Guest Post: CPT Chris Myers from Afghanistan!

This is a guest post from a friend I made while mobilizing. CPT Myers and I trained together at Ft. Gordon Signal school. This....is a great post! When I saw it, I had to share it with those 2 or 3 of you that read my blog. :) I asked and Chris agreed to be a guest blogger for us today. CPT Chris Myers is an Army Reserve IRR soldier like myself. In civilian life, he's an English teacher in San Fransico. Enjoy!

10 July 2009Kabul, Afghanistan

Greetings, all, from beautiful downtown Kabul. Yes, after over three months of inprocessing, integration and training in Georgia and Indiana, my deployment proper has finally begun. I am stationed here at Camp Phoenix, which (at the moment, anyways) will be my home for the next nine months or so. Phoenix, as some of you may know, is a mythical bird that self-immolates and then regenerates itself from the ashes—in a sense continually rebuilding itself out of dust. In a secondary sense, Phoenix also refers to a city in Arizona, best known for its scorching dry heat and population of displaced, disgruntled Republicans. Under either definition, the Camp Phoenix designator is appropriate.

In the limited communications I’ve had with some of you since my arrival, one word keeps resurfacing as a descriptor: surreal. Despite being in a warzone, I cannot write that I miss the honkytonks, Dairy Queens and Seven-Elevens, considering there is a Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and faux-Starbucks here on base—the latter serving a mean spiced chai triple espresso. Surreal. There are salsa lessons offered every Thursday night, sandwiched between karaoke Wednesdays and Hip-Hop Fridays. Surreal. I am living in a wooden hut with five other officers, across the street from the Romanians and next to the French contingent, which has built a small windmill amidst their barracks. Surreal. I currently have a job title for a position that does not officially exist. Surreal. The on-base, bi-weekly, local national bazaar offers gold lame Aladdin slippers with curled toes for three dollars. I am un chien Andalusia. As the time slowly melts away, here’s the latest from this edge of the world.

> You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack / You may find yourself in another part of the worldThe first leg of our journey to the East began as we left Camp Atterbury, flying out of Indianapolis International Airport. Our transportation was a commercial jet, serviced by Omni Air International (the Wal-Mart brand of international carriers). Given that the flight was not full to capacity, I was sharing a row of three with only one other person. The center seat of our row was reserved for our excess gear, to include our M9 pistols, while our M4 rifles lay on the floor beneath the seats—“with muzzles pointed toward the aisle” as the attendant casually announced over the speaker (Surreal.) Sharing my row was a fellow IRR captain who I work with regularly out here, and who has crafted his bitterness into something of an art form (he was called back a mere six months after getting out). As we taxied the runway out of Indianapolis, he mentioned to me that he was going to get up mid-flight, start waving around his pistol and screaming madly, eventually busting a window and sending us all to a fiery death. I told him it would be something to be part of an international incident like that, and to wake me up before he did it so, on the off chance I survived, I could attest to the tortured souls of the IRR recalls on Larry King Live. Alas, he chickened out and I spent most of the 23 hours in flight sleeping, waking up only for our mandatory fuel stops and a breakfast meal that resembled cat food on a sponge and tasted much the same. We had layovers at airports in Shannon, Ireland (pleasant) and Bucharest, Romania (less so) before finally landing at Manas Air Base in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

We stayed at Manas for three days before completing our final leg into Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan grabbed some headline space last month, when its president was threatening to force out the U.S., unhappy with our continued presence in using the country as a staging base for the escalating conflict in Afghanistan. This threat dissipated after the U.S. renegotiated our land lease with the Kyrgyz government, agreeing to pay more than three times our current $17 million annual rent, as well as an additional $60+ million for other Kyrgyz projects, illustrating that at least the government’s stimulus package is working in places like Kyrgyzstan.

