"hacking the mish"

So the guys over in the "sandbox" as they like to call it often refer to their jobs as "hacking the mish". That is what they live for--doing the mission.  Cutting through the red tape and get the opportunity to actually do what they've been training for years to do is always a challenge and one of their greatest frustrations. In fact, because of one reason or the other, their inability to do the job they are way more than qualified to do, is one of the top reasons guys get out of this AF Special Ops field.  

I often feel like i'm "hacking the mish" myself back here in the states.  Although i wanted a full last semester to keep myself busy while Bo is gone, i've never had a more stressful, more difficult few months. The term workaholic is depressingly, albeit not by choice, accurate. I love challenging myself and staying busy with projects and schoolwork i find truly fulfilling, but there is no way i could do this amount for very long.  Thank goodness i have zero desire to go to grad school any time soon. :)   

So while my husband may be fulfilling the real meaning of the term, i find myself feeling pretty beat up by the same concept. 10-12 hour days, 7 days a week.   My "deployment" here to VU will be up with my May 9 graduation and I'll finally have my diploma in one hand and my husband's hand in my other.  What a good feeling that will be.

A Needed Surge

Everyone is talking about the expected 30,000 troop surge to Afghanistan.  Many of those troops are already there or are en route--my husband's base no exception.  The real question remains though, what is this relatively small number of increased ground power really going to do?  The country-side remains  the real threat and most agree the Taliban is growing faster than we can force them out. The big cities remain in NATO's control, however the vast majority of the population live in tiny villages scattered like toothpicks on a bare kitchen floor.   A nightmare of a situation to take control of and then to keep that control.   

Anne Applebaum in her Op-Ed Column of the Washington Post argues that the only "surge" that will last is if the Afghan army itself is enlarged to where it is able to have a real and visible presence in the whole of the country. Right now its some 80,000 soldiers are hardly that.   I am inclined to agree, as well, with her notion of the Afghan military being one of the few solutions to unifying a country who's tribes, dialects, and ethnicities are mind-bogglingly numerous. National identity is crucial to instill in these soldiers who come together for a common cause--one they can believe in and have a real hand in creating--and who can also instill that feeling in their fellow country-men.  

The Allied troops who are there are brave, loyal and most have the best intentions. We are not, however, Afghani and are not privy to a complete understanding of an exceptionally unique civilization who has withstood a surprising number of invaders.  So the point is this:  Our ability to enable the Afghans to not only defend their country themselves, but to create national identity in which it is possible to defend it, is undeniably crucial to our success in this war against terrorism.     This surge of troops must have the goal of not just seeking out the Taliban or providing support, but also for helping to create an institution in Afghanistan of which their own people can admire, respect and ultimately trust.   

The timetable for this will not be indefinite.  Already our support is waning and the number of innocent civilians caught in the cross-fire increasing. In another article in the Washington Post, author John F. Kerry said, "We shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that we are in anything but a race against time in a region suspicious of foreign footprints...Our goal has never been to dominate Afghanistan but, rather, to eliminate al-Qaeda's haven and to empower Afghans to govern their country in line with their best interests and our national security."

We must win the battle of the support of the Afghani people, specifically through training their military, to ensure our success over the Taliban.   And we must win them over soon.

woman to woman

I often wonder about the women of the Middle East.  I wonder if they truly realize the disparity in the lives they lead with the lives women in developed countries lead.   I wonder if repression and oppression become so instilled they just become content?  And if they aren't content, could they ever be truly happy?  I read the book, Infidel, in the past year or so.  It is an amazing and insightful book that portrays the intricacies of living as a woman in a muslim society.  The woman who wrote it literally took her own life in her hands to publish this unfiltered truth of a life and religious culture she claims can hold literally no hope or promise for women. 

I am blessed because of so many things, but largely, because i can choose.  I can say "I will".  I have ownership over that pronoun.  ....how much of the world does not. I can't stress enough the freedom that is found in my faith, either.  Because of a conscientious choice I made to surrender to a Saviour who knows me intimately; to give him everything; to give him that "choice" i clung to so desperately,  I am now know the greatest freedom i've ever experienced.  The paradox is strangely quieting.    I feel for those women...my heart breaks for the life they have had to endure and the future they know awaits.   I want to help them, but i'm not sure how.

not all roses

So compared to fifty years ago, communication with deployed family members in the military is much more advanced.  Satellite phones, skype, internet, and emails all transmit messages instantly over half the circumference of the globe to enable a stream of thought that in previous wars was unheard of.   

All that is true.  But still. It doesn't feel like enough.  I miss my husband. 

 Because i've had to finish school four hours away from where we are stationed, coupled with the amount of time Bo is gone for different training schools, we have dealt with being long distance for the majority of our relationship.   It's not fun, but you grit your teeth and push through because you know its for a greater good and its not going to last forever.   Those days felt easier though with the constant communication that was at our disposal.   Going from that to just a couple times a week (and we can't skype) feels like deprivation.

