Hajji Pizza

I had an interesting culinary experience last night. The Systems team got invited to participate in DISO-A’s Hajji Pizza Night. You start with a round piece of Afghan flat bread, or Hajji bread. Then top it with sauce that we bought from Pizza Hut on-base, and a variety of toppings, mostly from the sandwich bar, removed from the DFAC in take-out containers.

Set the pizza on a piece of foil, and park it on the grill. Close the lid, and 15-20 minutes later, you’ve got Hajji Pizza! All things considered, it was pretty good. The Afghan bread is excellent all by itself, and a great base for the pizza. I have sliced provolone on mine, a little Swiss cheese, jalapeño and torn up slices of ham. The cheese tasted pretty generic, but the sauce was good and the jalapeño made it. And it certainly beat the hell out of whatever the DFAC was dishing up.

It didn’t take me long to put in a request for a care package with pizza fixin’s. Pizza sauce, canned mushrooms, anchovies, and spices are already flying to me via the postal system. By next Saturday, we’ll be taking our game to a new level. And since there is nothing here that can be confused with real or authentic food, I might help myself to a to-go container of canned pineapple rings and some bacon, and go Hawai’ian!

On another food-related note, I broke down Friday night and had a steak. It was cut from the rib, but the steak was about one-third the normal thickness of a rib-eye. There was the slightest hint that it might have once been pink inside. In yet another indication that I’ve lowered the bar for food quality since being deployed, I actually thought it tasted decent. Maybe the fact that I haven’t had a steak in over four months skewed my perceptions. Either way, I know a couple butchers who will be providing me with Prime NY Strips soon after I get home. We’re gonna do this right.

The data center is coming along nicely. Got some switches configured by the Army signal battalion here, and we’re running fiber to them today. We should have no problem reaching IOC by the end of the month. I’m stoked!

And finally, this little gem from the Washington Times. I always knew mullets were bad ju-ju, but now we have empirical evidence ... “As Iran attempts to become a nuclear power with global reach, at home the Ayatollahs are mounting a fashion offensive. In an effort to blunt the ‘invasion’ of western culture, Iran has implemented a ‘moral security plan’ that bans men from wearing necklaces, short pants, and ‘glamorous hairstyles’ such as ponytails and the mullet.

70,000 ‘morality police’ have been deployed in Tehran and other cities to enforce the edict.  “It’s hard to understand why the Islamic Republic considers gold chains and mullets to be key emblems of western culture, but when you add the pre-existing ban on disco dancing it is clear that Iran has declared total war on the 1970s. They just never got over the Carter administration.”

Should I Feel Like This?

I'm torn ... confused.  Let me provide the back story.

We're short on rooms here, and I've got a roommate for a few days.  He snores like a freakin' chainsaw.  I snore.  I know that.  I've had peasants chasing me with torches and pitchforks for keeping the livestock awake all night with my snoring.  So I feel a little hypocritical for being annoyed at the cacaphony above me (he's in the top bunk).

It's this bad ... I'm trying to read Bridge of Sighs by Olen Steinhauer.  It's a murder mystery set in an unnamed Soviet satellite state in 1948.  Very grim, very eerie, but excellent, evocative writing.  But I can't focus.  So I stuff the ear buds in, crank up some Crimson on the trusty iPod.  I lead in with Sleepless from the Absent Lovers live CD.  I love the rhythm line, the way the drums and Chapman Stick play off each other.

The snoring rattles through.  Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part 2, serious heavy guitar work,from a 1995 live performance during Crimson's double trio years.  But I hear more than music.  And I'm not talking about F-16s taking off.

Finally, continuing that 1995 concert in Chicago, we get to Red, originally released in 1982,but still featuring the original guitarists, Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew.  And finally, prog rock hard enough to drown out the racket.  Frame By Frame continues the blessed relief.

Hope I've got a good charge on the iPod's battery ...

Good night, dear friends and gentle readers.

