The Vacation Begins

Bagram Air Field (BAF) is an unpleasant place. Virtually every passenger I send there from Kabul (because BAF is the arrival/departure point for us) begs me to send them there for as short a time as possible before they fly out of country. Unfortunately, I have to stand firm on their pleas. Since it's a warzone and anything can, and typically does, happen, I send them to BAF three days before their departure date. As I tell them, "I know you hate BAF. But you'll hate missing your flight to Dubai even more."

However, since I work in the Air Operations department, I cut a day off of that and went two days prior. I was willing to be ticked if weather got bad or flights were grounded due to enemy activity; I'm not willing to get chewed out if employees miss their flight through no fault of my own. In six months on the job, I've not had one employee miss his plane flight, though some have been taken straight from the helos to the plane.

It had been over three months since I'd last been to BAF. Some things were the same: the overwhelming congestion of 25-30k people jammed on a base designed to fit a half or third that number; the 40' banks of dust that rose from the clogged roads and lazily drifted or hurled themselves over everything, depending on the wind; the constant roar of jets taking off and flying overhead; and the worn-out look of persevering despair plastered on nearly everyone's faces.

What had changed since my last BAF visit was my standing in the department. I had come back from my last vacation on July 7th, flown back to Kabul after checking in with my boss and him telling me I was doing a great job, and over the course of the next ten to fifteen days proceeded to become more and more perplexed as the boss, Tom, always an emotional guy, got more and more irrational in a series of bizarre and autocratic emails, to the point where my coworker Jim and I went to employee relations because we were concerned we were going to be fired and we didn't know why (other than that we weren't in lockstep with Tom's unhinged behavior). At any rate, Tom actually did threaten to fire me in email and threatened to fire all of us in a phone conference meeting I had the employee relations rep sit in on (unbeknownst to Tom). The rep initiated an investigation of his own accord and recommended Tom's termination before the higher-ups squashed it to a verbal warning. Even though nothing happened to Tom, he quit harrassing us. Lesson learned? Don't threaten a lawyer.

Due to all of that, I was really not looking forward to BAF. Even though Tom had moved out of the department (his impending promotion was why the complaint against him was swept under the rug), he'd stocked the BAF office with his lackeys. The Americans, his sycophants, were cool towards me, but the Bosnians and Philippinos were pleased to see me.

While I was there, I stayed in the transient tent. The outbreak of bed bugs there for the past several months had finally been brought to heel, I was told. I crawled into an open bottom bunk, a mere 18" beneath a 225lb fellow employee and prayed the canvas separating us didn't give way. Fortunately, I got to contemplate greater dangers when the Giant Voice woke me to the sound of "Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!" Even though I know that by the time the alarm goes off the attack has been over for at least ten minutes, I put on my flip flops and body armor and sat in the bunker for thirty minutes until they gave us the "All clear!" I'm much pleased to relate that the thirty minutes in the dark was rather entertaining, what with the guys from the Balkans having a shouting competition, which resulted in a 25-way tie, as well edifying, as there was a geopolitical lecture given by a plumber, which he thoughtfully interspersed with a healthy helping of profanity so as to relate to the rest of us...I think. Or he could have been cursing gibberish myths and rumors. One of the two.

I also managed to do the one thing I didn't want to do, which was to run into Tom. I was speaking with someone else when he walked up. He didn't recognize me at first (I was bearded). "Oh...Andre..." he said, surprised, when it dawned on him. He gathered himself. "Going on vacation?" He offered his hand. Seeing no need to make the situation more awkward, I shook it, babbled something and went on my way.

The flight to Dubai was uneventful. After we landed, when I unbuckled my seat belt, I was quite surprised to realize I was still wearing my multi-tool, a $90 Leatherman, which is like a Swiss Army knife on steroids. Loath as I was to part with it, I handed it over to a bewildered, but appreciative, flight attendant. I'd rather buy another multi-tool than languish in a Middle Eastern jail.

It was only after I got to the hotel that I discovered that the free flight to Dubai not only cost a $90 multi-tool, but also a $250 Ipod and $50 headphones that I'd left on the plane. Dammit. I went to the hotel's "Sketch Bar," surprising devoid of prostitutes, and had a scotch, neat, to unwind. When the scotch turned out to cost $20, I was back on edge.

I met up with an Air Ops buddy of mine who was in town on a business trip. We went and got something to eat as he filled me in on all the department gossip. It turned out Tom had gone crazy with pretty much everybody and their hope was that he would be fired soon. I told my friend, "Good luck with that." Before turning in, we had a drink at the Sketch Bar. This time there were hookers, but they didn't proposition either of us. We were offended. The beer only cost about $10.

