You see, I've learned a lot from this deployment, and I'm slowly picking up bits and bits that I feel will make me a better commander. Point one is that it is easy to do nothing. I mean, as a commander, you can lock yourself in your office and take care of paperwork and let everything run itself. You can. As a commander, you can do what you want. As a commander, you can make decision about things and people will do what you say. They may complain and grumble, but they will do it...the big things at least. The small things are actually harder. But all of these things you can do or all of these things you can not do. It's up to you. And that's what amazes me. You have all of these hard chargers in our organization, and it's amazing that one person has so much of an effect on everything. You would think under any circumstance, there would be someone taking charge. But sometimes it takes a long time before someone steps up.
When you come into an organization, it is very easy to just follow the status quo. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? But as a commander, you can't follow that philosophy. At least I can't. That's what I've always enjoyed about the Army. I've always felt like I've had power to affect change. And so, while the system may or may not be broke, there is always a way to make things better. Sometimes, it's an efficiency thing, sometimes discipline, sometimes planning and training, and always leadership. Actually, it's all of those things all the time. It's the same with school, I guess. And I hope that my time here will make me a better teacher...and in time, a better parent...not that I have kids or anything. But yeah, in a classroom, you can say hey, let's have recess all the time. And the kids'll do it. It's the same over here. If you don't push it, Joe will get lazy. Heck, Joe will get lazy even if you do push it, so imagine what'll happen if you don't.
So yeah, what was my point? I forget. Moving on...
I had the something very close to a shower yesterday. I stood outside in the rain for two hours while we ran a base-wide drill. We staged a big explosion right next to the DFAC and dressed a bunch of people up like they were bleeding and broken and everything. Now, understand that this base has thousands of people residing on it. Unfortunately, EOD (explosives ordnance disposal) blows up mines all of the time around here, so people have grown accustomed to explosions. So as people walked by the dying people, the average person reacted with, "oh, this is an exercise?" and walked along on their merry way. I know they wouldn't do that if it were for real, but all the same. We do exercises so that we can work through all of the realities in case something like this were to happen...so it was disappointing to see the reaction. All the same, I didn't make up the scenario, so I didn't take it too personally.
Moving on...I'm not even going to finish my last point. We started implementing my rotation plan a few days ago. Actually, it feels like a few days ago, but it's been just over 24 hours now. I understand that no one likes to change, so I was prepared for a little resistance. At least I thought I was prepared. Anyway, complaining aside, I think operationally, it's been going somewhat smoothly. At least no big problems have been brought to my attention yet...that's not to say that there haven't been problems. It's just that you have two types of leaders. You have some that'll fix them and then some who'll just complain to higher to have them fix the problems...higher being me. Fortunately, I have a mix of both types of leaders here. Me, I'm a fixer...so I don't mind when people come to me with problems. But yeah, a lot of complaining going on. I don't know...part of it may have to do with waking up at 0300 local time for formation. Maybe. But here was my thinking: soldiers are used to it sucking. Like when I showed up, it looked like the suck was pretty much cross-leveled so that every day just kinda sucked. I have very little control over our responsibilities here, so I'm slowly working that angle to get the workload lessened. But until then, I decided that it'd be better to make some days suck a little more and some days suck a little less. That way, you have your heavier days and then you have more down days. I'm no psychologist, so I don't know if there's a term for it. But I think there's something to it. Like take basic training. It sucks. Then take OCS. That sucks. Then take Ranger school. I haven't been there, but I've heard that it sucks. When things suck, they just suck. Like there is a different level of suck, but in your mind, I don't think you really differentiate suck after a certain level. You just grow numb to it. So when you have four straight days of 12 hour shifts in a tower, you really don't have much to look forward to except getting off that tower. It sucks already. So why not stack some of the suck on a couple of days just to give the guys some lighter days to look forward to? Just an idea. We'll see how it works out.
Anyway, I woke up at three in the morning to be at formation with the platoon going on shift. I always try to make formation. The only times I've missed it have been when I ran that 10K or when I was in a meeting or pulling a tower shift myself. Anyway, one of the privates came up to me afterward and asked if anyone had said anything positive about the schedule change yet. I didn't respond. I didn't need to. He knew that all I've gotten have been complaints. Anyway, he just wanted to tell me that he thought it was working well. That felt good, and I definitely needed it.
