We're on the Road to Nowhere

Leading in combat is draining. At my job back home, I worried about whether I responded to an email quickly enough. Here I worry that one little mistake could be the first step down a very bad road for me and six other people. I got to talk to Rangerboy this week for the first time in about three months, and he (as usual) said it best...out here you aim for perfection. And though you'll never actually get there, it's the only feasible goal, and it gives you something on which to focus. In my case, it gives me something obsession-worthy. But at least here I can rationalize that little character flaw brilliantly...I'm obsessing over things that seem to matter. Whether we're safe on the roads here matters. (Whether I respond to an email within 59 minutes does not).

This week it all seemed to be unraveling before my very eyes. As far as my team goes, I couldn't be luckier. We have an identity (Catalina Wine Mixer), a reputation (hands-down the best team in our unit), and a personality (we take our jobs seriously and ourselves much less so). Therein might be part of the problem. We enjoy working together. We enjoy hanging out together. We enjoy going downtown to show the people of Kabul that we care about them and their well-being, though we all recognize that those missions are risky. Things were great, until one day they weren't.

It happened fast. A few little mistakes on the commute to work. Then a few bad decisions at work. Then a few more little mistakes during the next commute, followed by one big mistake and I absolutely lost my mind. There are standard procedures we follow when we run convoys, and each little piece is a critical link to the final product...which is a safe commute through the city. Unfortunately we're all human, so mistakes happen every now and again, but a string of mistakes made by people who know better made me blow my lid. Luckily that lid blowing was done in private and not in public. That right there is progress.

You'd think that addressing basic safety concerns would be easy. "Hey, jerk, when you did X, you put us all at risk. Knock your crap off." Yeah, it's not that easy, because in order to be effective here we must act as a team. I get that. And in order to be a team, we have to establish and maintain camaraderie and trust. Again, got it. Hypothetically that camaraderie and trust will cause each member to be safer because they genuinely care about the other people on the team. All of that made my job harder because I had to fix the broken without breaking the good stuff. 

Do I think it's better now? Maybe. We're safer. The solution I picked was the obvious one...I made the expectations very clear, and it was done in a way that was direct but non-threatening. In fact, I don't even think people realized it was happening, or that I had caused it, which made it even more perfect. I certainly don't need glory. Likewise, I don't need to take uncalculated risks.

There's a lesson here, and it was a good one...again related to Rangerboy's original advice to me...be yourself. I lead a team of guys. They are all the same age as me or older. They've all deployed at least twice before. But they're listening to me, even when I talk about combat tactics, and I'm being myself. And for the first time since I arrived in Afghanistan, I don't feel like a girl. I feel like a leader. 

I've been waiting for that moment, and it's actually better than I expected.

To meet Catalina Wine Mixer and share our adventures, visit us on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roblisameehan/sets/72157627467870827/