Pride

Sometimes pride in your uniform, your job, your appearance is taken just a little far. This was not a joke, this was a real picture of his weapon.

This "jingled" weapon isn't that common, but decorating trucks, weapons, and other implements of war is an age-honored custom here in Afghanistan. I guess pink doesn't carry the same meaning here.

Another thing I have learned to love is the saying "There is NOW and NOT NOW." It's wonderfully zen, but not wonderful for getting things done. We mostly use this in terms of planning or the lack thereof. It doesn't necessarily apply to the Afghans.

We have many many many many many many many (many) chiefs out here. From many (times 50) countries. Each country brings political legitmacy with them - very important that - but also good ideas and political agendas and baggage. This makes getting things planned, resourced and executed challenging.

When putting a plan together, the different parties - coalition and Afghan - all bring different priorities to the table. Their national pride is often at stake. It is often misunderstood, out of place or ridiculous from our perspective. I am sure the policeman in the picture was just bringing a little pride to the formation.

I am not sure if this police car impresses me in the attention to detail the police paid to it or....

makes me laugh - or both.

We are out here trying to build an Afghan National Security Force. There are many successes and many failures, but one thing that stares you in the face every day is that the culture here is not all that similar to that in the US.

For example, we issued enough pistols to the Ministry of Interior for every policeman to carry one in the country. One thing we overlooked is that here, only the officers in the organization carry pistols. Regular police carry AK47s. So, in most of the arms rooms I have inspected, boxes of unissued pistols are stacked to the ceiling.

There are many issues with training the police. In my opinion, the biggest is that it is hard for active duty military people to do. It requires a different mind set, an understanding of different culture not just of another country but another service and way of life. Infantrymen are not good policemen.

The funny thing is that the National Guardsmen from the US are much better at this than the regular army guys. They have the experience of performing a very wide variety of jobs that they aren't trained for and so are much more adaptable and flexible. We need more of them as mentors.

And the guy who decorated this truck for the police. We need many more of him.

Cuteness

Which one is more cute? Little girls with headscarves off to school or a HMMWV with whitewalls? It's really a difficult call, but I'm going with schoolgirls. Maybe it's the Sailor Moon Backpack.

The variety of uniforms I encounter around Afghanistan is another cute thing. If "cute" is the right word. With just American uniforms, you have Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines each with their own camouflage patterns. But it gets better. Each has their own version of flight suits, so we're up to eight, then the Army is testing six more patterns of camoflauge, so what? 14 patterns? And then the Navy has its tan dessert pattern that everyone else has abandoned, but has also come up with what I can only call "aquaflage."

The best part is when someone tries to quote uniform standards and regulations. Really? How can anyone tell? And then there are another 15 countries or so represented on our camp each with another four to ten types of uniforms.

Does any of this chaos of uniforms make sense when the word "uniform" is violated by the the very presence of so many different styles?

The little girls in the picture are uniformed to go to school and look to be marching in step. That's more than you can say about where I work. Go figure.

Luxury and Translations

Morale is high. Except when it's not. And while I have a ton of things to write about, this picture is pretty much going to say it all for me today.

Thank you.

Reactions

We traveled to Aybak and as we pulled in these boys came running up smiling and clowning demanding I take their pictures. Everywhere we go, the people here are generally friendly and will return your waves, smiles and greetings. The kids especially are open and engaging and pick up English at amazing speed.

The articles published in USA Today produced interesting reactions here. We fielded calls, held meetings, made calls, and generally scrambled (chuckling) at the reactions of people. "Damage control" is one phrase heard several times yesterday. "Nice knowing you" was another.

How people react to a given stimulus always depends upon their perspective. Leaders try to think how others will perceive an action, a policy, a report, or at least, good leaders do. In today's world, information is the new battlefront and news stories and rumor control are extremely important. The 1857 mutinies throughout the British Empire in India were started and spread by rumors. Perception and information management are newly rediscovered battlefronts.

So the fact that the children of Afghanistan are so quick to smile and greet us when we roll in to town with armored HMMWVs, helmets and guns, and maybe a smile and a wave, is a good sign. It's too bad that pictures like these don't often make the front pages of newspapers. It would probably send a better message.

Good times

We had our team written up in USA Today, today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-03-15-afghanistan-arms_N.htm

and

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-03-14-afghan-weapons-cache-lost_N.htm

It wasn't totally accurate. That's probably because the guy who wrote the article didn't get three weeks of classes, three weeks of indoc training in country, and had zero military experience. Sort of points out that our world is completely alien to most people.

Military language - even service to service - can be almost incomprehensible. It creates a barrier between us as any foreign language can do. Our team is made up of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, but we have overcome cultural and linguistic traditions to form a close team. We now have our own inside jokes, traditions, and shorthand for speaking and communicating.

The articles that came out may make us look professional or not, depending on your frame of reference. The articles did cause a tremendous amount of mirth here, though. The misquotes and misconceptions have led to a lot of ribbing and joking. Lots of it is macabre and most of it would be incomprehensible to anyone outside our office.

The whole point of this note is - we find our humor and breaks where ever we can. It brings us closer together, passes the time more quickly and hopefully. brings us home quicker.

Mine is Special

The 1228 mission leads to interesting discoveries. Captured and seized Taliban weapons are often in varying states of repair. One of the weapons pictured above was obviously loved more than the others.

Growing up in the 1980's as some people much older than I did, AK-47s and the mujahadin were almost mythical. The fight against the Soviet invaders in Afghanistan using their own weapons against them seemed to be almost poetic in its justice.

20 years later, those weapons are still here. So are the weapons from fighting the British, twice; a lot of weapons shipped in by the Nazis; weapons from the US circa World War I and World War II. Just a lot of weapons.

You quickly become a specialist in identifying which country the 20 types of AK-47s come from. It's fascinating, but in the end, not a very marketable skill. Or at least outside of a niche market.