02 March 2005 1804z - I'm so funny sometimes, I can't handle it. Anyway, today was relatively uneventful, as have been most...just a lot of trouble-shooting as a bunch of the NCOs started to finally look at my schedule proposal. I gave it to them almost two weeks ago, but no one really seemed to care until the day or two before the big switch. So instead of fixing all of the glitches during the planning stages, we're putting out fires now. I'll be up in a few hours to see how our first crew handles the shift. Hopefully, it won't take more than a few days to get a good grip on things. As long as enough of the guys buy off on the plan, it should work and everyone will have a little extra down time.
Other than that, I dedicated a few hours to being a nerd today. I played around with Firefox more at the suggestion of my sister, and I installed a whole bunch of things in my browser. First was the scrolling news headlines in the status bar. That's a pretty neat feature. While I'm doing whatever, I can read about Bubba, the 22-pound lobster and the Washington Nationals getting ready for the season. I also installed a remote control for iTunes that also shows up on the status bar. On the menubar in the upper right-hand corner is the weather and then there are various other features like my little mouse gestures that allow me to draw on the screen like John Madden.
The one feature that fascinated me, though...and this tells you how much I'm out of the whole programming field...is the Rich Site Summary (RSS). I guess these things have been around for a while, but I never noticed them until I started using Firefox and the little RSS thing flashed at the bottom of the screen. I guess all of those blogging tools do this automatically, but since I html with a glorified notepad, I had to read up a little to learn how to do it myself. But now I have my own little RSS feed, so you can now find out when I update my page without even coming to visit. I need to learn how to fix it so that you can read it from your cell phone. But maybe I'll wait until I have some time outside of a combat zone before I get too far into that.
Lastly, I played around with PhotoShop for about five minutes to make a little spoof on the "I Power Blogger" buttons I see popping up everywhere. Go hokies! I know I'm a little late, but did anyone else see that Duke game?
01 March 2005 1712z - I can be quite the nerd sometimes. For my family and friends, you know this already. Actually, that probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to anyone. But yeah, I got pretty excited today when I stumbled onto Firefox. I remember my sister talking about it a few months back, but I never paid it any attention because I didn't figure I'd have the opportunity to download the program until I got home. Anyway, I forgot why, but I ended up downloading the program today and played around a bit with the features. Among the positives was the built-in search window in the corner which jumped you straight to places like google, IMDB, Amazon, eBay, and dictionary.com. There's also a built-in pop-up blocker and these tabbed windows. I liked that last option a lot. With IE, I usually cascade half a dozen windows at a time as I wait for things to load and I alt-tab like crazy to go between the different screens. But there isn't that taskbar clutter with Firefox. It opens tabs in your browser and you can just click on various pages whenever they finish loading in the background. Pretty neat stuff, huh? And then I noticed that Jane had a cutesy little icon load up with her web page. When I saw that, I had to figure out how to do it myself...that took about an hour of the government's time, but I was multi-tasking...so I don't feel too bad. It's not like the government doesn't waste my time, right?
Speaking of which...I went to a MapEx this morning. It's basically a rock drill where you go through the motions of an event on a Map. Hence the name, Map Exercise. Anyway, with the scenario being relatively straightforward, I expected the thing to last about half an hour. Instead, it lasted an hour...for the first part, that is. By the time the rehearsal was over, three and a half hours had ticked away and I had already missed lunch. What was worse was that I only had an hour and a half before my next meeting in that exact same room, and I still had to turn in a couple of reports beforehand. So I walked the mile back to my office at a rather brisk pace and got what I needed to get done before packing up to head back to BDOC. This time, I made sure I brought something to drink with the hopes that it might also help to keep me awake.
By the time I wrapped up that second meeting, the days was slowly coming to a close. Of course, before I had a chance to head to dinner, another meeting just happened to pop up and I attended that one too. All in all, a good day though. I distributed yet another memo and got to follow up on a bunch of issues I'd been meaning to work on. Tomorrow, more of the same.
28 February 2005 1658z - These guys make it really hard on themselves sometimes. I had a bunch of stuff that I wanted to bring up to our higher at BDOC, but our guys screwed up a couple of things early on this morning. So by the time I showed up to meet up with our bosses, they were waiting in line to chew me out; so I figured that I would wait a few days until I asked for any favors or pushed any proposals. I guess part of it is my fault for not pushing things harder. When things go wrong, my current technique of choice is to talk it out and then I put information out in a memo and then reinforce it at the platoon meetings. With half a dozen platoons on rotating schedules, it's hard to meet up with everyone, so I don't.
