Cruel Summer

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Melissa M

Or, If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say…

I’ve been avoiding my blog. My last two entries were about people getting killed and how I plan to have my legs reunited with the rest of me should we become traumatically separated. I thought my next post should be something happier, but it’s been rather difficult of late to find happy things to blog about. I’m in a funk.

Things were pretty great a couple of months ago. I had a nice R&R at home even though I discovered that the friend who was supposed to look after my house had killed several houseplants and had entertained her booty-calls there. (Friend, you knew when I was coming home. There’s really no excuse for not picking up that used condom off the bedroom floor.)

On the way back to Bagram from that R&R I had a wonderful Amazing-Race-style adventure with fellow Bagram civilian Ms. Wanda when we found ourselves stuck in Ali Al Salem, Kuwait, as flight after flight after flight got cancelled. We decided that if the military couldn’t get us back to Bagram we’d get ourselves there by taking a commercial flight. In the space of 36 hours we went from Ali Al Salem, Kuwait, to Arif Jan to Kuwait City to the wrong international airport in Dubai to the right international airport in Dubai to Bagram. Along the way we unnecessarily walked miles in temperatures well over 100 degrees F, argued extensively with the most unhelpful soliders in the U.S. Army, sprinted through airports all wild-eyed and panting, accosted innocent travelers who happened to have camo luggage with all kinds of questions when we were lost or confused (this happened a lot), were blessed to get help from the right people in the nick of time, saw lots of women with the most horrifying henna’d eyebrows ever, and took two taxi rides, one of which required the driver to break every traffic law in the Middle East and several laws of physics (he did it!). We had plenty of opportunities to get mad or mean or upset or very crabby, but we just laughed and laughed. It was great fun!

Back at Bagram, though, I just couldn’t keep up that happy, roll-with-it attitude. And it wasn’t just me. We had all kinds of scandal and accusations and firings in the Garrison, and a lot of other personnel upheaval. We have about 60 civilians. In the nine months I’ve been in Afghanistan, we’ve had five different Directors of Human Resources and five different O&M Chiefs. More people than I can count have curtailed their one-year deployments and left early — two after just 30 days, many before they made it to the half-way point. Two people were sent home after having heart attacks.

I don’t know if it’s the heat of summer, the new commands at all different levels with their new agendas, or the uncertainty of the Resolute Support Mission since the Afghan presidential election results and inauguration have been delayed yet again. Whatever it is, everybody’s going a little crazy these days and being way less nice than they should be, and it’s really getting me down.

So, I’m trying to concentrate on the positive. My extension got denied, so instead of staying on an extra six months (for a total of 18 months) I’m leaving after 12 months. That’s a good thing: my home station wants me back which is why they denied my extension, and I’m glad to be wanted there as much as I’m wanted here.

The environmental folks I work with at Garrison, in the military units, and at the various contractor companies are really great. This keeps me from going completely out of my mind when dealing with fairly egregious amount of disrespect I’m subjected to on a daily basis. Whether people think that what a woman says isn’t credible, or that environmental management is easy and doesn’t require real expertise, I do spend an inordinate amount of time and energy fighting to be taken seriously. It wears me out, but there are other environmental professionals here who have my back and do excellent work. Thank Heavens!

I’ve been avoiding my blog not only because of unhappiness at BAF, but also because the drawdown of troops, materiel, and services has resulted in my personal internet getting slower and slower and slower, to the point where I can’t even open emails anymore (I dare not abuse my work computer to do personal internet stuff).

So here I am on my final R&R and I finally have working internet! I will catch up on my blogs and upload photos at long last. I’m in Athens, Greece, on my way to the island of Hydra where they have no cars but do have internet (I checked!). More soon…

Operation Enduring Freedom Cosplay

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Melissa M

The interwebs are all abuzz with news from Comic-Con, where it seems everybody gets to have fun dressing up as their favorite character. I play dress-up every day here at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, but my costume isn’t much fun.

Let’s work from the feet on up:

These are my summer-weight boots. If you’ve followed me from the beginning, you know how fussy I am about my boots! Although this footwear is feather-light with lots of breathable fabric, it still feels like I’m wearing ovens on my feet.

That thing tucked into the laces on my left boot? One of my dog tags (I wear the other around my neck). I’ve had several people ask me why I put the tag in my left boot. Picking a tag foot was something I actually spent some time pondering. I have a small red birthmark on the third toe of my right foot (which you can see in this blog post), so if my right foot/leg gets blown off the chances are good it can be identified as mine by the birthmark. That’s why the tag is in the left boot — I want that dismembered limb reunited with the rest of me. These are the things you have to think about in a war zone that would never cross your mind anyplace else.

Boots are a big deal here, and having ill-fitting boots can make you miserable. My coworker Darryl is 6’5″ and a mountain of a man, and he’s on his feet all day doing construction management and inspections. He wears out boots quickly and he’s had a devil of a time finding big enough boots that fit right. Finally, after months of limping around in uniform boots that fit all wrong, he got himself an exception to policy so he could wear boots that fit, even though they don’t match his uniform:

Those big red boats are lumberjack boots, and Darryl is in heaven! He jokes that somewhere out there Ronald McDonald is going barefoot…

My trousers have cargo pockets all over the place, and I’ve learned how to pack those pockets in the most optimal way for myself. The pocket on my right calf contains my tourniquet:

Almost everybody carries one, and many people carry two (one in a leg pocket, one in a sleeve pocket). Most people also write their blood type on the red tab, but I don’t. My hope is that if I ever have to use it, it will be on somebody else and I don’t want my blood type confusing the medical staff. With all the Indirect Fire (IDF) attacks here, there is a lot of shrapnel flying around and several people have been seriously injured, so I always carry my tourniquet.

