We All Live in a Yellow Submarine

To be perfectly honest with you, I'm a little sick of being here, and it's mostly because my life in Afghanistan lacks the balance I try so hard to find in my life back home. Every day here revolves around very basic needs...water, food, safety, sleep (and once in a while coffee). I feel like I live and breathe Army tactics, which is getting really annoying. I dream about convoys and how to make them safer. I spend a lot of time walking around with guns, talking about guns, thinking about guns, and cleaning guns. I miss regular things.

Instead of correcting people's horrible spelling mistakes over here (and there are some absolutely ludicrous interpretations of the English language published by the U.S. Army all across base) I seem to spend time correcting their convoy tactics, or at least forcing them to explain the logic (or lack thereof) behind their decisions. It's probably the verge of a very bad day when it takes an Air Force personnel officer to ask those kinds of questions. Let's go ahead and stop thinking about that.

Lately life here feels a lot like how I imagine life on a submarine. I know that somewhere people I know and love are living their normal lives where they think about things that have nothing to do with wars and guns. But my new friends and I are here in Afghanistan where we may as well be 800 feet below the ocean. We can look out at our normal lives through a periscope (regular people may commonly refer to this apparatus as Skype), and we struggle to remember what it must feel like to eat a home cooked meal, to wash our clothes in an actual washing machine, or to have any amount of privacy.

No, none of us would change anything about being here (we do have each other, and that makes a huge difference), but it's certainly easy to feel isolated.

So instead of being 800 feet below the ocean, we're some 6,000 miles from the States...but the effect, as I imagine it, seems similar. I'm thankful every day for my incredible "shipmates" on Catalina Wine Mixer (the name of our team...and oddly enough our logo is a boat, but as usual I digress).

 Living in a yellow submarine isn't half bad when your friends are all aboard. And in the end, that's what it's all about.

These Are The Times You'll Remember

Every day as we weave our way through the streets of Kabul to make our way to work, I find myself humming those lyrics as we all bounce around in the MATV.

It's amazing to me how quickly the everyday things that happen in Afghanistan have transformed into my new normal. As we're driving down some of the roads, we are always on the lookout for things that look "unusual," which when you have just arrived here is basically everything. And in a month, the chaos has become in my eyes, well, less chaotic. Young kids dart fearlessly between our vehicles as we barrel down the road (and by barrel, I mean drive somewhere between 25 - 30 miles per hour). Older Afghan men stand on the side of the road wearing long, flowing shirts that brush their knees, matching pants that remind me of scrubs, and scarves carefully wrapped to protect their hair from the harsh air. Granted that scarf probably serves a different purpose, but for right now, I'm happier thinking about it in my own terms.

The streets are lined with an assortment of small shops, windows coated in a film of grimey moon dust, and colorful jewels strewn across the facade. Sometimes we'll see a mountain of treasures...pots and pans hanging from the ceiling with string, or gas can "art" where rainbow-colored gas cans are gingerly stacked in towers across the median. But mostly we comment on the animal carcasses hanging from store windows by large metal hooks. The usually skin-less animals may be stripped of their fur, but their full anatomy is there for all to see. On the most interesting days, we see the black and white skin still attached to cows, blood already drained, hanging from the hooks with a cart full of skins and entrails steaming close by.

My version of normal now includes Oakleys protecting my eyes, a pair of gloves on my hands (despite the 100 degree weather), a kevlar helmet on my head, and a 20 pound bullet-proof vest draped around my torso. But what hadn't, until earlier this week, felt quite normal was the constant reminder of the M-4 rifle clinking against my left leg. I wasn't particularly confident that should the need arise, I could bring that weapon to my face, pull the trigger, and actually hit (or at least scare) a bad guy. In Afghanistan, the solution to lack of confidence on the weapon was simple...time to go put some iron downrange.

So off I went with my quasi-official Personal Security Detail (the two lovely cops attached to our team) and a few others for a morning at the firing range at our Afghan base. While I was busy pulling the trigger of a gun, one of my PSD guys was having a field day with the shutter of my Canon 30D and caught the above shot of a shell leaving my weapon. Some 200 or so rounds later, my confidence was much improved (and dare I suggest that the other members of my team breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Lipstick Girl proved that she can kill some simulated bad guys.)

