300 and Flat G

I am happy to report I have broken the 300 barrier! I am under 300 days remaining in theater. I realize this doesn't seem like all that big a deal, but it is one of those landmarks. The next, in case you are wondering will be the 101st day. That will occur on 05 December.

In other news Flat G has arrived! Finally after months away Flat G has found me again and is diligently watching my every move. Flat G is an interpretation of the popular children's book "Flat Stanley" This all stems from my tour in Korea. A buddy of mine, Mike, has a son named Charlie that sent him a drawing of himself. The drawing was a "flat" representation of himself, Flat Charlie. The idea was that Mike would take the picture around Korea take pictures and write his son about where "they" went. This would be a way for the two of them to bond and tosatisy a class project for Charlie.

Well, we got hold of this and started taking Flat Charlie everywhere. We took Flat Charlie to work, out to dinner, up to Seoul. We even took him places 3D Charlie, or for that matter any of us should not have been! After a few trips to places I liked to go Mike decided he didn't want his son, flat or otherwise hanging around with me and took him back. Unfortunately Flat Charlie was left in the back seat of a cab by his dad after a Korean wedding. Ooohhh the horror and loss! Somebody decided we needed a new friend and alas Flat G was born.

Flat G is a picture of our Team Commander in Korea. Again we took him everywhere. This time though we decided to send him around to people that had been part of the unit. Flat G went with some folks to Thailand, went to Ft Lewis with me, was in D.C. with Mike and Toni. Now Flat G is here with me. I was thinking about creating a Flat G blog all it's own. What do you think?

Trick or Treat?

Seriously, another 5K? Yeah seriously. I realize this is wholly out of character for me, but what the hell there isn't anything else to do here except go to work.

So while the civilized world is out getting drunk, toilet papering trees, egging houses, and the various other activities of "All Hallows Eve" we here at Camp Arifjan took to the prescribed 5K route at the witching hour of 2000, or 8 pm if you are in the National Guard. I did not even have to be goaded into it this time. I just went out and ran it. I can't sat it was fun as I like to define fun, but it was cool. As you can see I have another t-shirt to add to my collection. It is my goal to leave here with 12 t-shirts, one for each month.

I finished under my alloted time of 30 minutes. I was at 29 something, I didn't really pay attention. Unlike last time, my roommate was not here to harass me the whole way about my pace. I just kinda ran along. Until I realized i was at about he 4 K mark. Then I started noticing all the females around me. Now don't go hammering me about being a male chauvinist pig. There are truckloads of females that run faster than I do. Some younger, some older. They work harder than I do at it and they are faster, doesn't have anything to do with gender and I know that. However, I was not about o get beat by a bunch of females with in eye shot. Maybe it is a character flaw, but that's how I feel about it. So, I pick out the girl in front of me and focus my running to catch her figuring I'd get a few meters in front and cruise on in. I chug away and wouldn't you know it, there is like a pack of 'em in front of her. Well, darn sure can't have that so off I go. Get there, a few more past her. This goes on for a minute or two. When I started this I only had about 1,000 meters left in the race so by now I'm turning the corner to the finish-line. I'm thinkin to myself "Where the hell did all these women come from?" I keep running and by now I am sprinting. Unfortunately so is everybody else. We are all pretty similar down inside in the military, we don't like getting beat. Now keep in mind we are at 28 minutes. The winning time was 16 something, so we have been beaten. Beaten almost as badly as Ohio State will beat Michigan (had to get that in there). None the less, in every ones mind the same thought is screaming out "don't let that guy/girl beat you." So we are just pumping it in. PAss that person find the next,pass them find the next, pass them. I gotta say, that is the best part of the race. Those last couple hundred yards that you are just pounding it out.

So in i rolled. Felling like I had achieved some victory. In a pure statistical sense, I got beat by over about 50% of the pack. I know that, but still I am going to go out there next month for the Marine Corps Birthday Fun Run and do it all again. Its an odd thing. I really don't like running, but I sure do like finishing!

Hanging Out

Well not really hanging out. Just nothing I thought was interesting enough to write about. I haven't gone on any trips lately. No one is shooting at me. I have gotten a handle on most of what my boss and his boss want. 12 hours days are now the norm so when things are slow and we go home a little early I am pretty bored.

Now that I know a lot more about my job I can explain it a little better. Man I have never been in a job where the learning curve was so steep! I guess that should be expected since we are at war and most things should be moving fast. So I have a better handle on the responsibilities. If you are really into government you can check out a lot of I do by researching Foreign Military Sales (FMS) and Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreements (ACSA) along with Code of Federal Regulations Chapter 22 State Department. Yeah me, working with laws and crazy international agreements.

FMS is a process, and I mean a process whereby foreign nations purchase military equipment form the US. This is a long and cumbersome process that involves Department of State, and Defense and a host of other agencies; and of course congress. My role in that is to track all that stuff as it flows into the country. One would think that with all that bureaucracy and oversight this would be a simple task. Well, probably one would think that with those chiefs things are pretty jacked up, and one would be correct! My main problem here is that all these chiefs want info, so they all have staffs. These staffs work in different places and at different paces so they report info differently. Then when the chiefs all have pow wow it hits the fan. Yeah so my job is to make sure that my boss's boss always has the "right" info. It's a mess. My good pals in the US Congress are ever so interested in this issue. So of course there is a lot of focus. Oh yeah the best part of FMS tracking, not really supposed to be the job if the staff section I work in! No shit! The folks that are supposed to do it (who are much larger than my section) jacked it up so much so often that we got stuck with it. I love the Army.

ACSA is something similar to FMS but simpler. Basically it provides a way for our Coalition Partners to exchange Logistics Supplies, Support, and Services (LSSS) with us. This process is restricted to certain kinds of items. For example, if the Polish contingent here needs food, or fuel we can transfer that under an ACSA. If they want a F-16 fighter, they need to go through the FMS process. We actually manage the ACSA process so that is a lot of work. There is a lot of LSSS being transfered as one might expect during war. This process is faster and simpler and therefor much easier to manage and to explain.

So thats pretty much what I do. I track FMS shipments and I manage ACSA transactions. I have a couple soldiers that work with me and I am also responsible for managing their time. They are pretty senior, so that's not to tuff. It's not like having a bunch of Privates around that you have to really provided focused leadership and direction to.

My apologies to my adoring fans. There just wasn't a lot going on. I promise I will blog more, even if it is mundane. I realize it probably isn't all that mundane if you not here every day.