New Digs

Life here is steadily improving. Our work building is complete and we moved in so now I don’t have everyone in my office right behind me looking at what I am doing. Soon enough we will have real office furniture too but until then we will have to use our desks that double as flip cup tables.

After 5 weeks of living out in the open, I now have my own living space that is sectioned off from the rest of the tent. It is amazing that spending $20 with AAFES will give you enough material to complete enclose a living space and a rug. I would love to know what their profit margins are.

Before I deployed, I actually felt sympathy for active duty military members because they do not get paid very much. Then I learned about all the extras that they are provided with. They have one sweet deal. You won’t get rich but you are definitely not poor. I have been shocked to find out how many of these Marines spend an inordinate amount of money on cars. The vast majority of them drive brand new cars. Now we are not talking about a Chevy or Ford. They have BMWs, Lexus’, Cadillac, Lincoln, etc… On a side note, they also all rent houses or apartments and don’t really have a savings to speak of. I tried to explain that when they buy a nice car like that and then spend an additional 10 to 15 thousand dollars on it in upgrades and add-on’s, they are literally throwing money away. That advice fell on deaf ears.

We were close to having a sandstorm all week. I woke up each morning and made my way over to the head and it was a bit nippy outside and it looked like there was fog everywhere. The fog was really sand blowing everywhere. Unfortunately the wind never kicked up enough to cause a sandstorm but visibility has been down to about 50 yards all week.

I have known for quite some time that I am a difficult person to live with (ask Jess, Chris, Brad and Andy) but I think I have tried to always be courteous. One of the individuals in my tent is less than courteous and I felt the need to tell him that. Now this individual is a Navy Chief and he has 26 years in the Navy. Basically he is middle management and he is kind of bitter about it because he is at the end of his career. Now Chief thought it would be a good idea to put his hands on my stuff and move it without my knowledge. Anyone who knows me would know that this is not a good idea. Chief dodged me for the better part of a day and then finally I found him. Chief tried to tell me how he was right and I was wrong but rather quickly into the conversation I unleashed on him. Needless to say, he hasn’t talked to me since that conversation, he hasn’t touched anything that is mine and he conceded that he was in the wrong to everyone but me. Chief really didn’t like it when I pointed out to him that everyone in the tent outranks him but one person. I guess, there is something about a 26 year old outranking him that really got his blood pressure up.

One of the unique things about being out here is that I share my tent with a guy named Richard, Jim and Eric. That is unique to me because my grandfathers name is Richard, my father’s name was Jim and my brother’s name is Eric. Even more ironic, I am currently working with a guy from Columbus, a girl from Grosse Point Farms and a guy from the metro Detroit area. That is unique because I live in Columbus, my aunt and uncle live in Grosse Point Farms, and I am from the metro Detroit area (ok…so it is way metro but it counts). Being all the way across the world in a third world country is odd but to have people around that I can talk to about home (all the places that I have lived) is truly unique.

Tax Dollars

I was able to post more pictures. As I said before it is a tedious process so I have to upload them in small increments. Last time I uploaded them on Facebook, I lost my internet connection and had to start over. Yes, this is how your tax dollars are being spent.

There are all sorts of idiosyncrasies here that you have to get used to. For example, we have a bunch of DOD contractors on base and they are charged with completing various tasks. Most of the contractors on base are merely here for supervisory purposes because we hire TCNs for everything else. I found this odd because all you hear about on the news is that Defense Contractors are creating jobs during this down economy. If they were to replace half of the TCNs with American citizens, unemployment would drop at least a half of a percent. I am sure the parent company is making money hand over fist but the rest of our tax dollars are going to other countries. I am sure we are paying them a great wage compared to what they can get at home but it is less than minimum wage. I wonder what our Democratic leaders have to say about that.

As you can see from the picture above, DLA (Defense Logistics Agency) provides us with transportation while we are here. Needless to say, it is a POS but it gets us around. To rent this lovely vehicle, DLA pays $1100 per month! To make matters more complicated, the company that rents us vehicles is owned by an Afghani warlord. So to sum it up, NATO is here to stop insurgents from being insurgents and yet we are providing them with a lot of money so that we can rent their vehicles. Now I am not a politician or a military strategist but something about providing the enemy money just doesn’t sound right with me.

There are literally thousands of Hummers on this base that are sitting in a huge parking lot waiting to be shipped home because the Marines are not allowed to drive them outside the wire. This is because a Hummer can withstand an IED blast about as well as Paris Hilton holds up in jail, not very well. Now it would make sense to let everyone on the base drive these Hummers so that we are not renting vehicles from Afghani warlords. Instead we are just waiting to ship them home. More of our tax dollars well spent.

The water over here is a little suspect so the DOD purchases a phenomenal amount of bottled water. Imagine using a bottle of water for everything you do with water (except shower). That is what it is like here. I go through at least 12 a day. Now multiply that by the thousands of Marines that are here. Yeah that is a lot of water. I am surprised that a better system doesn’t exist.