Bagram Goings-On

Yeah, I know, another long absence.  Steve the HVAC guy arrived here Saturday, and I’ve spent the time since then working with him to ensure the cooling plant for our Portable (only in the broadest sense of the word) Modular Data Center, or PMDC, is up to snuff.  And we have a clean bill of health.  There are a few things left to tidy up, but as it stands, we have way more cooling capacity than we can use right now.  And for a data center parked in metal containers in the middle of Afghanistan, that’s a very good thing indeed.  I hope to go live and bring the PMDC to what we call IOC, or Initial Operating Capability, by the end of June.

As I walked back to my can, I saw a beautiful full moon ... I've got a thing for full moons, they make me howl on occasion.  I'd like to have been able to write about seeing a full moon above the mountains, but the dust storms kicked up by what seem to be perennial 30-plus-know winds, obscured any glimpse of the mountains that surround us here.

In other happenings, the MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation – I know, gotta stop talking in code) folks are scheduling a go-kart race for the Fourth of July.  Not really a go-kart, more a push-cart.  The parameters … no longer than 3.5 feet, wheels no bigger than 12-inch diameter, steering mechanism, one driver and one person to push.  That’s all we get.  A new member of our team here was a welder before he enlisted in the Navy as an IT geek, and we’ve been acquiring pieces to cobble together into the kart for the race.  Should be very interesting as the Afghan Bobsled Team evolves.

A major milestone … I have less than 60 days left on station.  I’m amazed at the mountains of paperwork required by DIA for me to take “leave-en-route” … that is, leave taken on my way home before going back to DC for post-deployment out-processing.  They apparently don’t want us doing that, so they throw up as many institutional barriers as possible.  Unfortunately for them, I made all my reservations before finding this out, so now I get to deluge the bureaucrats with paperwork.  I keep saying this about people I have to interact with, but … “What a bunch of dicks!”

As my time here grows short, I find myself getting more and more short-fuzed.  I have less and less tolerance for people in the rear (read “back in CONUS”) who do not support the war effort.  I have little patience for the program management types who insist on following a rigid process and putting everything in an MS Project chart or a PowerPoint slide deck before any real progress can be made.  If it doesn’t relate to giving the grunts out on patrol the best support possible, it has no raison d'être.  I know this deployment will affect my outlook on things once I go back to work inside the Beltway.

And a final note … the al-Qaeda public affairs officer has announced that Ayman al-Zawahiri, UBL’s former sidekick and straight man (and likely Osama's bitch on Man-Love Thursdays), is assuming leadership of the band of terrorists.  I wonder how long it will be until some SOF lads teach him the meaning of “double tap.”

CARE Package-palooza

Wow, what a week it’s been.  There’s been a veritable avalanche of Care packages from the home front lately.  Things started off with a package from my brother-in-law Bill, with a load of magazines and other treats from Popular Mechanics and Hearst Publishing.  Interestingly enough, one of the issues of PopMech has plans for a motorized go-kart.  And wouldn’t you know it, the Exchange here is hosting a go-kart race on the Fourth of July.  The karts can’t be motorized, have to be propelled by sheer manpower (much like Honolulu’s Carole Kai Bed Race), but we’ll use the PopMech plans as a basis for the construction.  Photos to follow as we make some progress here.

Soon after, a package from my bride with powdered drink mixes, bison jerky (yeah, I’m a jerky junkie), special laundry detergent (without optical brighteners, for the warrior’s wash-day), and other treats, including a copy of Defend the Realm, a 900-page history of MI-5.  I Bogarted the jerky … sorry, but that’s not for sharing.

Two friends hooked me up with a grunch of CDs.  One package contained copies of two CDs of Greaseman bits, one of them full of tortuously funny (and, ahem, indelicate) routines about whacking Taliban in Afghanistan.  Then Ranger Bill fired off a collection of a half-dozen bootleg CDs of Roxy Music concerts, one of which was recorded in Boston in 1976 (I saw them live in Houston in 1976, the playlist is probably very similar, if not identical).  And Amazon finally came across with a two-CD set of Cream’s 2005 reunion concert in London.  I’m in musical hog heaven.

