On a somewhat related note, I was awarded an Army Achievement Medal today for some of the work I've been doing on our 'project.' It's the first award I've received since I got here, and it's nice to know that my work is being appreciated.

Army Achievement Medal.

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The view from Gardez, pt 2

Second in a series of articles describing Gardez, the capital of Paktya Province in Afghanistan's tribal belt.

The view from Gardez, pt 2

If you're viewing the city during the day, chances are you'll get to see what passes for rush hour in Gardez. Rush hour begins at about 9 a.m. and lasts until about 4 p.m, when the shopkeepers start closing up for the night. Despite the abject poverty of the citizens of Gardez, enough own automobiles to crowd the narrow streets during Afghanistan's somewhat relaxed business hours.

A word about roads is in order here. In them you can trace the contours of Afghanistan's civil wars and brief periods of development. The main road leading north to Kabul is almost entirely paved, courtesy of a USAID project completed just two years ago. South of Gardez that same road is paved for a few kilometers, then slowly begins to disintegrate into a patchwork of concrete and rubble, followed by a long stretch of just rubble before turning to dirt.

The concrete (and rubble) of the southern road is all that remains of a German project during the inter-war period to pave the Khowst-Gardez pass. In the pass itself the only remaining evidence of the project is a series of massive and well-engineered culverts, designed to keep the road from washing away during the spring thaw.

Within a few blocks of the city center, the roads are somewhat better maintained. An actual two-lane asphalt road leads to the governor's compound, and the traffic circles at major intersections are still in one piece.

Running alongside the roads are deep gutters familiar to anyone who's visited a third world country -- they are the local sewer system, and all flow to the Gardez river, just south of town.

Since they're almost always clogged with trash, the gutters primarily exist as an impediment to pedestrian traffic. To lessen the chance of their customers accidentally stepping into them, many shopkeepers actually set their stalls up over the gutters, so that one need merely stand in the street to shop.

If Gardez was a poor city in the United States, this is the part where I would mention the vibrant inner-city culture that transcends poverty with unique artistic and musical accomplishments. Not so in Gardez, where the only artwork is the painted trucks that slog through the streets, and the only reference to music is a street sign, apparently left over from the Taliban, that depicts a trombone outlined with a red circle and cut across with a red slash.

No music allowed.

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The view from Gardez

I've tried a few times with this blog to explain what Paktya and its capital, Gardez, are like. As a journalist, describing things accurately and clearly (and briefly, if possible) is supposed to be one of my strong points. But after a year of playing with the Army rather than sitting at a desk writing newspaper articles, I've started to fear lately that my ability to describe has eroded.

To that end, I've decided to start writing in more detail about life in Gardez, starting with Gardez itself. This is something of a writing exercise for me -- feel free to skip this entry. I'll be back with more pictures later in the week.

The view from Gardez, pt 1

As seen from the top of the Bala Hesar Fortress, the city of Gardez could pass for an urban slum in many of the world's other developing nations. Rutted roads made from cobblestones half buried in mud divide the city into a sad approximation of a grid, with the Fortress and its hill plotted at the intersection of the X and Y axes.

Low buildings and the skeletons of larger, multi-story buildings line the main road running north-south through the city. Hundreds of store-front shops fill the decrepit cement buildings, selling everything from (debatably) fresh produce to knock-off consumer electronics from Pakistan. At the intersections of the main road and the larger side roads some extremely optimistic city planner built a series of traffic circles, which for the most part have been commandeered by vendors and idle taxis.

The comparison to a slum suffers slightly when one realizes that unlike slums, there is no thriving megalopolis upon which Gardez is feeding. Gardez is the city and the slum in one, and in the Pashtu tribal belt it is the closest thing you will ever see to a metropolis.

While the smaller buildings are all more-or-less complete, several multi-story buildings exist only as skeletons, their upper floors an unfinished mess of girders and crude wooden braces holding up patchwork walls. Below, at ground level, the buildings are finished affairs with residents and shops, who don't seem to mind the incomplete nature of the structures above them.

West of the Bala Hesar Fortress is the road to the governor's compound. The shops are marginally neater here, and instead of selling produce they are almost entirely pharmacies. More doctors than you thought lived in all of Afghanistan have set up shop here, with signs (in Pashtu and English) bearing hand-painted pictures of microscopes and computers and declaring their field of practice. A few add the distinction that they are "Muslim" pharmacies, though what that means in a country whose population is approximately 100% Muslim is hard to say.

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