31 Oct

In a rare non Friday entry, I have urgent news to report.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570613,00.html?test=latestnews

The headline reads:

"Murdered Imam's Followers Deny FBI Radical Claims"

Murdered?... Murdered?
Websters defines murder as: 1 : the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought

Since when is an FBI shootout that results from them getting shot at by some radical hate preacher "unlawful." FOXNEWS should be ashamed for posting such nonsense. I cannot contact FOX because my computer won't let me, but I ask that you all do so.

Thanks
BMP

30 OCT

Greetings. This week's entry is the result of a question I was asked regarding my opinion on the actions of an American civilian who quit his government job due to loss in confidence in our efforts in Afghanistan.

Mr. Hoh is a civilian and can quit any job he wants when he sees fit and say anything about why he did what he did or how he feels about government policy. As far as what he said: he has lost confidence and understanding in the mission. The mission is clear: Train and enable the Afghan Government and Security Forces to do their jobs so they can stand as an independent free country that can squash any uprising or insurgency and fight to own land that would otherwise be inhabited by people who wish harm to millions of innocent people around the world. If we leave Afghanistan now or before the above mission is accomplished, there will be more blood on American soil. Why? Because the same peace-preaching hippies who want to bring all the troops home regardless of their need to be overseas won't take the steps necessary to keep bad people out of America or hunt down the ones already in our country in the name of rights (Reminder, they aren't American and they want to do bad things to us.). We can fight them over here or we can fight them in our streets, which sounds better to you?

I am not mad at you for asking or at Mr. Hoh for walking away. He had the right and he chose to exercise it. I wish we could leave here and the people here could live on their own and defend their country against all enemies foreign and domestic. Is the war "fueling the insurgency?" I think it is a ridiculous "trap question." What came first, the chicken or the egg? If we left, who would they blow up? The answer is, they'd blow up whatever they see fit in order to reclaim control of this country, which they probably would do eventually do. Then they'd establish a Muslim State and harbor more bad people that would train to kill good people and then they'd launch more missions like the embassy bombings of the late 90s, USS Cole of 2000 and the 9/11 attacks. Then what do we do, start all over? If at first you don't succeed, try again...I think that is best left for the first time you try to run a 5K or make the football team. What about, "If it is worth doing, it is worth doing twice." Nope, that isn' t it. The more appropriate saying for international conflict is, "If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right and finishing the first time."

The truth hurts, and in war people die. What changed regarding our superiority and patriotism between WWII and today? Why are our politicians scared of war? A few things...we haven't had a uniform-wearing enemy that wanted to fight man on man. They cheat. They hide among women and children and use them to kill Americans and coalition forces. Can anyone fight and succeed against America in the air, on land, or on the high seas? No, so no one will try. Anyone that would like to do so can easily fund our enemy to keep us busy and wear down our fighting forces....it is being done today by Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Venezuela, and the list goes on. Politicians need votes to stay in power. Coffins don't vote and actually can cause people to vote the other way. With a governing body that is more concerned about votes and staying in office than serving our country and upholding the constitution as it was written by the brave men that formed our country, you get people voting not in line with the long term best interest of the United States, but in the best interest of their individual political careers. I see it everyday in Afghanistan; people acting in their own interest instead of that of their unit or the people of Afghanistan. The same self-serving and self-righteous attitude that is not allowing this country to transition from crawl to walk is going to take America back to her knees. It has been said that we are hundreds of years ahead of Afghanistan and other third world countries (sans cellphones, computers, and internal combustion engines), but if our "leaders" continue us down the current course, we cannot maintain our superiority. It also falls on the American people to find new people to lead this country in the right direction instead of the resultant vector of their individual agendas. Russia was a great and powerful nation. Communism broke it and now they are getting back on their feet. America will borrow ourselves broke to bailout this and that and provide stimuli to our people because that is instant gratification.

Our first Gulf War lasted less than 48 hours...instant gratification, but if we'd finished Hussein off that time, we wouldn't be there today. Bush proclaimed mission accomplished too early in Iraq because he either suffered from the same anxiety that his father did and wanted to say it was over, or because he thought that is what the American people wanted to hear...probably both.

In Afghanistan, they say the Americans have the watches (all the fancy equipment and gear), but the Taliban have time. This means they know that all they have to do is hold out and make us lose the war at home by killing a few people here and there. The commanders over here are scared to lose people, so they make their folks sit around on bases all day making power points about how bad the bad people are. If the American police just sat around talking about bad people and never made an effort to go get them, we would never lose police in the line of duty, but many innocent Americans would die at the hands of rapists and murderers...would America stand for that? Why not, no police are dying? What is the difference? If we are going to kill these assholes that mean us harm, good red-blooded American men are going to die in the process. It will hurt and families will suffer losses, but no one over here was drafted and we all signed up knowing what lied ahead.