The pocket on my right thigh is where I keep my camera, sunglasses, cell phone, pedometer and fan. I have several fans and I’m not shy about fanning my sweaty, broiling self when the air conditioning is not adequate to keep me comfortable. Seriously, check out this forecast:

Totally uncalled-for.

I don’t put anything in my left-side cargo pockets except my hat. I’ve learned that sometimes you are in a crowded place and the IDF alarm goes off (INCOMING-INCOMING-INCOMING), and when you hit the floor there might not be enough room to lay flat on your belly among all the other people, so you have to lay on your side. I leave my left side pockets clear so I can lay on my left side comfortably (without hard, pointy things poking into me) in crowded places under attack. Again, things you don’t think about except when you’re in a war zone.

On my upper body I wear a plain Desert Sand colored t-shirt, on top of which I wear this rather heavy blouse:

The patch with my last name and the patch identifying me as a Department of Defense civilian are stitched in brown, which means I work for the Air Force (even though I’m assigned to the Army Garrison here). If the stitching on those patches were black, that would mean I’m an Army employee.

The triangle that says “US” is a placeholder — if I were military, that spot would show my rank. When I first got here, I noticed a lot of people approaching me on the walkways were staring at my chest all the time and it was creepy and uncomfortable. Then I realized they were trying to figure out my rank. Military members walking around outside have to salute higher-ranking personnel, and it’s sometimes difficult to tell the rank until you’re very close. It didn’t help that my lanyard often hung in the way and obscured my “rank”. Now I try to make it as obvious as possible from as far away as possible that I don’t need to be saluted.

Like the trousers, the blouse is very layer-y with lots of pockets and double-fabric reinforced areas. These garments are not very breathable, so I’m roasting most of the time wearing this uniform in the heat of summer.

The patches you wear on your sleeves identify your nationality, unit(s), and mission. On my right arm, the flag shows that I’m an American (click here to find out why it’s “backwards”) and the round patch identifies me as falling under the 966th Air Expeditionary Squadron (the Air Force unit charged with keeping tabs on all us Air Force personnel regardless of the unit to which we’re assigned):

On my left sleeve, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patch says I’m here for their mission, and the patch with the mountains, guns, and sword tells people I work for the US Army Garrison:

I wear a lanyard around my neck with a pouch that carries my ID card, emergency phone list, and debit card:

Like I mentioned above, I tuck the pouch into my blouse pocket so the troops approaching me on the sidewalk can tell I’m not someone to salute. To top everything off, I get my choice of patrol cap or boonie hat (neither of which does my hairdo any favors):

I wear the boonie hat in the summer not only because of the sun protection but because summer is the season for the “100 Days of Wind”. It’s very dusty and gusty, and the boonie hat has a strap so I have some hope of keeping it on my head when the winds start howling.

So, that’s how I get into costume for my job here in Afghanistan. I call it “my costume” not to mock the military members who serve in uniform, but because I’m a civilian and I really do feel like I’m playing dress-up. Wearing the uniform causes people to show me respect I feel I haven’t earned because I haven’t made the commitment the military members have made, nor am I expected to make the sacrifices that may be required of them.

On the other hand, the IDFs don’t discriminate when they come flying in. I have to hit the deck and make my way to the bunkers with everybody else, military and civilian alike. We’ve had a lot of IDF action over the last couple of days due to Eid al-Fitr: apparently one way insurgents like to celebrate the end of Ramadan is to shoot rockets at Bagram Airfield. I can think of better party games than that, just like I can think of more comfortable clothes to wear to work — but nobody is asking for my opinion.

Eid Mubarak!

Giving Blood

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Melissa M

The Holy Month of Ramadan is about half-over. This is the time of year when Muslims fast during daylight hours. With few exceptions (pregnant women, the sick, small children, etc.), they take nothing by mouth until the sun sets each day, including food and water. It’s also the middle of summer, so days can be hot with temperatures approaching 100 degrees F. As you might imagine, being hungry and thirsty and hot doesn’t inspire one to go out and put in a hard day’s work. Too bad the Taliban doesn’t take this time off: rocket attacks tend to increase during Ramadan.

We had a very terrible incident earlier this week. About 5:30 in the morning, the alert system woke us up with INCOMING-INCOMING-INCOMING. Then the defensive gun system that detects incoming rockets and mortars activated, shooting the projectiles out of the sky. A couple hundred people were gathered at one of our event venues getting ready to start a footrace (we always have runs and races in the early morning to beat the heat and avoid interfering with work hours). The runners were showered with shrapnel, but there were no injuries more severe than a few cuts. Believe it or not, this sort of thing is pretty ordinary. But things got really bad a little later.

