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.

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!

Camp Anderson Peters Photo Tour

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Melissa M

It was a beautiful sunny day here at Camp Anderson Peters, so I took a stroll and got some photos of the camp…

Standing at the edge of the PT (physical training) pad looking toward the classroom buildings:

Classroom Delta is on the left behind the “water buffalo” trailers beneath the shade cover. Classroom Alpha, which holds the gym, is on the right. This is the monument beneath the tree, marking where one of the builders of Camp Anderson Peters died during construction:

Gun clearing stations stand at all the classroom entrances. We have to clear our guns under supervision whenever we enter the classrooms unless we’re returning from a short (<15 minutes) break:

The interior of my classroom:

Here’s the gym:

One half of the tent pad where we all live; the tents have electricity and are heated and air-conditioned:

The interior of my tent the night we moved in; the tents can sleep up to eight but there are only five women in the class and these are my tent-mates: