Q & A time; an interview from Camp Spann

My sister sent me an email yesterday with a bunch of questions and suggested that I put it on the blog... Not a bad idea, I thought! So here is her email, along with my answers. I am sure that some of you will also have questions, and since not much intersting happens around here. PLEASE email them to me so that I have something to write about. Otherwise this blog will get very boring, very quickly...

From Trish (7/27/2007):

I’ll check out the blog. You know, you might be surprised that the details that seem mundane to you might actually be interesting to people back here, especially those of us who are civilians. Like:
Q: How many people are there where you’re based?
A: This is actually a much more complicated question than it initially appears. I will try to break it down, as much as I can. I am stationed on Camp Mike Spann. We consistently have people coming and going. There are Army, Navy and Air Farce (that is NOT misspelled...) personnel here. There are about 350 US and Coalition Forces here, including the civilians. The reason this question is complicated, and w/o getting to in depth, the Norther Region has at least three other bases that fall under the Regional Commander. The North is actually controlled by the Germans, but there are Croation, Swedish, Norwiegan, Afghan as well as US and German forces here. Camp Mike Spann is a smaller US base located on a larger Afghan base, that is home to about 1000 Afghani forces. I do not know the composition of the outlying FOBs (forward operating bases) located in this Region.

Q: Do you sleep in a dorm or have your own room? Do you get a normal bed?
A: We sleep in what are called "B Huts" and my understanding is that this is based upon a grading scale of A, B or C, depending upon the quality, A being best. I am in a five man B hut that has partitions for five smaller rooms. The walls cannot go all the way to the floor or ceiling, so the airflow from the small A/C unit can flow throughout. My individual space has a bunk bed a small bookshelf and a wall locker. It is about 6 feet X 12 feet, so there is not much space. Some of the B huts are larger - there are 6, 8 and 14 person huts. The rooms in the 8 are larger, and the 14 person huts do not have partitions. They are used more for "Teams" and/or transient personnel.

Q: Are there women there? (meaning date-able women)
A: To put it simply, no. There are women here, but there are several underlying factors to this question. To begin with, I personally am not interested in dating, as there is someone back home that I am interested in. Most of the women on this base, as I understand it, are married or have significant others anyway. More importantly, the Army has several rules against this, too. There are rules against "fraternization" between Officer and Enlisted, and here "in theater" there is a "no sex" rule.

Q: What kind of entertainment do they have for you? Do they show movies or have DVDs you could check out? Do they have a library?
A: Let's see, where should I start...? There are movies, although not as consistent now as they were previously. I think they used to be shown on Tue and Thur, but now only on Thur... They are projected onto a white painted wall on the back of the building I work in. I have not watched one, though. Usually because I am still working when they start at 2000 (8pm). But I have also not been too interested in the selection. There is a TV room with about a 35 inch TV, but I haven't used that either... We have a TV in our B hut that I will watch periodically. There are two gyms here and I have been trying to work out every other day, but will soon be working out daily. There is a library, mostly donated paperbacks, from which I have pulled about three dozen books I intend to read while I am here. I've already finished about ten books since I arrived. The building that houses the library also has about 6 computers and 10 ports where people can hook up their laptops. This is usually empty during the day and jam packed every night. In the back of the room are six phones that we can use to call back to the states.

Q: Do you like the people you work with? You could maybe describe goofy people with pseudonyms.
A: I generally like all of the people that I work with, but there are too many to be specific about it w/in this blog. I had already decided to write some blogs about individuals here. You'll just have to come back to find out more about the troops out here, I guess...

Q: What do you eat? Is it cafeteria food? Is there a place where you could cook your own food if you wanted? Could you drive into a local town and have a meal?
A: Yes, the food is basically cafeteria food. They call it the DFAC, short for dining facility - I still call it the "Chow Hall" and the food isn't much to speak of. Unless of course you eat the lobster, but if you're reading this you've probably already learned about the outcome of this disasterous meal... As far as cooking our own food, groups have periodically gotten together to have BBQs, but there are no kitchen facilities open for our use. People will occassionally go over to "ANA Land" (the Afghan National Army base) or "TERP Village" (also part of the other camp where the Interpreters live) to eat with the Foreign Nationals. The Germans and Swedes put on a BBQ last week, but again, I was working. We cannot go out into town to eat, but there are two or three places that will deliver food here. I haven't tried any of it, though.

Q: Are there places to buy things on the base? For example, could you buy a CD or a new pair of jeans or something? Are there local shopping areas (I don’t know what they’d be called, maybe a market or bazaar or something)? Is there anything interesting to buy?
A: We do have a small store that is only open about three days a week for a few hours, where we can buy some items ranging anywhere from tobacco products, candy and magazines, to toilettetries, towels and laundry detergent. It's like a really bad version of 7-11... Every two weeks there is a bazaar where local vendors are allowed to bring items to hoc. I've bought some fur blankets, scarves, and a few unset jewels. There is also a separate rug bazaar where we can buy Afghan rugs. I will be taking my camera to take pictures, and will probably buy some as well.

