Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, 29 October

After we routed the Shivans at the Battle of Flypaper Fields, the remnants of their Second Hell Roc Brigade turned to hit-and-run operations against our caravans. Damned mess they can make of things, but today, they made the mistake of picking a fight with our ace Gyrostalker pilot Smythe out on the Scyllian Way. Crushed three of them like bugs under its feet, he did, no contest. And that was just in the first minute. Probably put that man in for a commendation...

On the upside

I realize I bitch a lot in this space, but there are good things we're doing here. (Whether they're cost-effective is another question, but it's a hell of a lot better than the zero positive impact I saw from my last deployment.)

One of my guys is helping set up a fire department from scratch.

Another team taught a bunch of people how to not blow up their wells.

We've distributed some 20,000 malaria-busting bed nets.

And

Responsibility fail

So, one of the teams in the previous unit apparently signed up for civilian internet service through a local Djiboutian company. This was a couple months before we showed up. Apparently they never paid for it after that, and didn't tell my team about it.

So now these Djiboutians are telling us that we owe them over $4,000 US. That's quite impressively terrible at life, no?

Well don't I feel like a dick...

Just discovered that the reason my soldier can't get promoted is because we're overstrength on E-5 sergeant types. When some of them drop off our roster at the end of the deployment, or get promoted to E-6 staff sergeant types, those slots will open up.

I happen to be one of those holding an E-5 slot.

And have consistently refused promotion for like a year, on account of the fact that I'm getting out after this trip.

Sorry man.

So much butthurt

So, the Air Force discovered, as they were doing audits of my comrades' per diem vouchers, that I'd written something sarcastic on a document.

This document is a required "backup" to the non-standardized receipts local hotels create. It adds no information that's not already included on the voucher or the actual receipt, but it is a bit more orderly looking, I suppose. It also adds no legal leverage, because you can already fry someone for signing a fradulent voucher in the first place. So why do they force us to waste the ink and paper printing it out and having it signed, then scanned again to be uploaded?

Dunno. Power trip, maybe. Lost sight of reality, definitely. They claim it's a necessary evil, but anyone with a lick of sense can see it's not. They claim it's based on IRS requirements. Note that that's not that it's required by the IRS, but based on what the IRS looks for in a receipt when it's auditing people's tax deductions. Does the IRS audit these vouchers? Of course not. But these people are too lazy to actually think, so they create a checklist that bears no resemblance to anything useful.

Now, this document upon which I spewed my sarcasm provided all the information they want out of these. Dates, costs per day, and a signature from my comrade saying that "no, I am not defrauding the government." That's all that's on them. Nothing that would actually require a moment's thought or difficulty faking for one actually intent on defrauding the government. And it was all filled in; it just happened to include an additional comment on how stupid their system was.

Naturally, they lose their minds and revoke my ability to create and review these documents. With a few apologies to soothe their egos, I managed to get them back so long as I took the completely uninformative online classes again.

Which, by the way, contain no information about what a receipt should look like.

We are not here to be your bitches!

Stupid stupid higher headquarters.

My soldier's job is not to wash your truck.

My job is not to do paperwork so that you can steal our offices. Get off your lazy punk ass and do it yourself.

Fuckers.

Buncha people died 11 years ago.

The Big Voice here on camp has been announcing the times of certain events on that bloody day.

Years always struck me as an arbitrary way of demarcating time.

But I guess anything else would be too.

Having an airplane driven into your workspace is kind of an arbitrary way to die, for that matter.

To elaborate:

I first walk in and have to wait for this guy to finish eavesdropping on someone's conversation. Then after he gets done telling me my paperwork isn't good enough, he calls me back on my way out the door, asks me to sit down for the sole purpose of asking me if I smoke. Then on my way out the second time, he tells me I look "like a rapist" today.

After getting some of the paperwork he demanded, I came back and had to wait for him to do an impression of how stupid most of the people who come to ask him questions are.

Has this guy even ever heard of being a professional?