I may have to change up techniques in a little bit though, as things aren't quite working as quickly as I would like. I mean, it's really easy to blow off a memo. Maybe I need to try out the new company motto and "Crush 'em!" When I got really loud that one time, I got a pretty immediate response, but I've always tried to avoid that. Being in the military, though, that seems to be what people tend to respond to. But oh well...maybe if I get chewed out enough, I'll start doing it myself...maybe even throw in a few colorful words here and there. Hehe...I really can't see myself doing that. Whenever I've cursed in the past, even I laugh at myself because it just doesn't sound right.
Oh well...I'll just have to psych myself up next time. Crush 'em! CRUSH 'EM!
27 February 2005 1712z - It was a good day today. After breakfast, one of my NCOs invited me to walk around to the towers with him just to talk to some of the soldiers. I was pretty tired but figured I needed to do it. I got a lot of good feedback from the walk though. It was funny how I tried to explain the new rotation schedule to all of the soldiers with questions. I said that I felt like President Bush going around to all of these places trying to sell his social security plan. I only hope that I made more sense.
Anyway, after that walk, I grabbed some chow and continued with the paperwork. With it being Sunday, we had our ODP again. There were a bunch of good discussion points, but more touchy feely stuff about leadership and whatnot. I volunteered to take next week's session though. I had an agenda picked out already, so I didn't mind. I was going to go over training for the upcoming year (TY '06) and see what we could plan while we were still here in country. It can't hurt, right?
Oh well...I've got a little more work to do before I head out of here, so I'll stop procrastinating now. Good night.
27 February 2005 0330z - So I'm washing my hands before heading into the DFAC to eat breakfast with First Sergeant, and I notice that there's a new Freedom Watch out. That's the weekly magazine that comes out with all of the exciting stories about people in Afghanistan...usually leaning toward the fluff side. It's unclass, so they don't really go into operations or anything like that. But yeah, flipping through the magazine, there was one article that stood out, and I checked to see if defenseLINK had already posted it online when I got back to the office. And it did. So if you want to read about the new kevlar protective vests they're issuing to the canine units over here, you can check it out.
Also, my sister has informed me that she is !dumb. I hadn't programmed in a long time, so I didn't catch the comp sci reference. Nerd!
26 February 2005 1812z - With it being Saturday, I treated myself at the end of the day and jumped on AIM for a little bit. I've been doing that more this last week as things are settling down to being 12-14 hour days now instead of 16-18. So yeah, I'm on AIM and two of my favorite students IMed me, updating me on all of the juicy gossip from back home. It's kinda cool. It's almost spring break, so they're making plans while getting their acceptance letters from colleges. Then after they get back from break, it's only a three month sprint until graduation. That's definitely one of those moments in your life that stands out...at least it was for me. I guess that fades with time though...when you get married and have kids, there's probably a lot more that fills up your memories.
Anyway, not in too much of a writing mood today. I mean, two meetings and the third was cancelled...so that was kinda nice. We're also going to give my schedule a shot in the near future here. We'll see how that goes. I think a lot of people are worried right now because it seems confusing. But I think it'll work out well in the end. I wouldn't have changed it if I didn't think so, right? Or would I? It's funny how soldiers think sometimes. One of them commented the other day how every new OIC that comes in tries to change the schedule. What's funny is that it's probably because the first thing they did when I showed up was complain about the schedule and how it needed to be fixed. And then when you fix the schedule, they're so afraid to change things that they complain about that too. You can't win sometimes, you know?
Anyway, not too much else going on. All of my sisters have been e-mailing me with this link telling me how dumb they are. I agree that they're dumb. I don't know how they fall for stuff like that. Only my brother and I got it, I guess...so that only confirms that I'm the smartest and the prettiest.
25 February 2005 1138z - So kids are cool. Now, I'm sure that I'd grow tired of them if I went out on patrols all the time, but I don't get that opportunity. So when the kids keep pestering you for a pen or a dollar or a mini-flashlight or chocolate, its still kinda cute to me. Oh and up here, they like to show off their heavy duty slingshots which they try to sell to you for a dollar or two as well. I wonder where they get their rubber bands for those because they look like they'd hurt. They must be an inch wide and maybe a quarter inch thick if you can believe that. But all of the kids have them. It's funny.
