The last four and a half months flew by. We are now a trained team, having been tested in training grounds across California on a variety of missions from convoy operations to infantry patrolling. The team roster will not change anymore (finally, we have Buddha, our Corpsman!), the location is set, all our bags are packed. As I write this, the rest of the Civil Affairs Detachment says their goodbyes to loved ones and friends, and pretends not to be too excited about the challenges lying in wait.
Our final weeks were accompanied by massive personal upheaval. The tectonic plates of my world shifted radically and I have reacted as best I could. I owe more than I can ever say to my family, who accepted my retreat into their embrace wordlessly and gratefully. No one could ever be more aware of their support system than I have been recently. Everyone contributed in their own way, and in each instance it was exactly what I needed.
Oddly enough, a simile relates my experience better than describing individual events. To me, the impending deployment was like a huge stone wall. It drew closer and closer, and my vision seemed to be restricted a little each day. The narrowing space pressed on me - emotions gain a new sense of urgency and threaten to sweep the comfortable world away. My anxiety never grew, however, as wave upon wave of individuals appeared to soothe my concerns and retreat quietly. Much has been given to me in this state, and I know who I owe.
This new vulnerability mixes strangely with my professional confidence. While recognizing the stresses inherent in our mission, a young(ish) man can't help but feel invigorated by the same knowledge - I am possessed by the blending of so much I value in my life into a vibrant seven-month strand. The task left to me is suppress the ego and allow my training and openness to suggest the correct course of action. What I mean to say is I will try to create the space for good to develop around me, and this concept has been applied when I return.
I think I'm spent. All that's left now is to negotiate the steepest learning curve of my life with the help of a few good men.
P.S. If you're interested in a more emo send-off, please see my blog post Saying Goodbye from last deployment. The specifics are no longer relevant but the substance remains the same.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
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 . . .
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 . . .
Monday, July 19, 2010
Civil Affairs vs Everyone Else
Much of the Civil Affairs mission appears strange to other Marines and to civilians who think they know what the military does in Afghanistan. The Marine Corps as a whole prides itself on being self-sufficient; we look to leverage other resources before using our own. The Marine Corps focuses on its primary mission to locate, close with, and destroy enemies; we try to get indigenous forces to complete this mission instead. Really it's a yin-yang dynamic. The Marine Corps is primarily military, so we must be political.
I'm well-aware of all these differences, but a recent conversation with another Marine veteran demonstrated just how much my perspective has changed in the last few months. Ten minutes after sitting down with our drinks we were arguing about the what was happening in Afghanistan. A little background here: my friend was in the infantry during the invasion of Iraq and then served in the second battle for Fallujah (the most intense urban combat seen since Khe Sanh in Vietnam) so his perspective is one of offensive military operations. The details of our conversation are not important; what really struck me was how I immediately sought ways to understand or identify with the Taliban and see them as a complex organization rather than as "the enemy" whose goal was to kill freedom-loving people all over the globe.
Of course, we need a lot more Marines with his perspective than mine, but in this particular fight we could probably stand to balance out the ratios a bit. As a Marine Officer put it to me, "The worst non-lethal threat we face in Afghanistan is Marines who don't get it." That is, those stuck in the offensive military model. There's a lot more to this fight than the Taliban as an insurgent group.
We often hear from others in the Civil Affairs/State Department community about how easy it is to discredit the standard arguments given about why people join or support violent movements. If it was religion, there would be a lot violence because fundamentalist madrassas [Islamic schools] are sprinkled all over the world. If it was money, there would be more of the 1,000,000,000 people in dire poverty taking up arms. The truth is we don't know - or more accurately, it's impossible to know for any one person or area by looking at large trends. It's our responsibility as CA Marines to analyze the local environment and figure out which factors are contributing to instability and (more importantly) which are NOT.
There may also regional or transnational points to consider, but the concept applies across the spectrum. That's what is so refreshing about CA compared to a lot of other work: it takes away the mental comfort of "knowing" things. There's an intrinsic humility in this sort of work when it's done properly. We seek out advice from the people around the area for everything we do. It's their problem so it has to be their solution. In fact, the more successful we are, the less credit we'll be given. The locals will see how much they've put into a given project and quite naturally decide the weird guys in the crazy camouflage suits didn't do a damn thing. We get to leave and they get to live. Fair trade in my opinion.
The best statistic I've heard illustrating this point is that approximately 75% of the schools we build in Afghanistan end up destroyed, while about 75% of those built by the locals survive. It might not be entirely accurate, but it's worth pondering.
I'm well-aware of all these differences, but a recent conversation with another Marine veteran demonstrated just how much my perspective has changed in the last few months. Ten minutes after sitting down with our drinks we were arguing about the what was happening in Afghanistan. A little background here: my friend was in the infantry during the invasion of Iraq and then served in the second battle for Fallujah (the most intense urban combat seen since Khe Sanh in Vietnam) so his perspective is one of offensive military operations. The details of our conversation are not important; what really struck me was how I immediately sought ways to understand or identify with the Taliban and see them as a complex organization rather than as "the enemy" whose goal was to kill freedom-loving people all over the globe.
Of course, we need a lot more Marines with his perspective than mine, but in this particular fight we could probably stand to balance out the ratios a bit. As a Marine Officer put it to me, "The worst non-lethal threat we face in Afghanistan is Marines who don't get it." That is, those stuck in the offensive military model. There's a lot more to this fight than the Taliban as an insurgent group.
We often hear from others in the Civil Affairs/State Department community about how easy it is to discredit the standard arguments given about why people join or support violent movements. If it was religion, there would be a lot violence because fundamentalist madrassas [Islamic schools] are sprinkled all over the world. If it was money, there would be more of the 1,000,000,000 people in dire poverty taking up arms. The truth is we don't know - or more accurately, it's impossible to know for any one person or area by looking at large trends. It's our responsibility as CA Marines to analyze the local environment and figure out which factors are contributing to instability and (more importantly) which are NOT.
There may also regional or transnational points to consider, but the concept applies across the spectrum. That's what is so refreshing about CA compared to a lot of other work: it takes away the mental comfort of "knowing" things. There's an intrinsic humility in this sort of work when it's done properly. We seek out advice from the people around the area for everything we do. It's their problem so it has to be their solution. In fact, the more successful we are, the less credit we'll be given. The locals will see how much they've put into a given project and quite naturally decide the weird guys in the crazy camouflage suits didn't do a damn thing. We get to leave and they get to live. Fair trade in my opinion.
The best statistic I've heard illustrating this point is that approximately 75% of the schools we build in Afghanistan end up destroyed, while about 75% of those built by the locals survive. It might not be entirely accurate, but it's worth pondering.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)