The real joys in Afghanistan are in the food, which was also not normal (and was actually quite intimidating) before this week. Remember those animal carcasses that collect moon dust on the side of the road? My post-warrior celebration included a trip outside the gate (all geared-up) to purchase the all-in-one Afghan lunch...a wrap sandwich with hardboiled eggs, cilantro, french fries, a slice of mystery meat, and all kinds of spicy and delightful sauces. Yes, I will have you know that this same smile was still apparent several hours after mystery meat consumption.

And there you have it. A "normal" day in Afghanistan is nothing like a normal day anywhere else in the world. But these truly are the times I will remember, perhaps more fondly than times spent anywhere else.

I Walk the Line

It's been a very tough past 24 hours, and any time I say that while I'm here, I always have to think to myself "yes, it's been tough, but it could have been a whole lot worse." It's all about perspective. And sometimes I like to think that by living here, I'm gaining a hint perspective of my own. Other days, that little pipe dream is all but shattered.

I will be the first to admit that I am easily disappointed. I will also be the first to admit that rules and structure are the two things I love most about being in the military. I know, funny coming from me, since rules are usually a starting point from which I can negotiate my way to the answer I want. In my career field, rules are written in pencil so that we can accomodate people's unique needs. I'm in human resources. I like bendy rules in human resources. They make sense. Everyone is different. Bendy rules accommodate unique situations.

But right now I'm out with the Army, in a combat job, advising Afghan Army officers, running convoys, and doing a lot of things that normal people would probably consider dangerous. I'm not very normal, and I think this stuff is relatively dangerous (at  least compared to sitting at a desk). When I'm in a job like this, I appreciate that the basic safety rules are etched in stone and ingrained in my consciousness. At least for me they are. It seems that I'm in the minority there sometimes, because yesterday it felt to me like basic safety rules were scribbled in chalk seconds before a thunderstorm.

Yesterday someone on this base left a loaded weapon unattended in a parking lot for about 30 minutes. And I don't mean locked in a vehicle, I mean laying on the ground in plain sight full of ammunition. Now I get that everyone who works on this base is "screened" so that the "good" guys work here and the "bad" guys can't, but we all know that life just isn't that simple. I'm sure there are people who work here who I wouldn't want to invite over for dinner (and a lot of them are probably in the U.S. military but I digress...) My bottom line: we (military) have a few cardinal rules when dealing with weapons. Keep your muzzle pointed in a safe direction (i.e. not at anything you don't intend to shoot). Keep your finger off the trigger...unless you plan to pull the trigger. And always maintain positive control of your weapon (don't leave it on a truck then drive away and forget about it...especially in a warzone).

And maybe it's that I'm new to this whole "fly to a foreign land and defend freedom" kind of expedition, but from everything the Army has taught me (which has nothing to do with common sense) and everything I know from being somewhat worldly (i.e. common sense application), it is a big damn deal to leave a loaded weapon sitting on the ground anywhere in Afghanistan. Or the U.S. Or frankly, anywhere. But when it happens in Afghanistan, we say "that must have happened because of combat stress" or "that's a great guy who had a bad day" or any other gem that the Excuse Fairy delivered today. Sure, great guys have bad days all the time. But when great guys start making stupid mistakes, I stop calling them great guys and they have to earn that title back in my eyes.

Nothing bad happened yesterday. The gun was still there when said forgetful "great guy" went back to pick it up. Everyone involved tried to cover it up like nothing ever happened, including people who know way better. And what happens to our friend the "great guy" from there I don't know, and frankly, I don't want to know. Because as an American Airman, I believe that small mistakes in a combat zone can get people killed. I trained for 10 weeks to be allowed to come out here. And in those 10 weeks, I had to condition myself to be safe and to not put my "Battle Buddies" (the people with whom I serve) in harm's way because of a stupid mistake. There are stupid mistakes (oops, my left boot is on my right foot) and there is just plain stupid (Hey bad guy, here's a gun and some ammunition). Let's not belabor the issue.

Do people make mistakes? Yes. I've made a few (hundred) since I've been here. I'm human. Sometimes that's really annoying...like when I walk the 10 minutes to the truck and remember that my helmet...critical equipment...is in my room and not on my head. Other times it's reassuring...like me thinking "yes, I do need a checklist by my door to make sure I remember everything." I'm learning. Learning mistakes are okay. Though I can't claim perfection, if I were to make a mistake that truly jeopardized the safety of my Battle Buddies...well...I just hope that someone would straighten my act out in short order.

