April 8, 2007 was somewhat of a monumental day for me - not only was it my son's 2nd birthday, it was Easter Sunday, and it was the first day I set foot in the middle east - as I headed into Baghdad to assist in the reconstruction effort of Iraq.
Three years later, I find myself in similar, but different circumstances. I'm back in Kandahar, Afghanistan after returning from an emergency/R&R Leave. It's Easter Sunday, and I'm away from my family. All of which leaves me with a sense of Melancholy.
Sunrise services were held here on base at 0630 this morning. It's unfortunately no different today than it was yesterday from a work standpoint, albeit, I'm trying to make it so in my own way.
One of the major differences between these two dates, is that when I served in Baghdad, Iraq, the focus was on reconstructing the Water Infrastructure of that country on behalf of the Iraqi people. In this assignment, my focus is in serving the American Military forces. Two very different missions in similar environments and circumstances. Working in a war zone is very frustrating at best. Frustrating because of all of the constraints under which you have to accomplish your mission - not the least of which is working under a Federal Contract, which by its very nature causes the work to be 10 times harder than it should be.
Obviously working in a War zone carries with it the difficulty associated with the dangerous conditions - almost goes without saying. And lastly, the customer - when your customer is an institution, like the United States Government - the difficulties are magnified 10 fold. They are magnified because the customer is an "entity", however, the face of that customer is the person you serve every day - 2 entirely different things - and what the person on the ground wants and directs is not at all what the "government" wants or directs. It's a situation of being able to distinguish between the "customer" wich is the might of the United States Government, and the "customers people" which are the soldiers on the ground. In between these two conflicting areas are "liason" officers - who typically have entirely "different" takes on it as well.
I have sat in on 3 meetings this week with the US Army, Airforce, Marine officers and enlisted men, along with United States Government employees and contractors, and have seen all of the differing points of views and behaviors poorly spoken to above played out in these meetings. Just yesterday, during a meeting I watched a Col in the United States Army make what I would call fairly bush league attempts to throw our team off balance or under the bus per say based on bits of information for which he didn't have the capacity to dig a little deeper on.
Case in point: Have you ever had someone ask a "leading" question to get you to answer in one way or another simply because they couldn't wait to pounce on you and then pound their chest. This gentleman did just that - only he sucked at it so badly - that none of us would take the bait, so he had to answer both sides of the question himself to make the point - which point - when we knew what it was - and properly answered it, made him look pretty silly - not only because his lack of information was so glaringly obvious (except to him), but that when I answered him, his counterpart - another Col, supported my answer and further expounded.
In that same meeting, this same gentleman made a statement for all in the room to hear, as well as those on the video conference - which basically was a castigation of our team, without any details - and then said - we'll talk after the meeting. So - he put that out there for everyone in the room, yet wouldn't resolve it publically either. After the meeting, all the military and government civilians left the room, and he kept us in there alone - and proceeded to tell us that he had been approached by Military Police and Criminal Investigative Division about some circumstances occuring by our team. He detailed them in a very "proud" manner, and when he finished looked at us like...."well, what do you have to say about that"....like he was springing a surprise on us.
Our response....- "Yes sir, we know all about that - in fact, we are the ones who discovered this, took it to the Military Police, and started their investigation for them.....and oh, by the way - this happened over a month ago."
Long story short - honestly speaking I felt like the Iraqi people I worked for in Baghdad were grateful to us for our efforts on their behalf. I don't get that same sense here. In fact - because of how operations in this theater are I honestly feel like from day to day, I have to fight my own customer in order to serve him....
Our task is daunting. We have an enormous amount of people and material to move. Don't forget this is a war zone, so we have to provide as best we can for their safety and general well being, and know where they are at all times in case of emergency or otherwise.
Sounds like an awful lot of grousing on my part - It's not. Just needed a forum to vent for once I guess.
All's well. Happy Easter.