Bolt from the blue … sister-in-law Suzanne sent a Family Guy Freakin’ Party Pack.  No sooner did I open the box than I had to fight to keep the Party Pack in my hands.  The grubby hands of fellow Family Guy fans kept pawing at it.

The Fat Boy Biggest Loser contest ends with a final weigh-in on June 23^rd.  Rumor has it that several lady sailors from Eastport Yacht Club will be doing a Cookie Night for the Troops soon, with delivery scheduled for very soon after the 23^rd.

Considering that I’m in a war zone, separated from friends and family and home and beer, life isn’t too bad right now.

Now if only that box I sent to myself eight weeks (actually, almost nine weeks) ago from Kabul would arrive …

Random Observations

WARNING:  Well-intentioned but potentially sexist commentary follows.  Continue at your own risk.

After eight weeks here at BAF, I’ve made a number of observations on some of the more mundane aspects of life while deployed.  I’ll relate them in this and a couple subsequent posts.

Today, I’m going to talk about women.  I’ll keep it clean, but I suspect I’ll still manage to offend someone.

Women in a combat zone was a tough topic for me for me to get my head around at first.  Yeah, I know, equal opportunity, breaking through the glass ceiling and all that.  But cut me some slack, I’m old school (read “dinosaur”).

In my casual, decidedly non-scientific observations here, and based on superficial physical appearance factors, I’ve sorted the women at BAF into three broad (no pun intended) categories.  This is based purely on appearance, and has nothing whatsoever to do with professional performance.

First are the women who look like men to blend in.  They sport short hair, dress in cargo pants, polo shirts and ball caps, and, for the government folks, tote a 9mm on their hips.  Tough broads.

Group two are the ones who just don’t give a crap about their appearance.  Rumpled clothes, hair that they apparently combed out with a towel, no effort at looking approachable.

Moving on to group three, we find fastidiously-done hair, make-up (applied both with and without a putty knife), jewelry, you name it.  Piercings and tattoos abound.  Judging by badge lanyards, many of the group three women seem to work for Fluor, a company that provides most of the base operations services here.  Judging by the accents, many are of East European origin.  One of our favorites, often spotted at breakfast, wears leather boots which extend above the knee along with skin-tight jeans.  She’s acquired the moniker “Hooker Boots.”  By and large, group three women look slutty.  Cheap.  Trashy.  How the hell do you find time, working in a combat zone where the temperature routinely tops 90°F, to keep yourself all dolled up like that?  Unless it’s part of your employment contract.

There’s a sort of a fourth category, but only in the broadest sense.  That would be the transgender community.  And we’ve got one.  She-who-used-to-be he.  She who, while externally female, retains the genetic code of a rather crude redneck male.  Think of your most stereotypical West Virginia hillbilly, then toss in hormone treatments and a wiener-ectomy, and you’ve got her.  Him.  Whatever.  Now those who know me know that I’m familiar with “alternate sexualities,” I’ve got some very good friends in the DC gay-lesbian-transgender community, and I have nothing at all against folks who do it differently.  Far from it.  This one is personal.  And it pains me so much because, in a supervisory position, I need to keep personalities out of it.  A leader cannot have personality conflicts with those he supervises.  But I find this individual so coarse, so abrasive and caustic, so crude, that at times it’s an effort to keep it civil.

That said, there are a lot of women here, a lot of females, but ladies are rarer than hens’ teeth.  And after all this rambling, all I can say is that I’m counting the days until I can be back in the presence of a lady.

What a Day!

“What a day!  What a fabulous day!”  Richard Dreyfuss quote ... name the movie.

Yesterday was one of those fabulous days out here.  I did a good workout in the gym, I still feel good and pumped.

But more important is the work side of things.  One of my project managers and I spent the morning with a new client on base, the Counter-IED (C-IED) guys.  I knew it was going to be a good meeting when I noted, among their three reps, a Navy Senior Chief and a fellow Texas Aggie.  They want to tie into one of our networks, so we did some requirements analysis … how many workstations, secure phones, VTCs, server room demands, power/space/cooling, all that stuff.

