Share The life of an advisor can hardly be called “normal.”   However, as anyone in Afghanistan can attest, there is a sameness that settles in, a point at which there is a sense of “Groundhog Day.”   It’s the repetition of the actions, the same trip made over and over again, that cause this impression.   So, what’s a daily mission with the SFAT like? I’ll spare you the personal rituals of the morning.  Wake-up, showers and the like.  Everyone does that, and having to walk a hundred meters for a shower is not that serious that it requires examination. Today I’m going to try to put you in the Multi-Cam uniform, in the turret behind the machine gun as you roll through the outskirts of Mazar-e Sharif on your way to work as an advisor for the Afghan Border Police.   In a later post I will try

Share The average day of the 5th Zone ABP Mentor Team (the SFAT, or Security Force Assistance Team) is comprised of making our way to the 5th Zone Headquarters, near Mazar-e Sharif (MeS), and working to make slow, incremental changes to the way that the staff there works.  But sometimes we get to do some pretty cool missions that take us far afield.   My post on the unsuccessful mission to Badakhshan was an example of what we call a “non-standard” mission.  Non-standard missions are the most interesting, and the most fun.  We don’t plan them because they are fun, though.   They serve a purpose… but they just happen to be fun and interesting as well. The mission to Khwahan, Badakhshan, had been planned for weeks and the purpose was two-fold.  First, we were attempting to have a KLE (Key Leader Engagement) with the leadership of the 5th Zone

Share Each deployment is a marathon, and this is my third in five years.  I recognize the cycle.  We were even briefed on it.  Each deployment has its phases, and there is a phase of irritability, restlessness and discontent.  That has been the past month or so.  It makes it hard to write, because although there are stories of missions to tell, it’s hard to tell them in a voice that does not drip of that same restlessness and discontent.  Especially when changes to our force protection posture means that we can get even less done.   I can’t talk specifics about that at this time because of OPSEC (Operational Security), but our capabilities have changed, and not to make our work easier. One thing I noticed during our abysmal train-up at Camp Shelby was that a briefing had been added that described these phases.  I recognized them, and the

Share It had been a brutal winter in Badakhshan.   One of the hardest winters in years had descended upon northern Afghanistan, and the farthest northeastern province had taken the worst of it.  Rugged and mountainous, the snowfall had lain heavy upon the slopes and closed off the passes.  Some valleys, accessible only by foot or by donkey, had run dangerously on supplies; especially the Afghan Border Police.  Several outposts were in dire need of airlifted supplies.  With Afghan airlift capacity, their wait would be long indeed.   COL Mollosser agreed with the 5th Zone commander, a brigadier general, to try to provide some needed sustenance to one of the hardest hit outposts.  He got buy-in from the American general who controls air assets in the RC North.   Thus began a saga that would span weeks. Four previous attempts had been shut down by bad weather.   Members of the team,

Share This is the post that I’ve been dreading, but I knew it would come.   For the first time since WW-II,  Ohio’s 37th (then a division, now a Brigade Combat Team that includes many soldiers from Michigan) has lost lives in combat.   The day before yesterday, out in Maimana, an insurgent wearing a suicide vest approached a group of Afghan Police and their mentors and detonated his vest.  The indiscriminate violence of that act took many lives.  Among the dead were two Americans; SFC Hannon and SFC Rieck.  A third, CPT Rozanski, died of his wounds within hours.  Five other soldiers were wounded, most of them severely.  Two are still fighting for their lives. All three of our honored dead leave families behind.  Children, wives, parents and siblings.  Each of our wounded has a life.  All have a story.  Every single one of them was born into loving

Share As mentors, we go where our counterparts go and we do their missions with them.  Sometimes we are teaching, sometimes we are recommending, and sometimes we are being supportive.  We are also sharing their experiences and taking in their world.  You can’t really advise and mentor very well when you don’t understand the world of the man whom you are trying to help develop as a professional.   The mission to the checkpoint was one of those missions.  I took along others on that mission, partly for communications, partly for security, and partly because if I didn’t, the mission would have been stopped. Another such mission was our mission recently to the Aquina Border Crossing Point (BCP).   Aquina is out west in Faryab Province, on the border with Uzbekistan.    It’s about 160 miles from Marmal.   The ABP Zone Commander, a General and the mentee of COL

Share Mentoring can be a hoot. The incidents of the past few weeks, little helpful things done by my fellow Soldiers, have made life a bit more… interesting. I mean that in the Confucian sense. That being said, my mentee is a Hajji, having returned from the obligatory pilgrimage only a few months ago. He is a literate, committed Muslim. His viewpoint on the Quran burning was summed up with, “We have illiterate people in our society, too.” He assumed that such ignorance of Afghan values could only come from illiteracy. I didn’t burst his bubble. Part of mentoring is going where your mentee goes. COL Shiripir* and I were having a conversation about going about his normal business while I am with him. I was beginning to feel like he felt that he had to treat me as a special guest and that this perception was keeping him from

Share I’ve had numerous requests for more pictures, so let’s see what we can do… For some reason, this version of WordPress only allows three sizes of pictures, and the largest winds up cutting the picture up.  Each of these can be downloaded to see much more detail.   My camera is a five year old HP Photosmart on its third tour, but it’s got the most effective anti-shake of anything I’ve seen, so I keep using it even though three tours in a grenade pouch has made it cranky and temperamental. There is a lot of really interesting architecture in Mazaar-e Sharif. Afghans have a strong sense of aesthetics. It may not always jibe with our own… take jingle trucks, for example. But it is a sense of aesthetics, and sometimes the results can be very interesting. Every Afghan city is a kaleidoscope of styles, from traditional mud and straw

Share This blog is about the experience, and part of the experience is feeling it.  I can relate to readers the way that it feels to be cold, I can relate to readers how it feels to crunch across gravel on the camp.  I can try to relate how it feels to sit and converse with my Afghan counterpart.  I can try to relate how it feels to ride in an MRAP through the streets of Mazar-e Sharif, the feeling of earphones and body armor, viewing the normal world of Afghans through armored slats and thick glass as we do our little part to influence their Border Police to make their lives better, safer and more stable so that we can have that at home, too. How does one convey the feeling of being seven thousand miles from home while two countries go mad?   I swear, it feels as

Share Just wanted to post and say, “I’m still here.”   I’m fine.  We have been locked down in the wake of the Quran burnings at Bagram.   I’ve read news articles about the events, the comments on American news outlets that allow them and monitored emails from friends.  All I can say is that the atmosphere on both sides is disturbing. We were at the Zone headquarters when we got the news, and I thought it had to be a joke, because no one would do something that stupid, would they?  I mean, it’s only been less than a year since that nimrod in Florida burned a Quran on YouTube and people died over it.  Of all the things that you could do in Afghanistan that would cause unnecessary death, this is one that is a proven winner. It wasn’t a joke.   And it’s not a joke.