Fuck the Air Force

First you take away my tools. Then you tell me the paperwork to get my tools back isn't good enough.

Then your buddy elsewhere says I can't even get any tools.

And you do it all without even a semblance of politeness.

So fuck you and the jet you rode in on.

Stop touching things!

Just because you're theoretically in the reviewing chain for my guys' shit doesn't mean you should be touching it.

Especially when you return things for not having documents that they don't need attached.

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, 11 August

They came in the night. Blutheran lizard riders and their infernal Cherenkov maces. Half my contingent was slain before the alarm was sounded; the guards were at half strength, the rest busy with pay recertification mandated by those fools in the Capitol. I told them we had no computers to do it on; they airdropped them in at absurd cost. If they'd been willing to send us the endemic-geometric qualifier arrays we asked for last month the same way, we would've finished mapping a way out of these badlands already and none of this would've happened!

We're on the move now, through what paths our scout teams have identified. Thankfully lizard riders suck at tracking prey.

For want of a standard form forty-four

So, because our teams generally operate in such far-flung areas, away from the flagpole here on camp and unable to just requisition every little thing they need, each of them has a FOO and PA. That's "Field Ordering Officer" and "Pay Agent" for those of you not fluent in the eldritch tongues. These individuals have some hefty responsibility. They have to know what they can and can't buy, do the paperwork for it all, and safeguard big piles of cash until it's distributed. Most of these costs go to things like petrol/gas/fuel, the occasional bit of building supplies or durable goods that aren't in the normal supply chain.

The FOO's job is to decide that something is necessary to the mission and draw up the Standard Form (SF) 44. It's a tiny slip of paper with enormous consequence; essentially a check, signed by a duly-appointed representative of the US government and issued to the local provider of the good or service described thereon. This provider then turns around and hands the SF 44 over to the PA, who pulls the cash out of his or her big backpack full of money and hands over the proper amount.

Every 60 days, these two people have to return here to reconcile their expenses. They bring all their paperwork, the CCO (contingency contracting officer) looks it over to make sure it's good, then signs off on it so they can go draw their next batch of cash. It's a PITA, but probably the sort of thing most taxpayers would like done with their money, no?

Well, sometimes the paperwork isn't good. Sometimes the FOO and PA leave receipts behind. Or don't get all the receipts properly signed by the local provider of a good or service. Or don't properly account for everything and come up short.

Sometimes they do all of that.

Sometimes, the FOO gets fired. And, since they're operating in another country, we have to scramble to

A) pull an officer off another team to go down to said country and temporarily operate as their FOO so that they can continue to buy gas for their trucks,
B) get him a flight into said country,
C) cancel the original FOO's flight back, since we can only have so many people in said country at any given time,
D) clear these movements with the CCE (country coordination element - a military officer working as a liaison with the embassy),
E) schedule to bring the other potential FOO, a FOOCYTE if you will, from their team up to this country and get trained, reconcile the remainder of the cash, draw new cash, and fly back

in the space of about 5 hours.

Goddamn I love my job.

Refuseniks

So you're just not gonna do your weekly report, eh? You're gonna blow off not just our battalion operations section, but me, who's spent hours with them trying to get a clear picture of what exactly they're expecting from me and you and all your fellow team leaders.

So that you can go show a video to some kids. You can't have your team do it while you do your job. You can't even be bothered to read the guidance I send out, which would put the lie to your bullshit arguments about how much work you actually have to do.

Or maybe you did read it, but didn't understand it, and are too goddamn prideful to call me and ask questions. Because you have a fucking doctorate, you must know every goddamn thing.

Fucking officers.

Poignant, poetic, painful parentheticals

"After leaving PECOS the team stopped by a rain water catchment in CORVETTE to see if rain from the evening prior had filled the catchment (it had not)."

I walk past a Marine captain, salute him.

He says, "Thanks."

How do you respond to that?

Too Many Expenses Paid!

I just discovered our budget for travel vouchers for the rest of the fiscal year is less than $2000.

Double plus ungood.