Remember, it is either going to go down on the side of some mountain or on a dirt road in this country, or it is going to go down in the streets of ours*. I will say it again. Home field advantage is not something you want in the war on terror.

BMP

*This was written 2 days before the FBI had a shootout in the streets of Michigan with an extremist Muslim cleric who preached hatred for Americans and all non-Muslims.

23 OCT

5 weeks until I touch down on sweet American soil. Not much has changed in my world. Still, more folks from the GA National Guard arriving daily. With the influx of people, more people to cause trouble, spread germs and, as mentioned before, just make the place less pleasant. Well, when you tell all these people who, apparently, know everything that it is vital that everyone follow certain rules designed to prevent the spread of germs and they don’t choose to follow the rules, people get sick. I fell victim one night this week to a 24 hour bug that put me down hard. I am better now and ever vigilant of the non-hand washing newbies that have taken over our slice of heaven.

I have been able to turnover my U.S. responsibilities, so now all I have are my mentoring jobs. I’d rather have had only the mentoring jobs the entire tour. The next hurdle is getting the GA guys to take the same attitude and initiative we had toward the mentoring mission. I fear that they underestimate the importance of the mission and will neglect it. One does not have to look far to find that our priority in AF is to build a self-sufficient government and security force to combat the Taliban and other Anti-AF Forces. How can they possibly think that they can roll into these people’s backyard and not interact with them. They are coming around, but initially they had no intentions of working with the ANA. Still, they do not have the training that even I have for this. One guy that I am working with has been in the country as long as me and has never used an interpreter. It truly blows my mind. I would love to tell you that this is all part of someone’s bad plan, but this is shear accident. My team has been scheduled to leave in late Nov for several months. This GA Guard unit just showed up here a few weeks ago to call Hughie home. They weren't sent here as part of someone's master inadequate plan. They got booted from Kabul and literally just packed the trucks and came to our area and started looking for a base to set up in. By virtue of them moving in and staking claim, they inherited our mentoring mission. So, without them, the guys we (including my predecessors) have been working with for several years would have been left to fend for themselves. Yes, they are grown men. Yes, they should be able to handle independent operations, but the cold hard truth is that they can’t. We have had many small successes, but the battle of training up a real, complete fightin’ army is far from over. Sure, they know how to fight, and can reasonably drive vehicles, but the administrative, maintenance, and logistics areas remain weak.

On a better note, I went up to the ANA front gate today, and when I got there, I noticed that all the guards were wearing helmets, bullet proof vests and looked to be attentive. My first instinct was, “What the hell is going on here?...Should I be up here?” First thing is first, I told my terp to find out what the hell was going on. He asked the guy in charge and that guy explained, “It is our main gate we must be professional and ready for anything.”

SIX MONTHS! SIX FREAKIN’ MONTHS! After blood, sweat, and nearly tears, they show a glimmer of understanding. Is it going to be like that every day? NOPE. Why? Because if I thought it would be, I’d be expecting it to be, and that is poor expectation management.

While up there, I note that one of the soldiers’ AK47 machine gun is on the full auto setting. I told the terp to inform him of this. The soldier replied with, “No it is not.” I asked to see the rifle, but before he turned it over, he had to repeatedly pull the trigger to show me how safe the gun was. It wasn’t pointed at me at the time, but I do think my heart skipped a beat. I showed him that he was, in fact, walking around with his weapon in a less than optimal condition, but he would have none of it.

Security Company and Headquarters Company (both departments I mentor) were issued 4-wheelers this week. I have scheduled Saturday as a intro to 4-wheelers instructional course. I have heard horror stories from other units around the country turning over 4-wheelers to their counterparts and these guys destroying them and hurting themselves. With no concept of safety or control, things can go real bad real fast.

Didn’t stay up and watch the Saints game last week, guess I am not a true fan. A Giants fan did refer to them as the ‘Aints a few days ago. I replied, “I am pretty sure you can’t call them that anymore.” Should be a classic battle on the bayou this weekend in Tiger Stadium. I will be watching at 4am.

Have a great weekend. Geaux Tigers and God Bless.

BMP

16 OCT

Real quick week. They are flying by now. I said last week that I was in to T minus 7 weeks, but that was wrong, I have 31 days until I leave this base and then about a week and a half of travel before hitting the U.S. Many of you may have heard Murl and I are headed to San Diego for a few years for our next tour.

