Tag: foreign service

You can endure a lot of “how” if you keep looking to the goal and remember the “why” of what you are trying to achieve.

I am climbing out of that pit of despair I inadvertently tumbled into yesterday.  I had the opportunity to talk with General Robert Magnus, the Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps.  I have to admit that I am still impressed with meeting important people, especially when they turn out to be impressive and I can learn from being with them.  Over breakfast, we discussed our ePRT programs and as I answered his questions about what we had done and planned to do, I remembered our goal and the valuable work we are doing.

Making progress here remains slow and painful.  We have more starts than finishes.  It takes hours or days to perform some simple tasks that might take minutes in a more benign environment. Sometimes we cannot even get started.  I did not make it to Anah yesterday and the ceremony went on w/o me.  But for the losses there are gains.  Missing my flight yesterday allowed me to have breakfast with General Magnus today, for example.  Being trapped in a big dusty waiting room also gave me a chance to think through some management decisions, which I put into effect yesterday.  And through it all, we are moving forward.  Projects, like the courthouse I did not get to see, are being done.  Anbar is becoming more secure & prosperous.  It is worth the effort.

The picture is from my backyard when we lived in New Hampshire.  I doubt if anyplace in Iraq looks like this, but it is the only Christmas picture I have on my computer.

White Christmas?

Yesterday night the temperatures dipped into the 20s and it was even colder with the wind chill.  I wonder if it will get much cooler.  Yesterday was the shortest day of the year.   Now it will start getting lighter and warmer.  I hear that February is a beautiful month.  March has good temperatures, but it is sandstorm season.  It starts to get hot in late April and by June it is again frying pan weather.  Winter evidently turns into what reasonable people would recognize as glorious summer in February.  It gets warm enough, and then it overshoots the mark moving into unbearable heat, so I am less enthusiastic about the coming of spring that I have been other places where I have lived.  Winter is okay with me. 

As I walked home tonight, I noticed something about the landscape in the moonlight.  I could imagine it as snowy.  In the moonlight, the gravel and dirt looked white.  The heaps of dirt could be snow banks and the dust blowing in the light near the guard post could have been snow.  You are right.  I don’t really believe it either.   Merry Christmas anyway.

I was supposed to be in Anah for the reopening of a courthouse.  This is a significant milestone in the march toward the rule of law.  A few months ago, nobody could find a judge willing to stand up to the terrorists.  Tomorrow there will be a courthouse, the symbol of the rule of law.  Our funds helped rebuild and furnish the courthouse.   That is one reason I really wanted to go and see what we had wrought.

I was happily in my can at 730 when I got a knock on the door.  I had to go to the airports immediately to catch my helicopter flight.  This kind of short notice is not unusual.  I keep my stuff good to go.   Breakfast?  We don’t need no breakfast.  We picked up Sam, our new and very good translator, an American citizen born in Iraq.  This is great because he has local knowledge AND a security clearance, and headed out.

We got there for show time.  I made an entry about show time a couple months ago.  Suffice to say, show time is not always closely related to departure time.  Although we had sunny clear skies, it was evidently sand-storming someplace, because we had a weather alert.  We formed up and went to the flight line.  I have learned the system, so when I got there, I laid down in the sun and took a nap.  The air was cool, but the sun was warm.  It was not bad if you can filter out the noise and smells.   I have learned that too.

About 20 minutes later, I heard the sound of Ospreys, got in line and walked onto the tarmac.  Unfortunately, it was not our flight.  Back to the flight line and a few more minutes of rest.   Then the “shepherd” comes by and tells us the weather has closed in. We go back to the terminal and sit.  I read my book.  A very good one about Iraqi history my friend Tim thoughtfully sent me. 

It was getting on toward lunch time, so I went to see what the MRE situation was like.  It was, sad to say, normal.  I had something labeled cheese and what they said was wheat bread.  Bread in MREs comes packed with one of those little silica packets you get in the pockets of new clothes.  That tells you something about the quality of the product.  I am not sure you could tell it was bread in a blind taste test.  But hunger is the best cook.  I ate two pieces.  My colleague Sam asked me whether it was mold or a type of fruit sauce on his desert cookie.  I asked him if he thought it really mattered.  He said no and ate the cookie.