All Expenses Paid

Is it really that unreasonable to expect someone, upon being sent on a business trip to another country, to bring their company credit card to pay for expenses?

When you go to Africa...

...you wouldn't expect having a guy who speaks Japanese to be all that useful, do you?

You'd be wrong.

The tubes never forget

So, I was recently asked to do some paperwork on our weapons qualifications. I had most of the data, from Fort Hunter Liggett when the bulk of us qualified, but unfortunately never got copies of the info from Fort Dix.

So I wracked my brain trying to remember, until I remembered that I'd put up a post here about it.

Fuck yeah, intertubes.

Water Fountains?

We seriously did a project to build water fountains here? In what universe did that seem like a good idea?

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, July 9

One of the scout teams was very nearly incinerated by an enormous blast of fire bursting forth from the ground. I initially feared that this may be a new Shivan weapon system, but no others have been assaulted in such a manner. Their Flame Tech suggested that it was likely mere volcanic activity, but these badlands aren't known for such things. I fear for what this may mean going forward, either way. We must find a way to the front soon.

So we're your cover story?

In the recently-relayed-to-me words of a fairly high ranking officer, our Ethiopian teams are mostly there to justify the force protection assets being there. Said force protection assets are also apparently the primary source of intel in the area.

Fuck all y'all. Our mission's just as important.

Things the Army's taught me

In chronological order:

1. How to fire a weapon accurately

2. How to not give a shit

3. How to drive a stick-shift

In my line of work, we call this MEANINGLESS FUCKING FLUFF:

"Food was plentiful and rapidly consumed by the guests. Two large sheet cakes with the USA and Djibouti flags were presented and eaten. A video featuring America was presentation to the guests." THE GENERAL DOES NOT CARE. THE AMBASSADOR DOES NOT CARE. I DO NOT CARE. DO NOT PUT THIS SHIT IN YOUR REPORT.

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's diary, 5 July

A tempest blew over our encampment last night with no warning. There was no time to bring the observation balloon down, but Ensign Graver in charge of the bucket was quick-witted enough to cut the lines and keep abreast of the storm. They're still a half-dozen nautical miles out, but working their way back. We did have a bit of flooding on the ground, and two of our automated Teslatic cannons shorted out. Guards have been doubled until they're repaired.

Bureaucrazy

Why in the world does it make sense to have two people on duty, but each of them can only file the liberty/pass paperwork for part of the personnel on post? There's a petty officer sitting next to me who handles those assigned to Camp Lemonnier itself, while I'm responsible for those who're part of the combined joint task force that operates here. Efficiency, motherfucker, can you speak it?

Taxpayer Funded Tourism

I finally managed to get off this military base and see Djibouti a bit. Interesting sights... I thought Iraq was bad, but now I realize it was mostly just blown up. There are vast swathes of Djibouti City that're just corrugated metal shanties. People sitting in the middle of goddamn nowhere along the highway, perhaps taking a break under the only tree in sight as they walk kilometers for water. World War Two-era Italian bunker complexes in the hills out towards Ethiopia. Huge plains, here at the mouth of the Great Rift Valley, covered in barren volcanic rock. And then long stretches of sandy nothingness, our trucks staggered into the wind to keep from blinding each other in clouds of dust. Djiboutian military convoy, Panhard AMLs and HMMWVs, trucking along. A pickup with the ubiquitous flame decals flipped upside down in a ditch. A dumped shipping container filled with broken glass.

Maturity...

We've been on the ground 3 weeks, and we're already on our second set of sworn statements. Is it too much to ask you children to not get in trouble for A WHOLE MONTH?

121...108...103...

At this rate, I won't have a shipping container to live in for five months. Sadface.

Tacticool

So, you know how we wear the American flag on our shoulder, right? Well, there's also one that's black and white and shiny under night vision so we can recognize each other. The new general has decreed that all will wear it. Because he wants to be a fucking cool guy. Newsflash, jackass, there's only a tiny handful of people here who do goddamn combat missions, and you're not one of them.

