Mission Accomplished

Initially, I planned to limit this blog to camp stories.  I still intend to keep the focus there, but I may stray from time to time.  This is one of those times.  Also, there is a bit of profanity in this post.  I think it is necessary for the story.

From May 2006 to May 2007 I was deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.  Yes, the Navy was in Afghanistan.  In many ways, it was a lot like camp.  You ate all your meals at a dining hall (DFAC), wore uniforms and saw the same people day after day.  We even went on trips, but we called them missions.  If I ever take a trek group out again, I am going to refer to the trip as a mission.

I wasn't in direct combat.  I was over there as an engineer and spent most of my time designing Forward Operating Bases (FOBS).  These FOBS were designed to support a few hundred US and Coalition forces.  They were not luxurious, but did have electricity, limited plumbing and heat.  Additionally we needed to ensure that there was plenty of force protection measures in place.

Just as at camp, there were a number of characters that I encountered.

LCDR Frankenstein: So named, because he really did look a lot like Frankenstein.  He had an enormous head.   Really enormous.  They had to order a special helmet for him.  He wasn't a really big dude, but he had a head that wouldn't fit through most windows!  He was also incredibly forgetful and absent minded. Some highlights:

1.  In the middle of the night he left the tent we were temporarily bunked in, presumably to use the head.  There were probably 25 of us in the tent.  After being gone for about 8 minutes, he came back in and I assumed he was going to get back in his rack.  What followed was some rustling, and then a very loud voice: "What the FUCK are you doing?"  Turns out in the space of 8 minutes, Frankenstein had forgotten which rack was his and climbed into a rack occupied by one of our saltier electricians!;

2.  He was forever leaving our office only to return a short time later because he had forgotten something.  This would range from relatively important things like his rifle to smaller items like a notebook.  One time, he left and one of my office mates started counting down.  He came in exactly as my office mate finished saying "1";

3.  On a number of occasions, he would go through the chow line and somehow lose his tray in the 25 feet or so it took to get to our table.  It may have been at the salad bar, it may have been somewhere else.  He never went to look for it.  He simply went through the line again.  I don't think he ever misplaced two trays in one meal, but perhaps he did.

4. There were a number of occasions where we had to fly around by helicopter to various bases.  There was a set flight that visited a number of different bases.  It was sort of like a bus, it had a set schedule and route.  Frankenstein managed to pull off two feats.  First, he fell asleep.  These helicopters are loud and the seats are not comfortable.  Plus, you are wearing your body armor.  Also, the doors are open for the gunners.  Finally, they test fire the weapons from time to time.  (Incidentally, the first time this happened to me, it scared the hell out of me.  We were flying fast and low and all of a sudden both machine guns go off.  I grabbed for my handgun, as if that would help.  I saw the pilots laughing.) Nevertheless Frankenstein fell asleep for a little bit.  The second thing he did was fail to get off at the proper stop.  You know what number your stop is going to be ahead of time, and count down.  Somehow, Frankenstein, an engineer, couldn't quite count to 4.  He ended up doing the whole circuit and arrived back at our camp later that day.  He had to take the flight the following day.  They sent someone with him, just to make sure he didn't get lost.

BUC-O: In the Navy, our senior enlisted personnel are called "Chiefs".  One of our senior enlisted was classified as a "Builder" and the abbreviation for a Builder Chief is BUC.  Fortunately his last name began with an O, so it was only fair to call him BUC-O.  BUC-O was a reservist and when he wasn't in the Navy he worked at a prison.  He had a very colorful way of talking and introduced me to a few lovely phrases.  If we had a big job to do, his suggestion was always to "gang fuck" it.  Meaning, let's put a lot of people on it and get it done.  His other trademark phrase was "Don't exaggerate the big fucking point."  I never quite understood this phrase because he applied it across a broad spectrum.  When they served a very good Thanksgiving meal he admonished us not to exaggerate the big fucking point.  When we were preparing for a mission and deciding who should go in which vehicle, again the same refrain.  I really liked this phrase, because I had never heard it before and it appeared that you could plug it in anywhere.  It was quickly adopted by all of us.  BUC-O never told us if we were using it correctly or not.  That was for him alone to know.

