Crawling towards Christmas

I'm sure loyal readers are wondering "what's going on over there?". My wife mentioned to me that I hadn't written an entry in a while. Similar to October, I seemed to have stalled out in terms of motivation, mood, and enthusiasm. I thought that December would bring an increase in motivation because the "end" is practically at the doorstep of the new year, but somehow December has slowed down time . With each day that passes, it seems like one day is added to an imagined month of January. This imaginary calendar has days added by snow and endless delays due to weather or other movement problems.

What hasn't helped has been more outside the wire taskings by the Army chain of command here. I've caught the superstitions-- agonizing over the "one last mission" scenario, especially when it's a bullshit mission with very little value, other than keeping the area commander happy. From my perspective, anytime we leave the FOB we should have a clear mission where the needs and risks are assessed and balanced with efficiency. A high risk mission should be a response to high needs, and where the risks are high but the needs are low, maybe I should consider not going. Supposedly I have this autonomy and the mandate from my chain of command (which is located elsewhere) but time and again my independence has been trumped by the local commander. I usually capitulate in the interest of politics-- keeping the climate here user-friendly.

As I have found out, it's hard to fight against the hierarchy even when you are justified in fighting, but that's a story for a different time. The best way to describe the dynamic here is to draw a parallel to an imagined feudal enclave-- you have the local lord who runs and owns everything, his favored lieutenants and their militia who enforce the laws of the lord, and the peasants who labor and suffer abuse at the hands of their betters. It's like I am visiting from a neighboring land, and while I am not treated like a peasant, it is made clear that I will comply with any requests of the local lord. Okay, that's an over-dramatization, but I really do feel compelled to comply with their demands, regardless of whether or not these demands run counter to our own procedures.

That's the situation as we crawl along towards Christmas. I'm trying to convince myself that after the holiday we will be insulated from further missions, because of our short time. I'm hoping that one of these days I will start to feel the calm settling in, but realistically that probably won't happen until I get on a bird and leave for Bagram.

I forgot to mention that it has been snowing here and I haven't seen or heard a helicopter for three days.