When I got back to my room, I checked my flight information for the next day to make sure of what time to be at the airport. My flight was the next day, all right, at 12:10am. I cursed, re-clothed, packed and headed to the airport. I bought another Ipod, shopping being the last thing I wanted to do in Dubai, but Japan being notoriously more expensive than just about anywhere else, and boarded my Air China flight. I have this to say about the Air China Airbus 300 I rode on for six hours: it can go straight to hell. Even though we were at 38,000 feet and it was -50 degrees just on the other side of the fusilage, it was a stifling 90 degrees inside. I inelegantly shoehorned myself into my cramped aisle seat. I'm fairly certain I'd have been more comfortable in the carry-on bins. The twenty-something chinaman with the unkempt haircut sitting in the window seat next to me took the sterling opportunity to awkwardly stare at me in silence the. entire. flight.

My time in Beijing involved taking off my shoes, being wanded and going through several metal detectors before, thankfully, getting on a Boeing for Tokyo (Narita). I slept like a baby.

The Good Side of Having Clemson Friends

Clemson Friend's beleaguered email after his alma mater lost to Auburn on a missed field goal at the end of the game (2nd attempted field goal; the tying kick was nullified due to penalty):

"40 yard line, first row tickets for the Auburn game = terrible decision. They have a huge crown on their field which meant that we had zero visibility. You couldn't see anything in the bottom five rows. Biggest waste of money in my life."

My sympathetic response:

"So you spent a lot of money to travel to a crappy school that your crappy school is based off of only to have your heart ripped out at the end of the game in the most painful way possible? And you couldn't even watch? Then you got to drive 6 hours back?

That.Is.AWESOME!

'Auburn' should be a new multi-purpose cuss word for you.

'I got pulled for an auburnin' DUI. If that weren't bad enough, while I was waiting for bail a big black guy auburned me right in my auburn. Now I have herpes. Auburn.'

Ouchers

I have/had an ingrown toenail. Never had one this bad before. I've always been able to dig them out on my own before. This one was...unpleasant...to say the least. I'd bump my toe and electric bolts of furious pain would shoot up my foot and leg. I'd clench everything and burst inhale. I had to go to the docs.

The doctors that the company hires are foreigners. I got two Macedonian docs. I'm okay going to a foreigner for health care if it's something simple like a cold or the flu, but when blades start coming out, I get more than a bit skeptical of medical training in other countries, particularly in nearly 3rd world Balkan countries.

The lady doc was the one with the blade. It was not a scalpel. It really looked more like a super-skinny box cutter. She started probing.

"There pain?" she asked as she made her initial forays.

I'm not necessarily the most physically dominating guy, I know, but I like to feel that I can handle pain at least the way a normal man would. Sure, there was a little pain, but she was digging around under my nail bed with a razor; there was going to be pain. Now, while I can handle (a bit) of pain, I'm not foolish about it. I don't really see any need to watch my flesh cut. I turned my head. I suppose that wasn't macho.

"There pain?" she asked, seemingly because I wasn't watching.

"A little. It's fine."

Then she stone-crab-pinced her non-blade-holding fingers directly on the inflamed nerve cluster.

"There pain?" she asked, almost pleased she'd found where the pain was, as evidenced by my quick inhalation when she pierced the spot.

"We not want you hurt. We give anesthesia."

I happen to know from prior experience that anesthesia typically hurts as much if not more than anything else. Yup, they jammed the needle into the nerves, but only on the 3rd attempt. The first two were queries to see where they could make my toe bleed but not numb anything important.

I did not gasp. I did not cry. I DID clench my fists.

Then she decided to go in deep with the blade. It turned out she hadn't stabbed the nerves deep enough with the anesthesia. I winced.

An eruption of Bosnian followed. I heard her say it.

The other doc said, "You know what he said?" (The male doc refers to both genders as "he" or "him.")

"Yup, she called me a baby."

"You are big man and..." he said but couldn't finished and started chuckling.

She laughed.

Half-jokingly, I said, "Feet have a lot of nerves, and since mine are so much bigger than most peoples, I have more nerves."

I'm pretty sure I took this reasoning from my brother, verbatim, when he tried to explain his non-stoic reaction to having a German doctor use his foot for a pin-cushion.

They laughed more.

I considered violent acts.

She stopped laughing.

"No more anesthesia. There going to be pain."

I ended up watching most of what she was doing and it really seemed like she didn't do much cutting of the offending toenail. She got up under it and into the nailbed a bit, but mostly she cut flesh, which had the rather typical effect of bleeding, a lot.