When the sun was up, a patrol of Czech soldiers (one of our NATO Coalition partners) armored-up and went outside the base to investigate the point of origin for the rocket attack. The area was populated and busy. The Czechs were met by Afghan police who were assisting them. While doing their investigation, a guy on a bicycle or motorbike (accounts vary) rode up and detonated a suicide vest.

The general population here on Bagram Airfield didn’t find this out until much later. What we did know is that base-wide calls went out over email and loudspeaker asking for persons with particular blood types to report to the hospital immediately to donate. The call was repeated over a two-hour period. When the hospital is asking for immediate donations over a period that long, you know something very bad has happened. We all felt sick with dread.

When a call for blood is made, people stop what they are doing and literally run to the hospital. I was in a training meeting when the first call came out. Those with the requested blood types, including a training instructor in the middle of a presentation, just got up and went — no asking permission of the ranking officers in the room, no “please excuse me”. They just went. People respond here like they’re saving a family member. It’s remarkable and humbling to be among so many selfless volunteers.

I heard from another person in Garrison who ran to the hospital at the first call that she was one of the first people to arrive. A few moments after getting in line, she turned around and saw about 150 people lined up behind her, military and civilian, with more running to the scene every minute. She got tears in her eyes recalling that sight. I know the feeling.

Despite heroic efforts by the medical staff, four Czech soldiers died from that attack. So did ten Afghan civilians (mostly children) and two Afghan policemen. Unknown numbers of others were injured. Sixteen dead because the Taliban are determined to terrorize their way into control of this country, even if it means killing their own countrymen. This madness has no rational explanation.

I saw a brief article about this attack in the Wall Street Journal. The final line in the piece was this:

“The Taliban frequently make inflated claims about their attacks.”

I find this statement dismissive and offensive, as if the tragedy reported in the article may have been so much Taliban smack-talk. What an insult to the soldiers who have given their lives to defeat insurgent terrorists and provide the people of Afghanistan with the tools to defend themselves against these tyrants acting in the name of religion.

My thoughts and prayers go out to our Czech brothers and sisters in arms, the families of the brave soldiers lost and injured, everyone who has fought against the Taliban, and the good people of Afghanistan who will soon face murderous Islamic extremists with less support from NATO. May God be with you all.

Ramadan Kareem,

POTUS, SECDEF, and Me

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Melissa M

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve visited the blogosphere, but it’s been a very busy month at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. I need to take a little time to catch up on all that’s happened. Working backward:

The Honorable Katherine Hammack came to visit BAF yesterday. She’s the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy & Environment and is the civilian rank equivalent of a 4-star general. We all spent a couple weeks working furiously on talking point papers and facility tour preparations in anticipation of her arrival. I was ready to take her on a Waste Management Dream Tour including municipal refuse handling and recycling, hazardous waste management, and the sewage plant expansion project — then my tour got cancelled due to schedule time limits and the evidently more glamorous and interesting tour of mold issues in some concrete structures. All that prep just to get preempted by moldy concrete. Harrumph!

But that’s ok, because day before yesterday I got to meet the 24th Secretary of Defense himself, Chuck Hagel!

This was the biggest honor of my career to date. Out of 25,000+ people on BAF, I was one of 200 selected to be recognized by the SECDEF (Secretary of Defense) for my contributions to the Operation Enduring Freedom mission. It’s not often that a person who manages solid waste gets kudos from a Cabinet member, so I was really thrilled to be nominated by my Garrison leadership.

Mr. Hagel “coined” me. Being coined in the military means being presented with a unit’s or individual’s medallion as a form of recognition and reward. Here’s Chuck Hagel’s coin, both sides:

Saturday we got the good news that Sgt Bowe Bergdahl, a prisoner of the Taliban for 4 years and 11 months, was freed. I know there’s a lot of controversy about the circumstances of his disappearance and the terms of his return in exchange for five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, but I don’t care about that right now. In America you’re innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, so I’ll just be happy that he’s not a Prisoner of War anymore and let the lawyers sort out the rest.

Memorial Day week was eventful at the Garrison as we saw the departure of two employees who created more drama, controversy, and personnel turnover than any two people have a right to conjure up. Morale has improved considerably now that the generators of workplace hostilities have been removed, and we are all ready to face the coming challenges as a team instead of wasting energy on internal struggles.

The coming challenges are many: also this week the White House announced the plan for America’s presence in Afghanistan after 2014. We’ll be drawing down to 9800 troops. At Garrison we were planning for everything from Zero Option to a population of over 20,000. Now we finally know what we’re aiming for, but we have more work than ever to make it happen as the military manpower upon whom we rely for all kinds of tasks around base are thinning out in a big hurry.

On the afternoon of Memorial Day Eve we got a message from the Deputy Garrison Commander to gather at 1800 (6 pm), in uniform and without any weapons. Once assembled, we were told that an event was happening in the C-130 hangar and that attendance was mandatory for military but optional for civilians. We knew a VIP was coming, and we suspected either the President or the Vice President. Of course I opted in, and I wasn’t disappointed. First to appear was country star Brad Paisley:

He sang for about an hour. Then a Secret Service guy ran up on stage and stuck the Presidential Seal on the front of the podium and the whole place went bananas. The 10th Mountain Band struck up “Hail to the Chief” and POTUS (President of the United States) took the stage. He gave a great speech and then stuck around to shake everybody’s hand. It was an amazing event that I’ll never forget — I never expected to get that close to a sitting president in my life.