Anyway, I spent that last 5+ hours with one of the squads from B Company on a dismounted patrol. Counting the weapon, helmet, and body armor, I probably walked about ten miles with nearly 70 pounds of gear on my person or strapped on in some manner. I had a good time, but I have to admit that it felt good when we saw the tower by ECP1A at the end of the walk...even better when we saw the humvees that would drive us the remaining two miles back to camp.
But yeah, the patrol was relatively uneventful. In the past, the Army had paid locals a lot of money for turning in munitions, so a lot of the kids in the area are more than willing to run up to you once you step foot outside the wire and guide you to all of the places where they've found rockets or mortars or anything else that might bring them a few bucks. This first picture is of one of the kids that stuck it out with us for the first two or three hours. At one point, we pulled a security halt and got down on the ground behind our weapons. One of the guys looked like he was about to fall asleep leaning against his weapon, and the kid was making fun of him by pretending to fall asleep on my assault pack.
Then this other picture was taken when we pulled another quick security halt along the road. They've got junkyards like this one all over Afghanistan, filled with scraps of trucks and tanks and whatever else left over from the Russians. Anyway, the bunch of kids to the right of the picture kept on coming up to ask for chocolate, but I didn't have any. Without the interpreter - and even if I did have him with me - I think it would have been hard to explain why I didn't consume chocolate; so I just kept on saying no and waved them away until we finally stepped off.
The only other interesting to note is that a lot of people would come up to me and say, "cheen." It took me a little while to figure out what they were asking, but when they follow it up with "Japan" afterwards, it was pretty much a gimme. So yeah, I told them that my parents were from China and that seemed to make them happy. Then they would of course point to themselves and say Afghanistan. Of course I gave them a surprised look when they told me, but *whisper* I'd actually figured that out on my own.
That was pretty much it though. There's still a few hours of work left to do today, but I'm off to do some personal hygiene so that I don't offend too many people. Enjoy.
24 February 2005 1850z - I didn't accomplish all that much today, but I sat through a bunch of meetings. Is that worth something? About three hours in all. The rest of my day was relatively unproductive, but I did take some time to clean up my iTunes today, consolidating a bunch of music and whatnot. I had copied a lot of stuff onto my hard drive, but not onto my external because of power issues. But that problem should be fixed. After all, that was one of my new years resolutions.
Besides that, I had a chance to spend some time with my old platoon today. They were out back grilling for the whole battalion today, and they did a really good job. I had some chicken and some ribs, but I missed out on the corn, which I heard was very very good. I didn't get any of the steak either. But I think I'll be alright. I'm just tired right now, so off to bed.
23 February 2005 1650z - So...a little lazy today after the long night yesterday, but I got quite a bit accomplished today before collapsing. We had a meeting in the morning and another in the evening. They were actually pretty productive and not too long. Then I worked on a cheatsheet and sorted through a bunch of promotion packets. That was a lot of fun...kinda reminded me of grading tests back home. Yeah, but I got that done and I posted the secret web page that no one will ever look at and I just got around and circulated a little bit. I guess I could have done more, but I think it was a nice light day for me. I'll be back and charging tomorrow with the BUB and whatever paperwork ends up coming up.
Anyway, I don't have all that much to write about, but I am stumbling upon some pretty good military weblogs for those of you interested. Today, I found Jon Jivan, a specialist in Iraq. It's good stuff. Anyway, I probably won't be up for much longer tonight. The later I stay up, the more of an excuse I have for skipping PT in the morning. So enjoy and I'll hopefully have more to report tomorrow.
22 February 2005 1955z - Long day today. I finally got to brief my 30-hour day to the boss and he bought off on it. Unfortunately, it was too good to be true. When I sat down with it again, I noticed a very important flaw in my schedule that pretty much sunk the ship. But after about 6 hours of moping, I decided to do some algebra and voila. We're at a 28-hour day now...hehe. It's going to work this time. I swear! I'll pitch it to the boss before I present it to the senior leadership at the meeting tomorrow. I made a fancy course of action brief on powerpoint and everything. Oooh...
