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.