Nicest Guy You'll Ever Meet

Two funny, but somewhat inappropriate events happened today. First, one of the guys in my office is heading home. He's a contracting officer and has been here about 7 months or so (he claims 9, but we know the truth). If you don't know what a contracting officer does, they basically buy goods and service from local providers. They essentially establish contracts between companies and the government. They build pretty good relationships with the contractors who provide those goods and services, so one of them wanted to buy a cake for the office as a way to say farewell.

That all seemed pretty normal to me until the time came for the contracting officer to say his farewell remarks. He said all the normal stuff and he's really looking forward to seeing his kids. Out of nowhere, the contractor who bought the cake grabs him in a bear hug and begins to cry. At first, I figured he had to be joking, because I've never seen this type of emotion for a deployment farewell. The rest of us looked at each other dumbfounded not knowing what to say or do. Lucky for me, they gave me a phone with a camera.

Little did I realize, that the contracts that had been awarded to this guy weren't just good for business, but they were life changing. There is a lot of money in government contracts. I can only imagine what the last year of business has done to his way of life. Not sure it's worth crying over, but it made for a good picture.

The second story occurred at my house. My housemate was talking to me and it sounded like he had cotton balls in his mouth. I asked if he was ok and he said he bit his tongue earlier yesterday and had some gauze in his mouth because of that. He was standing next to a local guy I didn't know whom I looked at and said 'you know how he bit his tongue don't you?' He said no and I promptly made the universal symbol of the BJ. He looked at my housemate and said 'really?' We laughed out loud, which made the local guy a little uncomfortable. I'm sure its now the inside joke between my housemate and I, but I probably won't use any more dirty jokes with the locals.

The Heart of Darkness.

Apocalypse Now always felt a little farfetched to me. I remember watching and thinking that something like Col Kurtz would never happen. It didn’t seem reasonable for someone to fall that far from the norm. Now, I’m not so sure. Don’t worry, my beard is nowhere long enough, my Urdu is non-existent and hummus still isn’t my favorite. But there is this guy we work with, who I will refer to as Cook. Cook has been here for the last 2 years. Yes, 2 years. And he’s not living in the capital city; he’s living in the heart of darkness, literally on the Taliban’s doorstep. The US doesn’t actively engage combatants here, but the guys we train do.

The story on Cook is very interesting. He’s a Silver Star winner from some operations he headed in Afghanistan. A real no kidding war hero. They could easily make a movie over what he did in Afghanistan. If you’ve seen the pictures of special ops guys running around on horseback, killing Taliban, he was leading those guys. But for whatever reason, Cook hasn’t promoted. And in the Army, everyone promotes. My guess is that he knows if he makes Lieutenant Colonel, he won’t be able to kill people anymore, but it’s just a guess.

I’ve been here for a week and I’ve heard countless ‘Cook’ stories. Some about him telling of General officers during video telecoms, others about him sending five-thousand word emails explaining the importance of what he’s doing and others about the promises he’s made to the people he is responsible for training.

When I met him, we were pulling up in a vehicle while he and a few of his guys were standing outside. The guy I was with said, ‘that’s Cook’. He looked like somebody delivering something to the house. His hair is easily past his shoulders and his beard touches the middle of his chest. Dressed in the local pajamas, he easily blended in even with a complexion lighter than mine.

Apocalypse Now made Col Kurtz seem like he had gone mad but The Heart of Darkness left that decision up to the reader. Marlow, the guy looking for Kurtz, asks repeatedly why Kurtz would leave his home for a place like this, but the reasoning is left for you to decide. Cook hasn’t reached that level yet, but I find something unreasonable about turning off your life for two years. I don’t think we’ll send someone up the river for him, but at some point, l would think lines would begin to blur so much that he couldn’t possibly go and do something else.

Two running jokes

There are three running jokes in my office; first, there we make constant reference to me not doing anything. When I walk out the door to lunch, I'm always asking someone to hold all my calls. I've beaten that one to death on this blog so I won't cover it here.

