One last Movement…….maybe.

 

Three days before I redeploy and I got a chance to get to the Ministry one last time for a meeting of the Donor Nation Audit team, but it was a chance to say goodbye to the Afghan staff, the General, the Deputy Minister and the Guards.  I rushed from building to building, in my battle rattle of course, trying to say goodbye to as many as I could, but my real mission was to meet with the Deputy Minister and let him know of our leanings to helping out with his $58M Old Food Bills dilemma.  The DM was happy to meet me, and shooed out his entourage to talk.  He was happy to hear about the cost sharing proposal worked out over these many weeks.  He motioned for his staff to get my gift from his car, and in a few minutes, he presented me with a traditional handmade over-garment, while I gave him a MoDA coin, with my name spelled wrong of course. Back in the MRAP armored vehicle, the ride to camp was pretty long from the Kabul traffic.  I thought much about all that we were able to accomplish this past year.  I made 80 armored convoy movements, only a dozen of which were in the Green Zone to engage in over 32 major initiatives. Not bad.  We had two major bombing events on Coalition facilities, but thankfully none on RS, and over twenty other significant terror activities around town. My team was almost lost by a crashing helicopter which missed our weekly staff meeting site by 15 feet, but tragically took the lives of five onboard.  I cancelled two movements when things just weren’t quite right, only to hear that bad folks were waiting for us.  Overall, it was a good year for me, leading a wonderful team, advising at the Ministry and working some pretty tough challenges in and outside the castle walls.  Frankly, I’m gonna miss much of this.