Other than that recent turn in the news cycle spotlight, the only other claim to fame that Kyrgyzstan holds is, of course, The Great Vowel Pogrom. Back in the late 12th-Century, the Mongol Invasion led to a mass exodus of vowels from the country, resulting in a hostile, consonant-led dictatorship that is still firmly entrenched today. Threatened with violence that included the flogging of their serifs and amputation of their ligatures, the vowels fled the country en masse during the 1180s, seeking sanctuary in the remote mountains of neighboring Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The traitorous Ys overran the country, burning entire villages of Es, Is and, occasionally the wayward Js, who were sometimes accused of being pro-vowel sympathizers. Numerous vowels relocated to Scandinavia, where they flourished after cleverly disguising themselves with umlauts, breves and other diacritical camouflage. Another sect of Kyrgyz Vowel refugees established themselves in Great Britain, where then blended in seamlessly (if needlessly) in words like colour, humour and cheque. Still others can be found in the United States, where a pocket of vowels with Kyrgyz decent settled in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin. They frequently visit the Wisconsin Dells, enjoying the fried cheese curd, as well as matinee performances of Tommy Bartlett’s Ski and Sky Show.

> You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife. On Tuesday, June 16, we departed Manas via military aircraft (a C-17, for those who know military aircraft…or who like to make SnapTite models) and flew into Afghanistan, arriving to Camp Phoenix that night. It did not go unnoticed that, as I was aboard the aircraft, proceedings were taking place a few time zones west of me and, by the time I landed in Kabul, I had gained a brother-in-law. (Yes, I know this may be the least romantic, least poetic way ever to describe a wedding. One should note, however, that there’s a reason there has never been a film or poem called “Honeymoon in Afghanistan.” Regardless, congratulations Melissa and Tom. You are now obligated to build a small wooden house in the woods of Northern California, so that if I ever have kids, I can take them to Uncle Tom’s Cabin).

Enroute to the camp from the airport, our driver shared this bit of trivia. This could be fact, legend or an over-embellished truth, but it has been repeated since my arrival here and, even if it’s complete BS, it still makes a good story: Apparently Camp Phoenix is “one of the safest bases in Afghanistan,” according to the driver, having gone almost two years without an attack. It seems that in 2007, the camp was attacked with indirect mortar fire. The local warlord—a supporter of the troops here—was incensed at the attack and ordered the perpetrators to be found. They were, and when they were, they were skinned alive and their families slaughtered. Since then, there has not been an attack on Camp Phoenix. Fact or fiction, it’s fair to assume that, right now, every death penalty proponent is licking his or her lips, wondering where the Tim Robbins/Sean Penn movie is dramatizing that account.

Our first few days at Camp Phoenix were filled with the joys of the ever-ubiquitous PowerPoint briefings, proving that if the world ever ends, only the cockroach and the Army PowerPoint brief will survive the Armageddon. Most of these briefings were tedious and repetitive, but one bears special mention as the most-discussed of the lot, as it featured the Army’s official policy on sex while deployed in theater. Usually, when the Army is against something, they put out the information in no uncertain terms. For example, General Order Number One whilst deployed can be summarized simply as “Don’t drink any alcohol,” followed by a litany of “or else” punishments that make mandated sobriety seem a rather obvious choice. Sex, on the other hand, isn’t quite as verboten, though the Powers That Be have found a way to make sure you can’t enjoy the otherwise pleasurable act of copulation without first wading through a morass of governmental litigious red tape. So I don’t misrepresent the policy, here is a summary, courtesy of Military Times:

“The new regulation warns that sex in a combat zone 'can have an adverse impact on unit cohesion, morale, good order and discipline.'

But sexual relations and physical intimacy between men and women not married to each other are no longer banned outright. They're only 'highly discouraged,' and that's as long as they're 'not otherwise prohibited' by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, according to the new order.

Single men and women can now also visit each other's living quarters, as long as everyone else who lives there agrees, and as long as visitors of the opposite sex remain in the open 'and not behind closed doors, partitions or other isolated or segregated areas,' according to the new regulation.”

