Getting up to speed

It's been two weeks since I arrived at Tarin Kowt, and I'm still tryng to adjust to how things work. It's a challenging job.

First among the challenges is the fact I still don't have my unclassified computer & email working properly. After the exiting group left with their computers, I had to have everything completely set up -- I had to get our computer imaged, get it added to the domain, and I had to talk to the battalion IT section (S-6) to get it "moved" to the new location's control. Now if only I could log in....

At every step, I find out there's one more thing I have to do -- I wish I'd known everything there was to do at the beginning, but the other guys didn't know either. They'd fallen in on their stuff when they arrived; normally they'd have left it behind for us, but their company didn't know what was going on and told them to take everything on their hand receipt -- *everything* meaning "even the computer plugs for the Australian jacks."

Second is the razor-thin margin we have for maintenance on my home unit stuff. If we have anything less than full operability onour trucks, we're in trouble. My home battalion didn't help much, either. Of the two trucks they wanted to send up, one never left Kandahar because of mechanical issues and the other broke down along the way. The only ones we have working right now are the ones the old group left us in exchange for our trucks. Although operational, they're go caked up with mud from the spring rains that we can't even get in to hit the lube spots. As our suppy sergeant put it, "they're not even on their last legs; they're being propped up with twigs."

And if there's a catastrophic breakdown, there's not that much to work with up here either. We can try to do favors, but there's no reliable higher level mechanic shop to send our stuff. When we came up, the last unit was doing the equivalent of field hospital brain surgery on one truck -- taking the engine out with the tow truck to replace the transmission. Wild stuff.

The ambiguity of my command situation is another issue. There are four sections of people working here: two squads of people from my transportation platoon, another from a reserve ordnance unit out of South Dakota, a dozen people from forklift and container handling vehicle unit, and a pair of maintenance guys. The position was originally intended for a captain who would have formal authority over all the groups and report to the Australian major, but it didn't work out that way -- no U.S. unit has that kind of composition.

Instead, they took pieces from the needed units and put a lieutenant in charge. Each group's company commander reserves the authority for disciplinary action and staffing decisions; I can only coordinate among the sections and allocate maintenance support accordingly. When stuff goes wrong, the Aussie major comes to me. It's on me to pull the rabbit out of the hat and make things happen. Thank God I have an NCO who knows how to network with people in a way I haven't ever dreamt of.

Finally, there's the visibility on it all -- I send a daily report to people at the brigade level, and they actually read through the stuff. I had a lieutenant colonel crawl up my posterior yesterday because I was working with outdated information on deadlined forklifts.

As soon as I get fully functional, I'll have another challenge -- getting things comprehensible to the guy who will replace me for my R&R trip back home. I'll try to codify what's going on and how to handle it, but I don't think anyone in my company fully understands what this job is.

Given the international, multifunctional, and logistical uniquenss of our situation up here, that's probably the biggest challenge so far.