But yeah, way past my bedtime now. Today was fun though. I got a great start at the gym - abs and chest today. Then I learned a whole bunch about personnel stuff and promotion packets. Then I went to a couple of meetings. Well, now that I've said it out loud, it doesn't seem like it was a very exciting day. But I promise it was.
21 February 2005 1715z - So I took a quick nap after updating yesterday and spent the last six hours of the night shift in a tower with one of my cooks who just came home from leave. That was an interesting experience...only my second time up in the towers. The Daytona 500 was yesterday, I guess. I'm not big into NASCAR, but we have a lot of rednecks in the unit, so the updates came in over the radio throughout the night. At one point, the LT on the other end described an accident with Dale Jr (I think that's who it was, but I didn't catch all of itl.). He said that a bird flew in the window and it resulted in a big crash causing him to break all three ankles. Now, understandably, he wasn't a big NASCAR fan himself. But you should have heard the laughter in the guard shack when people started calling back asking if it was true or not. *whisper* he made it up, for those of you who didn't catch the three ankles comment.
Anyway, I spent a large part of the night asking the soldier with me about his time back home. He had a really good time, partying and whatnot. Plus, he had just had a kid like a month before we left the states, so he spent a lot of time with him. Anyway, at one point, I was asking him about all the things that had changed back home, like construction and whatnot. The first thing he told me? Yeah, my sisters will like this. He lives out by Leesburg, so he talked about how 28 had gotten all built up around the new Wegmans. Isn't that funny? I guess if you didn't know how crazy my sisters go over that place, it wouldn't make sense. But they talk about it all the time.
That's pretty much it though. I did get an e-mail or two from my brother today though. that was cool. I haven't really talked to him in a while. He seems to be doing alright with the girlfriend and whatnot. But yeah, family. I talked to my sisters tonight about beds and windows. Is it sad that that's what I want to spend my money on when I go home? I don't know. Maybe I'll go out and buy a motorcycle too. That seems like a very army thing to do. No, mom. I'm not serious.
20 February 2005 1616z - It's so nice to get e-mails. I mean, I rarely write people back...which is really really bad. So if people stopped writing me, I wouldn't blame them. But for those of you who continue to write, I do appreciate it. It definitely helps to pick up my day.
Yesterday, when I updated before going to bed, I didn't mention the 10K they were having here in Bagram. I didn't find out about it until yesterday when my first sergeant asked me to to run it with him. I said yes, but wasn't so confident about waking up for it, so I didn't say much. It ended up that I woke up for it and my first sergeant, who'd stayed up working late, wound up sleeping in. So there I was standing in front of my office at 0430 local time and I ran into some other fool who decided to get up for the 10K+ run. We walked down to the starting line together, telling each other how neither of us had been running at all for the last month or so. SGT P though...he's run a handful of marathons in the past, so it wasn't so big of a thing for him. For me, though, I've never really been a runner; so the 10K was quite a challenge.
Usually, I'm the kind of runner that darts out in front and then gets passed by everyone at the end. At least that's how most of our 2-mile PT test runs turn out. But today, I paced myself at the beginning and wound up finishing the 6.3-6.5 miles at just over 54 minutes. I know my boy Ermias back at Mt.Vernon would have finished in under 30, but I'm slowly getting back in shape. There's supposed to be another 10K around St.Patrick's day. It's being hosted by our medics, so I'll probably participate in that one.
Oh, but get this. I guess it's the thought that counts, but it was kind of a silly idea. Today's 10K was dedicated to Black History month. So at every mile marker, they had a board with an 8.5x11 sheet of paper with information about a prominent African American figure. Now, even if I wanted to read the page, it's 5:00 in the morning and the sun isn't up yet. And, two, I'm in the middle of a 10K race. So I don't know. That was my day though. Things got busy, so I couldn't pitch my 30-hour day solution to the boss. I ran it by a bunch of other PLs and soldiers though and they seemed to like the idea. Maybe tomorrow.
19 February 2005 1819z - I'm pretty excited right now as I feel like I've successfully thought outside the box. Take this situation. You've got a few hundred soldiers out here in Afghanistan pulling twelve hour shifts every day. Anyone doing that for seven months is bound to go crazy. I mean, twelve hours on, twelve hours off...you barely have any time to PT, shower, or study or whatever else without sacrificing sleep. There just isn't enough time in the day. So what can you do?