Now, note that it doesn’t simply say “No sex while deployed,” so there’s a loophole there that absolutely no one could miss. Rereading the policy, however, more than implies that, Yes, you can have sex in your room, so long as you keep the door open and no one in the room minds watching you get it on. Essentially, you can read this as the Army endorsing exhibitionism and voyeurism, and considering what is NOT explicitly stated in the policy, that may be just the tip of the…uh, iceberg. Frankly, this is the kinkiest thing the Army has done since Lyndie England’s pyramid of naked detainees. The only downside to this pseudo Free Love doctrine is that the pool of people you could potentially couple with all look like they are deployed in a warzone in the middle of Afghanistan. To paraphrase an earlier reference, you don’t see many pornos titled “Army MILFs: The Afghanistan Mission.” Sex may be permissible, but—much like seeing a Dane Cook movie—just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to.

> You may ask yourself, “How do I work this?” / You may ask yourself, “Where is my beautiful house?”As a base that I will be calling home for the foreseeable future, Camp Phoenix is not bad. Comparable in many ways to Camp Victory in Iraq (albeit on a much smaller scale), Camp Phoenix has its share of creature comforts to remind us all of home (though, ironically, these touches also amplify how far from home we really are). Geographically, the camp is rather small, though it is in the process of expanding to accommodate the influx of troops. Much like a city that branches toward suburban sprawl, each section of the camp has its own urbane nickname. When we first got here, I was staying in a 20-man tent in part of the camp’s nascent “Northern Expansion,” a part of the camp that is being developed to house upwards of 1,000 troops. I have since moved to the East Side, located between the French compound—which they have christened Quartier Layfayette—and the Romanian section—which, to my knowledge, does not have a chic name, though does have a makeshift tavern that serves beer. (*Not to American soldiers, though. See General Order Number One.) My eventual goal is to get into LegoLand, a series of hardened single rooms, structured in such a way that they resemble a geometric block of Lego-like housing. As noted, my current living situation is not bad, as I have only five roommates, all of whom are senior officers and easy to get along with. It is a wooden building (a shack, really) with air conditioning and electricity. Ventilation leaves something to be desired, however, and I note this only because at the end of each day as we settle into our beds, the entire room assumes the unpleasant aroma of dust and feet. For good reason, the Glade people don’t market a “Dust & Feet” potpourri spray (“At last--the fresh scent of foot fungus and Middle East dirt!”), so if you are jonesing for care package ideas, a cardboard tree air freshener would be welcome. Like, REALLY welcome.

Not to digress into bathroom humor, but inevitably someone asks about our bathroom accommodations here in the middle of nowhere. There are trailers set up all around the base that house flushing toilets, sinks and showers. This may disappoint those expecting a collapsing shower tent a la Sally Kellerman in “M*A*S*H,” but I’m not going to complain about indoor plumbing and hot water showers (It is worth noting, however, that KBR—the contracting firm that installs and maintains the shower trailers—made headlines last year when it was reported that deployed service members were electrocuted in their shower trailers due to faulty wiring. I don’t know if you get a Purple Heart for that, though I imagine other body parts may indeed change to that hue.) Of course, like any dust covered construction site, you also have an assortment of portalets that litter the landscape, which—while fully functional as latrines—serve as mini private art galleries for military graffiti. Ninety-nine percent of this bathroom poetry is lame jokes about various Army units sucking, somebody's mothers blowing, or illustrations of penises with inordinately large balls. I did, however, happen upon one portalet that featured a chain of graffiti that Sacha Baron Cohen would have been proud of: Someone had started by writing “Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Yankee Oscar Uniform.” Aside from demonstrating a perfunctory knowledge of the phonetic alphabet, with the words vertically stacked, they spell-out the acronym “f--- Hardly the most novel message for a bathroom wall, but whatever. Apparently, though, another person was particularly underwhelmed and decided to write “Foxtrot Alpha Golf” next to it (get it?) along with a little arrow indicating who the homosexual in question was. Not to be outdone, a third man of letters continued the chain, writing next to “fag,” “Romeo Echo Alpha Lima Lima Yankee Alpha Foxtrot Alpha Golf,” or “really a fag.” This is where things turn a corner, though, since the last writer put his first Alpha before the Echo, so it wound up spelling “Raelly a fag.” What brought all this nonsense to my attention in the first place (aside from the fact that it was all at eye-level while I was taking a leak) was that someone actually took the time to correct the spelling mistake by writing “switch these” next to the misplaced letters, adding the editorial comment “dumbass” as well. As an English teacher, I felt a pang of relief. Sure, we might be crass, grammatically-challenged homophobes, but the recognition of proper vowel patterns is always a welcome sight.

