Mark Bromwich - The Captains Blog

” You can’t steal stuff, that will get you in trouble, but you can steal knowledge.” Ali

       Welcome back everyone, and I hope you are all in good health and spirits.  Well, I have been back for a little over week now, and everything has been pretty good so far.  There was a couple of things that have occurred while I was away, and the most important one is our coffee shop has been completed, and is now open for business.  No more drinking what our cafeteria folk’s calls coffee, and no more hoping for donations of beans while I frantically search through mail from home.  That’s right, whenever I start to feel the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal, I can walk right over to our new café, and order any of the caffeine-laden concoctions without hesitation.  The only downside to having our newly christened café is that they do not give the coffee away, so I am going to require our finance team to stop by our camp more often, as I seem to spending all my allowance at the coffee shop.   Thankfully we don’t have an ATM here on camp, as Shelly and I would have to change our lifestyle a bit to support my habit. 

       Another transformation that has been occurring while I was away is the weather, and all that goes with the spring season here in Afghanistan.  The snow, ice, and miserable cold, have thankfully ceded too much nicer temperatures.  Our little chunk of Afghanistan is showing signs of life again, and we are seeing the return of green foliage on the few trees that live in our area.  The farmers in the area are frantically at work trying to divert what melted snow water they can from the streams and rivers into their fields.  Beginning the process of flood irrigation, and this process should continue until all the snow has melted from the mountaintops.  Hopefully this spring will bring enough of the rains needed to continue a good growing season for them.  The new greenery has also brought back the nomadic tribe, the Kuchies, allowing their herds of sheep, goats, or camels, feed in the cooler temperatures of the high mountains.  In my earlier posting, while still in Khowst, as the weather started to turn cold, they all moved down there to keep their herds in warmer weather.  It is kind of cool to be higher up in the mountains to see their return.  It also sort of brings my tour here in Afghanistan a full circle.  It is a sign that we are soon to be out of here, and back home.  I can’t wait.  Although the time here has been like nothing I have ever experienced in my life, it is time to close the pages on this chapter of my life, and continue writing the chapters of the life I have in the US.

       Only a couple days had passed since my return here to Gardez, and I had to jump right into action.  We were expecting a visit from some dignitaries from the Ministry of Defense (MOD).  The guy in charge of all Afghan Army communications, General Ali, felt that he needed to visit with COL Rafi, and the communications section here at Gardez.   Why not, it’s a good a time as any to drop in.  The only concern we had, was we were left with a really short planning time.  We wanted to make sure that the Generals visit was worth his while, so after some intense meeting time with COL Rafi, we had a plan in place.  The next day as we were preparing our humvees, doing some last minute checks, my cell phone rings.  It was the General, and his American mentors, they were patiently awaiting our arrival to the Gardez airport.  This is not good.  We didn’t even start the visit, and we already somehow missed our first time hack.  Well … that’s kind of embarrassing, but none the less off we went.  This was COL Rafi’s first time in a humvee, and at my high rate of speed over the rough roads of Afghanistan, I am pretty sure it may be his last.  I doubt he’ll ever want to ride with me again, but you gotta fly when you’re late.  Once we got to the airport, we found out that we weren’t really late, but the plane had left way ahead of schedule.  Whew, crisis averted.   We then drove over to the ANA camp, and a luncheon had been prepared for us, it was a very nice meal with good conversation.  Thanks to our interpreters.  I haven’t really learned as much of the language as I imagined I would by now, the interpreters make it easy not to try hard enough.  We gave the General, and the other VIP’s a tour of our ANA communications facilities, and they all seemed quite impressed with our set-up.  It was a nice end to day one of their visit.

       The next day we held a Signal Symposium of sorts.   We gathered about forty Signal soldiers from all over our area of operations, and they were afforded the opportunity to address any issues they had with the current status of communications within their particular organizations.  The meeting went really well, and all the soldiers’ comments were well received by GEN Ali.  The General spoke with a calm and quiet voice, as he provided guidance to his troops.  It was obvious that the soldiers had a respect for this man, and not simply because he was an Army General, but more because he spoke to the soldiers, instead of at them.   This is the first time I had been able to witness something like this in Afghan Army, and it was really refreshing to see.   I hope it a trend they will continue long after we are all gone.  Sometimes higher officers, such as Generals, can get somewhat removed from the issues that plague soldiers at the lower levels.  It is not unusual in any Army, but General Ali seemed pretty genuine about taking care of his soldiers, and it also demonstrated to the lower soldiers that they do have a voice, and that their thoughts matter, a concept truly new for the Army of Afghanistan.  So, day two is put down into the books as a success.