My days are crammed full as I run from meeting to meeting, respond to emails and phone calls, and try to keep my program from breaking down under the sheer weight of everything we have going on. Getting to spend time with guys who go by titles like SECDEF and POTUS was a fun distraction but I’ve just about reached my limit of excitement and could really use some boredom or at least a little slower going for a while.

I’ll be leaving in a week for Rest & Relaxation (R&R), which I sorely need. But if Obama or Hagel needs me for anything at the White House or Pentagon, I’ll be happy to serve.

God Bless America!

Hiking in Portugal, Belonging in Afghanistan

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Melissa M

I spent my last week of R&R (Rest & Relaxation leave) in Portugal hiking the coast:

Most of the hiking was by the sea, but there were a few inland excursions:

Oh, and I hiked my boots to death:

They disintegrated nearly simultaneously on the last hiking day. I’ve had these Lowas for 10 years and many, many happy miles. Miraculously, the duct tape held until we reached the hotel.

I was hiking with an adventure tour company I’d vacationed with in the past. We had 14 hikers and three guides who rotated driving (2 drivers/day) and hiking (1 guide/day) duties. Like with previous tours of this type, the itinerary, activities, scenery, lodging, and food were outstanding. But unlike with previous tours, we didn’t hike as a group. It was every man for himself on the trail. I didn’t care for it.

We had some pretty aggressive speed-hikers mixed with some bird-watchers, flower-peepers, photographers, and other medium- and slower-paced hikers. To my chagrin, the other hikers quickly formed trail cliques and each went at their own speed, without regard for the day’s schedule, the other hikers, or the ability of the guide to keep tabs on us. As the day wore on, the guide would have to run increasingly faster and farther up and down the trail to count noses as the distance increased between the speedy and slower hikers. Every now and then I would start to catch up to a group or a guide, and they’d see me, but they’d often go on down the trail without waiting for me to join them. I made it known to the guides and other hikers that I wanted to hike with a group, but I guess they all figured that some other group would pick me up. None did.

Alas, I ended up hiking alone most of the time. I’d never been on a group hike where the participants and guides didn’t try to maintain group cohesion and where the members of the group took little to no interest in contributing to the benefit of anybody outside their own small circle. I was confused most of the time: my fellow travelers were chatty at breakfast and chummy at dinner and polite but unapologetic as they abandoned me on the trail. So were we friends or weren’t we? Strangers on the trail and friends everywhere else? What was going on?

After repeated episodes of being merrily deserted without so much as a backward glance, I couldn’t shake off the creeping feeling that there was something wrong with me. Why did the group keep breaking up? Was my desire to stick together realistic or an artifact from my months in a war zone where we all faithfully kept watch on each other? Wasn’t it unsafe to not have a buddy system in the wilderness (especially when we were hiking in heavy brush on forking trails with low visibility)? Did I have warped expectations of what this trip should be? Was I unlikable or pitiable or not cool enough for these people?

It’s too easy to get sucked into that self-questioning shame spiral when you spend many solitary hours and miles on the trail. Actively hating on yourself pretty much every waking minute takes a lot of energy. While it’s a terrible way to treat yourself, the good news is that you really can’t keep up that level of paranoia and self-loathing for very long. Or at least I can’t. About three and a half days into this odyssey, I concluded that there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with wanting to hike as a group, and the participants who couldn’t be bothered to help make the trip fun and safe for all were selfish.

I got a lot happier when I stopped trying to make a connection with these people who included me one minute and excluded me the next. I wasn’t mean or spiteful or angry, I just politely but unapologetically disengaged when it was clear I wasn’t getting a satisfactory return on my friendliness investment. Instead, I read or worked on my computer or popped in my earbuds and listened to my iPod. Oddly, people who ditched me every day on the trail gave me dirty looks and showed other indications that they did not approve of my failure to socialize. Seems it was ok by these folks if I was alone because they abandoned me, but it was not ok for me to be alone on my own terms. There’s a psychology paper in there somewhere.

Anyway, I finished out the week doing my own thing on the hikes and other activities. I enjoyed the company for what it was in the moment, without any expectations (of them or myself) for what it might be in the next moment. To my delight, on the last hike of the last day the guide gave the speed-hikers a GPS and sent them on their way, then led the rest of us on a hike as a group. It was a treat to have the birders and flower-lovers pointing out and identifying what was flying or blooming along our route, and to be able to ask the guide about local landmarks and history. When the soles of my hiking boots started to separate, it was a fellow hiker’s duct tape that patched them up. This is what I’d wanted the whole trip. It felt good.

But I’m no sucker: these people were not my friends and I knew it. We smiled and hugged and parted ways, and I came back to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, happy with my break overall, though with a touch of lingering self-doubt about what I’d expected and experienced during the hiking tour.

That self-doubt was squashed in short order. When I described how I had spent so much time hiking alone, my coworkers were outraged. When I explained that I seemed to be the only person on the trip who had a problem with the hiking format, and that perhaps it was too needy of me to expect to be among a group with a guide on this trip, these ideas were immediately dismissed as preposterous. To a man, they all said the same thing: a group hike means hiking with a group, the leader is responsible for keeping the group together, and the group members are responsible to one another. And you don’t need gung-ho military leave-no-man-behind training to know that you don’t allow somebody to hike alone on the trail: it’s just common sense.