Our flight was called again.  We tramped out and went back to the flight line.  I resumed my previous position, now wonderfully enhanced by a warmer sun.   The flight shepherd came by and promised the helicopter would be there in 15 minutes. Twenty minutes later he came back and said that he had good and bad news.   The good new was that the helicopters were coming.  The bad news was that we couldn’t get on them.  They were going straight to Al Qaim with no stops.  Seems they were late (yes) and making up time.  He told us to come back at 2000.  We left the flight line just as the chow hall closed.  

I went back at 2000.  There was no flight going to Rawah/Anah. The guy at the desk told me that I should have been on the flight that left at 930.  I explained that I was there for that very flight.  It did not actually show up until 1330 and it did not go to Rawah/Anah at all.   He looked at the book and said that the flight was scheduled for 930 and his book showed it had gone.  Where it had gone in reality was neither specified in the book nor a concern of his.   Anyway, my options were to stay there all night and try to get a flight in the morning or go home and come back and try to get a flight in the morning.  Which option I chose also was not one of his concerns. I chose option #2.  That is where I am today.  If you don’t see an entry from me tomorrow, it probably means I was successful.

Of course, if I don’t make it to Anah, I might not write because I will have nothing interesting to report.  The MREs will neither improve nor deteriorate.  It will likely be cool and sunny tomorrow, as it was today and as it is every day this time of year.  I really want to go to Anah.  I have never been there.  I hear it is a planned city, planned by the French more than 80 years ago.  It is supposed to be a pleasant place.  That would be a nice change.  Take a look at the Al Asad pictures in my last blog note and you may understand what I mean. The French are good at planning cities and complicated meals.  Pierre L’Enfant planned Washington DC.  Now there is a subway stop named after him.  People should do what they are good at doing.

I have been accumulating short notes but none are enough for a post, so I have glommed them all together in no particular order.

Plexiglas Beats Sandbags

I have Plexiglas in my windows.  Everybody else has sand bags.  I did too, but once when I was standing near my window some of the sandbags spontaneously fell down, bathing my office in natural light.  The Marines thought it was odd that the sandbags fell down only in front of my windows and they piled them back up.  I felt like the guy in the “Cask of Amontillado” watching out the window while the sandbags piled higher.  The colonel allowed that if natural light was so important to me, I could have Plexiglas.   Now I do.  The view is not spectacular (as you can see in the photo), but the windows are above me and when I look up I can see the sky.  I like that.

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum, Wie grün sind deine Bottles

The picture speaks for itself.  In some places they use beer bottles, some of which come naturally in green.   In this heaven, however, there is no beer.  They use Gatorade bottles filled with colored water.   

Tatooine

That is the desolate planet where Luke Skywalker lives, or maybe it is Al Asad.

Gettysburg Can City

I just think the name if funny.  It sits across from Lima Tent City.  They actually are cities where people live (cf Tatooine above) You probably cannot tell from the picture, but that bunch of concrete on the left is Ripper Mall.  We have a laundry, little PX and telephone calling center.  Parking is free and always available.  That “parking lot” you see in the front is not paved, BTW.  The desert can be as hard as pavement and is sometimes easier to drive next to than on a road.

NPR Worldwide

I recently got Worldspace Satellite Radio.  The antenna is in the picture.  It gets very good reception of NPR, BBC, CNN radio etc. I really missed NPR.  With Worldspace, I can listen to “Morning Edition” in the afternoon and “All Things Considered” & “Talk of the Nation” before bed.   I still download “Dianne Rehm” weekly news roundup onto my I-Pod for time shifting.  Now that I also have a TV with AFN, I can watch the “News Hour with Jim Lehrer” just before breakfast.  I was worried that I would become uniformed during my sojourn in the desert.  Now my only problem is becoming misinformed.