Q: Are there rules about interacting with the Afghan people? Like, if you met a hot Afghan woman, could you date her? (I’m assuming that’s just not a likely scenario for myriad reasons, but I’d be curious.) Or, if you came across a poor kid on the side of the road, could you give him money if you wanted? Do you work with interpreters who are locals?
A: The Muslim culture here only allows Afghan women to marry Muslims, and most marriages are arranged. I haven't been out in town except for one convoy to the local airport about an hour away. US Forces used to give candy (mostly thrown from convoys) to the kids, but the kids started getting too aggressive, coming very close to the vehicles (we don't stop...) and so the Army has said no more to giving (throwing ANYTHING) from the vehicles. Bigger kids would also take the candy from the smaller ones. We do periodically schedule "HA drops" (humanitarian assistance) at schools or "MEDCAP" (not sure the acronym exactly, but medical assistance) in town and at hospitals. The last one I heard about was at an all girls school, but young boys were so brazen as to jump into classrooms through the windows and steal the school supplies and run off with them. As I understand it, the kids are adorable. They try to speak English with the troops saying "hello" and "what is your name," etc. Aside from a few jerks, these tend to be very rewarding for the troops. I am working to put together an opportunity for Navy personnel to do one soon. I will post pictures and a detailed blog soon after.

Q: Is it like Saudi Arabia, where women don’t drive cars?
A: Yes, women here are still very suppressed. Until recently they were not allowed to go to school or hold a job and were required to wear the burka, covering them completely from head to toe. Many still do, but there is a growing number that only wear a scarf around their head, or nothing at all. Many of the women are becoming teachers, and most little girls are being allowed to attend school. As far as I know, they are still not allowed to drive, though.

Q: Would it be easy for someone to buy heroin? Is it policed? Is that a major source of income for the people?
A: I'm not really sure how to answer this... I don't think the average Afghan could afford to buy heroin, although my understanding is that it is common practice to cut a plant and roll a cigarette in the juices. The people are so poor, and I think that almost, if not all, the opium product is exported to Russia and Europe. It is probably the single most income producing product. I've read that it makes up a third of the GDP.

Q: Is the Army much different than the Navy? And if so, how?
A: I'm not trying to be mean when I say this, but the Army SUCKS... The Army is a beuracratic nightmare... The longer I am here the more I become convinced that it is purely because of poor decision making, mismanagement, inefficiency, inadequacy, ineffectiveness and the insane ability to create useless manhours worth of work. I swear they have meeting to decide what to have meetings about... I guess this is somehow related with the need to create a perception within the Government that there was in fact a NEED for an Army... I don't know, but here is an example I read recently; When the Army arrived in Iraq a few years ago to take over from the Marine Corps, they were moving people and equipment all over the country. At one point a Captain - that's the same rank as me (O-3) arrived with his forty member team to take over a FARP (forward area refueling point). They drove up with several UAHs (up armored Humvees) and five or six 5-ton trucks to haul all of their equipment. When they arrived the Captain found a Marine PFC (private first class) and after yelling at the kid for not saluting him demanded, "Private, where is your commanding officer? I want to talk to who ever is in charge around here!" So the Private responded in true Marine fashion, "Sir, no offense intended, we Marines don't salute in hostile territory, and had I saluted you there is a good chance one of the insurgent snipers would be taking pot shots in your direction... As for my CO, well sir, he's up in Bagdad. Corporal Jones over there is in charge..." This was a two man team, run by a Corporal, which is an E-4, or Enlisted kid, in charge of a FARP that the Army had just sent 40 people to come out and run. See where I'm going with this? If they weren't wasting resources at such a grotesque level, there would be no need for Air Farce and Navy personnel to come over here and "support" them. I am amazed, daily, by the amount of reports and/or lists we're asked to provide, the number of meetings people have to attend, and the needless hours of useless workload that is created within the Army.

Q: What do you miss most about the U.S.?
A: Mostly I miss NOT being in the Narmy.... That's what we squids have started calling this unfortunate division bordering somewhere in no-man's-land between the Navy and the Army. I miss not being able to have a cold beer or a glass of wine after a hard day. I miss seeing my good friends everyday, and the fact that I'll miss Tanya and Eric's wedding tomorrow! I miss driving my car with the sun roof back and the radio blasting, I miss straping a mighty MH-60S to my back and going for a ride. I pretty much miss everything about being back in the good old US.

Q: Do you draw your regular salary there? Do you get any premium for being there, or will you get a bonus when you leave?
A: On top of my normal salary, which is now Tax Exempt (I still pay into Medicare and Social Security, although I don't ever expect to collect from either of these programs as they will go away soon, hopefully, before they completely bankrupt our country...), I also draw $250 a month for Hostile Fire and Immenent Danger Pay, and some other $100 a month pay that I don't know what it is for. As I understand it, I also get like a $1.03 per day in per diem, Woo Hoo!!

Q: Who do you report to? Do you have an Army superior you report to and then a Navy one as well?
A:

Q: Are there other guys from the Navy there?
A: Yes, I think there are about 30 Navy personnel here. The Garrison Commander is our senior person, so I kind of report to him, although I don't really work for him... The way it works, more or less, is that the Navy runs the Base. The daily operations on the base, so that the Army can focus their attention on everything that goes on "outside the wire" as we say. We have some people in charge of communication; cell phones, radios, computer and network issues, the phones, etc. We have people that are in charge of the construction on the base, which has to do with the local Afghan contractors that come here to build more B huts, offices, expand the DFAC, etc. Then there are the service contractors, they come and clean the DFAC, clean out the heads (Army says latrine, you prob'ly say restroom or shitter - depending upon your present company) and empty the septic tanks. Others work with the civilians that run the DFAC and COE (corps of engineers), we keep track of the people on the base, billeting (where they sleep), transient billeting, leave and pass dates, etc.

Anyway, these are just some things I’d like to hear about, so I thought maybe it might be interesting to other people too.

I hope that answers all of your questions. If you have any more, or found anything confusing or brought about more questions, just shoot me an email.

Miss you all, bunches and bunches...