It was such a huge relief for me to hear this; even though I knew it deep down, I really needed to hear it from some other people. I would never have guessed in a million years I’d have to leave the “real world” and come back to this wild war zone (the nuttiest place I’ve ever been) for a sanity check. You could knock me over with a feather.

Postscript

Recently at lunch I sat down at a table with four men from my office who were just finishing up. I told them to go on and not wait for me. They didn’t budge. They stayed and chatted and when I finished my lunch we all got up and left together. Did they stay because they’re gung-ho military leave-no-man-behind (even in the dining hall) guys? No. They stayed because sometimes you suffer a little bit of inconvenience for the sake of including others. I love these guys, my wingmen. It was nothing to them but it meant the world to me that they would wait so we could walk back to the office together. As a group.

Fighting Season

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Melissa M

We’re at war, so every day is “fighting season,” but springtime brings warmer weather and the start of what’s called “fighting season” at Bagram Airfield. Apparently it’s unpleasant or inconvenient for insurgents to carry out rocket attacks when it’s cold or rainy, so wintertime attacks are concentrated during American holidays. When the weather warms up and the snow melts out of the mountain passes allowing access for Taliban fighters, I’m told, we can expect IDF (indirect fire) much more frequently. Oh, great.

First step in being ready for fighting season: know your alert tones.

MASCAL means Mass Casualties; CBRN means Chemical, Biological, Radioactive, or Nuclear; HAZ MAT means Hazardous Materials; IBA means Individual Body Armor; FPCON means Force Protection Condition (different levels have different action protocols); and MOPP means Mission Oriented Protective Posture (different levels mean donning different protective gear). The Giant Voice is the Public Address system delivered via loudspeaker.

When you hear the “waves” alarm, you hit the deck, lay prostrate with your arms protecting your head, and wait anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes (depending on whom you ask). If you haven’t heard the “all clear” by the time you’re done counting off the seconds, you beat feet to the nearest bunker.

Here’s a basic bunker built of reinforced concrete:

The Jersey barriers at each end are about 4 feet high, so you can see that these bunkers are pretty snug. Here’s a view of the inside:

This one’s nice and clean, but there are no benches which means you’ll be crouching uncomfortably for quite a spell. I’ve seen bunkers full of junk, or with benches but also with used condoms (ew) so you maybe don’t want to come into contact with those benches. If you really luck out, you’re near a standing-height bunker.

Some bunkers have extra protection in the form of layers of sandbags:

In high-traffic and high-population areas, you’ll find condo-style bunkers:

You can see the peaked roofs of buildings called “B-huts” behind these bunkers. B-huts are constructed of plywood, most of them are very old, and because of their age and construction they are considered a fire hazard:

B-huts are being torn down by the hundreds these days as hardened buildings (concrete) are completed and occupied, but a very large proportion of the people at Bagram Airfield are still living and/or working in these structures. You don’t want to be in a B-hut if an IDF hits: they offer no protection at all.

Less of a fire hazard but still no protection from rockets are the tents at BAF:

We have lots of people living and working in tents like these. Many hundreds more live and/or work in RLBs (relocatable buildings, basically stacks of shipping containers like my dorm building), which are only incrementally more protective than tents. Hardened dorms and office spaces are being built, but many of these projects are behind schedule since essential components have been stuck at closed-down border crossings for months. Additionally, the projected draw-down of the BAF population is considerably behind schedule (we were supposed to have about 8,000 fewer people by now than we currently have). As the FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) close, their personnel are moving to BAF and, all too often, staying.

The idea that fighting season has started while we still have so many military, civilians, and contractors living and working in flimsy structures scares the hell out of me. With so many FOBs closed there are fewer targets country-wide for the insurgents to attack, so we’re expecting even more IDF intensity than has been typical in past years. The Afghan presidential election (April 5th) is also expected to ratchet up the violence.

So, everywhere I go I’m on the lookout for where’s the nearest bunker, the nearest fire extinguisher, the nearest exit, the nearest first aid kit. Paranoia is becoming a way of life and adds to the pressure we all feel (both externally and internally applied) to get more hardened structures in place.

Stay safe, everybody.

The Honeymoon is Over

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Melissa M

Or: Kick Me! I’m a Dog!

That shiny idealism I’ve been sporting since my arrival here has developed an ugly tarnish. I thought a project I inherited from my predecessor had been reviewed and approved by The Powers That Be here in Bagram, to include my organization and all the other stakeholder organizations. The way it was presented to me, everybody knew the plan and was on board. What could possibly go wrong?

Standing on the snow in the cold, bright sunlight of a Bagram morning recently, I was surprised to suddenly find myself on the receiving end of an aggressive and accusatory dressing-down by a certain military service member. To protect his anonymity, I’ll call him “Major Wedgie”. Major Wedgie verbally tore me apart in front of Everybody’s Big Boss – let’s call him “The General” – and his entourage and my chain of command for failing to know what he knew about the project, which was entirely different than what I had been briefed and thought I knew. I had no satisfactory answers for Major Wedgie, who seemed to get a real charge out of shredding me in front of The General.