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's diary, 23 June

A commando flock from the Columbidae mercenary kingdom arrived at base camp today. Apparently their services have been retained by High Command for the duration of the conflict. Their telepathic messaging skills will be highly handy, as dust storms have impeded our smoke signaling. Poor Grigsby was gored by a tusker two days ago, and by the time the message got through and we dispatched a medevac balloon, it was too late. According to the capabilities brief I received from their commander, Flight Lieutenant Obock, they're also trained in sabotage and diversionary tactics, and their size gives them a great deal of protection from the Shivan anti-air weaponry.

My private, on the comestibility of freefalling ice crystals

"When I moved to Washington, the first time I saw snow I ate some. It was so bland, I expected something more."

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, 17 June

We've made it through to the Grisham Badlands. Unfortunately, the Shivans have come up with some devastating new AAA, meaning we can't bring the airship any closer to deliver our precious cargo. I have our 3-person scout teams out (composed of a Flame Tech, Ley-Karma Analyst, and Deflector-General mounted on mecha-mules) trying to find a suitable route to the front, relaying their findings back via smoke signal to the observation balloon, as the vast deposits of astroballistic minerals in the area are interfering with our EM-dependent equipment.

Trendsetting

So, this $20m cafeteria ("galley", according to the navy) has a revolving door in front. This first week I was here, I never saw anyone go in clockwise. Always anticlockwise. I did not anticipate how amused my comrades would be by my curiosity-fueled choice to go in the wrong way. I just wanted to see if it would work!

And they're off!

Teams have pushed out to their safehouses. Finally starting the learning process with my counterpart here in HQ. Start taking over responsibilities next week. Forward to victory.

Annals of why I'm getting the fuck out, Vol. X, where X is a very large number

We spent 25 minutes yesterday being fretted at by a bunch of people with 15-25 years of military service about standing up at the proper time, standing in the proper position, and reciting the exact same 5 lines of biographical information about ourselves in sufficiently somber tones for a guy who will forget all about it in 10 seconds. Or else the terrorists win.

Casualties

So apparently our battalion commander tore his ACL playing football shortly before we got here. Then he proceeded to not have it looked at, whereupon it threw clots into his lungs causing pulmonary embolism. He got flown back to the US and released from active duty. Dumbass. Of course, the smaj now thinks this is cause to ban all sports, contact or otherwise. Another member of our HHC element went down to the desert survival course put on by the French and was medevac'd a couple days ago. Our unit has taken more casualties on this deployment in two months than we did in our entire last tour in Iraq.

My private, on food semantics

Me: Time for ice cream. Moments later... Her: That's not ice cream, that's a shake. Me: You know what shakes are made of, right? Her: Yeah, but...

Environmental Protection

One of our last tasks here was to turn in these damnable HMMWVs. So we went and cleaned them first. That went well enough. Then for the curling. We got through most of them, until one started a dieselfall. Wasn't too massive, but it was enough to motivate us to crack open the spill kit. Which contained a binder with the procedures for responding to such. For example, calling the fire department. We had it contained, and a brief at the start of our time here telling us that calling 911 would lead to off post agencies responding...so I just called the regular number in there. No answer. Alright, well, the station's just a block away, I'll just hop over there real quick. "You'll need to call 911. I'll tell the station chief here, since we'll probably be the ones responding." Are you fucking serious? So I called 911. The motherfuckers came out, along with environmental protection, the Air Farce, and eventually, after about an hour of repeated harassment, the civilian mechanics from the motor pool to haul the POS off. What a joke.

For want of 78¢, the war was lost

Shipped some shit back home today, and some other shit elsewhere. Grand total was $40.78. Their debit card reader was out, and I had 2 $20s on hand. So close, yet so far. But one of my comrades in line behind me spotted me a buck to cover it. Sure is nice to know somebody has your back, even when they have no idea who the fuck you are.

