DVM Looking for Contributors

The always-entertaining guys over at Death Valley Magazine are looking for people interested in contributing to their site. In keeping with the catch-all style of the blog, the list of desired job categories is pretty broad, as is the scope of categories they routinely cover, so anyone looking to write the occasional post for James G., Bubba and the gang should click here.

Why they insist on adding more contributors and thereby increasing the frequency of their posts, and thereby make lazy people like me look bad by comparison, is a question I intend to raise with them at the earliest opportunity. As soon as I find my body armor, extra ammo and my go-bag.

Reach Out and Touch Someone

While I usually avoid The Daily Mail (and most British press in general), I haven't seen this story reported anywhere else.

A range of 8,120 feet! Two rounds fired, two tangos down. Apparently they still teach marksmanship fundamentals in the UK.

The truly amazing thing to me is that his weapon, the L115A3, is designed and engineered to be effective at ranges up to 5000 feet. So Cpl. Harrison put both of those shots on target at a range 3000+ feet beyond the stated effective range of his weapon.

Well done, Corporal. Perfect conditions notwithstanding, perhaps a few dozen people in the world could have made that shot.

Afghanistan Humor

Foreign Policy's website points me towards a bit of National Security Advisor Jim Jones' comedy stylings, apparently at a talk he gave at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:




Now say what you want about anti-Semitism (which I don't think Jones is really displaying here), but that is damn funny.

And note that no one on the interwebs (or at the White House) is crying about "anti-Talibanism."

Burqa Porn

Foreign Policy has a rather pointless slideshow of Afghan women in burqas entitled Veil or Prison.

*Pointless in the sense that the photos do almost nothing to illuminate the complex issue of veils in Afghan society. Although I suppose they might serve a useful function as Afghan porn.

Um, here's a question: why does it have to either/or? Can't it be both?

Culture Shock

Most contractors and, I presume, most soldiers who go on leave from A-stan hop a long flight to somewhere in the States, are met at the airport by the wife/girlfriend/parent/child and are safely and securely ensconced at home in a matter of hours.

My recent trip back to the States started out similarly, but rapidly descended into some sort of bizarre dystopian fantasy straight out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel.*

*Can fantasies even be dystopian? I would've said no, but recent evidence suggests that they can.

Thirty hours after leaving Kabul, I was back at home with family for a brief but refreshing catch-up. Twenty-four hours after that, I made the rather dubious decision to jump back on a plane and head to Vegas for a few days.

Those of you who know me will be familiar with my longstanding rule against going to Vegas without proper adult supervision. When asked (usually increduously) why I had never gone before,* I always responded that if I went to Vegas by myself, in six days I would either be leaving in the penthouse suite of the Bellagio surrounded by strippers and cocaine, or end up dead in the desert with no pants. The latter always seemed considerably more likely.

*Given my well-documented affection for vices of all shapes and sizes, few who know me well were able to understand why I hadn't ever been to Vegas before. It seemed to them to be the obvious place for me to end up. They're probably right.

Well, I took the plunge and made the trip in the company of two old friends, both of whom are respectable, responsible married adults.* As it turned out, that was precisely what was necessary to keep the "better angels of my nature" from being overcome by my baser instincts. Without proper supervision, that contest is usually decided quickly, and not in the angels favor.

*Though they left the wives at home.

Kabul to the poker room at Mandalay Bay in two days is a recipe for severe culture shock. Attractive women to bring me free drinks (as if that right there isn't enough), thousands of dollars changing hands across the table, high-end restaurants a short-walk away and what can only be described as modern-day go-go girls dancing on elevated platforms over the Pai Gow tables. Stark contrast to sly Afghans, whiny American construction workers and burly South Africans operators.

In the end, we managed to avoid any industrial-level debauchery, and I lost only a manageable sum at the poker tables. Having not played any serious cards for a couple of years, I was unprepared for the Vegas sharks that patrol the poker room looking for their next kill.*

*Rule of Thumb: If you are sitting at a poker table, and a new person joins the game, and this person is on a first-name basis with the pit boss...........leave.

I kept the losses to less than a grand, which I thought was pretty good given the overwhelming environment and my lack of recent playing time. The majority of those losses can be traced to two hands, both of which I badly misplayed.

*Rule of Thumb #2: The baby-faced Dutch kid at the end of the table with eight grand in front of him is NOT an exchange-student with generous parents. He's a professional and he's playing his way around the world. With your money.

Only on the flight back to the Midwest did I realize that Vegas and Kabul do have one significant thing in common. They are both populated by keyed-in locals who are extremely adept at finding ways to take money off of Americans. In Kabul, they do it with a business license and a "logistics company." In Vegas, they do it with booze, cards and dice. And breasts.

I prefer the Vegas way.

Down Time

OK, so apparently a few of you have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a while. By way of response to the email questions I received:

1. No, I'm not dead (yet).
2. No, I haven't been fired (yet).
3. Yes, my internet is working fine.

The reason I have been quiet of late is that I have been taking some much-needed time away from The Rockpile. As I mentioned previously, working for an Afghan company does not allow me the generous 3-months on, 1-month off rotation that many contractors have, so I have left Afghanistan only a few times in the last fourteen months.

Fortunately, my visa expired and the new rules put in place by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dictate that I leave the country, re-apply for a new 30-day visa and then re-enter A-stan and obtain a proper six-month visa and a new work permit. Note that while I would normally complain endlessly about the GoA's byzantine bureaucratic rules and red tape, in this case I'm going to let it slide since it allowed me to spend a couple of weeks in the States.

So far, I think I've spent more money in the last two weeks than I have in the last year. Worth every penny, if only for the chance to reconnect with a civilized world. I mean, who knew there were places in the world where one could buy a cup of coffee and a newspaper without resorting to a Land Cruiser and a concealed sidearm. Most people refer to this mystical place as "Starbucks." To me, it's disturbingly close to an (admittedly) warped definition of perfection.

Friendly Fire?

Update to this post about Louis Maxwell and my earlier posts on the UN guesthouse attack, it now appears that at least some of the UN workers killed at the time were victims of friendly fire.*

*A particularly stupid euphemism, as if any fire that kills you can be "friendly."

The NY Times is reporting that a UN report has found that perhaps four of the five staff members killed in the guesthouse were victims of the ANCOP rather than the Taliban attackers. As a witness to parts of that attack and the security forces' response to it, I can say that there was an awful lot of firepower directed against that building from the outside. Apparently not all of it was particularly well-targeted.

As I've said in the past when talking about the ANSF, I don't fault their bravery, just their judgement.