As a fun bonus, when The General asked who is “the dog who gets kicked” over this project going forward, the non-response from my chain of command prompted me to raise my hand and say, “Me, sir.” Brilliant. (Another New Year’s Resolution: never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut, dumbass!)

Back at the office, I’m trying to reconcile what I heard from Major Wedgie and my organization during The General’s project site tour with what I was briefed on this project when I first arrived at BAF. It’s not like everything was super wonderful on this project before Major Wedgie came along: I was becoming ever more irritated by the people who declined to participate in the planning stages of the project (and tried to make me feel bad or stupid or small for even considering such a waste of their time) and then were complaining about how the project was executed incorrectly because it wasn’t properly coordinated with all the stakeholders during planning. Seriously? Show up or shut up, people. (New Realization: I’ve been the dog who gets kicked all along!)

The day after the ugly scene in front of The General, Major Wedgie himself came to the Garrison to discuss the project design with my boss. The Environmental Chief/Official Dog Who Gets Kicked Over This Specific Project was not invited to participate in this discussion and didn’t even know about it until it was over. Hmmmm. Perhaps here is a clue as to why I am not informed about what everybody else seems to know.

I’ve experienced several low points, annoyances, insults, and disappointments over the last couple of weeks, so I’m not really the poster child for job satisfaction right now. In fact, I don’t much like myself these days with how useless I feel in this position, which is making me grumpy and snappish. Plus I’m questioning everything I thought I knew to do here, which is exhausting. I’m feeling the tug of a downward spiral. Not good.

Despite these frustrations and the sting of embarrassment at being made a fool of in front of my chain of command, I am going to redouble my efforts to move forward and not let myself get depressed. Like many other deployers I’ve talked to, I’m at just about the right number of weeks into my service here for a standard-issue existential crisis: Why am I here? Can I do any good? When is the next plane to America? I am told this is normal and will wear off, but I’m having trouble seeing the light at the end of this particular tunnel.

Must. Push. On.

So go ahead and kick me, General. And you also, Major Wedgie. If making a public spectacle out of humiliating a relatively new civilian (who has been working hard in good faith while you’ve withheld relevant project information) is your way of demonstrating military leadership, it’s pretty clear who’s a dog in this situation. You can bite me, too.

Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Melissa M

Transitioning into Afghanistan means stopping at Manas for gear, briefings, and abuse.

It took about 24 hours of travel time to get here from Baltimore, including two stops lasting a couple hours each along the way. It was tough sleeping on the plane, and sleeping in the gate lounges during stops was impossible, so we arrived tired and bleary-eyed.

Those with a rank of E4 or lower were ordered off the plane first and made to stand in formation in sub-freezing temperatures while the rest of us deplaned and immediately boarded busses. Many standing on the tarmac did not have hats or gloves or even proper coats. These poor souls were slated to unload the abundant luggage from the plane onto trucks. It seemed cruel and unnecessary to make them stand and wait while the rest of us deplaned; they could have been allowed to stay on the plane until we were gone.

But, Cruel and Unnecessary seems to be the motto here at the Transit Center at Manas.

We were bused to the PERSCO area and ordered to leave all our bags and other belongings (purses included) in a large tent while we attended a briefing in the building nearby. The briefing was performed at lightening speed by several persons whose only aim was to get through the briefing as fast as humanly possible, with no care or concern for the fact that they went so fast nobody could get the info from the slides. We were told to make sure we were writing down the information, but most people had left their pens and paper with their bags in the tent across the street. A couple of the briefers were reading lists of names and appeared downright illiterate as they were unable to pronounce common names. The whole debacle looked like it was performed by people who had never done any of this before, as if the war had started just that morning rather than a decade ago and they were doing this transition briefing for the very first time. What a mess!

One of the goals here at the Transit Center at Manas is to make sure arriving personnel DO NOT transition into their new time zones smoothly. Appointments for briefings and gear issue are commonly set for 10 pm or 1 am. Tomorrow, I’ll be doing a “bag drag” at 4:30 am. Cruel and Unnecessary.

Maybe the folks who work here are bitter that they are stuck in a place so ugly, so they take it out on us transients. Check out the view:

This is the main drag. Those windowless buildings on the right side of the road are dorms. They don’t do windows here for security reasons (also why they don’t allow any bags into any public or office buildings).

Here’s a closer look at a dorm building:

I believe these are constructed of stacked shipping containers. The staff stationed here get to stay in these luxury accommodations, while we transients are stuck in tents. My tent area is called the Hotel Alaska:

Each tent holds about 50 people and untold numbers of mice (the vermin population is pretty active — as I type this there is a mouse running along the rail of my “headboard” right behind my computer). Here’s my tent a little closer up:

Here’s a shot of the inside:

Of course, en suite bathrooms are unheard of, so we get to hike across the gravel to the latrine and shower trailers. They are cramped and not very clean because so much dirt and mud gets tracked in:

The toilet stalls are constructed to be very shallow, i.e. you cannot close the door if you are standing in front of the toilet (you have to straddle the potty). Similarly, you can’t sit with the door closed unless you adopt the wide stance made famous (infamous?) by Senator Larry Craig.