Layman that I am, it just seemed like she scraped at it a bit, but then got aggravated by the blood blocking her view so she jammed gauze dripping with betadine underneath the nail.

"How did she jam gauze into the nail bed" you might ask.

"With the tip of a sharp pair of scissors" I answer.

There were repeated looks of merriment between the two Bosnians every time I winced. Finally, at the end, I was told, "Okay. You come back tomorrow to clean. You take shower?"

"Most people prefer if I do."

"Yes. Keep foot out of shower," the male doctor said as he pantomimed shampooing his head and hopping on one leg, the other kicked way out like he were auditioning for the Rockettes.

"Ohkiedohkie."

"Oh, before you leave...," he said as he handed me a bag of ibuprofen, "for pain."

I put my flip-flop on and left.

I don't think I was quite the baby they thought I was, but I do know that I wouldn't last two seconds under torture.

Confusion and Fury (Abject Whining)

I've not written much of late about the job because, frankly, it's not an exciting job and it's highly routine. The strange thing about it is that it's both monotonous AND chaotic. Surely that makes sense to those who have experienced this sort of thing and incomprehensible to those who haven't.

Basically, my job is to make sure people get where they need to go. It's frustrating because I don't control any assets to move people myself. When people need to get to a distant base, I put in requests to get them flown there; when they need to get to local bases, I put in requests for the military to take them there in Rhinos (up-armored buses). I don't fly the helicopters or drive the buses; I don't even set their schedule. I put people's names on lists and get told when they can be moved. Knowing the way that the helicopters and buses tend to move, I try to balance my requests and give people reasonable expectations when they can move. It's a bit stressful, because the PAX (lingo for passengers), don't want to hear that I'm having problems with the helo planners or that the military is running behind. They want to get where they need to go ASAP. Especially if they're trying to get out to go on vacation.

Overall, I not only do that coordination, but I run around and receive the PAX when they get off the helicopters and Rhinos and I'm there to help them move all their baggage when they get on. Some mornings I'm up at 0450 doing this. Some nights I'm up past midnight doing this. While the number of PAX was low, I was doing the coordination plus execution by myself. There are relatively set times when helos and Rhinos move so I would have frantic bouts of chaos (especially if a Rhino and helicopter arrived at the same time) and then long periods of nothing to do.

The camp I'm on is going through "Transition." My company is Fluor. It won a contract for all the northern Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in Afghanistan. That's in between 60-80 bases. My company has employees who run the dining facilities, provide and maintain the generators, import and keep the water clean, kill the pests on the FOBs, etc. Basically, we run the camps so the military can focus on going out and killing bad guys. At any rate, we took over these camps from a company that lost the contract bid, KBR. Fluor has been transitioning the property and a good many of the employees from KBR. To deal with counting all the property and hiring all the new employees over (which for the switched employees sometimes just means literally switching hats), a "Transition Team" gets sent to each base going through transition. A transition team can be upwards of 100 people. Moving them is tough because they are on intense deadlines and so they can't give notice. They say "I need to go here now!" and I have to jump through hoops to try to get them taken care of. No one wants to hear that they didn't give you enough notice.

I'm going on vacation in a few days. For most people, that means that they can start winding down at work and getting into the vacation mindset. My camp is in transition now and won't finish until the 15th, so I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. In addition, unlike virtually every other department, whose jobs become easier once transition is finished, movement gets exponentially tougher because we are importing 60% of the KBR work force (and thus more than doubling the Fluor work force). When I first got here, I was "pushing" about 4-5 people a day. Lately it's been 30. Pretty soon it will be 60.

My boss, who I initially liked until I discovered he's a two-faced back-stabber, finally came to my base to look over things to see what was needed since I'm going on vacation soon and he needs to send people to cover. While he paid lip service to the fact that I've moved all the people through my area (I'm responsible for not only my FOB, but seven others) without any missing their flights out of country (which can cost them hundreds or even thousands of dollars) with virtually no assistance (he did send me a Kosovar to act as my deputy two weeks ago; but even then that's barely enough) or support (I'm doing all my paperwork/emails from my bunk because they don't have office space for me), he really came down to tell me I need to do things more like how they do it at the main FOB, Bagram. Mind you, Bagram is a perpetual mess, because his leadership style is to send away anyone who is doing a good job there. He likes chaos and problems because then he can step in and "fix" it and impress the higher ups. That's why he has Bosnians and Macedonians scheduling all the helicopters; that's why he has sent away a lawyer, a chemical engineer, and anyone else who has shown himself to be competent out to run other FOBs, far away from the eyes of upper management. At any rate, instead of me doing what I have been doing, he wants me to cede what little planning I actually *can* do to the bosnian planners. Fine. I'm leaving in a few days for vacation. I can let it blow up in his face.