Minor Ailments

My ears are still ringing from the helicopter ride I described in the post a few days ago.  When I sleep on my left ear, it does nearly deaf.  I have to tug on it a few times to unlplug it.  The trend seems good, however.  Persistent dust makes for dry eyes and throats.  I am not fond of dust.  I read that some Egyptian mummies have symptoms of a sort of black lung disease caused by the dust there.  I will not be in the desert long enough to suffer it, but this clearly is not a healthy place to live.  The adjective phrase “God forsaken” leaps to mind when looking around most of Al Anbar, at least when you get a short distance away from the Euphrates.  You get beautiful lush places across from lots of nothing – a strange blend of heaven and hell.   

Goats, Grass & Deserts

Dennis has hopes for a kind of wildlife restoration corridor.  I described his grand plan in an earlier post.   Goats & sheep are a big impediment.  These beasts are very picturesque, but they are desert makers.  The land here is arid, but it is barren because of the works of man and his sheep & goats.  They eat everything down to and including roots.  Where there is rain enough or where pastures are properly managed, this is okay.  Neither of these conditions applies in Iraq.  The land will not recover until and unless the goats & sheep are controlled.  Since this is a problem 4000 years in the making, I do not expect too much.  We will try an “ink blot” strategy of protecting small areas as we can and hoping they will expand.  This may be the triumph of hope over experience, but even if the sound management does not spread, at least we will have helped some restoration.

Small Victories

In the small victories category, we have identified a source of “gopher wood”.  This has nothing to do with the small rodent pests.  Rather it is a type of common Mediterranean cypress that grows 25 meters tall and has very durable wood.  The story is that Noah used it to construct his Ark.  I don’t know about that.  What I do know is this cypress was part of the original forest on the upper Euphrates.  We plan to give the little trees out when we visit towns and villages.  If they thrived once, I hope they can thrive again, even if the soil is a bit depleted because of bad farming practices and goats.

The picture is Van Gogh.  The real trees do not look so menacing.  Van Gogh had a different point of view.  BTW – he had more trouble with his left ear than I do and he wasn’t even in a helicopter. 

We have achieved a few other prosaic but important successes that should clear the way for a more effective operation.   A team member returned from Baghdad with funds to pay for dozens of QRF projects.   We also learned that we will no longer have to send a team member down on the four day trip to fetch funds; Fed Ex will do the job for us.  We are also in line to get another team member who help us with business development, something badly needed in western Anbar.  As peace returns, prosperity will follow faster if we can help develop local business.  Finally, our new bicultural specialist, an American citizen born in Iraq,  has developed a plan to help us recruit LES in our outlying districts.  We have been planning this for some time, but it is good to get something – literally – on paper with an Arabic heading. Fox News spent a week in our AO and produced several positive stories about western Anbar and about RCT 2.  I have video clips which I can share with anyone who wants to see them.

In the background are Hesco barriers.  Guess what those things in foreground are.

I truly enjoy the RCT 2 Marine briefings.  A lot of information passes but feelings of camaraderie and humor lighten the mood.  But it is a special kind of subtle humor, often more conveyed by slight changes in word emphasis (there can be a lot of meaning in a “yes sir”), facial expression or what goes unsaid.  I am afraid I will not be able to properly convey it, but I will try with an example.  First I need to provide a little background.

The Regiment is in the process of demilitarization – demiling.  During the recent unpleasantness, the Marines deployed various types of fortifications.  As areas are returned to civil Iraqi control these things must be removed and the place returned to its former condition.  This often means barren desert, but it has to be smooth barren desert.  The recently demiled desert is usually better than the original, since the smoothing tends to squash down and bury the preexisting garbage.  It doesn’t take military action to create a litter problem. 

Probably the most common forms of fortifications are Hesco barriers.  A Hesco barrier is essentially a barrel of fabric, held in place by wire and filled with dirt and debris.  You can see the pictures above.  They are easy to make and very good at absorbing explosions but unattractive.  The wire is valuable as scrap, but the fabric, which has no salvage value, must be separated.  The protocol calls for the fabric to be burned and the metal salvaged.  Now that I have set the stage, imagine the scene. 