I was reading again about the situation in southern Afghanistan and now the Swat region of Pakistan.  The Taliban is gaining more control in the countryside and has taken a sizeable bite out of Afghanistan's bordering country.  Although Obama is promising to send more troops to help keep the country from slipping back into the Taliban's control, many don't think the numbered 30,000 troops will even begin to be enough.  Afghani locals are apathetic at best towards their government and even the NATO troops that have promised to bring reform to their country but are now finding their hands tied as they try to back that promise up.   For the troops i can't imagine how frustrating it must be as they spend all their resources to shore up control of the main cities only to see the country side and the very people they are risking their lives for wind up in Taliban hands.    Unless Obama and the rest of NATO steps up with more troops and more resolve to see this thing out, we are fighting a losing battle.

I am incredibly proud of my husband and the job he is doing in southern Afghanistan as a PJ. Not only is he one of the highest trained operators out there, he is ready and willing to do whatever necessary to get the job done. He believes in defending the freedoms we hold so dear and enabling the oppressed to have the opportunity for those same freedoms.  The sacrifices every single man and woman who is deployed, has been deployed, or has a loved one deployed cannot be just for wishful thinking.  Lets do the job.  If we truly do "hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal," we can't do this thing half-way.   

What is our sacrifice worth, if, in the end, it accomplishes nothing?

The faces of defiant hope

Books like "Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns" steadily evolve into faces that become more real and stories that make you cringe, but demand to be heard. Those books might have been written from a time decades past, but the experiences within are not long gone. Its hard to not think Afghanistan is in the same miry, sand pit its struggled in for so long. Haven't the last eight years made any difference?  The New York Times op/ed page sheds light on an ongoing struggle that threatens our very confidence that life is indeed better in what is referred to as "the sandbox."  Here is an excerpt from that editorial,   www.nytimes.com/2009/01/17/opinion/17sat3.html

"Ms. Husseini is a student at the Mirwais School for Girls outside Kandahar. Two months ago, as she was walking to school with her sister, a man on a motorcycle sprayed her with acid, burning her face and eyelids. Fourteen other students and teachers were attacked that day in an attempt to shut down the school. It failed. 

As Ms. Husseini told our colleague Dexter Filkins, 'The people who did this to me don't want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things.' Ms. Husseini's parents told her 'to keep coming to school even if I am killed.'

The Taliban denied responsibility for the assaults at the Mirwais school. But one of the group's signature and most shameful repressions during the years it ran Afghanistan was its ban on educating girls. As it has regained power and territory, it has been attacking schools and female students."

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American soldiers, along with Nato allies, are spread thin across Afghanistan and especially in the south--the birthplace of the Taliban. A PJ like those in my husband's unit, are tasked with the job of rescuing, defending, and extracting those injured or downed soldiers and Afghani civilians no matter the terrain, weather, or threat of hostile fire.  What life, however, do we rescue those Afghani civilians for? If the life they lead in our presence and after we leave is not better than the life they had under the Taliban, our job is not done.

 

A New Chapter

John Stuart Mill once said, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important that his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

That was over a 150 years ago, but time has yet to erase its strong ringing truth.

Welcome to this blog. As an Air Force wife, whose Special Forces husband is deep in Afghanistan, these are my thoughts, fears, and frustrations with the military, the war, the life back home and the many faceless persons so far away in whom i see a beautiful, desperate hope.

This blog is the Eye of The Storm.

My summer internship at ABC in Las Vegas

So although this isn't my first day "on the job", this will be my first internship blog post and i think its as good a day as any to start. My husband and i learned we'd be in Las Vegas (he is stationed at Nellis AFB) just a few months before our arrival date the beginning of April. I had spent a lot of time searching out and interviewing for prospective summer internships here and was so excited to have one come through at the ABC affiliate - KTNV Channel 13 Action News. Three days after we got to town I started and already now have high expectations for an exciting summer in the news biz.

I am interning under Katie Bencze, the community affairs director here at KTNV and love her hands-on, throw-me-in-the-thick-of-it approach. She is heavily involved with the PR and community programs of KTNV and hasn't hesitated to let me be her constant and watchful shadow. Two of our main projects are the Jefferson Awards and "Las Vegas' favorite charity," Opportunity Village.

The Jefferson Awards is a program where KTNV partners with Wells Fargo to highlight and thank local people who are making an impact in their community. Winners are chosen from dozens of nominations sent to the station every month and awarded prizes and air time for their stories on the nightly news. All 12 months' winners are brought together once a year for a luncheon where a national winner is announced who will travel to Washington D.C. to represent the Jefferson Award winner for Southern Nevada. That annual luncheon, held in the Palm Restaurant of Caesar's Palace (on the strip) was my first day on the job. Nothing like starting strong!

Opportunity Village is an exciting project to be working on as well. OV was started in 1954 and today is Nevada's largest private not-for-profit community rehabilitation organization for intellectually and physically disabled persons. Offering vocational assessment and training, employment, therapeutic respite, advocacy, art enrichment and social programs and services, Opportunity Village provides people with disabilities the opportunity to live, work and play in the community. It serves over 3000 individuals and has a waiting list so large, a third campus is now under construction. KTNV is hosting a telethon in June which will help to raise the much needed funds for this project.

The station is in a brand new building and only the second one in the city to have switched to HD. The people here are awesome and its an exciting place to see what i've studied come to life.