But what really energized me is their mission.  Did you realize that 73% of all U.S. casualties are the result of IEDs?  The Taliban are gutless scum, they plant the IEDs and could give a rat’s ass if it detonates in proximity to a Coalition Forces convoy or an Afghan farmer and his donkey cart.  So our C-IED team is working real-time to proactively save lives … and not just American lives.  God bless ‘em if that can save even one soldier from coming home to a prosthetic limb.

For those of you who made it to the end of this post, the quote by Richard Dreyfuss was from 1989's Let It Ride.

Road Trip

Today was Road Trip day.  Not your average road trip, however.  We got to fly the IC (Intelligence Community) bird, a Dehavilland Dash-8 chartered exclusively for our use.  Doug (Dougie Fresh, not to be confused with the other Doug in our office, Snoop Dougie Doug)) and I had to visit our sites in Kandahar and Camp Bastion/Leatherneck, so we had reveille at 0345 for a 0415 pick-up.

There are quite a few advantages to flying the IC bird.  For starters, it has real airline seats, 30 of them, with lots of legroom, not at all like the webbing seats in a C-130, the usual mode of conveyance out here.  The bird was never more than half-full, so I was able to sprawl over two seats.  It also makes a circuit around the bases so, if you're doing quick surgical strikes, as we were, we were able to catch the aircraft before its next scheduled departure and not have to spend days on the road, waiting for flights.  We did Bagram to Kandahar to Bastion, back through Kandahar and finally back to Bagram in about 12 hours.

The downside of a road trip is that all sorts of people come out of the woodwork with shipping requests:  "Hey, I've got some hard drives that need to get to so-and-so in Kandahar, could you deliver them for me?"  So, despite the fact that we didn't carry any luggage, we were still loaded down like pack mules.  I guess that's the price to be paid for getting a break from the routine.

Totally different topic.  As I sit in my can writing this, I'm listening to the digitally re-mastered version of The Yes Album.  Got it on iTunes on the laptop.  Speakers aren't the greatest, but they'll do.  I'm stuck in prog-rock land.  Hours and hours of music on the iPod, and I keep going back to Crimson.  On the laptop, Yes keeps coming back for encores. Although I have discovered a new group, courtesy of Robert Fripp and the Crimson website.  Porcupine Tree.  Great stuff.  Power guitars with occasional vocal harmonies that remind me of old CSN.  Check them out if you get a chance.

But now, back to Yours is No Disgrace.

Buddy System

The buddy system is alive and well here.  While in Kabul, anytime we went outside the wire, we rode in convoys of at least two up-armored SUVs.

Aircraft fly in twos as well, as I’ve seen here many times a day.  From my quarters (a/k/a, my can), I listen to a seemingly-endless stream of jets taking off … pairs of F-15s, F-16s or F/A-18s.  They launch at 10-15 second intervals.  Last night, for example, I listened to pairs of jets taking off until about midnight, at which point I nodded off.  More may have flown during the night, but I wasn’t awake to hear.  The roar is deafening (ask anyone who’s ever tried to talk through the take-off), but it’s one of those “sounds of freedom.”

A couple days ago, while headed off to chow, we saw a pair of helos approaching … H-60 Blackhawks … one a MEDEVAC bird emblazoned with the distinctive red cross on a white background, his buddy in trail, a safe distance behind.  Almost simultaneously, a pair of F-16 Falcons took off, maybe 15 seconds apart.  One of our team noted, “This isn’t normal medical transfer time, they’re heading out to pick someone up.”  TIC – Troops in Contact.  The F-16s were likely scrambled to provide close air support to soldiers engaged with insurgents.  And a MEDEVAC bird hot on their heels to bring wounded soldiers back for care.

After spending the past seven weeks here in the relative safety of the cocoon on BAF, not having gone outside the wire since my arrival, I was once again reminded of the immediacy of the war.  Those of us “in the rear with the gear” don’t have a lot of up-close-and-personal contact with the war.  Even here, it seems remote at times.  We do our work thing, we hit the gym, we have three squares available and bitch about the food, we have e-mail and Internet access and can Skype with our loved ones … and we lose sight of the fight.  Even in-theater, we can lose sight of the grunts out on patrol, who are out there trying to win over the villages at the grassroots level by kinetically improving the security situation.