The colonel asks the engineer captain about a particular stretch of road being cleaned up and Hesco barriers removed.  The captain explains, “We burn the fabric, sir, to salvage the metal…”  The captain pauses.  The colonel looks up in anticipation, saying nothing.  The captain gets a satisfied smile on his face and adds “… with our flame throwers, sir”.  Everybody in the room perks up.  The colonel says, “You have flame throwers?  Why do you have flame throwers?”  The captain answers, “Yes sir.  For counter vegetation, sir, we have two flame throwers.”  Testosterone surge in the room is palpable. There are several spontaneous offers to help with the flame throwers. 

It is true that the flame throwers are good for “counter vegetation operations.”  They are very effective in clearing a defensive area around a fortified position.  But it was clear from the enthusiasm expressed that using the flame throwers against vegetation or Hesco barrier is a chore nobody avoids.

BTW – in the picture foreground are urinals.  You try to hit the pipe.  Privacy is not an issue.

The picture is Madison, Wisconsin where I went to school.  I took it in September, just before I left for Iraq. It has nothing to do with Iraq.  It is just a place I enjoyed being.

I have conflicting feelings being the boss.  Everybody else on my staff has something particular to do.  In the “management position” you give up much of the hands-on fun and have to resist the urge to interfere in the productive work of others.  In compensation, you get to avoid some details as well as see and maybe shape the big picture.  The bargain is worth it, but there are clearly costs as well as gains.  For example, I would dearly love to tramp along on the agricultural assessments, but I cannot justify the investment in my time and, besides, I would surely get in the way of the real work if I hung around like a f*rt in a phone booth. 

One of my management duties today is to aggregate the work of my team so that I can understand and to coordinate efforts and, more urgently although perhaps less importantly, be able to brief high level visitors who will be coming around in a couple of days.  The team is active, making the aggregating job more complex, but at the same time making the leadership job a lot more satisfying.

I have everywhere been lucky in finding good colleagues and being able to profit from serendipitous opportunities.  Timing has also often worked to my advantage.

My timing in Iraq was luckier than I had any right to expect.  My predecessor set up the ePRT.  In the creation stage of any endeavourer, investments in time and resources show few tangible results, so the poor guy was working hard and doing good work, but had few specific achievements to brag about.  I inherited an operation at the takeoff stage.  In my short tenure, I have been able to approve and start scores of small projects collectively worth a half million dollars.  I look pretty tall standing on my predecessor’s shoulders.

I had even better timing with the security situation.  I set foot in Anbar at almost exactly at an inflection point in the violence.   Investments the Marines made in blood and treasure were beginning to yield results and the situation just continued to improve. The remarkable reduction of violence make it POSSIBLE to do our projects.   My colleagues who have been here longer tell me that six months ago it was hard to find organizations or contractors brave enough to take our money for projects.  Our problem today is choosing who among the many excellent opportunities.   Nor do I want to minimize the personal benefits for me and my staff.  It is much more pleasant to visit projects or contacts when you have a reasonable expectation of coming safely home.  The excitement of danger is much more attractive in the movies than in real life and I prefer to do w/o it whenever possible.

Life is an enormous relay race.  I got the baton now and it is my duty to run as best I can until I hand it off, but I have to be grateful that my stretch of track is smooth and mostly downhill due to the work of others.

Anyway, I need to get to work actually assessing the projects, making the list and checking it twice, so that I can better understand and explain all that we do and what we will do.  I am proud of my team.  It just goes to show that you don’t have to be smart if you are lucky and I am lucky to be here at this time with these guys.

BTW – to help me keep up with the many projects and commitments, I have gone low tech returning to something I used successfully for years – a durable little green notebook (Federal supply 7530-01-060-7511) about the size of a wallet that fits in my back pocket.  I always have access to it and when I have even a short time available, I can page through my notes.  It is a type of study and memorandum.  It has the advantage of being simple.  I used to make notes on a Blackberry, but I often forgot the notes I made and even more often let the urgent of the latest message replace the importance of the best idea.   With this, my constant review keeps important things at the front of my mind.  I am not going to give up technology, but for some tasks perhaps the appropriate technology is the simplest.

The picture above shows a couple of my paper PDAs.  Don’t worry the notes are from unclassified briefings and I made sure to practice good OPSEC.  Besides, who can read my writing?

The Colonel of our Regimental Combat Team was interviewed for Fox News.  