Enter naive Sonny, first lieutenant-type, one each. Hey, if a 24-hour day doesn't work, why not try a 30-hour day? That gives you eighteen hours off for every twelve on. Hmmm...sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? But I don't know. It might actually work. I don't know the whole physiology part behind how the body reacts to the day/night cycle, but it's worth a shot, right? I don't know. I'm pretty excited. I put together a little proposal tonight with the pros and cons of my plan. I ran it by an LT, a first sergeant, and a specialist so far. I can see the doubt and the reluctance to change, but I think I won them over. I just hope there isn't something I'm missing. Oh well...after I get some sleep, I'll pitch it to the big boss tomorrow and see what he thinks.
Besides that, today was one of those long, meeting-filled days. We started off with a leader meeting followed by a synchronization meeting followed by the standard BUB; and every now and then, I'd pop in my office to mess around with something. That was pretty much it...nothing too exciting. Oh, except for the haircut. That was nice. It's funny how little things like that can make your day.
18 February 2005 1841z - So I finally buckled down and sat in front of my computer to work on re-drafting the SOP today. I probably spent close to 10 hours on it today, and the near 30-page document is probably still far from perfect. My commander tore apart the last draft, kinda reminding me of all the stuff I used to scribble on my students' lab reports...except he didn't pull any punches. There were probably 200+ comments spread out throughout the beautifully laser-printed pages. Oh well, draft #2 is now done and, with some luck, I'll have a final by next weekend.
Besides that nonsense, it was the usual today. I had my normal reports that I turned in and I had three squares. I did get back in the gym this morning, so that was nice. The couple of females that used to hang out in the mornings have all but disappeared though. I'm guessing they probably RIPed out and went home. Or maybe they stopped seeing me in there, so they decided that it wasn't worth it to go to the gym any more. *cough* *cough* I didn't say that out loud. I had my POSH training. I know better.
I'd been joking around with first sergeant a little about leave. He's about to head back stateside in a little bit now and one of our soldiers was taking a trip to Australia. Both of those sound nice, but I'm just having too much fun here in Afghanistan. I mean, we've actually been able to see the sun these last few days. Wind chill has been down to the single digits this week, but that's nothing compared to what our guys are experiencing down in Ghazni with their three feet of snow and ice that melts and refreezes every night...or so the story goes whenever I get a chance to talk to any of the guys from downrange. They show up here and talk about how warm it is. I must be getting soft in my old age.
Yeah, besides that, I've been playing around a little bit on the internet today. I found a way to get around some of the filters, so I've been able to read through a wide variety of weblogs. You'll notice the additional links to the left. I don't know. It just makes me happy to read about other people going through similar experiences, you know? Anyway, it's past my bedtime. I'll have more tomorrow.
17 February 2005 1605z - So I've been slacking a little the last few days. I mean, I've been getting all of my work done. But I think I could have just accomplished more over the last few days. For instance, PT. Ever since that ruck march the other day, I've only really been working out every other day. I'll fix that. But it's spread a little to the other things as well. There's been one task that I've been reluctant to start on and I'd done a variety of other things to help me avoid it...mainly I've been covering down on a lot of small tasks to give me that immediate sense of accomplishment. So yeah, it's a good thing that I'm still getting things done; but I know it'll catch up to me in a day or two when I just have to have it done. It reminds me of being back at school and how I'd push off things like term papers and projects. It's the exact same thing. You'd think that by identifying the problem, it'd be easier to fix; but there are just some things that are hard to overcome. If I get some time, I think I'll pick up the Procrastinator's Handbook again.
As for the rest of today, not much going on. I am working on something though. It's a little late in the game, but I came up with a new new year's resolution the other day. I've resolved to increase my lactose tolerance. By the end of the year, I'm hoping to be able to drink three glasses a day without getting the bubble guts as some like to refer to it. But yeah, besides that, NSTR.
16 February 2005 1654z - A lot of stuff going on today. I'll talk about our meeting first. I was pretty nervous this morning as I knew I was supposed to be mean for a day. I actually drafted up a bunch of things that I wanted to say and I brought them with me to the gym. I put the piece of paper on the bookholder thingy on the stationary bike and recited things to myself as I biked for a few miles. Am I a tool or what? I don't know. I just don't have a lot of experience at being mean, and so it's hard work for me. By the time I came back from the gym, there was only about an hour left before the meeting. I jotted down a few other notes and then I was off. All in all, I think it went alright. I think I got my point across because a couple of guys came to me afterwards and talked about how they knew they'd been slacking off a little.