       Somehow I knew the trend couldn’t continue, and day three proved that assumption.  The last day of the visit, before we had to head back to the Gardez airport, we sat down with all the senior leadership of the communications.  General Ali wanted to provide us with an overview of his thoughts from the past two days, and other pearls of wisdom he’d been holding onto for this visit.  That’s when he let us have it.  He didn’t yell or scream, but this is when his calm voice had that disappointed father tone.  I hate that, it is worse than being yelled at.  He let us know that we were not providing the enough training to the soldiers down range, that we had to make sure they could do their jobs.  The big hit, computer training, and he is right, we have not been getting the computer training down to the lower levels.  We have been so focused with trying to make sure the people on Corps and Brigades staffs are being trained, that the lower units have suffered a bit.  Some of the same held true for radio training as well, and no matter how we tried to excuse our plans, ultimately he was right.   Otherwise, General Ali had nice things to say about what we are doing here in Gardez, and encouraged us to keep up the good work.  After this short meeting, it was off to airport to drop off our VIP’s, and as the airplane raised itself into the air, COL Rafi and I were able to finally able to exhale.  Now back to our regularly scheduled business, now with a slightly adjusted focus on more training.  I sure am glad that this sort of visit doesn’t occur on a regular basis.

       VIP’s … Round Two:

       Talk about a lot to do in a short amount of time.  Not but two days have passed since we sent General Ali back to Kabul, and we have more VIP visitors headed our way.  This time it was a couple of Generals, one from Poland and one from Turkey.  To include we had some American bigwigs riding along with them.  Their mission was to validate our newest training team from Poland.  This being a multi-national effort, and all, we recently received a team of Polish mentors while I was away.  They have spent the last couple of weeks training with our American mentors, to make sure that they are cool with the mission before them.  They did swimmingly well, and now it was time for a ceremony to celebrate their accomplishments, and to also pass to them the banner of responsibility.  First, before we could officially pass over responsibility, we they had to make sure they had the blessings of the two star General in charge of the whole mission here in Afghanistan.  Now he didn’t make the trip here himself, instead he stayed in Kabul, and we elected to talk to him via a video teleconference.  Guess whose responsibility it is to make sure that this little chitchat can occur?  That’s right, you guessed it.  Mine. No pressure, because the network works perfectly all the time here in Afghanistan, just like good old Ma Bell back home.  After a couple days of preparation, we were ready for this, and I say we because my whole team had a hand in making this whole thing possible.  Everything went off without a hitch, well, there was one little hitch.  No one noticed it, so I am not going to say anything about here.  They know who they are, and what they did.  After the approval from our two star General, it was time for the passing of the colors.  This is a ceremony much like I explained on my blog a couple of postings ago.  It is a symbolic passing of the units’ colors from the old commander to the new commander.  Great ceremony and all, and the best part was the new commanders speech, which took all of about two minutes.  You gotta love that, and especially now that the days are starting to heat up around here.  The mission here has been pretty cool, because I have been able to work with the ANA.   Meeting new people, and learning about their culture, have been the coolest part of this mission.  Not only have I been able to work with, and learn about the Afghans, but also I can add to that list the Romanians, Canadians, and our new friends the Polish.  Sweet. Not to name drop, but the picture below is me, and a one star Turkish General from ISAF forces, just added another star to my constellation of stars throughout this blog.

       Well … that’s about all I wanna say about Afghanistan.  Just for those of you who have been curious about the amount of steak days left.  Here’s a shocker, six, that’s right six.  Six steak days left, and we’ll be headed back to the USofA.  If there are any people reading this who have influence on the whole extension thing, please don’t, it would be so un-cool of you.  I am so sick of steak.  Be cool all, and I look forward to seeing you all so soon.   To the Kiwanis, thank you for your efforts in bringing much needed school supplies to the children of Afghanistan.  Also, thank you all for the nice birthday and Easter wishes, they were all appreciated very much. 

Until Next Time,

Mark

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