Interpreters

It makes you wonder how military and governance operations overseas costing Billions of dollars, can hinge on the education and passion of a young local national.  The vast majority of interpreters helping the coalition are not pedigreed academics, but rather local young folks with a High School education and knows basic English.  They bring not only a translation of the language, but are the MoDA’s primary tool for understanding cultural implications, assessing the vibe of the setting and of course providing any INTEL of the folks you are meeting with. 

Afghanistan is a High Context setting.  Everything from the spoken word to body language is nuanced.  Teasing out the real message is difficult and the Interpreter (IT) is key.  These kids take tremendous risk doing what they do.  They gather outside the fence line to await us, all the while likely being watched by Taliban sympathizers.  We spent a few sessions getting to understand how to work with a translator, how to send signals and how best to influence the pace.  Fatah grew up in Afghanistan, survived the Soviets, Civil War and the Taliban.  Fatah is savvy and has since immigrated to the US to pursue a life free of war.  

Fatah and the others teach us to show just how much they appreciate the contributions we are making for the future of the Afghan people.  But Yoda John reminds us that they have a job to do and you must always test them.  Your success depends on their dedication and competency.  We have to establish a real partnership with them and should be part of our planning before we meet with host nationals.  In a culture of honor, respect and competency, understanding nuance is key. 

Fatah is also our cultural lead, teaching us basic language skills, cultural and religious norms and some history.  These are good guys.

I hope mine are half as good

The Angry Commander

After lunch one day we were told not to go anywhere.  Clearly something was up.  We were quickly put in teams of five and given a scenario to review for ten minutes.  Shady things had gone in at a distant Police Station and we MoDAs were to visit with the Police Chief to assess the situation and report back.  Our group huddled, arriving at three topics we wanted to discuss with the chief and see how it went from there.  The interpreter assigned to us had no INTEL in the police chief, so we were going in cold.  I was assigned as the team lead on the ride over to the Police HQ. 

We arrived to uniformed Afghan guards all about the front of the HQ nestled deep in rubble of Simville.  Suddenly this was starting to get real.  We said our pleasantries to the guards and staff as is customary, then quickly huddled again in the lobby to review our plan.  Every once in a while you could hear yelling from the basement below which was unnerving.  “The Chief of Police will see you now” said the aid after only a few minutes.  We made our way down the hall and into a rather small office.  First mistake, our Interpreter was on the wrong side and I was not in the middle facing the Chief. A few more pleasantries, which went well, then the Chai-boy came in to serve us all.  More pleasantries and it looked like we were getting into a rhythm, when the chief began laying out his grievances and concerns.  I tried to temper his concerns by relating how over time things will mellow, like a wine.   Mistake #2, I mentioned alcohol to an Islamic man who I do not have an established relationship.  Mistake #3, we didn’t make our sentences short so our interpreter got confused. 

Then, in walks the border Guard Commander, a tall and focused man.  After a few more pleasantries, he begins railing in on us about training for his men, the poor condition of his weapons, slow pay and the US commitment to Afghanistan.  This was hard, but I knew if I just let him vent a bit, then there would be a pause where we could get down to specifics.  All of a sudden the Commander gets up, walks to the corner and reached for his Kalashnikov rifle.  None of us moved and he calmed down after a bit.  Fred pushed back on the Commander with veiled accusations about his equipment bill and what happen to all the gear he was authorized.  We had entered into honor and face saving territory and things could go “sideways” pretty quick.  “I sold it to the Pakistanis” he blurted out wryly.  We got out a few more sentences before one of our team leaned forward and requested that we all summarize what was said.  Slam…..our door had been shut by our own teammate.  We had nothing more to do or say, so we politely got up and exchanged handshakes and hugs as a gesture of goodwill before we left for the debrief.  The surprise scenario was over and from where I stood, we accomplished little. 

At debrief, we talked with the instructors who were observing us.  Mistakes, 1, 2 and 3, check!, Butting in on the team lead and shutting down communications, check!  Overall they said we did ok.  An Air Force observer went high order on us for allowing the Commander to reach for a loaded weapon.  I guess its all in optics.  The commander did grab the weapon, but in the middle and held it out to demonstrate his point.   That said, the Colonel was right, this stuff could go sideways pretty quick. 

For me, the session was a letdown, but one to learn from.  The US was not well represented at that meeting and if this was real, we would probably not ever be invited back to see the Chief.  Dealing with different cultures, especially a warrior one is tough.  The real world is gonna be much tougher than Simville. 

Slow Motion……and counting

Qualifying day.  I was part of the seven candidates who made up the first string of shooters while the others huddled in the woods for their turn.  Unlike practice, qualifying goes by pretty fast. The script was simple, ten shots each in the standing, crouching, kneeling and prone positions for a total of 40.  By the way, did I mention we had only fired five shots in each of the kneeling and prone positions before today?  There was to be no breaks in between shooting positions to inspect the target or help from the instructors. All you needed was 24 in the black. 

There was a palpable sense of dread for a few of us. We were given instructions, but I was clearing my head trying to find my happy place, but all that kept whirring in my head was Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself”.  I’m doomed.   “Shooters, move to the line, put on your protective eyewear and hearing protection, and then proceed to load your first 10 round magazine.  When ready, commence firing.”  This was it.  I removed my glasses and put on the clear eye protectors.  A quick look down range verified that indeed my paper victim was a blurry black mess, but my sights were clear.  I must have stopped my ballet every second shot to reset as things weren’t quite right.  Breath in, raise the gun, align the sights as you exhale, when the breathing stops, hold, and squeeze….. It was all so slow and surreal.  Billy Idol had left my head, only to be replaced by the sounds of my heart thumping.  In between positions, I stopped to relax, then on again. 

Finally, it was over.  I safed the weapon, collected my brass and waited behind the line for everyone else to finish.  It was hot, but my sweat-covered shirts was from the stress.  “Shooters, you may now proceed to the target zone to inspect the results with your instructors.”  This was the slowest walk ever. 

 With Sharpie in hand, the instructor began to highlight the holes, as we both counted (this was official you know), one…two….three….. When he got to twenty, and there were still a lot more holes in the black, I stepped back and began waiving my arms.  I didn’t want to yell, as maybe my fellow teammates may not have done as well.  But there it was; 34 of 40 shots in the Black.  My gamble paid off.  Classmates in the woods, who knew of my gamble were cheering. 

The monkey was off my back but remained for three others.  Two of them later qualified as well.  Now back to learning how to be an advisor. 

 

24 in the Black

Of all the lessons here, qualifying with the M-9 has caused the most stress for me and many others.  The Government has asked for volunteers with over twenty years of experience in their field to deploy to a far off land for a year.  One should expect a few medical imperfections for folks over 45, and for those without military experience, their skills with weapons to be limited. 

But alas, the machine has set standards that must be met.  Recruits must qualify on their M-9 lest they not deploy.  The criteria is 10 shots each from four shooting positions at a black silhouette 25 meters away.  To qualify, you need to get 24 total in the black.  MoDAs are going to be “outside the wire” on occasion either walking or driving themselves and other advisors to their destinations.  Given the drawdown, MoDAs are now each other’s guardian angles.  A sobering fact since only half the class has a military background.  So I guess having us up to some common standard makes sense. 

The first day on the range was pretty chilly and it rained.  Shivering and holding a weapon is never easy, but I shot 20 of 40 that day.  Not bad I thought as I only needed a little bit of polishing.  The second day was sunny and warm, a good shooting day I thought until I got 30% on the board, and then on the third day I went down to 20%.  I was filled with angst thinking I would not deploy for lack of a few holes in a large poster.  I now had the demonstrated skills of novice and it got into my head. I would have had better luck throwing the pistol downrange.  

The instructors did what they could telling me to change this and that; hips in, out, toes in, out, grip hard, soft but it didn’t change a thing.  I began to think someone had given me the evil eye and that maybe a call to mom would purge the spirits away.  My roommate is a Marine Reservist, a real focused and pleasant guy to be around.  I make him laugh often to compensate for my snoring and he answers my endless questions about military life.  When Fred shoots, he stands quietly at the ready, raises his weapon and comfortably puts 28 of 40 rounds into an 8X8 inch sheet of paper stapled in the middle of the silhouette, with the rest just outside.  This is a good Guardian Angel.  He senses my frustration as do the instructors since the next afternoon was reserved for qualifying, and tried to calm me down by making fun of the Air Force folks. 

My mind was not on classwork they next morning as I thought hard about how to fix this.  During class breaks I went outside and mentally walked through the marksmanship ballet with my cellphone in my hand turned on edge aimed at a stick I had planted in the grass.  On the third break, only a couple of hours before going to the range, it came to me. The sights were not as crisp as could be and maybe, just maybe, if I removed my glasses, I could focus near, and aim for the blur down range.  I was going to take a gamble and qualify without my glasses on. 

There was no other option. Victory or go home. Aim small…miss small…..aim small……miss small I murmured as I practiced my breathing in the back seat of the van.

Process over Product

When I left the Pentagon for this assignment, I thought I left behind the myriad of process tools, measures and controls used to manage this behemoth of a business.  There are folks out there who specialize in process mapping, planning, task tracking and metrics and make a good living at it.  They no doubt go home at night exhausted from turning the process crank, regardless of whether any product comes out. 

But I was mistaken, today we had an hour and a half lecture on the Functionally-Based Security Force Assistance effort (really important and well thought out) along with a conference call with the troll over in Afghanistan tasked with nurturing their version of the ultimate planning, processing and tracking tool supporting it called the PoAM.  Essentially, process trolls thought of actions to get done and milestones that needed to be met (get a plan developed, and get it approved by…..) in a number of functional areas; procurement, logistics, education, law enforcement, etc. (No doubt without Afghan input).   Some General approved it and now the NATO/US forces are busy turning the crank (as the Afghans eagerly watch). 

The theory of course is that once all this stuff is done, per the metrics, on the schedule we laid out and within resources, then Afghanistan becomes an official Happy Place.  The fallacy of course is that for any work, you can be either schedule driven or event driven but rarely both…….except in Afghanistan with our POAM. 

There are many milestone marker “Taco Chips” on the tracking charts, but strangely the chips are all equally spaced about 4-6 months apart, and by some miracle they all line up at the end 18 months from now when we are scheduled to leave.  Clearly, the process trolls never told the General that the Afghan’s don’t work that way. 

I guess my job will be to ensure progress continues in my lane so that my taco chip doesn’t shift to the right from its preordained place which will violate the “Happy Afghanistan” objective.  As in the Pentagon, my job will be to prioritize the work left to do, cut non-value added actions off the list, meet the milestones, so everyone can put pretty bows around all this as we wave goodbye. 

Afghanistan and the Pentagon may be seven thousand miles apart, but process over product is universal.

A Good Advisor

Two professionals from the US Institute of Peace (yes, we do have one of those), spent a few days teaching us the fine art of advising in conflict zones.  Natacha and Arianna are the antithesis of most of the instructors until now, but regardless of their softer demeanor, they are very good at what they do having been to some scary places around the world with little to no protection.  We certainly can learn something from the mere fact that they have been doing this type of work for many years and are here today, alive and well. 

We will evolve from being seasoned practitioners to supporting and advising our partners.  You cant go in feeling superior to our hosts, no matter how many wheelbarrows of money we haul in.  We have to look at enabling lasting solutions to their capacity building problems from where they are, not as we want it to be. 

An advisor can assist, but not command; have expertise, but not the last word; cooperate with other players and be a trusting partner.  Its all about your credibility and their perception of your value to them. 

The Afghans are masters at reading you.  If you lose their trust, you might as well go home.

Marksmanship

I admire things that made and destroyed empires.  Though designed for a deadly purpose, to me they are just tools.  But unlike most tools, our pistol will only be used in dire, high-stress situations, so muscle memory is key to using them, which means practice, practice, practice. 

Unlike the fun we had with the SEALs clearing rooms and getting out of hairy situations, we are now in the zen-like world of marksmanship.   Unless you can get a “round down range” effectively, the M-9 is just jewelry on your hip; though pretty cool looking jewelry. 

The shooting range is carved into an embankment safely tucked away in the woods.  Clean and neat, it’s the physical manifestation of safety and control. Our instructors tell us to file away all that SEAL Pete stuff and learn this critical, yet slower paced, skill.  We spend hours learning how to relax and mentally walk through the steps to putting holes on a paper 25 yards away. 

Assume your stance.  Feet at shoulder distance apart, toes toward the target.  Cleared gun in your shooting hand, barrel down range, magazine in, release the slide, safety off, hammer back, trigger finger off the trigger, support hand in place, breathe in through the nose, hold, slowly exhale through the mouth as you bring the weapon up to the aim point, align the sights to themselves, take out the slack in the trigger, align the sights to the fuzzy target far away, hold breath, and slowly squeeze the trigger.   Its almost magical when you get it right.  Not quite sure the enemy will wait while I do this ballet, but I digress. 

For most of us though, it’s the beginning of an endless series of adjustments, peppered with a few choice words.  I’m aiming for the center mass and when I do hit the paper it’s on the shadow man’s lower right hip. Hmmmmm, I think of myself as a decent shot when I go out plinking, but given my performance here, I might as well throw the M-9 at shadow man.   We have 150 rounds to shoot before we go qualify a few days from now. 

You don’t qualify, you don’t deploy.  Suddenly this is not very zen-like.

 

Yoda John

Our most senior instructor is a man named John Gillette.  He is an “original MoDA” and at 70 years old, he is our Yoda with vast experience, insight and clout here in the US and over there.  He is the personal Advisor to the most senior Afghan military ranks. John is an experienced Army officer, now retired.  He looks like your kindly uncle, with a pleasant voice, a good smile and laughs often. 

Yoda John leads discussions on what it means to be a MoDA at times, but mostly sits off to the sides taking notes on our performance.  At night he does the hot wash-ups teasing out what went well that day, and what needs work.    What sets him apart is his keen ability to make friends, collaborate and advise. He wears no body armor when he goes outside the wire.  His likeability and ability to read people are both his armor and weapons. 

John doles out advice every day that I try hard to capture.  Your relationship with your Afghan Ministry partner is everything, he belts out.  Nurture it then do something with it.  You are his executive coach and his peer.  95% of the Afghans want us there and want a good life.  Yoda John has many pearls, and my notebooks are filled with them.

-          In anything, the folks with the most invested win.

-          When in Afghanistan, you will be playing ten dimensional chess.  Its not for the weak. 

-          Do your homework, get the plan straight in your head before you go see your counterpart.

-          They are always sizing you up.  Strategize and act accordingly

-          You must understand your counterpart’s capacity 

-          Your body language must match your words.  

-          Don’t confuse deference with agreement.

-          Keep your head in the game at all times.

-          You have to sell the product, not the staff

-          Bring little gifts, and lots of them.

-          Avoid melons and tomatoes.

Pioneers and Builders

They want us to understand how we approach tasks.  Of course we know who we are, whether we want to fully admit it or not. The latest craze is understanding whether you are a Pioneer or a Builder.  Pioneers approach tasks as visionaries, taking risks into the unknown.  Precision is relative and success can take many forms.  Builders approach the task through careful thought and incrementally improve the process or system to get there.  Seems reasonable to me. 

After my 10 minute survey, I have been diagnosed as a “Mild” Pioneer which means somewhat on the flighty side the middle.  I have ideas, and the 75% solution is usually good enough, yet I am impatient and want to get off the starting block as soon as possible.  My grandmother had a saying which roughly translated into “Stop bitching and just do it”.  I’ve always admired her for that and I guess I inherited Yaya’s genes on how to approach work. 