Other highlights include the Fitness Center:

The Chapel:

The Dining Facility (or DFAC):

The local coffee joint:

And an alternative to the DFAC:

There you have it, the glamor of world travel and adventure courtesy of the United States Armed Forces. Next stop: Afghanistan!

Guns, Anxiety, Miracles, and Wingmen

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Melissa M

Or: How to Have a Very Rough Tuesday That Turns Out Not So Bad

It’s Sunday, our full day off from training, and I’m so grateful for this opportunity to rest and reflect on the past week. The majority of the other Combat Airman Skills Training (CAST) students have boarded the bus and departed for a few hours at Lackland Air Force Base where they can attend church services, shop, take long showers (we’re limited to 3 minutes here), see movies, and eat something other than the boring institutional meals and Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) we get at camp.

I’m staying at camp to RICE (rest, ice, compression wrap, and elevate) my sore and sorry arthritic knees, and catch up on phone calls and online stuff. I’m used to spending a lot of time each week on my own, so it’s nice to finally have some quiet time to process all the things that have happened since I arrived at camp last Sunday afternoon.

Tuesday was, by far, my most difficult training day. You may recall from previous posts that I qualified on the M9 pistol and the M4 carbine. Those qualifications were a few weeks ago, and I hadn’t handled those firearms since then. We were issued our training M9s and M4s on Monday afternoon, and Tuesday was a brief classroom firearms refresher right after breakfast followed by a trip directly to the firing range for various firing exercises.

Things started going bad for me during the classroom lecture. Our instructors are called the Cadre and there are about a dozen of them here each specializing in different technical/tactical subjects. Our firearms refresher Cadre warned us all upfront that this refresher would move quickly as we were expected to come into this training already possessing weapons expertise (uh-oh) and that he liked to crack jokes and be sarcastic.

The refresher training did indeed go very quickly — too quickly for me. About a third of the material presented was substantially similar to what I recalled from my previous M9 and M4 qualification training. Another third was somewhat similar to my previous training. The rest of it was brand new to me. I quickly became confused.

I was near my “new” limit early into class that morning. Wearing a 40-pound flak vest with armor plates and ammunition magazines attached was new to me. Having a sling on the M4 was new to me. Carrying both the M9 and the M4 together was new to me. My head was already spinning from all the other stuff that was new to me since I arrived, and the new/different refresher information caused me to question and ultimately lose all confidence in anything I thought I knew from my firearms qualification training. I got very, very nervous.

Then there were the safety warnings and jokes.

The rational side of me understood that what I was hearing were standard safety messages, rare worst-case-scenario warnings, jokes, sarcasm, hyperbole, and the stereotypical testosterone-soaked macho bullshit guys fling around when they are getting psyched up to go shooting. Despite understanding this and telling myself over and over not to freak myself out, the more primitive parts of my brain got the upper hand and by the end of the lecture I was awash in the fight-flight-or-freeze chemicals that afflict those who are facing an immediate and substantial threat.

I was numb getting on the bus. On the ride over, I started shaking and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I kept telling myself everything would all come back to me and I’d be just fine, but by the time we got off the bus I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. No matter how loudly I mentally shouted — screamed — that everything would be fine, I could not drown out the fear that I was going to injure myself or shoot one of my classmates or Cadre.

Our first exercise was using dummy ammo magazines to fire our M9s and M4s. The Cadre were shouting at us to increase the stress level and get us to perform despite the commotion (the type of situation we could expect if we had to perform in a real world shooting scenario). As I stood on the firing line fumbling with my equipment, a Cadre came up behind me and informed me that my M4 was slung incorrectly; I was shooting right handed and the sling was on my left shoulder. He rearranged the sling so it sat on my right shoulder, but when I held the gun correctly it was awkward and unfamiliar (I had spent the last several hours getting used to the sling in a different configuration). Additionally, a buckle on the sling now bit painfully into my shoulder so I could hardly keep the gun up.

That was it. Any hope I had of holding myself together was gone.

We went back to the area behind the tower to await instructions to approach the firing line for our next exercise. The other students were milling around, but I stood glued to the ground. I was shaking and hyperventilating. I was lightheaded and had tunnel vision. Tears were running down my face. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was having a full-on anxiety attack. More unwelcome new stuff I didn’t know how to process.

The Cadre were standing about 30 feet away up on a berm. I don’t know if they saw shaking or hyperventilating or waterworks from that distance in a person wearing a helmet, flak vest, gloves, and black wraparound shooting glasses. Maybe they noticed the other students edging away from me because they either saw or sensed that I was a hot mess. Whatever it was, the top ranking Cadre pulled me out of the group when everyone else went to the shooting line and asked me what was going on.

I did my best to be coherent between sobs. Clearly I could not be issued real ammunition in this state, and in retrospect I’m a little surprised they didn’t take my weapons away on the spot. Perhaps I came across as only pathetic and not dangerous. Regardless, as the Cadre explained how I would fail the course and have to be sent home if I could not complete the firing exercise, a miracle occurred.

A meteorological miracle.

No, I was not hit by a meteor, though I wished very hard for it in that moment.

It was a cloudy day, and the ceiling had been getting lower throughout the morning. Suddenly, the clouds dropped below 1200 feet. No shooting is allowed if the ceiling is below 1200 feet due to the range’s proximity to flightpaths at a nearby airfield. The range exercise had to be cancelled. No shooting for the rest of the day. A reprieve! I nearly fainted with relief.

