Four more years! Four more years! Wait, wrong slogan. Sorry about that. I mean, four more months! Four more months!

Well, it looks like we have extended period of fun and will be going into extra innings. Our unit is one of the ones that are being extended in theater, so we get to stay another 125 days here in country. Of all the brigades in theater, ours is the only National Guard brigade, and the only full brigade extended. There are some are some Marine battalions that are also extended, but they are only looking at 60 to 90 days of extra time. Not us. We’re in it to win it. In for the long haul.

Actually, if we are here any longer, it will be a permanent change of station for us. I should start looking into housing costs for the local villages. Something nice I could move my family into. It seems like that is the only way I am going to see them again. That or wait for Representative Rangel’s proposed bill to draft men and women up to the age of 42 pass the legislature, have my wife drafted, and maybe see if she can be sent here for a tour. Work with me, folks; we’re going to have to get creative with this.

So, leaving aside any discussion about whether or not the surge will work, I’ll stick to how we came to find out. The same way as the rest of the world: by Yahoo News.

It all begins in the morning of January 11th. The President had given his State of the Union address the night before, where he indicated his commitment to Iraq and announced that he was going to send more troops to surge the level of forces in country. I had woken up early and while milling about in the housing area, I ran into Arroyo. He was all flustered with the latest rumor: we were being extended in country and Bravo Troop was being moved to Ramadi as part of the announced surge. I and another soldier talked him down from the figurative water tower about that one. It had to be complete bullshit. There was nothing official about us being extended, plus what sense did it make to pack up a troop, move it 100 miles to another city for four months of operations? In the time that it would take to pack an entire unit’s worth of equipment, convoy it down, unpack it, then pack it back up to move to Kuwait and ultimately the States in a few months, there would be little left over for actual operations. Plus, that means the unit coming in to replace Bravo, who is unnamed and unknown, would have to have their equipment shipped here. Plus, add time to train them up. Plus, add time for Bravo to learn the ropes in Ramadi. No time left and that would put two units on the road moving equipment, taxing an overburdened logistics net that somehow has to support the movement of all these troops into theater. It would make more logistical sense to drop the new unit in Ramadi, since that is less traffic, less ramp up time to learn the ropes overall, and more time on the ground. Granted, Big Army is prone to some spectacular episodes of illogic, but this would be too much. Relax, Arroyo. Just another case of him being excessively anxious about every little thing. Not to mention acting like an Iraqi: if it is rumor, it must be true.

I finally wander into the TOC to begin my shift for the evening. As soon as I come in, Jeffery asks me if I saw the news about our extension. I tell him that no, I haven’t seen it, but I have been hearing rumors about it. He tells me that Yahoo News is reporting that we are getting extended, and ABC News is reporting the same thing. There are a bunch of news stories to that effect and they all say the same thing: we stay with the surge.

Outside, the rain clouds in the sky opened up and a steady drizzle came down turning the ground into mud.

One of the younger kids in the mortar platoon, Bloomfield, who looks like a twelve year old kid with a wad of dip in his mouth, came into the TOC. He wanted to use one of the military phones to call home, the idea being that he connects to a base stateside, gets transferred to a 1-800 number so there is no cost to the government, and uses a calling card to pay for the call home. This way, he only has to pay the domestic rates on the calling card and not the international rate, so the 500 unit card that he purchased will last for a couple of hours instead of the normal 20 minutes. No problem, I tell him. Go right ahead.

I got back to my mission critical task of surfing the internet looking for news articles about this extension rumor. Sure enough, the same couple of AP and Reuters blurbs were on most of the news sites outlining that a National Guard Brigade was going to be part of the troops extended for the surge. They weren’t particularly informative and didn’t name us directly, but when there is only one full National Guard brigade in theater, that narrows down the choices considerably.

Bloomfield came back after a few minutes and told us that his parents got a call about us being extended. Someone from the state rang them up in the morning and told them that we were all staying as part of the surge. Do we have any information about that? What exactly is going on?

Fuck if I know, dude. There’re rumors, but there’s not much more. Nothing official. You can, however, look into the crystal ball of internet news sites and try and figure things out with us. Stare into the strangely mesmerizing multimedia presentation and read the electronic tea leaves.

The Captain came out of his office and let us know that he was going to the Squadron Commander’s office. There was a huddle of some sort at the higher headquarters because of the rampant rumors of the extension. No problem, sir. We’ll hold the fort. He moved the dots on the magnetic board that showed where the higher leadership was located, putting himself from the column marked TOC to Other.

Pfeiffer came waltzing into the TOC, looking to do the same thing that Bloomfield did earlier. He wanted to call home on the military line with the phone cards and chat with his fiancée. Pfeiffer was a nice kid, who was pure as driven snow, saccharine as white bread. Or rather, he was once. While he might not be wheat bread now, he was a little toasted.

Pfeiffer was due to marry his fiancée in July, not long after we were scheduled to be back from deployment. He had proposed to his girlfriend on Christmas leave a year prior, surprising her when he got off the plane with a proposal and ring. He didn’t so much as take a knee as fall over his own feet. But, it got the message through.