How this newfound insight into my psyche will serve me in a far-off land of warriors who culturally never immediately commit to anything until they get to know you over many chai sessions, escapes me.

The Art of the Conversation

The Afghans are a high context people; we are not.  For us, getting to the point quickly is a passion.  For them, there may not be a point for now, or if there is one, you have to tease it out of the long conversation.  The Afghans place emphasis on the spoken word.  PowerPoint slides of words seems meaningless to them, yet we give medals to those of us who can master the .PPT. 

Learn to have a conversation.  Get to know them.  Learn their names and those of their family members.  I’m doomed.  When we met, it took me three weeks to remember my future wife’s last name.  Ask about almost everything, and over time you build trust to find out most of the rest.  Yet you will never know everything.  There is always intrigue and backstory. 

These people have been at war for over 40 years.  We are interfacing with the ones that know how to survive.  Tell a story, but don’t bullshit.  They can smell it a mile away and once they judge you insincere, you may as well go home.  Conversations must be honest and personal and they go on for a while before you even get to business, which may be on the third meeting. 

Be patient, enjoy the journey……..but with your head on a swivel.  Is this possible?

-          Everything is context, and the context is always changing.  

Staying Left of Bang!

Today we were greeted by yet another affable retired Special Forces Marine. He poked fun at us and kept the mood light while teaching us how to breath and relax.  Did you know 75% of Americans experience at least moderate stress every day, or that 75% of all disease can be traced to stress? Maybe legalizing marijuana is the right way to go.  He advised us to call our families often, take time to talk with other MoDAs, and get into the habit of chilling out for a bit every day through breathing exercises.  Did I mention that Kabul has the highest percentage of fecal matter dust in the air than any city in the world?  Let’s deep breathe on that for a bit.

More importantly, we were taught about the five stages on situational awareness or SA.  Worst was to be in SA condition “White”, i.e totally oblivious, like when a person is walking down the street staring down at their cell Phone.  The only time you should be in White is when you are asleep they tell us.  Being in White, is when people become victims; in Afghanistan or in the comfort of suburbia.  Our Marine is also a profiler for a number of law enforcement agencies.  Where we will be going he said, and I suspect everywhere for our instructor, we should be in a general state of alertness, called condition “Yellow”, with your “head on a swivel” until something abnormal catches your eye, ear, or nose.  We spent a good deal of time on predictive profiling, to stay left of Bang (before the bad thing happens).  Remember the “Combat Rule of Three”; any three or more anomalies you observe, do something!!.  Good advice for your daily life.

We all profile consciously and subconsciously every day as that is what humans are programmed to do, without thinking about it.  Predictive profiling is not racial profiling.  This profiling is understanding and recognizing that all humans worldwide exhibit the same behavioral traits to the same stimulation. Body movements, facial expressions, body placement, speaking all matter and if you understand what they mean. 

Profiling through behavior is a powerful tool.  Not just for threats, but in business and personal relationships. The symmetrical grim we make when we lie, that our pupils get bigger when we are happy, we sweat when nervous and men have a different walking gait than do women.  You can use these traits quite effectively to understand when something isn’t normal without the need for racial profiling, but only if you recognize them. 

Many of these traits were role-played by us as we began to tell when someone was sending us a signal that we just ignored.  This really could have helped me at the bars when I was single.

-          When you use an “ly” word in a response to a stress inducing question, you are probably lying.  Really?

 

Drive….Drive….Drive

Most of the time an advisor will meet their partners at Ministry buildings which will be in or near the protected encampment called the Green Zone, but sometimes we will have to cross town or maybe take the occasional trip to the countryside.  Going “outside the wire” is done with full body armor, pistol loaded, charged and in up-armored Suburban SUVs.  