The second joke is one that still gets me. It may not translate well to those who haven't traveled much, but it goes like this. Around the base there are tons and tons of rocks. There are countless large boulders all over the place. I can't tell you what they are for (if you've ever been to a government building, you might be able to figure out what they are for), but they are everywhere. Well, someone is selling the Air Force rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. Essentially something that was of no value all of a sudden became valuable. The joke goes like this and is best told with a Middle Eastern accent: 'Muhammad, the Americans are here'.

'The American's?' Muhammad replies.

'Yes, and they want to buy rocks.' Al Bin Ali states.

'Rocks??? They don't want our priceless rugs or hand made jewelery?' Muhammad Questions.

'No, they want rocks. Many, Many rocks.' Ali Bin Ali answers.

'Rocks?' Muhammad asks again.

'Rocks'. Ali bin Ali replies. 'Rocks'.

Muhammad begins to dance around the room, clapping his hands thanking Ala for this glorious day.

The scene moves to Muhhamad and Ali talking to Ameircans.

'Please come in, we have many rocks. Very nice rocks, polished with no bugs.' Muhhamad says to the Americans. 'See, no polished, no rocks'.

It probably doesn't translate well, but if you've ever been to a developing countries market, it's something like that.

The second joke is much easier and translates very simply. Not one they guy's use in mixed company, but I'll share it anyways.

On the door of hangar two, on the way to the flight line, where you'd board a plane to leave Al Udeid, there is some graffiti that reads: 'Poof! You are ugly again'.

Patience

I've always been the worst guy to be behind in a check out line. Not because I'm going to write a check or ask the clerk for directions to the airport. Because, the guy in front of me is going to do that. If there are four lines of equal length, I will find the line that is the slowest, without fail.

All those years of suffering has prepared me for the last 90 days or so. I've intentionally not bashed my office mates here on my blog, but it's growing ever more difficult. At this point, I have nothing positive to say about the Army and that is being extremely kind.

Aside from that, things are well. I start my last masters course after the 4th, I'm stronger then I've been since high school and I'm getting to know Doha pretty well. Things could be worse.

BMI be damned

I'm weighing in at about 230 lbs. I haven't been this heavy since my senior year in high school. Which, was probably the best shape of my life. But, the Body Mass Index, is telling me that I'm 'overweight'. Interesting formula they use, but completely useless as a specific assessment tool. According to this, I was in better shape 2 months ago simply by being 20lbs lighter even though I can lift considerably more weight and perform more pull ups then before.

It will probably prevent me from ever breaking 90 on the PT test, but I'm ok with that at this point.

Memorial Day

Just spent the last hour writing about how getting thanked on Memorial Day makes me uncomfortable, but I'm not ready to share that yet.

Occasionally, I'll be given the chance to say a few words. Usually its after a promotion or when I'm about to PCS. It's very simple and I always say the same thing. It goes something like this:

There is a reason I keep doing the what I do. It's not about money. I have friends who make all kinds of it that offer nothing that I don't. It's not about the Red White Blue either. If we talked about politics for 10 minutes, you'd probably call Senator McCarthy. Its all about the people I work with. Military members take care of each other unlike any other place you'll ever work. They'll mow your lawn, move your furniture, loan you their car and watch your dog without out so much as a second thought. I'm not talking about people you've know for years, but people you haven't even met yet.

Still here

Not much new to report. Still hanging out in Qatar. It's gotten extremely hot here, to the point where it's difficult to go outside at all when the sun is up. Even at night, it's still in the high 80's enough humidity to make it feel sticky.

Went out for dinner again on Saturday. Always nice to get off base and check things out. Prior to dinner, we shopped around at the Gold Souq. Basically, it is a small market of jewelry stores. Lucky for me, my wife doesn't like jewelry, so I didn't buy anything.

The news out of Afghanistan has been disheartening. Two attacks against US bases 9 years after we started the war doesn't sound like progress. Someone asked me today if I thought the idea of limiting air strikes was an effective policy. I answered that if I could provide any insight into effective policy in Afghanistan, I'd be making a heck of a lot more money. The next 6 months will be very telling for the future.