That's the line I'm walking tonight. I keep wondering what I would do were I in command of the unit in which this happened. Would I fry the "good guy" who made the mistake? (That's my natural tendency, which I hate). Would I let the "good guy" simmer on the mistake for a few days and wait for that person to approach me? (That sounds reasonable, but I'm infamously impatient). Would I call my boss to admit what happened...even if that boss would never find out on his or her own? (Yes, I probably would, but I bet I would regret it later).

And that's why I serve. Because in spite of human mistakes (that thankfully did not have dire consequences), I truly believe the military is full of so many people who have chosen to serve their country for such incredible reasons. And in my eyes, a "bad" day serving (in Afghanistan or anywhere else) with these inspiring people beats the heck out of spending my work days doing anything else in the world.

A Day in the Life

I spent a majority of the day walking to Julia (my interpreter) about what life is like for her in Afghanistan. It was a relatively quiet day at work, and we were inspired by the sunshine. It was the perfect coffee shop conversation, but without coffee (caffeine and Islam are not compatible) and while on the move. So basically it was nothing like sitting in a coffee shop, but I digress...(wishful thinking...)

Let's start here:  Julia will soon turn 22 years old. She has a five year old daughter, and a husband who left her when her daughter was one year old. The marriage was arranged (it was not, as she she refers to my own marriage, a "love marriage") and would probably qualify in the minds of most Americans as at least unhappy (if not more). Since her husband left her, she has lived together with her two parents, her daughter, her sister and her sister's family in a four bedroom "house" in Kabul City.

As an interpreter for the American Forces, I have to believe Julia is paid substantially more than she could make elsewhere, and rightfully so considering how much we value her skills and the potential dangers of her job. She earns $565 a month (paid in American dollars, when the bank processes the payment correctly, which they often do not) and is paid one time per month. That's about 22,000 Afghani (the local currency). Julia, at age 21 and as an Afghan woman, is solely responsible for paying the rent for the family of about eight who live in the house. The monthly rent is $300 (13,000 Afghani), or more than half of her monthly income.

I am having a terrible time figuring out the worth of the Afghani. Downtown I can buy two loaves of bread for 20 Afghani and a quart of yogurt for 55 Afghani (about $1.40)...and though I was with an interpreter, those may be American prices. So sadly, Afghani is "play money" for me - I give them money, they give me change, and I find assessing value to be impossible thus far...but if you saw the condition of the living arrangements here, I'm fairly certain you'd agree that $300 a month is a complete swindle.

Whether Julia is appropriately compensated (or being ripped off by a corrupt landlord) is almost irrelevant to her, which I find astonishing. In the face of all of the monumental challenges she has faced in her 21 years in Afghanistan, she is inspired to create what she thinks will be a better life for her daughter. She works for me from about 9am until around 2pm, goes home to see her daughter, then goes to cosmetology school in the evenings. She glows. Literally. The weight of her entire family sits on her shoulders all day, and she doesn't once complain. Instead she tells me how thankful she is to have a good job (and that she gets to work for a woman!)

And I think that's the best lesson Afghanistan has taught me thus far...sometimes less is more. Julia is very well grounded - her faith and her family absolutely come before anything else. Her life, in comparison to mine, seems much more simple and certainly not as defined by material things. Though the American in me will probably never mirror her values, listening to her stories (and spending six months in a strange land with a lot of spare time on my hands) does encourage me to reconsider what is really important.

And the lesson is best taught by Robert Frost, in the last few lines of "The Road Less Taken:"

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Big Brother

I am fairly certain that you haven't lived until you've walked through Kabul, Afghanistan in the middle of a rain storm. To quickly bring you up to speed, the air quality here is less than stellar (at least 10% of the "air" we're breathing is actually fecal matter...it's so bad that we have a special letter added to our medical records documenting the fact that we were here.) Needless to say, when it rains, it's best to avoid being touched by raindrops. I was absolutely convinced my uniform was going to melt to my body, and words can't really describe the smell. At least my words won't do it justice, because, wow, let's just leave it at that.