We were taught the fine art of abandoning our stranded vehicle when bag-guys are shooting at us and how to drive out of a jam with a well intoned Drive-Drive-Drive!!! by your team leader.  In the Suburban, everyone has a job; a driver who should focus on the road and staying on it, but is usually yammering away believing he is in charge, a Team Leader in the passenger seat in charge of the mission, radio and reminding everyone else to observe their sectors and making the hard calls on when to bail out, but who spends most of their time jamming up the airwaves with a hot-mike and arguing with the driver.  Finally, the rear passengers (which should always include your interpreter otherwise why bother with a mission).  You’d be surprised how often we trainees got buttoned up, belted in, yet had no clue where we were going. 

Your armored Suburban is your safe haven, only to be abandoned in the direst circumstances.  Doors locked and windows up at all times.  “Don’t break the seal” is drilled into us.  Bad things happen out there they told us, but if you do get in a wreck with a local, just give them a genuine U.S. “I Pay You” card.  Just how that is done when buttoned up was not explained, but I digress.

 It was a bit unnerving in one training scenario when armed bad-guys set up a roadblock in the middle of our eerily realistic market place, yelling, pounding at the Suburban, and shooting in the air when the door to our cocoon suddenly unlocked and bad guys are trying to yank me out.  Passengers were either yelling, or frozen with panic.  Some pleaded with the driver to fire up and drive away, no doubt running down the civilians all about us, while others thought about un-holstering their firearm until our Afghan Army saviors rescued us in the nick of time. 

At the debrief, SEAL Pete said that things had not yet “gone sideways”, but it was getting close.  Really????

-          Seatbelts don’t unbuckle or clear themselves when you try to evacuate a disabled vehicle.

-          Panicked Advisors crawling over the back seat to find the Suburban’s non-existent “safe room” is funny.

 

 

Stop the War

After 13 years in Afghanistan it was only a matter of time before the machine caught up to and quashed pragmatism.  And so it is with our weapon. 

We were taught how to use them, and how to avoid mishaps.  The Policemen in our group say their Departments have officers load once in the morning and unload once at the end of the shift resulting in very few unintentional discharges.  The Army on the other hand, wants you to load and unload your weapon every time you enter and exit key facilities.  To me, this is an accident waiting to happen; I guess the Army never studied complexity theory. 

So the way the Army will keep us safe is with a big sign at the entry points telling you step by step how to safe your weapon, and for good measure an enlisted soldier watching you do it.  They are serious about your weapon.  Brandish it and you go home.  If you “negligently” discharge your weapon (there are no such things as accidents in the Army), you go home.  If you lose your pistol or pieces of it, you go home. I suspect that within six months they will be counting bullets too. 

SEAL Pete told of us of a harrowing mission that had gone sideways.  His team got back to base with their lives, only to find out a pistol was missing.  Leadership actually made them sneak back into the enemy territory that same night just to get this thing. 

I realized then that all we need to do is lose one pistol at every base and the fighting would immediately stop.

The M-9 Pistol

Advisors will be issued a sidearm in theater to be worn at all times except when in the shower.  Its clear to me that the former Military types will probably wear it there as well.  The M-9 Pistol is relatively small and somewhat lightweight with a magazine for fifteen rounds.  In a high stress situation, this should be sufficient for us civilians to put at least two in the bad guy and the rest in everyone else around him, but our instructors work us hard to make every round hits the intended mark.  

You clearly need finger calluses to be on this frequent shooter program.  Breathing and sighting is critical so you don’t rush, only to scare the terrorist with a well-placed shot to the ceiling.  Suit jackets over body armor, while stylish, don’t make it easy to un-holster your weapon.  We spent hours on breathing and sighting in so that every shot counts.   Handling and dry firing are paramount to avoid the unnerving “click” from the safety being on, when one expects to hear a “bang” or visa-versa. 

When instructors talk, its as if we are at a confessional. They are calm, quiet and speak in phrases that make everything seem so peaceful.  Like what a mother might say to little Joey when his birthday cake has fallen off the table.  “Things might go sideways”, “Put in two” and the ever popular “Sight Align,….tap-tap and move on”.  Like any tool, its all about getting familiar with how they work to understand when its not safe. 

