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!

MM