Cleaning house

The six weeks leading up to deployment has been interesting to say the least. Focus has shifted in both the personal and professional sense toward re-orienting and simplifying as the days keeps sprinting by.

Right now Team 1 is focused on the culmination of our Civil Affairs training: the exercise known as Enhanced Mojave Viper, or EMV for short. For our partnered infantry unit this is the month-long comprehensive field test of all the skills they will need to accomplish their mission in Afghanistan. They incorporate all their organic and attached assets on missions as varied as intelligence gathering, combat operations, meetings with village leaders, and call for fire missions using artillery.

Did I mention it takes place in the southern California desert in late July and early August?

We support this infantry unit but are only involved in certain parts of EMV, specifically the last third or so. Our primary task is to set and run a Civil Military Operations Center (CMOC, pronounced "sea mock"). The CMOC will run over several days meant to simulate the three phases of stability operations according to classic counterinsurgency doctrine: clear, hold, and build.

The "clear" phase implies active combat operations, as in we're clearing the area of enemies. Our job here involves responding to humanitarian needs, possible setting up a dislocated civilian (DC) camp, or providing payments to people who have suffered losses during our operations.

"Hold" refers to the consolidation of our monopoly on security and the development of strong ties with local power brokers. Team 1's job here is to identify important civilians, gauge the population's sentiment, identify short- and medium-term projects, and to dispense funds.

Finally we have our "build" phase when the focus is on furthering local self-governance and security capacity. Here the messier work of placating angry leaders, reintegrating former combatants, training indigenous military and police forces, and reforming (or more likely instituting) the rule of law.

All these operations will be condensed into a very short period of time, of course, and we only "notionally" accomplish many of our tasks. Still, this time with our partnered units is invaluable: it allows us to see how we will integrate into their force structure and daily "battle rhythm". They get to see our faces and we become familiar with the movers and shakers on their end. All this makes our work in Afghanistan that much easier.

Our actual work in country will not be anywhere near this defined but it does help to have such clear expectations for desert dress rehearsal. The junior Marines and sailor in Team 1 - Creole, Mumbles, Dominicano, and our replacement medic that I'll call Buddha - will now get to see how many of their skills are to be used. Part of my job as the team Sergeant is to focus their attention on the most important aspects of our training given the mission at EMV, and then offer guidance on how best to accomplish them. This is no easy task but it's necessary to prove our value to the infantry Marines whose job is create the peace necessary for long-term stability in Afghanistan. The better we do at our jobs, the more LT can focus on the big picture and engage effectively with the other Marine leadership.

Focusing my Marines means first focusing myself, and that is a completely different task. Rather than working hard on simplifying my life as I have before, I have instead allowed those closest around me whose opinions I most value to point me in the right direction. Their honesty and perspective is what will help pare down the flotsam and jetsam I've accumulated over the months and even years. Only then will the important components of my Civil Affairs work appear as they should. And so, in keeping with this idea, I will say no more about my personal opinion (this is a blog after all) and just let the results speak for themselves. Who knows - I may even try to apply this to the rest of my life as well . . .