“And then I had to see the President . . . Again?” Gump

Hello everyone, and I hope that you are all in good spirits. It has been a long last couple of weeks for me. I have been battling germs lately, and sadly my body lost the clash of microbes within, so I succumbed to a wicked cold. I got all the classic symptoms of the common variety cold that the Vicks folks talk about in their commercials, and they were pretty intense. Everything here is so extreme, and colds are not excluded from this category. It was simply miserable. Not to worry though, our fine medics here have a fully stocked pharmacy of the good stuff, and weren’t afraid to dole it out. After a couple of days of suffering, I was back to feeling pretty normal. Along with the torment of my Afghan cold, I also broke a tooth, and I broke it pretty good. Back home this is not normally an issue, but here the dentist is quite a ride away, and we do not make the trip everyday. So I have had to wait a few days before I can catch a ride up north to see the dentist. Thankfully it is just a broken tooth, and not some sort of painful root infection. If were a painful break, the wait could have really sucked, and I would definitely found my way back to the fully stocked pharmacy for some relief.

Miserable cold and broken tooth aside; things here are still pretty cool. We are inching ever so close to having our very own coffee shop. That’s right … I said coffee shop. Who would have thought that in the middle of a war zone, one could take a break from the war to enjoy a hot freshly brewed cappuccino from a trained barista? Now that’s what I am talking about, no more brown colored swill from the chow hall, but real coffee. The workers are toiling day and night to get the shop off the ground. It may not look like much now, but when it is complete, it will be like sipping a cup of brew at a Parisian sidewalk cafe. Well, maybe not that first rate, but at least it will be better than the stuff we make. Another creature comfort we are having installed in our camp here is the Internet. It will be a lot like we had in Khowst, where the connection is right in our sleeping quarters. I will no longer have to trudge through the snow to get online; I can stay in the comfort of my closet, and webcam home. We are all quite excited about this addition to our little slice of heaven.

Top story of the week: President Karzai visits Khowst. That’s right, the President of Afghanistan dropped in for the grand opening of the new ANA camp down at Khowst. I preface this part of the post by saying that I wasn’t able to go to Khowst for the official grand opening. With all the dignitaries involved, there wasn’t enough room for a lowly Captain on the flight down, and there wasn’t a planned ground movement either. I was pretty sad about this. While I was down in Khowst, we did a lot of work to get the new ANA camp where it is today. Working with the ANA staff to move in and prepare the new facility for operations, and it would have been nice to see the final episode from that portion of my deployment. I did get some pictures from my friends from South Dakota though, so it’s all-good. From what heard, due to inclement weather, the visit from the President had to be cut short, or the helicopters would have been grounded. Having the President show up was a pretty big deal, as President Karzai rarely leaves the capital city, for obvious security reasons, so it was great that he felt the camp opening was important enough to attend. Now the installation is officially up and running, and I believe they decided to call it Camp Parsa. Named after a famous Mujahdeen warrior during the Soviet invasion. The camp, and the ANA soldiers who reside there, are a significant step toward the securing and stabilizing the area of Khowst, and I am really happy to have played a really small part in helping this occur.

Let’s see … what else is new. Well, a couple of days ago we had a change of command ceremony for the American side. Our previous Commander is on his way home now, and so we now have a new Colonel running the show here. What made our change of command ceremony different from any other one I have seen in the past was that we had the ANA General get involved in the formal procedure. The General of the ANA Corps oversaw the traditional passing of the flags. It is a ritual where the outgoing Commander of a unit ceremoniously passes on the flag, or unit colors, onto the incoming Commander. The ANA General was honored to be a part of the ceremony, and he was the first Afghan soldier in Afghanistan to take part in such proceedings. I thought it was grand to have the ANA involved, especially since they are the reason we are here. The commander of our unit is also his mentor. It was cool that he had a hand in presenting command to his new mentor. Our new Colonel is a pretty good guy; it should be a lot of fun working for and with him.