Corporalphilia

In the five and a half years I've been in civil affairs, and this unit, I've never seen a CA corporal until now. I'm not sure that's a good thing overall, reflecting at least in part the fact that we promote people to sergeant ridiculously fast (c.f. me), but kudos to the newly (laterally) promoted E4. Granted, it was primarily because his team lost an NCO that they need to be able to draw backpacks full of money, but nonetheless, he earned it.

Unlike many who outrank him.

X-ray specs

But seriously, we just did a night fire range. I could often see the tracers burning through the target's chest.

Maybe put up some new ivans, guys? Just a thought.

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, May 29

Grounded again. The air's too watery here for the pollen ram to get a good pump-through going to the engines. We continually have to touch down to harvest clover. And when we do, it's always a fight with the Trillin Empire's apiary defense squadrons. Chafee's x-ray spectacles are put to good use when we do, letting us home in on their shifting internal chakra cores and bring them down before they can really threaten us.

Hurrah for diesel!

First Sergeant says, "Let's get those HMMWVs fueled up."

Wilco.

First, wrangle drivers, keys, dispatches. 30 minutes.

Drive to the fuel point, 10 minutes.

Discover the fuel key doesn't work. 1 minute.

Drive halfway around post with a friendly DoD cop who says he knows where to go to get it fixed. 10 minutes.

Discover that it's 5 minutes past 4 PM and none of the civilians are working. 1 minute.

Call up Barracuda, our supply sergeant, who says she knows who can fix the key. Drive back to the fuel point where she's arrived to hand it over. 5 minutes.

Wait for her to drive halfway across post, return with a functional key. 15 minutes.

Fuel vehicles. 15 minutes.

Drive back. 10 minutes.

I love this job.

The Ranger, on Market Economies

"Can you believe those goddamn communists charge money to lay by the pool?"

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, May 25

"You're a damn fool!" the old groundskeeper said. His words may yet come to haunt us, but for now, the buzzsaws are cutting a path through Lord Tiggles'* romping garden. We should reach the boneyard within  a week, where we'll be able to obtain an uplink to the Akashic satellite network. With a little deft programming from Avari's squad, we should find the information we'll need for navigating the ultramonsoon that forced us down in this godawful place.

*Lord Tiggles, as you all know, is the thankfully-deceased pet cat--by which I mean a cheetah hybridized with assault rhinoceros DNA--of Baroness Krantznovikova of Tierijev, infamous for hosting a birthday party for Carmen Sandiego all those years ago.)

Pissin' in a cup

4:30 wakeup for a day only half-filled in the first place. First Army's crack squad of E-7s there to tell our fully-certified UPL how to do his damn job, fucking up the paperwork, backup labels printed on regular paper instead of actual labels, signing in the wrong place and having to wander back halfway across post to reprint a roster while eyeballs swim...

Pre-validation, and wtfuckery

So, before we came out here we had to fill out a spreadsheet for First Army detailing all the training that we'd done. They built a memo from it, I looked over it, the CO looked over it, we agreed it was fine. We got here, and the first day we have to sign the memo and turn it over to them so they can build a training schedule. Unfortunately, somewhere between now and then it somehow lost at least one training event, and we made the mistake of not reviewing it completely. After a fight with a whiny light colonel two days later (that being the time they took to build the goddamn training schedule), we managed to get the requirements for that event knocked down to just the 5 people who hadn't completed it with us at home station. The schedule showed that event taking place yesterday evening.

Yesterday afternoon, we learned that every single one of us would have to attend. Shortly thereafter, we learned the same thing about the 3-day counter-IED training that the majority of us had done twice already, because they incorporated a 15-minute class and a 30-minute class on two of the tasks we missed. The entire remaining duration will be filled with counter-IED training. For a non-combat deployment.

The Spergeant, on genitalia

"Cocks are hot."

The Spergeant, on promotional offers

Spergeant: "Hey, get this: Order two subs you get a free side of french fries. You wanna order your sub on my tab?"

Freight Train: "Fries, huh? That's tempting."

Sp: "You wouldn't get the fries, I'd get the fries. It's my order."

Me: "So you're gonna buy him a sub just to get fries?"