I admire Colonel Clardy.  He has done an excellent job here.  There is lots of credit to go around, but the Colonel certainly deserves a big share in turning this situation around in western Al Anbar.  He is well respected by his men and our Iraqi colleagues alike, a true soldier-diplomat.  I saw he is also very good on television and told him that he should run for political office.  We could use politicians who have experience running a big operation under these kinds of difficult conditions.  I continue to be amazed at how comprehensive a job it is, with elements of management, leadership, diplomacy, public relations and rule of law. It would also be good more politicians with real experience with war and peace.  

There are lots of heroes around here.  Some people fear that this generation of Americans is not up to the standards of the past.  Every generation has its heroes; it depends on where you look.  I trust my life to young men driving humvees or flying helicopters.  I am impressed by their devotion to duty, not to mention their intelligence, politeness and friendliness.  The Greatest Generation was great, but they did not use up all the heroism available in America.

Many of the officers are true intellectuals (although I am sure they would reject that characterization).  They work to understand the whole situation, not just the parts but how the parts fit together.   Especially impressive is General John Allen who I meet with some regularity.  I learn a lot just from standing near him. 

Sorry if I am rambling.  I just wish more Americans had the opportunity to work with the brave ad capable men & women here in Iraq.  They would be prouder to be Americans and it might change some attitudes.  One of my colleagues, a self described former tie-dye hippy, was talking today about how he quickly jumped to the defense of our Marines while at a conference about refugees.  He was annoyed when some UN & NGO types accused them of “invading the humanitarian space” that these organizations considered their rightful property.  The Marines were saving lives and building the future while some others were theorizing and chattering about when they were going to decide to decide to demand something be done by somebody else.  Heroes do more than talk about helping.

Out of the blue and completely unsolicited I received a box of harmonicas.  I guess somebody figured that the one thing we needed in Iraq was harmonicas.  There were more than a hundred.

They are Herb Shriner “Hoosier Boy” harmonicas.  The accompanying letter explains that Herb Shriner was a 50s era TV star and a harmonica virtuoso.  The harmonicas are a gift from his family.  They have evidently been in storage (the harmonicas, not the family) since the 1950s and now there is a program to give them to the troops. At first I thought the whole idea was a joke, but the harmonicas are proving surprisingly popular among the Marines and you can hear the sweet, but melancholy music of the mouth organ all over our corner of Al Asad.  Some people can play the harmonica, others can’t.   Those who can play evidently learned all their songs from watching westerns and/or movies about the Civil War (i.e. the war of northern aggression, to my neighbors near the tree farm).  So far I have been able to pick out “Lorena”, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, “The Bonnie Blue Flag” and of course that old favorite “Home on the Range.”   There are other songs that I either do not recognize or are unrecognizable at the current talent level of the performer.

I tried to learn to play the harmonica a couple of years back, but since I am uncommonly free of musical talent, the lessons didn’t take.  Maybe I will take it up again so that I can entertain people waiting for flights at the landing zones.  Maybe not, now that I recall everybody around here carries a gun.

BTW – I am trying to put the comments section back in.  Let’s hope I do not get spammed again.

Every Muslim who is able is supposed to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his/her life.  This visit, the hajj, is one of the five pillars of Islam.  It takes place during the lunar month of Dhu al-Hijja, which this year will start on December 11.

We are not directly involved with the hajj, but take a look at the map and notice where Anbar province sits.  Obviously thousands of pilgrims moving through our area of operations is hard to ignore.   Having Coalition Forces around will make it a safer journey for them as CF operations disrupt AQI and insurgents, so that the ostensibly devout (AQI) will have a harder time murdering the genuinely devout (pilgrims going to Mecca).

The Marines have been learning about the hajj and how to be culturally aware around the Iraqis and those traveling through Iraq during this special time.  Iraq shares a border with Saudi Arabia and pilgrims traveling over land to Mecca from the north and the east logically pass though Anbar.  I recently attended a lecture about the hajj.  One of the Marines had been assigned to learn about it and deliver a talk to enlighten the others.  He did an excellent job and was very earnest in his task.  It is important to be earnest.    His lecture was as factually correct as most I heard at college and it was a good deal more entertaining.  He connected the idea of pilgrimage to examples in the experience of most Marines and then gave the background on the significance of Mecca, the pilgrimage and many of the things pilgrims do before, during and after the hajj. 