All this rambling reminds me of a quote often (erroneously) attributed to George Orwell, although in fact it was spoken by Winston Churchill :  "We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."

Sleep soundly, my friends.  Those rough men mean business.  And please, this Monday, pause for a moment to remember those rough men (and women) who have fallen.  Memorial Day is about more than barbecues and sales.

It’s Okay To Lie

At least that’s what our courts are saying.  Last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, those über-liberal constitutional activists from San Francisco, ruled that the Stolen Valor Act is “too broad” and hence unconstitutional.  Now, a federal appeals court in Denver is heading down the same path.

The Stolen Valor Act of 2006 makes it a federal crime to lie about being a military hero.  The catalyst for the law was a sudden rash of liars hoping to cash in on the benefits of being a veteran and “war hero.”  Butt-monkeys are running around falsely claiming combat experience and awards they never had … many never even served in uniform.  So we’ve got young soldiers and Marines fighting and dying, earning Medals of Honor posthumously (with the sole exception of Army SSG Sal Giunta), and these humps think nothing of fabricating stories and awarding themselves medals for nothing more than self-gratification … and maybe to glom a few free meals from gullible people or groups who want to honor our warriors.

As the press tells it, defense lawyers for these slimeballs argue that “merely telling a lie” shouldn’t be a crime.  I guess this form of identity theft, involving the falsification of official government records, doesn’t count.  They and their lawyers claim the law violates their First Amendment rights.  And some pathetic excuse for a judge from the Ninth Circuit wrote in his opinion that if the court upheld the act, “then there would be no constitutional bar to criminalizing lying about one’s height, weight, age or financial status on Match.com or Facebook.”  Is he serious?  Equating trying to get laid online with serving one’s country?

Have I mentioned here that I think the First Amendment is over-rated?  Have I mentioned here how much I loathe and despise defense lawyers?

Moving on … I’m starting to feel a bit like Jon Stewart, highlighting the absurdity in the news.  Herewith another item … we’ve been pounding Libya for 60 days now, and the President is (in the opinion of some) required by the 1973 War Powers Resolution to get Congressional authorization to keep going beyond that timeframe.  Now an unlikely coalition of conservative Republican Congressmen and the ACLU are tag-teaming the President about his violation of the law.  Go figure.

New Word

I learned a new word last week.

“Narmy.”  A proper noun.  Def:  a U.S. sailor in a joint command, wearing Army camouflage.  As in a sailor, a petty officer first class, working a security gig at the Detention Facility.  After emptying my pockets and going through the metal detector, I spoke briefly with him, and asked him how he liked his tour.  All he said was, “I’m in the Narmy now.”

That’s right, I was in the prison last week.  Not as an inmate, or visiting an inmate, just getting a tour and an info briefing.  It was an eye-opening experience for me, as I realized the depth and sophistication of the all-source intelligence process that goes on there.  The interaction of tactical and strategic intelligence collection and analysis there is huge, and talking with some of the analysts at times really makes me regret moving from analysis into the IT world.  These analysts, working with information gleaned through prisoner interviews, are the ones on the cutting edge, providing current intelligence to put the bad guys away.

Then there were the lawyers.  Yep, we provide IT support to the legal beagles too.  As I toured the legal office, my skin started crawling.  It was a big room, maybe 40 by 40 feet, desks butting up against each other, filled with military lawyers and enlisted legal support staff.  Defense lawyers too.  I hate defense lawyers.  Whether they’re defending violent miscreants or sex offenders or crooked hedge fund managers or Taliban fighters, they’re all scum and vermin.  Boy was I glad when that part of the visit was done.  Hope I didn’t beat too much of a hasty retreat.

But my discomfort was counter-balanced by a great meal.  The detention facility has two DFACs, one a conventional food line operation and the other is a barbecue tent.  I had my choice of ribs, brisket, chicken, sausage, all the traditional sides … the only down side was not being able to wash it all down with a cold beer.  Oh well, soon enough.