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New Day

I started today on a very bad note
my teenage son did his best impression of a teenage girl this morning and emptied the water heater
30 min after he was done showering the water was still cold
That made me late leaving and I got stuck in evil traffic
Stuck in traffic and still cold from showering
I imagined many ways to kill my only son while waiting for the light to change
I got to my first meeting of the day with a minute to spare
only to find out that the subject was something I was not involved in but I was trapped for 30 min anyway
which made me late for meeting #2
My boss is gone this week and the deputy is....well really nice....
but a civilian and is less structured when in comes to meetings
30 more minutes of my day wasted
I finally hit my limit and just left
for meeting #3 with our National Guard liaison officer
I was following up on a request I had made the day before
He said he might get me an answer in a few weeks
I needed and answer right then
The NG and Active Duty have different concepts of time
After that things got better
I got back to my own office and started calling and emailing
In the next hour I managed to acquire about $450,000 to pay for NG and Reserve folks through 30 September
I am going to give 9 or 10 people jobs that pay a good wage
and put about $300,000 back into the economy, mostly local
A nice win after yesterday

"If you've ever seen the look on somebody's face the day they finally get a job, I've had some experience with this, they look like they could fly. And its not about the paycheck, it's about respect, it's about looking in the mirror and knowing that you've done something valuable with your day. And if one person could start to feel this way, and then another person, and then another person, soon all these other problems may not seem so impossible. You don't really know how much you can do until you, stand up and decide to try. " Dave

I wanted to kill the NG Liaison officer because he was slow rolling me on info I needed to get people hired
I have about a week to get the money spent
and if I can get it spent quickly and well, I will probably get more
which means more jobs
but of course the guy I needed the info from has a job
so he was in no hurry
even when I explained that if he could not help me execute this quickly, I would have to look elsewhere, his response was "well maybe that would be best"
I would LOVE to make him look the people he just denied a job in the eye and explain why he couldn't get off his dead ass and get the answers I needed
But I did one better
I called the National Guard Bureau in DC and told them I was about to take my money elsewhere because their local rep sucked
NGB knows I am going to get more money
Last year my office got $800,000 for reserve support
This year we will get close to $1.8 million
Next year I will get at least that much
Until today I had not spent one dime on Guard because the Reserves are so much easier to work with
I have a meeting with the NG Liaison officer in the morning
I think I am off his christmas card list too
but I bet he has my information
:)

Frustration

Some days I hate my job
Today was one of them
Today I had to do budget stuff
Like everyone else, we are facing a declining budget
and an expanding mission
So today I had to explain why I needed $8.5 million dollars that no one had planned for
and that was just one part
I asked for another $400,000 for some training
I got told that I was behind, a request for $175,000 had been approved and validated for the next 5 years
I said yes, that is correct, but that is only sustainment training
Who ever wrote the requirement made an assumption that no one would quit for five years so we would never have to do initial training after this year
I pointed out that was a bad plan
the response I got was "But it was validated"
SO THE F%^&$^ WHAT!!!!
Just because a bunch of you agreed a dumb plan was smart doesnt make it a smart plan
I dont think I will be getting christmas cards from the training committee
My $8.5 million was deemed to be unneeded
But they approved spending $23 million for something else
My $8.5 million makes the $23 million work
Not paying for my part would be like buying a hose and paying for the water but cutting corners and not buying the nozzle....except image the hose being capped until it has a nozzle
We will have a pretty hose but no water will come out
I essentially got told to get someone else - who doesnt want our water - to pay for the nozzle
That someone else has already told me to pound sand
dry sand...cuz they dont want our water
but I wasted two hours of my life trying, and failing, to get any funding for my office

Piggy Piggy Piggy

I see a warthog
Our weather needs some serious meds
warm and sunny in the morning
now a cold wind and clouds
some parts of town getting snow
tomorrow warm and sunny
then Thursday the high is supposed to be 27
I miss the ocean and a 20 degree temp range

"When I was here, I wanted to be there; when I was there, all I could think of was getting back into the jungle" - CPT Willard, Apocalypse Now

I remember when I first heard this
it seemed like insanity
how could anyone want to go back?
and yet........
there are three of us in my office who came here from Afghanistan
we all left within a month of each other
we all want to go back

If you only watch one TED Talk, please watch this one "Why I Chose a Gun." I have never heard a better description for why most professional soldiers do what they do.

When I heard that we had withdrawn our advisers because of the killing of the two officers I thought "stupid, you just let them win"
The point of attacking the advisers is to drive a wedge between us and the 99% of the Afghan military that is supportive
After the last round of attacks by guys in ANA uniforms, a new policy cause my counterparts to be searched when they came to my base
I insisted that they guards search me too to show unity with my counterparts
I trusted them with my life and it was disrespectful for them to be searched
So I thought that once again we had done exactly what our enemy wanted
But then I had a second thought when I read that Defense Minister Wardak had issued an apology to the US Commander
It was important for the senior Afghan leadership to be accountable for what is happening
They needed to take responsibility for their soldiers, just like we take responsibility for ours
We can still "win" in Afghanistan as long as we temper hope with reality
We are not going to create a pro western democracy
We need to settle for a neutral thugocracy

I think I caught up
and I fell like I took good pictures for the firs time in a long time
Im still struggling with finding beauty here
I miss flowers