In the old hospital, we drilled on getting to safe rooms, evacuating the buildings, and engaging bad guys, by shooting our real pistols and semi-automatic rifles with plastic bullets at padded actors. By the second day, most could pretty well clear a room of bad guys, some faster than others, on their way out of a building.  Some entertained us with well-placed shots to the ceiling or a barrel pointed at another candidate as they cleared a jam.  

I’ll keep an eye on a couple students given their odd grins as they went clearing room-to-room as if tasked by God with dispatching the unworthy.  One realizes quickly that most of what you see in the movies is crap.

Mantra:  Shooting slow becomes smooth, smooth becomes fast.

 

Tap-Tap, and Move on

Our weapons and transportation instructors are former Navy SEALs and other Special Forces types with extensive experience in Afghanistan.   Retired now, they look like any good old boy you would meet at the gas station, affable and always with smiles on their faces. Though a bit fuller than when they were in their prime, these guys are still scary good in their skills. 

Their leader, who I call SEAL Pete, runs a nice little business training us.  He has the look of the lead singer for a Dobbie Brothers tribute band, but no doubt, behind his mellow demeanor lies one of the Department’s best and was at one time was a personal body guard to a world leader.  He and his team spent two days teaching us how to observe, plan a mission for success, navigate, convoy driving and of course, how to tactically use our weapon.  By tactical, I mean put “rounds in the threat” under stressful situations. 

There is a sense of calm over these men as they describe the functioning, aiming, safety and firing of a weapon that the Military leadership in Kabul would likely rather us not have, but know we cannot be without. What an odd sight it must seem to Afghans that those arriving in their Ministries and towns to help and advise them are arrayed in helmets, body armor and a sidearm at the ready.  SEAL Pete and his men taught us a lot about how to shoot, but more importantly when not to as we are not, or should pretend to be gun fighters. 

The more senior folks tell us often that our relationships with the Afghans will afford us better protection, and are far more effective, than a single pistol when dealing with the warrior culture over there. 

 

 

 

Simville

Training for a deployment in a far off land as a civilian means learning your job well, and preparing for bad things.  An Advisor is not a soldier, nor do (or should) we pretend to be.  Our job is to work the Government end of capacity building while others put pointy things into bad people.  That said, we need to know how to plan for and mitigate the threats to us (mature folks use “mitigate”, the young use “kill”). 

We have moved ourselves to the Muscatatuck urban environment training site about 50 miles further into rural Indiana; essentially a Hollywood set on steroids.  This place began its life as an old hospital before it closed down in the ‘80s.  It has since reopened for a new job and grown to include reconstructed sections of towns suffering from the ravages of war and disaster.  Wrecked cars, demolished homes and gutted office buildings are peppered throughout.  

There are also sites to simulate a train wreck, graveyard, school, bus depot, an Embassy and a trailer park for good measure.  This place would be awesome for Halloween.  We live at a pleasant housing area at one end of Simville and attend classes at the other end with our chow hall comfortably in between. 

I walk every day amongst the ruins as if I’m in a scene from the Walking Dead.  This is cool!!

 

Advisor Mission

There are three objectives for an advisor:  Promote local ownership, emphasize sustainability in everything we do, and do no harm to the road laid down by the others who came before you. 

We are at the endgame of the this 13 year adventure in Afghanistan, so now its all about putting nice bows around what we have been doing.  The good-idea fairies must be quashed as the time for them has passed. 

The strategy is about a strong relationship with your counterpart and getting them to build their own capacity with our advice before we bolt as planned by the end of 2016. 

-          No one will care if you know, unless they know you care.

-          Where you are going matters……its all about their culture and values

-          The Advisor must have respect, empathy and humility………yet cajole and nudge our Afghan counterpart into doing things he may not want to do now.

-          See yourself as the scaffolding, not the keystone.