As I'm sitting here reminiscing about my first rainy afternoon in Kabul I'm overwhelmed by a symphony of noise filling my little sanctuary of a room (okay, so it's not a sanctuary, but let's not go there). My tin hut is surrounded on three sides by would-be grown-ups living their lives on the other side of a wall that's about as thick as a standard piece of aluminum foil. In case you were wondering, it also transfers noise about as well as the biggest amplifier you've ever heard in your life. Right now the guy next door is spraying air freshener, which is infinitely more pleasant than the banging and hollering that was happening about 10 minutes ago. And no, I'm not trying to describe life in the brothel that disguises itself as a living complex for senior officer and enlisted members. It's just, well, turning out that way.

But it is a unique study in what personal freedoms those of us who come to forward operating bases give up. It's a strange existence out here, where walking to the bathroom in a non-Air Force uniform sweatshirt (or while wearing my purple Crocs with the Wonder Woman tag on them) is a huge rebellion. You won't believe this, but sometimes I even dare to sleep in civilian pajamas! (Thought criminal!) We spend every waking moment in a uniform of some variety, with at least one weapon strapped to our body, and personal freedoms are about as rare as a clear day in Afghanistan.

It's interesting to think of just how much control the military has over me right now, and how, for the most part, I'm really okay with that. Practically every bit of food I ingest has been provided by Uncle Sam. My luxurious sleeping quarters came courtesy of the U.S. Government. As did all of my uniforms, my personal protective equipment (like my helmet and flak vest). My access to the outside world is carefully scrutinized by the military - they control the mail, the internet, the on-base shops that sell pieces of home. And it's a very bad week when for three days in a row the military forgets to deliver the mail to your operating location. I think we'd all rather go without food than go without mail. Strange but true.

Big Brother is always watching over the U.S. military in Afghanistan. And I understand why for security reasons it's important for my government to monitor my actions here to help keep me safe. But such constant scrutiny has certainly inspired me to re-read one of my favorite books of all time..1984.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

 Yes, Big Brother is watching. Please pardon me while I get dressed with my back to the telescreen in an attempt to steal three full seconds of privacy.

Down by the Schoolyard

According to the 2000 census (which was the latest information I could find) the average American family has 1.86 children. There are 6.9 children in the average Afghan family. In case you were wondering, that's a substantial difference between the two countries. Here we are thinking that American schools have an overcrowding problem. Well, combine a lack of space, a lack of natural resources that generate revenue, and a central government that is in general disarray and you can almost imagine what public education is like in Afghanistan.

Your guesstimation probably isn't far from the mark. But even using your most vivid imagination, I'm sure what I saw on Thursday at one of the local Afghan schools would absolutely blow you away.

We pulled our 6 MAT-Vs (huge, armored military vehicles) into the courtyard directly in front of the school complex. Now I should mention that our MAT-Vs make a huge amount of noise, so it wasn't like we could sneak up on the place. It was sheer pandemonium from the second we arrived, which is part of the reason we could really only stay for about 45 minutes before we determined that we needed to cut and run.

Because there are so many students and such little space (and on account of cultural norms), Afghan public schools are structured in a very different manner than Western schools. The boys and girls are segregated, and the sister schools sit together in the schoolyard, governed by two principals (a male and a female). The students attend one of three daily sessions beginning at 6:30am and ending around 7pm. At any one time there are 8,000 students on the complex...half boys, half girls. Our fatal mistake this time was that we arrived almost precisely at shift change, and therefore encountered about 16,000 students who were eagerly practicing their English (and their ability to rip candy from our pockets).

This humanitarian aid drop of school supplies and teacher's kits is a fairly regular mission we perform under the auspices of Operation Outreach. Outreach is the officially sanctioned humanitarian aid program that the US forces support in Afghanistan. We receive donations from across America and the world and distribute them to families here. But like I mentioned earlier, I'm not convinced that our small donations to a school of 24,000 students even count for a drop in the bucket. We definitely perform this mission as a labor of love, and as a way for Afghans to associate positive feelings with the American military.

I trained very hard for 10 weeks to be able to safely perform "outside the wire" missions. Those are missions that take our team outside of the safety of the front gate of our forward operating base (FOB) and into downtown Kabul. We perform those missions almost every day. A majority of the people who came with us to the school have received little to no training on how to stay safe outside the wire, and even more frightening was the fact that many of them did not know how to shut the vehicle door, buckle a seatbelt or properly wear their protective gear.

I understand that there is something exciting about leaving the FOB and experiencing Afghan culture, but based on what I saw from inexperienced American Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen on our mission, I think it's time to institute some type of pre-mission training for people who want to be a part of these missions.