Things happen here that don’t in the US or basically every civilized country. I am convinced that if I ever get cancer, this deployment will be why. We burn everything here. If it is garbage or waste, we burn it. Now the burn pit is not located off the base, it is on the southern edge of the base. That means when they light up the burn pit, we all smell it, breathe it and feel it. When you are around a camp fire, ash falls on you. Now imagine that you are burning “waste” and it falls on you. Yeah, that is disgusting. Sadly you actually start to get used to the smell after a bit. Not always though.

Our new work building is officially complete and we are just waiting on the inspection. Hopefully we will move in on Monday or Tuesday. It is going to be nice to have some sort of privacy. I chuckle everyday because the people around me do not have a security clearance and yet I have to look at classified stuff every day and my computer is in plain sight of everyone.

I have been doing two a days at the gym and that has helped make time go faster. Hopefully it continues to fly.

I am still plowing through the DVDs that I brought and I may have overestimated how many I would need over here. An ironic thing about the government is that they prosecute individuals for sharing music and movie files but yet every Marine on this base has an external hard drive full of those items and they share it with anyone who asks. I started with about 3,000 songs when I got here and now I have about 17,000 songs. That would be one heck of a lawsuit.

Normalcy

I finally uploaded some pictures onto Facebook. I had to do it a backdoor way but that just makes it all that much better (for the record I was going to say funner there but that isn’t a word).

I made the mistake of working out with Sgt Cuellar (Quay-ar) here and I was feeling the after effects for several days after. For some strange reason I am actually considering going back tonight for another round. I eat dinner and play basketball with Sgt Cuellar so he finally convinced me that working out with him would be beneficial to me. I didn’t realize until after I agreed to the workout that Marines can be pretty sadistic.

I am finally getting into a routine here and I actually have more time for sleep now, not that I get the sleep but I have the time for it.

Being here means that my reality and concept of normal has to change or else I will most likely lose my mind. When I am home the idea of normal is to wake up, shower, get dressed, go to work, come home and hang out with the family, eat, play and sleep. Here it isn’t all the different except for the hanging out with family part. The differences are in the details.

Sleep requires you to filter out sounds of 9 other people in the tent, helicopters landing to drop the Bahraini soldiers off at their complex right next to us and blocking out every spring in the mattress because they are all poking you.

Showering requires wearing shower shoes, taking Navy showers, being naked in front of 8 to 12 other guys, and then putting on flip flops to walk the 300 yards back to your tent. By the time you get back you are almost as dirty and as sweating as when you started the process. This doesn’t even touch the concept of not flushing a toilet and being used to it.

Brushing your teeth requires a bottle of water because you don’t want to chance using the local water. If you do, you may get some Afghani revenge.

Going to work involves walking in the moon dust and getting there covered in a fine dust that isn’t quite sand but it isn’t dust either. Every step brings a cloud of red grime right under you.

Coming home typically involves driving over a “speed bump” that is really just the track of a tank that has been taken off, chopped up and laid in the middle of the dirt path.

Eating involves shuffling around with 300 Marines, civilians and contractors for the same food that you had last week only to realize that nothing changed from the week before.

The concept of play and free time is similar except that each and every one of use has the mouth of a sailor and occasional wrestling matches break out from nowhere.

Repeat.

So if you don’t get used to the fact that you can’t take a 15 minute shower and drink the water or that you can’t just decide to order Chinese for dinner, you will literally drive yourself crazy. In the month that I have been here I have seen it. People who refuse to adjust to what is now normal. Those people are miserable and occasionally try to force the military to send them home via a failed suicide attempt. I have seen two such occasions since I have been here.

I now understand why people may have difficultly going home or leaving this. I didn’t before but I do now. When you spend enough time here, you will lose your concept of what normal is and how you should act as a regular part of society. I have met people here who have been deployed since Bosnia. For those of you who don’t know, that is a very long time.

Thankfully I am only here for 6 months and I think Jessica would divorce me if I stopped flushing the toilet.

Speech Therapist

The Marine Corps is badly in need of a speech therapist.

You must wonder why I would mention it. The title Sergeant is widely used in the Marine Corps and the Army for enlisted members. In the civilian, world people will commonly abbreviate it as Sarge. This is a big faux pa in the military and a huge sign of disrespect. I could handle that part.

The part that I find absurd is that no one actually annunciates the word sergeant. In the Marine Corps you have Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Gunnery Sergeant, Master Sergeant and Master Gunnery Sergeant. That means that there is a large portion of Marines that have these titles and there is an even larger number of subordinates that are required to address them by their rank. It is not only accepted but it is encouraged. For instance, Master Sergeant is commonly referenced by uttering “Ma Sagent.” That is enough to drive someone insane if heard enough.

I was informed today that one of the officers that I work with was briefing the Commanding General of Leatherneck and somehow my area of operations came up and then my name came up. While I am flattered that the CG knows who I am, I could also do without the high visibility with important people. There is way too much of my job that is outside of my control so if I look good or bad depends on a lot of other people and that is a lot of variation for a high visibility profile.