Anyway, that's all I'll say about that. Let's talk about grilled cheese sandwiches. Those are like the highlight of my day. On most days, the first thing in the serving line at dinner is a tray full of grilled cheese sandwiches. Now, when I was little, I used to make grilled cheese sandwiches, but never like these. These are 411 Calorie grilled cheese sandwiches, consisting of thick slices of swiss surrounded by two butter soaked pieces of bread grilled to a beautiful golden-brown. Mmmm...mmm... On many occasions, I'll take two. I know that's not good for me, but it tastes so good.
15 February 2005 1708z - So I've been spending most of tonight going over some notes for the leader meeting tomorrow morning. After about three weeks of taking everything in and trying to work issues, I think it's about time that I crush someone. I was hoping to avoid doing that, but that looks like my most viable option at this time. I don't do this much, so I've been going over things in my head, making sure I won't stumble and whatnot. I'll tell you how it turns out tomorrow.
Besides that, I started flipping through a bunch of military weblogs today and posted links to a few of them that I found useful. I tried to avoid the real political ones, as I really don't care so much about that stuff. I'm more interested in reading about real people and following along with their normal everyday lives. The tough part is that the network here blocks a large percentage of military blogs. I'm not quite sure why, but it does. Anyway, I need to rest up and my back is still sore from yesterday's ruck march. I'll have more for you tomorrow.
14 February 2005 2014z - Happy Valentine's day. Me, I'm all but dead right now. My date tonight was a 4-hour road march with my First Sergeant. I made the mistake of thinking I was more hooah than I actually was. So I ended up throwing everything in my ruck, including my pillow (a.k.a. 15 pound rock). All in all, counting ruck, body armor, kevlar, weapon, and ammunition, I was probably sitting between 80-100 pounds of extra weight for the seemingly 10+ mile trip. I really have no idea how far it was, but it seemed long. Plus the 30+ steps up to the top of each tower and the large stretches of mud and mud didn't help. Anyway, I think I sweated (is that a word?) off about 10 pounds on that trip; and if I weren't so tired, I'd actually take a shower; but I'm about to pass out right now as I type. I don't know how First Sergeant does it though. He's just less than twice my age, but he was smoking me the whole time. He's definitely a strong one...you can just see it in the eyes. I think he had a good time, reminding him of his old drill sergeant days and whatnot.
Anyway, that's all I have for now. Good night.
13 February 2005 1531z - So for the first time in many weeks, I pulled myself out from behind my desk and took a little trip outside the wire. It was about time. I'd forgotten how good it felt to get some fresh air and to interact with new people. Plus, it was somewhat relaxing not being in charge of things. One of the NCOs from 7th platoon ran the patrol, and I just sat in the back of the armored HMMWV...that is, until the shooting started. At one point, when we rolled into the village, I was shooting everybody: kids, adults, women, children. You name it. I'm serious; it was a real hoot. Hehe...actually, SGT Eley, the patrol leader, gave me the job as the photographer, so I was the only one doing any shooting today. I think that was his way of making sure that I stood out of his way during his patrol. I wouldn't blame him though. I know how officers can be sometimes.
Anyway, it was a good time, and I made it back home just in time for another great ODP with the rest of the officer team up here. Does it get any better than this? I can't possibly imagine how.
Oh well...I really don't have much else to talk about today, but I'll leave you with a couple of pictures to illustrate how bad it's gotten up here with the weeks of snow followed by melting. The first is the best shot I could get riding in the back of the HMMWV and the second is one of the patrol helping pull one of the local nationals out of a little mud pit. Enjoy.
12 February 2005 1931z - So I could have gotten some sleep tonight, but I decided to waste the night away again. Well, it's not exactly a waste. I spent the last 6+ hours or so working on the Bravo Company web page. The only down side to it is that it will be posted on a secret server...which means that only two people in the world will ever read it. It's really pretty though. Doesn't that mean anything?