And that right there is tonight's lesson. Before I came to Afghanistan, I wanted to believe that American service members truly wanted to be here and truly wanted to try to make a difference. Now granted, making a measurable impact in Afghanistan looks and feels very different from making a difference in the States. But the similarity is that in both cases, some effort is required of the service member. Instead, what I'm finding here is that much of the good training we received before being sent to Afghanistan (always wear your helmet off base, take good care of your weapon, maintain 360 degrees of security) go right out the window the second boots hit the ground in this country.  And the typical reasoning behind these (and many other) bad decisions sounds a little like this: "well, anything goes...this is Afghanistan."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we let the bad guys win. We voluntarily take inexperienced people off the base, expose them to a potentially dangerous situation when they're not wearing their full protective gear and haven't been properly trained, and we wait for the insurgents to hunt us down. And we become complacent. We mistakenly believe that because the bad guys didn't hit us yet, they never will.

Make no mistake about it, the typical Afghan does not want to kill Americans. The typical Afghan seems to me to want to practice basic English phrases, eat a nice piece of American candy, drink a bottle of water and give us the thumbs up. It's a great feeling. But the bad guys sure do exist here. And they hide well.

I am very proud of the humanitarian work Americans are doing in this country, but you and I both know that I'm a bit of a stickler for the rules. And when those rules involve wearing gear that could save our lives, well, you had better believe that enforcement is coming the way of our volunteer Airmen, Soldiers and Sailors in very short order.

If you'd like to see more pictures from Operation Outreach, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/roblisameehan/sets/72157627067377683/show/

Feeling...groovy?

I now officially belong in Afghanistan because I have finally experienced a key rite of passage. Yesterday I was admitted to the hospital with the Kabul Crud...but believe me, it's far less dramatic and interesting than it sounds.

My body woke itself up at 6am ejecting terrible gunk from all orifices, which wouldn't be a big deal if the bathroom was not located over the river and through the woods. Now granted that river and those woods are only about 100 meters from my doorstep (okay, 50 paces, because I just counted, and no, I never exaggerate). But in an emergency situation, that bathroom may as well be located on the moon. Yet another chance for the Army to serve me a slice of humble pie.

I spent most of yesterday trying to will myself out of the room and to the Troop Medical Clinic (TMC). The guys from my team delivered Gatorade and crackers to my door. And my very sweet husband kept calling to encourage me to get my rump out of bed. I finally managed to get myself to the TMC at about 5:30pm after much nudging from everyone who knows me. Of course sick call (the authorized time to admit to your illness) was over at 5pm, so the people at the TMC were rather puzzled as to why I had shown up, but nevermind them. I'm persistent. They helped me. I didn't really give them a choice.

Dehydration was the name of the game yesterday, and that's really no shocker considering what I'd been up to this past week (gym twice a day, climbing a mountain in the middle of the day in full gear, and several other stupid things, followed by about 6 hours of disgusting sickness). My resting heart rate was up about 40 beats per minute, but after three IV bags, some anti-nausea medication and some heavy duty pain reliever I was almost myself. Yes, now I am fine (but that's mostly because I slept 16 hours last night!)

But the point of this isn't to tell you about being sick, because like I said, it's a rite of passage, and I have now passed. Almost everyone who comes here goes through what I went through yesterday. The point is to demonstrate the bonds people quickly form in the warzone. The guys with whom I work have known me for about 2 weeks, but they were the first ones to show up at my door to make sure I was okay. They showed up at the clinic, too, with a lollipop, to make sure I wasn't lying when I told them I was fine. My interpreter sent me a text message this morning at 6:30am that said "Good morning ma'am, what is wrong with you? I need to hear your voice. I am sad." (Last night I sent her a note to tell her I would not be at work today and that she could stay home). The guys checked on me again today at about 12:30pm when they hadn't heard from me all day.

You don't ever need to worry about me out here. I'm in good hands. One of the things I love most about deploying is that in the absence of a traditional family, we all become each other's families. And never is that more apparent than in a time of need. I'm glad that "time of need" for me was only due to an evil stomach bug and not something more serious. But even after that stupid bug, I now have more confidence than ever that should I ever really need help here, there are plenty of people who would be there for me in an instant. And I wouldn't even need to ask.

The sign at the TMC check-in counter said "Soldiers don't fight because they hate what is in front of them, they fight because they love what is behind them."

And that is why I serve. Because I love what is behind me...and more specifically who is behind me.