Of course the best outcome for all involved is that absolutely nothing exciting happens during the month of the hajj, in Iraq or anyplace else.  According to the lecture and what I hear from other sources, the hajj is generally peaceful, as people are in a generous mood and no good Muslim engages in violence during this period. Of course, there always are some who seek the notoriety of disrupting peaceful people even during a special time like this. Let’s hope they don’t succeed this year.

A couple of years ago my son Espen  came for a take your child to work day.  I still have the letter he wrote about his experience.  He was bored because I didn’t do anything interesting that he could watch.  He concluded correctly that I was in the persuasion business and it is not interesting watching persuasion being made.

Diplomacy is like that.  You meet interesting people and wrestle with interesting ideas, which is why I like the work, but you really do not DO very much interesting stuff.  I guess that is why they do not make television dramas, or even comedies, about diplomats and when we do appear we are usually slick sweet talkers.  That characterization is unfair, but I can well understand if that is the way others see us.  Much of the time we are transmitting messages and if we do succeed in changing minds, they will look no different and it may well be best for all involved if nobody acknowledges that a change occurred or why.

I thought working in Iraq might be different, but it isn’t.  I spent my career in public diplomacy.  Since first post in Porto Alegre, Brazil, I have managed staff, run programs, met people, written reports and been generally in the persuasion business.  In Iraq I do the same things.  Being a PRT leader is not substantially different from working as a public affairs officer in Krakow or Porto Alegre.  Of course, I work with vastly greater resources and in a less settled general atmosphere, but I feel comfortable doing the KIND of job I have been doing for twenty years.

I was about to write that another difference is that working in Iraq is more dangerous, but I do not think that is still true.  The security arrangements make it seem a lot scarier, but those same precautions also make is less dangerous.  Beyond that, the security situation on the ground had improved very much.  On the other hand, in Porto Alegre I shared the road with big trucks and bad drivers when I traveled on narrow roads around my district.  On one particularly narrow and curvy coastal highway, informally called the road of death, I kept count of fatal accidents I passed.  During one seven hour drive, I saw seven – one for every hour.  Similarly, on the narrow poorly maintained road from Krakow to Rzeszow in Poland, traffic fatalities were so frequent that Polish traffic accident terms were among the words I could recite like a native.  I believe that driving developing country highways is statistically more dangerous than working here in Iraq today.

It is harder to work here and much more uncomfortable.  After the initial excitement of traveling in helicopters and convoys dissipates, you have the tedium, noise and discomfort of traveling in helicopters and convoys and travel is unreliable.  It might take days to make a simple trip and you might get stuck for a long time where your only option is to embrace the suck. 

What I miss is most the spontaneity and serendipity that I enjoyed in my earlier posts, but I am afraid that is lost in much of the world – not only in Iraq – due to security.  Terrorists have forced us to hunker down all over the world.   In Porto Alegre or Krakow, my office was on the street.  Friends and contacts could and did just wander in to talk and I could just walk out the office door and find them. If I had business with the head of the university or the mayor of the city, I could just go over and talk with him.  You get a lot done in those situations and it is a pleasure to do.  Of course, I could speak Polish and Portuguese and I do not speak Arabic, but that is not the key difference.  What I could resolve with a couple of minutes and two cups of tea in Krakow or a small coffee in Porto Alegre now is literally a Federal case requiring days of planning.  More perniciously, the ubiquitous security complicates human interaction, destroys spontaneity and makes it very hard to achieve the kinds of solutions that create synergy by giving everybody more than they thought they would get. 

I do not know if we can ever get that back – anywhere.  We have become a world of guards, gates and barriers, even in our own home towns, even in our own homes.  Terrorism has stolen a part of our humanity.

I am drifting too far into the dark side.  Today is Sunday.  We only work a half day on Sunday.  I am going to take advantage of this sunny and cool morning to run down to the peaceful Al Asad oasis and think harmonious thoughts for a least a couple of hours.