Cut to today.

After I get people on the morning helicopter run, I get on to update my paperwork. I send in my list of people I need to move tomorrow so the planners can figure it out, which the boss told me to do. A planner emails me to tell me that the list he has doesn't match the one I just sent him. I wonder which one of us will be right? He sends me his list. I email him back to inform him that the list he has for tomorrow's flight has the same names he put on today's manifest, the very people I just put on a helicopter to him. "Oh...we must have a problem with our process." No....you don't say... The thing is, that planner is the good one. Which of course means my boss is sending him to replace me here at my FOB while I'm gone on vacation. Because he can't have someone who is "good" (even if they aren't really so great) stay in one place and do the damn job.

On a positive note. I have a great paycheck and all the drama a girl could want! Hooray!

Where the Wild Things Are Movie Review

I found the movie to be terrifying in places. If I'd been a child, I'd have run screaming from the theater. I had no problem with the scariness of the book as a child. The movie's a whole 'nother (wait for it...) monster.

Max is entirely too old in the movie. No kid old enough to be in a class where the teacher is explaining the sun's death (5th grade, 10yo, minimum) would wear a wolf suit. Max should have been about 3-5. He came across as creepy and delusional at the age in the movie, not wildly imaginative at the age in the book. Giving all the monsters emotional baggage that adults would struggle with was also a let-down for me. I enjoyed the lighter parts of the movie, of which there were tragically few. I would think that if I invented a whole other world populated by creatures of my choosing in order to get away from the troubles of my life, the creatures wouldn’t be paralyzed by abandonment issues. But what the hell do I know about creativity OR mental disorders.

The end of the movie ticked me off. The kid runs out of the house into the night, disappears for hours, and when he strolls back in the middle of the night, what does his mom do? My mom would have beat my butt. His mom hugs him and feeds him cake. Cake? Cake! That’s what’s wrong with America.

I just thought it was adults positing their issues on a child. A blog of a grandfather who took his grandson to the movie expressed my opinion perfectly: "Perhaps the problem is that the film was written more for the amusement of the writers than for children." Since the book was supposed to be for children and is more about a child’s imagination, rather than musings on metaphysical loneliness and the loss of innocence, plus overcoming the intense emotions of childhood, I found the movie to be its own creature entirely. It’s sorta like “Die Hard With a Vengeance” was originally a script called “Simon Says” and they said, “Hell, if we cast Bruce Willis, we’ll make a fortune.”

“Where the Wild Things Are” wasn’t “bad” per se, just false advertising. They used the look of the book, but missed the point. They could have done that with any kid and any creatures from his imagination, but the visual appeal of the movie is really the only thing it shares with the book. I mean, I get the fact that the book is mainly pictures and that they needed to add much to flesh out a feature film. Mr. Jonze, having cut his chops in music videos, could and easily has captured lyrical, beautiful, and sometimes even haunting images, but it was just damn miserable. I refuse to confuse moroseness with deeper meaning, or, if it’s there, I say that’s not what it should have been.

I loved that book as a kid and would much preferred to have seen something that transported me back to a time where I could whisk myself away using my imagination. If I wanted to think about the deeper difficulties in life, I wouldn’t use my imagination, I’d just consider my life as an adult. No thanks.

Kabul

The storm came from the west,
grey and black and blue and glorious,
a reverse nightfall.
An anvil cloud,
ferocious in its pregnant beauty,
dwarfs the mountain cradle.

Above, the pale blue stretches to its lazy limit
with no idea of the barrage to come

But I am shielded,
protected by a warm embrace of sunshine,
as the storm, the wolf, skirts and prods
but the shepherdess' pen holds fast

and, safe, I am simply struck by such natural sublimity.

A torrent pierces another portion of the pen.
While I am secure and serene and unaware
and staring at the wrong threat, my head in the clouds,
brains and fingers and eyes and ears and
rent meat come plodding down.
A man, a bomb, an abattoir.
A baby cries on mother's corpse.

Indifferent, the skies are pretty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/world/asia/19afghan.html

To Bank of America

"I would like my $50 'Foreign Service Fee' removed from my account. I have a good-paying job as a contractor in Afghanistan. If using my credit card, which I've had for a very long time, even though the service and rates have gotten worse and worse, is going to incur ridiculous fees, I will cut it up. I'm sure other financial insitutions will be glad to have my business. Poor business model. "