In the last couple of days I have really come to the proud realization that I am becoming a successful mentor in this job and building partnerships with so many people-with us all having the same goal-to get Afghanistan on their own two feet and get us out of here. You may read that and think wow what happened?
To start with, Satar is the ANA Captain I mentor. He has seen mentors come and go. Prior to me was Maack-which they had a good working relationship, but, his focus was split by doing things to making the FOB Lindsey a better place-which isn't a bad thing. Then Cansdale an Army SSgt came along and he has spent the last 6 months with Satar. There was others before Maack too. So, I can only imagine what goes through his mind when a new mentor comes to town. Then to have a female mentor, the first female mentor for the FSD ever. I am an anomaly. There was a lot of unknowns.
I have worked with Satar now for almost 3 months. I enjoy working with him and seeing his mind work. He is a smart, organized and interesting man. His soldiers respect and fear him. I am always trying to make sure the suggestions I make will be translated correctly and he will be receptive to them. He gives me suggestions too.
I needed to tell you that before going into how the last few days have unfolded. On Sunday and Monday we were working on spray painting 12 x 12 boxes on the containers then going back through and spraying identification numbers in a contrasting color on the boxes we sprayed on them. Monday we were working on the ASP and of course Satar came out to join us, to help. I had Rockman with me, an interpreter I don't normally have with me. He wears traditional Afghan garb, no uniform like the others. He lives in Kandahar village, so he can't have anything that makes him recognizable as an interpreter or he risks getting shot at. More about that later. So Satar was walking with us as we sprayed and he asked if we could spray the orange squares on the tan containers and I said we could do whatever he wanted to do, this is his ASP. He said no, it is yours, you are the king of the ASP. I said, no we are a team, we are partners in making this ASP better. He said yes, you are like a brother to me, you are family and we will take care of it together. He said sometimes you will do something I like, sometimes I don't like and I will do things you like and don't like-but, we are brothers and will talk it out. I thought this was a huge step for our relationship. He adores Cansdale and I was worried about Satar not accepting me because he had such a great relationship with Cansdale and I am a female-so I have been worried about it. Now, I am not so worried.
We continued to spray the containers and I took him to lunch. We decided to call it a day after lunch, he had some paperwork to do, so that was fine with me.
Which brings us to yesterday. It was raining, not conducive to spray painting at all. Which was fine because we were going to be issuing out some weapons anyways. While waiting for Satar to work on the paperwork for the weapons, I had a conversation with an ANA soldier who is learning to speak English better. He had spoke to me previously and I just thought he was kind of weird because he had come up to me and said he wanted to practice his English on me. But, he was asking a lot of personal questions, so it was weird and not like they normally are. Nonetheless, we had a new Army Unit come in and they are just getting set up. So they had some weapons come in. Some M9 handguns, M16 rifles and M249 machine guns. This guy speaking to me was part of the ANA Unit associated with the Army folks I had been speaking to about their weapons coming in. So he was talking to me about the US being in Afghanistan and what I thought of it. On one hand, I want us to get out of here, on the other I can see what great ground we are covering to help Afghanistan stand on their own two feet to face their enemy. Without us helping them to get to that point, the 30 years of war would just continue to carry on. We aren't trying to make a mini-America-even though a lot of people think they can do that. So I shared my thoughts with him about it. He agrees that they wouldn't have been able to do this without our help and how great it has been for creating employment with the creation of the ANA, the money they make is so small-only 155 dollars a month-but, it is so much more then what they had before. Although, if there are those tempted by greed and money, the Taliban will pay them around 250 dollars a month. But, it goes against the Koran to be greedy and money hungry, so those that stay with the ANA are truly loyal to the right beliefs of the Koran and for the greater good of Afghanistan. This ANA soldier chose to start learning English because for one it is easier to communicate and he wants to be a more valuable asset to the military. He wants to be the best he can be as a soldier and to do the right thing. I thought that was pretty interesting and was mad at myself for thinking him strange.
Satar finished his paperwork and we went to go hand out the weapons. I saw that my tire was low on my truck then saw it had a nail in it. So I had to change out the tire. Bad timing of course, there is never a good time for a flat tire. We were right in the middle of issuing out the weapons to the guys. I told Satar that I needed to break away and get this tire changed. He said he would do it. I said no, you work on the weapons issue and I will take care of the tire. I pulled my truck over to a cement area to have a stable ground to jack it up etc. I no sooner got the jack out of the truck when I was surrounded by soldiers ready to change the tire for me. Every time I went to do something, they pushed me away and said they would do it. So, I let them. not without taking a picture of them of course. Anything I try to do, especially with Satar's soldiers, they will come forward sort of push me away and will do it themselves-which is exactly what I want them to do. They learn from me showing and will do it on their own, no matter the task.