I finally got WIFI access on base and the signal is about as useful as a box of rocks. I also have boxes of rocks if you like those. The problem is that there is so much metal on base that it interferes with the signal. We have barriers all over base that are called T-Walls. They are just like medians in the middle of the freeway but much bigger. They are between 8 and 16 feet tall. These T-Walls have metal lining the inside of them to give them stability (they are supposed to help people survive explosives detonating in close proximity). With that being said, I still have found a couple of spots on base that I can get a signal but they are nowhere close.

Before I came to Leatherneck I thought I didn’t have modesty. I mean I am the sort who will freely moon anyone that comes by, will break a bed with his mother-in-law and has no filter when speaking. Leatherneck has shown me just how modest I am. Guys here will walk around naked without a thought in the world. For a military that has a don’t ask, don’t tell policy…you just have to wonder.

Most people here use chewing tobacco which on the nastiness scale is right above being a mortician. There are spit bottles everywhere and it is slightly amusing when the Marines grab the wrong bottle. Disgusting yes, amusing definitely.

Since I have been here I have walked in on Marines literally measuring their muscles and wrestling just to see who can take the other one down but I have learned something about Marines. Marines fall into two different categories, grunt and POGs. Grunts are the Marines that fit the stereotype of Jarhead or whatever other nomenclature that you would like to ascribe to them. POGs are “people other than grunts” which is basically everyone who provides support services and administrative functions for the grunts. I work with POGs but we get grunts that come in everyday and it is our goal to screw with them to see just how many lights are on upstairs. Today we had a grunt going on for 10 solid minutes before we had to give in and tell him that we were just messing with him. There is a benefit to everyone carrying a weapon around here because no one wants to be the first one to use it.

See the 2nd amendment is a good thing, just ask the locals.

One Month Down

I will never grasp the concept of time creeping slowly but moving fast. I have been gone for a month now and every day seems long but yet it has been a month and it barely feels like I left.

Today a couple of Marines left the SMU to go to a nearby base to set up supply operations. The Sergeant that I was talking to has been here two weeks and we have become friends. He told me that every time a convoy leaves Leatherneck and goes to this particular base, they get attacked. He told me that it is always a combination of IEDs and insurgent snipers. The past three have had some negative results for the Marines here. I asked him why he was going on the convoy instead of flying. The Sergeant told me that it was the only way to make sure that the supply items were going to get to where they needed to be. He didn’t even bat an eye at the fact that he knew within the next 72 hours he was going to be attacked. If it even fazed him that he may not be alive to see the end of next week, I will never know. It was a sobering moment. He is supposed to call me when he gets there so I can send more stuff his way. I pray that he does.

I turned down my real living quarters. The living space came with a bunch of ruled that I would rather do without and I declined the offer. I actually like my tent and everything it has to offer.

I have made my way over to the flight line several times since I have been here and I could sit all day and watch planes and helicopters come and go. You can always tell how things went on the mission based on how fast they are coming in. Most times it is easy going but at least once a day it is not and that is when that hard lump forms in your throat because you know something went wrong. Thankfully we haven’t had River City in over a week. River City is when communication goes down base wide because of a Marine death.

A generous donation was made to AAFES (the PX which means the store on base) on behalf of the Holstine Family for a new iPod touch. I wonder if I can write that off as a business expense. After a week without it, I thought I was going to go crazy. I never realized how much I enjoy listening to music while I work. Especially since my work can be very boring work that a trained monkey could do with the correct coloring of some buttons and a banana dispenser as a reward. For those psych majors that is called conditioning.

This week I played basketball with the Marines twice and I played decently. The first time we played there were 10 enlisted Marines, 1 officer and me. Well not one of the enlisted Marines wanted to guard the officer so somehow they thought I was qualified. The enlisted Marines especially liked it when I started talking trash to the officer while we were playing. The officer actually said he enjoyed playing with a civilian because it adds a new element and it brings a change of pace. Let’s just say this wasn’t the first time on this trip that I made an officer operate outside of the established military element. It won’t be the last either.

Another gift made its way into my possession via the USMC. This one I can’t discuss but it is similar to the first….but very different. There are benefits to working in the supply field. We get first crack at all the good stuff :)

I forgot what it was like to come in when the sun is coming up and leave when it is going down. I have no idea how I did this in college. It has been 30 days straight of 12 hour days and the days truly do blend together. I actually look forward to sleep more than anything.

I went over to the Danes PX and made a purchase for myself and my father-in-law…now I just have to figure out a way to ship them home so that the package actually makes it to its destination. Hopefully the US embargo with a tiny island country to our south will end one day so I don’t have to tread carefully through the system.

It has been very eye opening to read headlines versus what actually happens. I think I have lost faith in the news media in all forms. Yes Fox News, even you too. We get a paper called Stars and Stripes on base every day (it is typically a day or two behind) and when I read articles about what is supposedly going on in Afghanistan, I am utterly shocked. It is glaringly apparent that news nowadays is more commentary and speculation than actual news. Let me just clarify something for you, the way we are building on this base and over at Camp Bastion (the Brits), there is absolutely no way that we are leaving anytime soon. All the politicians and the voters can take that to the bank. If you have a plan to withdraw in a relatively short time frame, you don’t build real buildings or pour 12 inch thick foundations or keep making plans to expand the base. Those are just the things I can actually report while keeping my job.