Sp: "No! He has to give me money for the sub."

I screwed my entire company

I saw it, read the part where that one exercise in Cali was part of the validation for a whole bunch of different training events for deployment. And then I heard when the CDR and 1SG said they'd decided to cancel it because it was all kinetic and didn't apply to our non-kinetic mission. I think the neurons even fired briefly on what that'd mean.

But I didn't say anything about it. And now, here we are, with a bunch of boxes left unchecked, because I didn't speak up.

Because I didn't speak up.

Story of my goddamn life.

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, May 14

The dirigible's fueled. Laser cannons are primed. Chef Gaultier is preparing a bunch of rimpon protein shakes. Not sure why, nobody drinks them. Except that lunatic Chafee down in engineering. But maybe that's how he keeps this tub running, despite the dragon attacks and radio-acidic rain. This is gonna be a long trip though...

"Undisclosed Location"

Seriously? What is this secret squirrel shit. You can just say you're not sure where we're going.

Unless it is secret squirrel shit. Hmm. We'll see.

Back in rainytown

For the record, I love the rain.

On a more work-oriented note, it's a bit scary sometimes, to see how much more motivated I am to do work when I'm the prime mover, rather than having to react to someone else's requirements.

Less scary, possibly only due to familiarity, is how much more motivated I am when I can get away from my comrades for more than 15 minutes at a stretch.

Terminate, terminate, terminate

My boss, no longer my boss. A new, more tolerable boss in his place.

Not sure if the SFC who asked to have them swapped knows what he's getting into, but hey, whatevs.

Also, nearly done with this abominable post. Hurrah.

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, 30 April

We've broken through to the Iron Cavern! The War Chalice was there just as Lord Helvetica's diary told, blood-red metal clasped in the skeletal hands of Ramon Velasco.

Too bad the ass had to stick around in ghastly form and animate his bones to slaughter interlopers like us. I'll admit, it was a pretty impressive sword he drew from behind his granite coffin, and the laser eyes were no slouch either. (Poor Halloran.) Still, the undead are no match for Thompsons and a frag grenade.

Now we just have to find our way back to the surface. And hope the War Chalice's powers aren't dampened by shrapnel holes.

Thanks for playing, better luck next time...

We lost one of our number to a torn ACL from a soccer accident. Good soldier, would've been her first deployment. She's asked to go to DLI once she heals up; hopefully we can get that for her.

Damn shame.

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, April 27

We've delved into new strata in our search for the Iron Cavern. Sandstone, filled with millions of fossilized skeletons, bones the likes of which even our experienced naturalists cannot identify. These strange wonders match the passages in Lord Helvetica's chronicles, so we must be on the path. Alas, however, our porter Willard was carried off in the night by a giant arachnid. We've doubled our guard strength to protect against any further such misfortunes. Hopefully we can keep the pace up long enough to find our prize.

My boss, on oral hygeine

A guy walks into a bathroom with two other guys and spits out some vomitus into the sink. Another guy looks over and asks if he's alright.

"Got some toothpaste down the wrong tube," says the first.

The second guy says, "Well that's no fun."

"It happens," says the first guy.

The second dude and the third just look at him. Both are pretty sure that's never happened to them.

My boss, on DFAC coffee

"That's some good coffee. I like that coffee. I might get some of that to go. That's some good coffee."

My Private, on Carjacking (Defense) Classes

"I was so disappointed in that class. I thought we were going to learn how to jack cars."

She was completely serious.

Dr. Wafel Zinraal's Diary, April 22

The old priest Montoya led us down into the mission's catacombs last night. We've made some progress in using the sonar mapper, but so far there isn't any sign of the Iron Cavern of Castilla or the spiral tunnels that supposedly lead into it. We have to find that cavern as soon as possible. Without Ramon Velasco's War Chalice, we would stand little chance at the front...

And we're back

On the road again...

We did pistol drills for a couple hours in the morning, followed by a couple cartwheels, followed by lunch, followed by hanging out in the pool.

Pretty good day in CA.