We finished issuing out the weapons and had to go to the ASP to issue out the ammo to go with the weapons. When we got out there, the wind had picked up and it was lightly raining. We needed to tend to a task though. We had some tarps that are covering some pallets of ammo outside and with the winds lately, we needed to pull them across over the ammo. Satar was issuing out the ammo and I went to go fix the tarps. Satar's soldier-I call him 50-50-he is a team player, helps lift things-you name it, so he is 50-50. He has a lot of potential to become a NCO one day. He is learning bits of English too. He calls me Kristi. He can count in English and read English numbers. So he comes to help move the tarps in place, along with Rock. I let Rock wear my rain jacket earlier, he wasn't dressed for outside work again. So we start to move the tarps-it was a mess. Some of the tarps had giant pools of water on them and we had to get the water out in order to get it to cover the stacks. It was treacherous. Rock was going to climb up on the stacks in his dress shoes! I said no Rock I have it. In the process of trying to get this done-the skies just opened up. Absolutely soaked. I felt bad because it was 50-50s only uniform. I hope he was able to get it to dry. I ended up sending Rock home, I didn't want him to get sick. Well we got back to the truck and Satar was in it, dry as a bone. He saw how wet we were and he felt so bad. I reminded him of the discussion we had earlier- that we are a team. I said, I can't do the paperwork-he can, so while he did paperwork, we covered the ammo. He said I work too hard. I told him he does too and we went to lunch. We were done for the day.
Today I had a pretty interesting conversation with a Sgt Major with the French-Canadian Army. He got a hold of me yesterday to sit down and discuss the recent actions of Frenchy-the guy I wrote about previously. He wanted to know what had happened, how to make it better etc. I told him all about what had happened and that we aren't chosen for this job based on our personality, we are chosen by the fact we are a person to fill in the job. Frenchy's personality is not fit for this job. I told him that given the nature of their job, within EOD that he needs to have patience, more so then other jobs-he is not playing with mattresses here, it is stuff that goes BOOM. He apologized for his actions and he will be dealt with. He is also going to apologize to Satar for how Frenchy was to him also and he is going to introduce us to his replacement and to help resolve the problem. He commended me for bringing it to Frenchy's supervision to be dealt with and said I have the right personality for this job if I was able to get the C4 moved safely for Satar to understand it needed to be moved and take the steps to get it moved. Without the right mentorship, they would have just left this stuff stay where it was. So, positive outcome for a conversation I wasn't looking forward to. It was cool to work with another country, another military and resolve even bigger problems then I normally face.
I have had contact with various civilians thus far too and one of them is a mentor for another branch of the ANA called Commandoes. He is the mentor with their munitions. We shared tactics today on how to get the ANA to take safety seriously. I shared with him about bringing the family aspect into it, that is a heavy hitter. We shared pictures of what we have seen and how to deal with it. This is the kind of stuff that needs to be taught at the training.
Yesterday, the new guy Freddy and I were trying to find what locks the keys he was given by Q went to. We had a dog handler guy tell us he thought this building was ours and maybe the keys will go to that building. In talking with him he asked about if we could get his dogs some smell time with ammo. So the dogs can get used to smelling big stores of certain types of ammo, C4, 155 Rounds etc. So I said yes, we could arrange that sometime-that would be pretty cool.
Moral of this blog-building relationships takes time, patience, understanding, ingenuity. In the last few days, I helped to better relationships with Canada and Afghanistan, then learned and taught some tactics to US forces. Opened up some opportunities to help train the K9 dogs too. I am sure I will need the Canadians help with something down the line. I know every day the K9 dogs look out for me. I treat the ANA with a lot of respect and I care about them and their future-in doing so-they will look out for me. Whether it is if I get wet or not putting a tarp on a stack of ammo, changing my tire-which another interpreter-Popal has offered to fix the tire for me, no matter what-you treat others as you wish to be treated and the possibilities are endless. I have been criticized over the years as a leader that I am too nice, too lenient at times, too friendly. Well, as I see it-the way I am is making significant changes here and saving my ass.
So-be nice and others will be nice back!
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