Anyway, besides that, I sat through three different 45-minute meetings today and turned in the usual reports. All in all, a pretty productive day. I'll do some real work tomorrow though...though I may decide to go out on a mission to avoid sitting through the ODP. Of course, Roo is giving the presentation tomorrow, so I'm not sure if I'll want to miss that. But yeah, less than five hours left before wake-up, so I'll wrap up. Hope all is well back home.
11 February 2005 1711z - A lot of interesting stuff going on today. I know it probably wasn't the most productive on paper, but I feel like I got a lot done. On the surface, I skipped out on PT this morning. I just stayed up too late last night and couldn't get myself to crawl out of bed. It's different when you don't have a platoon outside, smiling and waiting on you. When you're working out on your own, it can get a little lonely. I know...I'm showing a little more of my sensitive side today.
Speaking of which...I had some good conversations with my commander these last few days. Yesterday, after formation, we stepped off to the side and he asked me, "how do you crush someone?" It seemed like an odd question. I didn't know what he meant at first, but I eventually got it. When someone needs to be put in their place, how do I do it? It was always something I've recognized as one of my weaknesses. Most of my soldiers know this already, and my students in class know this all too well. It's always been a challenge for me to be mean. I've always tried to be diplomatic and non-confrontational. But yeah, that was a good question. In the past, I've always used my platoon sergeant to do the crushing for me. I think I've only really yelled at two of my subordinate soldiers in my four years as an officer. That's not a lot. I've done my share of counseling though. But that's not the same, you know? There are some people you can just talk it over with and get results. But with some people, you just need to crush them, as the CO puts it.
Anyway, that was my day. I cut my hair, took out the trash, and turned in my laundry too. I'm starting to eat less too. I don't know if that's because the novelty of the food had worn off or because I feel guilty for not PTing or some other reason. Bu yeah, that's pretty much it. I'll have more to write about tomorrow, I'm sure.
11 February 2005 0214z - It's been snowing every day for the last week or two up here in Bagram; but it's gotten so warm every day that all of it just turns into puddles of mud and slush and water. So when I woke up to do my number one this morning, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the three or four inches of snow softly crunching beneath my boots. It's those little things in life that make a world of difference.
Besides that, I got my AIM and Outlook running yesterday finally, so that took a bit of my time in the evening. It took a few hours to file my 1000+ e-mails that I was finally able to pull off of my AKO server. I was so excited. I made folders for my e-mails from military contacts, family, and friends. And then I made subfolders. Oh, it was exciting. Can you believe I'm saying this? I'm here in the middle of Afghanistan and the thing I get most excited about writing about is sorting old e-mail. When did I become a desk jockey?
Oh well. I'd tell you about the rest of my day, but it was pretty much identical to the day before and the day before that. I did spend a bit of time drafting up the new SOP though. That's always fun (not really). But it is necessary. There are a few practices that I'd like to change around here, so we'll see how well that goes. Until next time...
09 February 2005 1207z - So my commander noticed this today. I hadn't even realized it myself; but every time I talk to him, he ends up coming up with an additional tasking for me. If he keeps this up, I'm going to have to start hiding from him. I've been feeling pretty good these last few days though, as I've been catching up on a lot of things on my to-do list. Well, catching up probably isn't the right way to put it because I seem to pick up two tasks for every one that I finish. But I have been knocking out a lot of things I've been procrastinating on, like random memos and e-mails and whatnot.
I got back into my PT routine this morning after taking the last two mornings off. It took a little while to catch up on sleep after taking that shift in the tower and then having to do all of my normal work on top of it. I slept in an extra hour or so yesterday instead of going to the gym, but I figured it was time that I gave myself a little break. I'd been going balls to the wall for the last two weeks now and was in danger of burning out if I didn't let up a little. To help relax, I've started playing some music in my office while I'm working. Sometimes, it can be distracting, but it helps to pass the time. And unless I can make myself go to bed earlier, I may have to start implementing a nap time. Right around lunch time every afternoon, I can feel myself getting sleepy and so I'll get up and wander around a little, going over to the TOC, the S4 office, the guard shack, or the Support Platoon office to find out the scoop on everything. Once I can get myself caught up and ahead a little, I can start working on my Army correspondence coursework to fill in that time. With only five months left, I'd be a fool not to take advantage of the opportunity up here.
Anyway, I've got a minor case of writer's block today. So instead of continuing on with today's boring entry, I'll get back to work.