Not much at all to report here. People don’t talk much here about more troops or the Afghan elections…that stuff is all over the news, but not much to talk about it here. The biggest thing going on in my life is over 200 people moving into my neighborhood that was once a quiet little wooded FOB that we called home. There have been murmurs of it for months, but nothing concrete. Well about two weeks ago, it got real concrete real fast. The French took over a U.S. base in Kabul and the displaced folks (GA National Guard) needed a place to call home. Problem is, there was really no room in then inn. After re-setting up tents that we set up twice and disassembled, taking out the base recreation room, chapel, store, mail room, and moving a lot of people around, they think they have room for all of these people. How does it affect me? Hopefully soon, one of these fine folks will take my job and I’ll lose my office. I will be able to stay in my room until just before we roll out. Lines will be longer to use the computer and phones, and the gym will be more crowded. All in all, it just makes the place more crowded and less pleasant to be at.

Watched Game Day broadcast from the Parade Grounds Sat night and woke up early to watch the LSU/UF game. I think we all know how that turned out, but there were some promising things I saw in the game. I cannot express how nice it is to be able to watch live football, especially the Tigers, while over here. With the bye week this week, I’ll have to watch the Saints game instead of LSU.

We celebrated the Navy birthday this week. Nothing big, but they made us a cake and hung up a ton of decorations. We have been burning scrap wood in the evenings and sitting around the fire. It is really starting to cool off here. Still getting hot during the day, but only up to the high 80s/low 90s. At night, it is probably dipping into the 60s. The fire pit is our escape from all of the new people clogging up the gym and slowing down the internet.

If you cannot tell, I am most definitely ready to pack my bags and start my journey home.

Have a good weekend. God bless.BMP

09 OCT

Week 8 down, counting down the days of week 7 now. I was able to watch the Tigers claw their way to victory “Between the Hedges” last week. With a midnight kickoff, I set my alarm for 1145pm and went to bed about 7pm Saturday night. I rose just before midnight and couldn’t get a satellite signal in my office (where I’d rather watch the game and yell at the TV in privacy), so I had to watch with about 8 UGA fans and one other tiger in the dining facility (DFAC). The GA boys brought in flags, hats, and barely intelligible North GA accents. I played the part of the “bigger man” for once in my life and just brought a good attitude and the burning desire to see them all cry. I was able to keep my mouth shut for most of the game, but a moment of weakness proved to be too much when one of the guys looks at me like he had just done me a favor and exclaims “You lucky! He ‘bout got that ‘un” when a GA player missed a crucial pass in the final minutes with LSU still down. I said the first thing that came to mind, “…’bout don’t count big boy, we gunna score us a touchdown.”

As you all know, I ended up on the right side of that deal. Now we face a battered Tebow (possibly) and a win hungry UF team that could be the best team Coach Miles has ever seen, but it is Saturday night in Tiger Stadium, and anything can happen. This will be a 0400am kickoff for me, and there is at least 2 UF fans on the camp, so it should be a good one.
Nothing new to report from my side of the world, really. I have been staying on the FOB for the most part, so my interaction with the story factory has been minimal. I have made arrangements for one of my terps to buy me a pressure cooker and rice cooking lessons from my counterpart’s “driver” (really, I have never seen the guy drive. He mainly is a tea boy, cook, and self proclaimed body guard.) He talks with the whiniest nasal voice that is so far from soldier-like, he’d be more fitting as a Circle K bathroom attendant than a soldier, but that joker can make some tea and cook the heck out of some rice. One of his duties is keeping my counterparts things straight…weapons, ammo, rockets, papers….you know, the essentials. I saw him wearing a pistol once (odd because only officers in the ANA or senior enlisted have pistols), so I asked where he got it, but before I could get it out, I realized it was my counterpart’s pistol and holster. He explained to me that when he comes in, he takes it off and gives it ton San-Jan (pron. Sawn-john), that way, when he needs it, San-Jan can give it to him. That there is what I call Afghan logic, remember, everything makes sense to someone.