Having reached the point of copy-editing bathroom scrawl, you would think this last addition would have would ended things and we could return to cartoon genitals, but no, the chain continued thanks to a huge black arrow that pointed to the aforementioned graffiti. Affixed to said arrow was the message “Your all fags.” Alas, you see the problem here. Well, so did another English-savvy urinator, who made the astute correction—almost—writing “You Are Is Your’e.” Damn those pesky apostrophes, but this faux pas did not go unnoticed by the final vandal, who set everyone straight with “It’s You’re Dumbass” (circling the placement of the apostrophe for added emphasis). Alas, not every portalet so thoroughly illustrates this open-minded, literary side of the American military, and one hopes that future generations will have a better understanding of appositives, but keep in mind that the government decided my services were needed more as a soldier than an English teacher.

Outside of the well-decorated facilities, there are many other sources of entertainment here at Camp Phoenix. I mentioned the Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and coffee shop, but there is also an Orange Julius, a barber shop, massage parlor (sans happy endings), along with Morale Welfare Recreation (MWR) facilities like the gym, gameroom, computer/phone lounge and reading room. Most notable about Camp Phoenix is the weekly bazaar that comes on base every Friday. Run by local nationals, the event features everything from rugs and hand-carved chess sets, to antique rifles, pirated DVDs and high-end personal sundries like sunglasses and watches whose brand names are curiously misspelled (you are all getting a Roolex for the holidays). There are also bizarre curiosities, like the Aladdin slippers, a six-foot, hand-carved wooden giraffe and glass-encased scorpions with “USA-Afghanistan!” painted over them (you’re getting these, too). I have yet to fully immerse myself into the bartering madness, but I did succumb to purchasing a native hat (“Just like [Hamid] Karzai wear!”) and scarf for four dollars. When worn in conjunction with my sunglasses, I look like a thug terrorist. It’s not quite as goofy as the picture of me in the flying taco sandwich board, but it’s close.

> Carry the water / Remove the water. l this is background noise amidst the daily grind of my job—which, as I mentioned, technically does not exist. Without getting into all the details, I was deployed as the Brigade S6 (signal/communications/computer guy). The only problem is that, once we got here, we were told that there was not going to be a Brigade staff. The decision came from a two-star general. Our one-star general fought it. I was not involved in any of this, though I imagine the back-and-forth involved a lot of desk-pounding, cigar-chomping, the yelling of the phrase “No, YOU stand down, good sir!” and possibly a duel to the death with pistols at sundown. However it went down, I am a man with a title, but no job. At the moment, I may become a signal guy for the Task Force Staff, which—in layman’s terms—is akin to having worked as the manager of the Chic-Fil-A at the mall and then being told that you have been promoted to managing all the Chic-Fil-A’s in the tri-county area. Until official word comes down, I have anointed myself as “Task Force J6 Ambassador,” since my role is now going to the other bases in country and visiting with my signal counterparts to find out how their actual, truly-existing jobs are going. Lest you worry, my traveling is on a limited basis and mainly by air, not convoy. Seriously, mom, I'm okay.