A few students noticed I had been pulled off the line. On the bus going back, one of my classmates invited me to sit next to him and engaged me in light conversation. Blessedly, he did not ask me what went wrong, he just offered some friendly talk. By the time we got back to camp I could feel my extremities and was able to put whole sentences together. By the time we finished our MRE lunch, I was almost normal.

At this point, the easy thing to do would be to just pretend nothing happened, practice like heck with my weapons to get comfortable before the next trip to the range, and move on. But a couple little things stuck in the back of my mind that I couldn’t ignore. 35 classmates and a dozen Cadre had watched me walking around the previous afternoon/evening and that morning slinging my M4 incorrectly, and none of them had mentioned it to me. I was struggling at the firing range and several other students noticed but turned away instead of approaching me to help. My meltdown on the range that morning was nobody’s responsibility but mine; however, I wasn’t going to make it through the rest of the course without Wingman support, and I wasn’t going to get that support unless I asked for it.

I got permission to speak to the class before the afternoon lesson began. I stood at the front of the room and briefly explained what had happened that morning, apologizing for causing the Cadre to have to pull me off the line. Then I explained that downrange, everyone was going to have to deal with civilians because civilians are deployed, too, and not all of them are prior military (like all the civilians in this class but me). I described how inexperienced I am with the weapons and other things military (I’m still bad at donning and doffing cover), and asked that people please approach me and correct me if they see me doing something that isn’t right. I told them that everyone at some point will need Wingman support, and it was everyone’s responsibility to look out for each other and to ask for help. Which I needed. Now.

After that, several classmates reached out to offer me help, and others to admit that they were very nervous on the range, also. A Marine helped me reconfigure my M4 sling so the buckle doesn’t bite me anymore. Shooting instructors showed me tricks for different gun handling to maximize my capabilities and minimize my weaknesses. My tent-mates joined me in reviewing and practicing firing and clearing procedures until we were all feeling more comfortable and proficient. I went to bed that night knowing I had the skills I needed to do ok, and that I wasn’t alone in feeling anxious about the exercise.

The next day on the range I did great.

Best of all, as the course goes on, the other students are comfortable approaching me and offering corrections or assistance, or just asking how I’m doing. I’m so grateful. I’m a fish out of water here, but a fish with lots of Wingmen which is making all the difference.

Soiled Underwear

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Melissa M

Well, not really, but some people came pretty close.

Yesterday morning was HEAT: HMMWV Egress Assistance Training. HMMWV is an acronym for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, aka Humvee. There are many different types, but here’s one model for reference (photo credit: http://www.americanspecialops.com/photos/marsoc/marsoc-hmmwv.php):

The HEAT exercise took the class to the “rotisseries”, two Humvee body mock-ups mounted to motors that rotate them to simulate vehicle rollover:

Four-man teams of students in “battle rattle” (about 40-50 pounds of gear each including helmets, knee and elbow pads, flak vests with armor plates, several ammunition magazines in pouches, M9 pistols in holsters, and fake foam M4 rifles since real ones would have knocked out a lot of teeth) were strapped in, spun around, and then instructed to get out from the vehicle-upside-down and vehicle-on-its-side positions. This was insanely difficult.

Humvees look huge, but four people and all their gear seem to shrink the interior of the vehicle to tiny proportions. Plus you can’t really see seat belt releases or door handles because you can’t move your head around with all your gear restricting your range of motion and line of sight to things nearby and up against your body. And this is before you roll over. After the rolling begins, things just get crazy. The space seems to shrink, your adrenaline skyrockets, your gear gets caught on everything, and it’s a big struggle to find and release your seatbelt, reach and open a door, and get out without breaking your neck.

We did some practice rolling first, including completely upside down, which was scary and painful (it’s nearly impossible to hold yourself and all your gear up even with seat belts (since they’re so slack) so I got to spend some quality time supporting a lot of my body/gear weight on my head). After the practice rolling, we did two egress exercises.

In the first exercise, we were completely upside down and had to locate a door or doors that were not “jammed” (locked from the outside by the instructors) and escape through them. Going out the wide open gun turret was not an option as it was “on the ground”. I was seated in the right rear, and my door opened so I could get out through it which saved me from having to find another door. Others had to climb from their seats to seats with opening doors, making it that much more difficult and time-consuming for them.

In the second exercise, however, I was in the driver’s seat and we did a 90 degree rollover onto the driver’s side. We were to escape through the gun turret opening. This was much more difficult for me because the steering wheel and other obstructions restricted my movement severely and caught everything that could be caught as I was trying to get out: ammo magazines, buttons on my trousers, shoelaces, etc. I was able to keep moving, keep un-catching and detangling, and eventually fight my way out. It was only a minute or two, but it seemed like it took half an hour!

I’m glad to say that although I was frustrated by the difficulty of the experience, I did not feel claustrophobic, get panicky, have difficulty breathing, freeze up, or freak out. A few others did have to fight off panic and took quite a while to calm down, which I can empathize with since I had an anxiety attack the previous day at the shooting range (I’ll write about it in a future post).

We are all bruised and battered, but very happy to have HEAT behind us.

Tactical Underwear

one civilian woman's deployment to Afghanistan

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