Captain America:  This was an Army guy who worked with us.  In the Army, you can be classified as an engineer even if you don't have formal engineering experience.  Captain America fit this bill.  What I remember most about him is that he had a mail order bride.  He would be the first to bring it up and tell you all about the process, just in case you were considering it!  He seemed particularly proud of it, perhaps he thought he had figured out the way marriage was supposed to be.

The Angry Asian: The thing about reservists is, that some of them are pretty old.  Older than most of the active duty guys.  Consequently, we had a couple of senior officers that were Vietnam War vets.  During a training exercise, one of the vets accidentally shot (with blanks, not real bullets) one of our junior officers. That junior officer was Vietnamese. We joked that the senior officer had a flashback.  The junior officer was not amused.  He was very rarely amused.  I think he was just wound too tight.  He seemed to love misery though.  All through our deployment, he was desperately trying to get another deployment.  Finally, he was successful, and after a lot of begging and pulling strings he was able to secure a deployment to Iraq.  He then would constantly complain about how he was being sent on another deployment. He just loved being angry. He also had a bit of a fling with an Air Force officer.  I won't say she was unattractive, but she certainly was not attractive. The Air Force did 4 month deployments, so she traveled back to the states while we were still there.  On one occasion, she sent him a package.  The entire unit got all its mail at once, and it may sit in the office for a bit if someone is out on a mission.  So we found ourselves in constructive possession of a small package for the Angry Asian.  We did not open the package, but we did alter the customs slip to indicate that the package contained various sultry items like underwear.  When the Angry Asian saw the slip, he was actually happy.  When he opened the package, he was angry, but not nearly as angry as we thought he would be.  If anything he was slightly less angry than his baseline level.  He actually thought it was a pretty good joke.

Our Not Very Fearless Leader: The overall officer in charge of our 100+ sailors was not a bad guy.  He was a terrible leader though.  He was a reservist.  In his day job he owned a successful law practice. He was not cut out to be our leader.  For one thing, he was known to break into tears, in public. Sort of like John Boehner.  The thing is, we never experienced anything bad.  Yes, it sucked that we were away from our families, but no-one died.  No-one got seriously injured. Our whole group was in a support role.

 (The most serious injury I got was while jogging around the fence line at remote base.  A group of afghan kids kind of joined in from the other side of the fence.  I thought I was doing my part of nation building.  Evidently not, one of them lobbed a rock over the fence and hit me right in the noggin.  Nothing serious, just a small cut and a nice little bump.  The medic who saw me was a special forces medic and had served in Vietnam.  He very seriously told me that I should have shot the kid. I am glad I did not.  In fact, the thought never crossed my mind.  I probably would have missed anyway.  Also, this kid had damn good aim, he threw a rock at a moving target, over a 15 foot fence over a distance of about 50 feet!)

Regardless, our leader would break into tears just discussing the logistics of certain operations.  He also cried when he was briefing the team that would replace us.  I think he was discussing something incredibly emotional, like what kind of long underwear to bring.

He also pulled a move that left him despised by everyone.  One bright spot in the year long deployment was that you were given two weeks of leave (vacation).  It was a great perk, the military would fly you anywhere you wanted to go.  Some people went to Australia, others to just back to the states.  Everyone was in a set rotation.  A rotation set by our leader.  His leave, not surprisingly took him home for Christmas and New Years.  His rationale "I have never missed a Christmas with my family, I am not going to start now."  It didn't matter that for some people they had missed the last 5 Christmases, or were expecting a child at that time. People may have forgiven the crying, this was not forgivable.
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I am sure there are other characters.  Overall, the deployment was more good than bad.  It would be tougher now with kids, but it is the families that stay behind that have it worst.   They have to do all the same things they used to do as a family.  For us, it was a big adventure.