I did this last weekend, when I visited a nearby base. At said base, there was a contingent of Afghan workers who were helping in the construction of the base’s expansion. Part of the base was being used for our troops to train the Afghan Army, which is really our overall mission out here. You always hear about the bombings and kicking-down of doors, but our primary goal is to train the Afghan National Army and Police Force to take control of their own country. Our soldiers are working with them, training them, living with them and helping them to develop infrastructure (wells, schools, etc.) And while the mission has met with a fair share of challenges and setbacks, most of the Afghans want this to succeed (as do our soldiers, so we can get the f---out of here). You can imagine, however, that the challenges—large and small—are unique, which brings me back to the construction workers. As they were working, two of the workers began getting into a rather heated argument. It escalated and—despite the supervisor and interpreter attempting to calm things down—things got physical. One of the workers lunged toward the other and, in a defensive maneuver, the second worker picked up a full bottle of water and chucked it at the other guy’s face from about two feet away. The bottle made contact right on the guy’s eye, producing a massive shiner that swelled nicely (the water bottle defense did, however, work. The initiator was startled enough that he never made contact with the water guy). The scene eventually calmed, everyone went back to work, and the workday was otherwise uneventful. Still, you've got to hand it to the Afghanis, who already seem to have our American version of civil discourse down pat.

> Letting the days go by / Letting the days go by. I don’t know what else to tell you right now. The weather is fine here. It gets pretty hot in the afternoon, but mornings and evenings are cool and, actually, pleasant. An annoyance is when the winds pick up, creating dust storms that make breathing all but impossible, not to mention covering you in a fine coating of grit. When the dust settles long enough, you can look around the base and see a picturesque view of snow-capped mountaintops. If it wasn’t for the occasional barbed wire or machine-gun-mounted watch tower, the view of the horizon is worthy of a postcard or, for that matter, a Coors Light ad. Time-wise, Kabul is eight-and-a-half hours ahead of the East Coast, and 11.5-hours ahead of San Francisco. I’m not sure where the wayward half-hour went to, or even how the 30-minute shift makes sense, but I suspect this odd half-hour time warp has something to do with the daily 4:15 a.m. sunrise. The food here is quite good—we have a full-service, 24-hour dining facility that has all the trimmings: Salad bar, short-order grill, sandwich bar, dessert bar, vegetarian selections, and the occasional theme night (every Friday is surf and turf—who-hoo!). Things get into a pretty regular grind with no days off and nowhere outside of our rather modest base to go, so there are special events and morale boosters (i.e.—co-ed sports tournaments; movie nights, etc.) to keep spirits up.

And they occasionally need the boost. It would be unfair and ultimately untruthful to not acknowledge the harsher realities of what is going on over here. While I may complain about the smell of a crowded room or joke about the four-dollar coffee, the truth is that I am quite fortunate. Most soldiers in the unit are spread out all over the country, with many living in far more austere conditions. We have some teams that are working to train the Afghan Army in desolate parts of the country. They are sleeping on the ground outside in more extreme weather; they are without showers or toilets and have no internet or phones, let alone hot meals or gourmet coffee. Many soldiers are on bases that do not have the benefit of a real or imagined warlord protector, and are fired upon on a daily (and nightly) basis. A number of our soldiers are out on the roads every day, driving convoys through crowded villages in less-welcoming areas, or worse, travelling along dangerous roads that are easily ambushed. And, as always, there is the constant threat of IED attacks—an unfortunate fate that has already claimed the lives of seven of our unit’s soldiers since we arrived in theater this April. I may gently mock the creature comforts and relative safety of Camp Phoenix, but I do not take these aspects for granted. According to the Associated Press, we are on pace for a record month of violence in Afghanistan. It will be a rough summer, that is for sure. Please know that I am as safe as one can possibly be in such a situation, but there are many who are not.

Today was a microcosm of all that is good, bad and otherwise about the whole deployment thusfar.
The sun was in full blast at 5:00 a.m.; it was 70-degrees.
I grabbed a morning coffee and reported to my non-existent job.
With nothing to do today, I spent much of the day typing this e-mail.
At 5:00 p.m., hundreds of soldiers on base assembled outside for a memorial ceremony.
We honored two of our unit’s soldiers that were killed by an IED last week. One was the brother of my roommate.
It was the third memorial service I’ve been to since June.

Despite being in the middle of Afghanistan, tonight they serve crab legs and shrimp for dinner.
A helicopter lands in the middle of the half-mile track that I’m running on.
The Romanians are drinking beer by their outdoor barbeque.
It’s Hip-Hop Night.
Surreal.


Peace.

--chris