You may have read that 8 U.S. soldiers died in a fierce battle in Nuristan Province. That is about a day’s drive or 1hr flight to the north of me. 21 more were wounded. I don’t know what the exact number of Afghan Soldiers KIA/WIA is, but it was substantial. 29 U.S. KIA/WIA tells me that almost no one went unharmed. On small outposts like this one, there are sometimes as few as 10 U.S. personnel. These brave men were attacked in the early morning hours of Saturday by an estimated over 200 enemy fighters. With the use of their personal weapons, large machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars, and help from aircraft above, they were able to take out over 100 fighters. This is all straight out of the papers and such, but I just wanted let some of you know that may not have heard about these brave souls. They were in the process of packing up and moving out of this remote location as part of the big plan to re-concentrate in population centers to provide better protection for the AF people. These guys were days or hours away from air conditioning and satellite TV, but for some, that would never happen. Yet, 24 hours later on national television, the National Security Advisor declares that Al-Qaeda is no longer a serious threat in AF, and they are not capable of mounting an attack on U.S. assets in country.

QUOTE FROM ARTICLE: Jones, interviewed on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, said Gen. Stanley McChrystal's call for additional troops in Afghanistan was "just one option," and he said Al Qaeda is not getting stronger there.
"The good news ... in Afghanistan is that the Al Qaeda presence is very diminished," Jones said. "The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country. No bases. No ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies."

This wasn’t said before this crap went down in that valley in a remote location filled with lawless extremists. This was said by our President’s primary advisor on all things related to national security BEFORE the deadliest day in AF in over a year. He is also a guy against more troops. Some may argue that it wasn’t AQ, but the Taliban that have been ramping up attacks over the years. This is FALSE information or a misunderstanding of the big picture. The TALIBAN were/are Afghan people that ruled and still desire to rule the country with an iron fist through human rights violations and endless acts of a horrific nature. AQ is a worldwide network of Muslim extremists that want nothing in life more than to see the failure of our great nation and the death of Israel. AQ fighters are AF, Pakistani, Iranian, Chinese, Somali, Egyptian, Saudi, Sudanese, Filipino, Australian, German, French, AMERICAN,….yellow, white, black, and every combination of the above. They go by different names and have different leaders, but they have one common goal and one recognized head leader, Usama Bin Laden. When fighters are killed or captured in this country, they are rarely some dude from around the corner, they are more than likely foreign fighters. So, when this guy says that there are probably less than 100 AQ fighters in the country, he is just wrong, and in my opinion, intentionally trying to water down the threat that AQ poses to our forces and our country.

On another note, the folks back home have been doing an excellent job putting some puzzles together and taking some bad people off the streets. Thanks to the hard work and countless hours of information gathering, we have eliminated several domestic terrorists and one AF born guy that wanted to blow up the big D. Let these arrests be a reminder that there are people in America that want to do us harm and lots of it.

With all that said, have a great Columbus Day weekend. Geaux Tigers and God Bless.
BMP

02 OCT

A quick and uneventful week in the books.

Besides an LSU squeak-by win , a few short convoys, and one real long one, I didn’t do too much. We went to Kabul and back in one day to drop off some guys so they could make the long journey back to their families. I look forward to making that same journey in 45 days; though, I won’t be home until mid DEC.

I have inherited some new responsibilities in the past 2 weeks. I was chosen to be the proof reader /reviser for a few award narratives and have now become one of the primary construction supervisors/approvers. Thursday, one of the construction interpreters found me…”Mr. Person, Mr. Person, we have problem, come I will show you.”

“Oh, I bet you do.”

So he takes me to show me how they were unable to drill 6” holes and could only drill 3” holes in the concrete because of the “webar” in the slab. I watched them try, and said that it was possible that they were hitting rebar, but more than likely, they just didn’t know how to use the drill. I looked at the drill, flipped a few dials and the drill came to life with a hammering noise as the bit spun violently. They stood back and watched as I made their 3” hole into a 6” hole with ease. They cheered me on as I did their work.

I relinquished the drill and made sure they understood how to use it and that they knew that in the future if they are having a problem, right after breakfast is probably a better time to tell me about it than after lunch.

The terp could only say, “Mr. Person, you are right, we will listen to you. This piece of equipment, we did not even know about it.”

This is a typical story for how the construction goes around here. We have one project that is 4 months behind on a 1 month project. The guy claims to be finished, but he is not. He expects to be paid immediately…our rogue little policy is to pay them day for day….he will be paid in February.

As far as my comments on current events goes, I was shocked to find out that B.O. has only spoken to his highest ranking officer in AF once via telephone since he was put in place at the beginning of the summer….I doubt it is just me, but that doesn’t seem right to me.

There has been a bunch of shuffling of people around here. A bunch of soldiers moved out of here today to go other places. There is supposed to be several hundred moving in throughout OCT, but that stuff changes day to day and is half rumor usually.

Keeping it short this week. Think of me surrounded by UGA fans watching the LSU game with a midnight kickoff Sunday morning. Have a good weekend. God Bless.

BMP