Because of the cold weather, which has lowered the some of enemies’ activities, we have had time to do some practical training for the ANA. We are currently working on what is called a CPX, or Command Post Exercise. The idea is we have created a training session where the ANA staff has to react to different kinds of scenarios, and they are rated on how they perform. What we are mostly looking for is how well they communicate with each other, and how well the use decision making processes to deal with the situation when one of these scenarios occurs. The scenarios are all kinds simulated events that could occur during a real battle, and then everything the ANA do is tracked by evaluators to be assessed later on. It is the first time the Corps ANA are going to be involved in a CPX, and it should prove to be a lot of fun, and I’ll bet at times, a lot of heartache. The whole exercise will run for forty-eight hours, and I get the feeling sometimes I will be there for the whole time. I still look forward to the training exercise though, and it will be good for the ANA to take part in.

Four days later …

The ANA have completed the CPX, and for the most part it was successful. There were a few bumps in the road, but they were totally expected, as this was their first attempt at a CPX. They did a great job of responding to the scenarios that we threw at them, and they communicated well between the sections. These were the areas that we were assessing, and their marks were pretty high. Some of the problems that occurred fell directly on myself, and my ANA G6 counterpart, so we will have some work to do to better prepare this Corps for operations. One of our concerns is computer training. The Afghans do not get a lot of computer use, and it definitely showed itself during the CPX, when they tried to use them. The ANA G6, and I, has decided to beef up our computer-training program to help the soldiers become more comfortable with the machines. We actually expected the problems with lack of experience, and were quite glad that the difficulty surfaced. This will help stress how important it is for the soldiers to attend computer training. Another drawback to the computer use that we noticed was a translation issue. The computers that the ANA use have a standard English installation of the XP operating system, and this caused some of the users to struggle with usage of their workstations. Thankfully, the solution to this problem is simple; Microsoft has Farsi language support for the operating system. Farsi is pretty close to Dari and Pashto, the language that a majority of the soldiers speak. The only problem is getting all that machines to the technicians, so they can add the support package to the computers. A logistical challenge that we will tackle right after the weekend. After the CPX the ANA and the US conducted an AAR, which is an after action review. This is where both sides take the time to sit down together, and analyze how the whole event went. Both sides were quite glad to be complete, and all the tired bloodshot eyes in the crowd truly expressed this sentiment. Each of the heads of the sections took the time to express what they did well in, and what they need to improve. It was nice to hear that the sections embraced the training, took away from the training good lessons, and the AAR didn’t become a blame-fest. Once each of the sections were allowed their confessional, the ANA Corps Commander took the floor, he praised his troops for the good exercise, and then made mention that we should do this again in a couple of months. Oh Boy … I can’t wait.

Honestly it has been a good last couple of week, very busy, but overall very good. I like being busy; it really helps the passing of time. We are about four and a half months from being done with our tour already. I didn’t think time would go fast, but you know how vacations go, the time just passes you by. It been a while since I have updated you on how many steak days are left, so here goes, there are only twenty of them left. Sweet. I can’t wait until my last steak day; it will be quite a celebration. To add, I am only about a month away from my leave, and I so look forward to getting on the plane for that trip. Soon enough. I also want to thank everyone who has continued to support me while I have been here, and the immense support I have received for my humanitarian aid campaign. All the stuff sent has been, at times, overwhelming, and so appreciated. When I first started the drive, my goal was to get a few things to give to the schools, and that has since branched out to so much more, and I do not have anyone to thank but all of you who got involved. It has been very rewarding to help the Afghan Army move towards autonomy, but when I include what we have been able to do for the citizens of Afghanistan, it’s to the point where it’s indescribable. Thank You, and I will talk to you again soon.

Until Next Time,
Mark


Saw the picture of the bicycle as I was going through the images of the CPX, which were taken by someone else, and thought I would show everyone what a jingled up bike looks like. Also, the pictures of President Karzai were taken by another photographer as well, so I thought I make sure I give credit where credit is due. The only problem is I shouldn’t put names on here, so that’s as close as I can get.