He came back out to the front desk a dozen or so minutes later hot under the collar. His fiancée had gotten a call from the state telling her that he was extended. She was in tears, pounding on him for information. They had planned for a wedding in July, now that was obviously postponed. Things had to be cancelled, rearranged, put off. What do we know about all of that?

We don’t know.

“Well, I think that is a bunch of crap. What the hell is my fiancée getting calls for if we don’t know? And if we are extended, how long is it going to be now? We did our year, dammit!”

We don’t know.

“Somebody needs to find out about what is going on. I think that’s pretty fucked up that we have to get our information from ABC.”

The Captain is at a rumor control meeting. Check back later.

Pfeiffer left, shaking his head. He was understandably upset, but none of us had anything to offer him, other than the newswire feeds. Sorry, dude. We are on the same sinking boat. I don’t have a line to offer you.

The Captain returned from his meeting with the Squadron Commander about an hour and a half later. He tells us that there is nothing official as of this moment, which is around five in the afternoon Iraqi time. He went to the meeting with the Squadron Commander, who just got out of a conference call with the Brigade Commander, who just finished up a tele-conference with the Theater Commander. The Theater commander said that he has nothing official from his higher headquarters on who is staying beyond their scheduled rotation for the surge. Yes, he has heard and read the news also, but as it stands now, nothing has come down to him. Sorry.

So, as of five in the evening our time, nobody in country had heard anything official. But someone back home did and spilled the beans to the press, not to mention called wives, girlfriends, and parents. Somebody knows something, but they aren’t telling us.

Rod comes in to use the phone to call home. “Hey, Rod,” I tell him. “Be warned: there have been news reports of us being extended and the last two people that called home said that someone from the state is calling around to all the families telling them that.”

“Are you fucking serious?” he asked incredulously. He was probably having the same thoughts that led me to give him the heads up. His wife wasn’t the most calm person dealing with stress, and an absent husband and an infant was stress enough. She was likely to be apoplectic about this.

“Now, the Captain just got back from a meeting at Squadron these rumors flying around, and they are getting from the theater command that there is nothing for certain yet.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

“Just telling you what I’m hearing. Take it as you will.”

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath. He looks down the hall at the phone room, back to me, down at the desk, deciding if he really wants to take the plunge. Maybe it’s all bullshit. Maybe not. He takes the key to the phones, and goes down the hall. “This better not be the case,” he calls out.

It is. He comes back 30 minutes later livid. His wife is in the same condition of the upset fiancé. She is bouncing off the walls about it. Tears, yelling, sobbing, screaming, wondering why this is all happening, how this is all Rod’s fault somehow in exquisite detail. Naturally, he is the outlet for her pent up frustration about this. So, naturally, we have to be his outlet for his anger and frustration. Continuing the cycle of anger and violence.

That night, when I get back to my hooch, I get online and chat with my wife with instant messaging. She asks me what my orders say. What orders? Well, she was told that we have orders about this. So just look at them and I can answer all her questions about the extension. As if. We don’t have any orders; we have to guess and watch the news like the rest of the world.

When she got the call at home that morning, she thought that something happened to me. Maybe I wasn’t posted in the TOC anymore and failed to tell her about that and something had gone horribly wrong. Maybe something else happened. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

My Wife was apologetic that she had to tell the kids about the extension that afternoon when they got home. I’m not sure why she felt the need to apologize, since that is something that a parent has to do, and it isn’t exactly like we could hide it from them. Hey, isn’t Dad supposed to be here now?

She didn’t have much of a choice about it, though. At school, the teachers of my oldest three, the ones in school, told my kids that they were sorry about their dad being extended in Iraq for the summer. What? Oh, didn’t you hear, little child? It’s all over the news. Your Dad gets to stay in Iraq as part of the surge. I suppose that it would be too much to ask for that my kids could hear this information for the first time from their parents, and not the news or their teachers.

Of course, when they got home, they had questions. Is this true? What does this mean? Why? And so begins the explanation from Mom of how this means that the Bat Mitzvah of the oldest will be rescheduled again. We had to put this off once because of the deployment and the inflexibility of the command to grant me leave then, even if it is my R&R leave. So, again, we have to cancel plans, find an available date, study a new parsha, and basically reset our lives again. Number One is pissed about the whole thing, and understandably so. Number Three was upset with the planned post-deployment trip to Disney World getting canceled for the time being. “Aw, I was going to go to Disney,” she said. Yeah, I understand. Mom was going to go to Punta Cana with Daddy, too, but both of those are going to be put off. Never mind the reservations canceled, the inability to actually plan for another date since there is not a shred of information for us as to new return dates, or the inevitable trying to make plans on short notice once I get home consequently getting worse accommodations and paying more for not having long term reservations.

All the frustration can be summed up with the question that my wife asked me: “why don’t you know?” I know it was not meant to be accusatory, but it was hard not to feel angry at that. Why don’t I know? Other than the illogic and philosophical absurdity of the question of knowing why I was not able to divine knowledge denied to me, it becomes the resonance of all that is wrong with this situation in particular and this deployment in general. Why don’t I know? Did I miss something? Did someone else miss something? Was I now or at any time a member or sympathizer of the Communist Party? Why don’t I know?

What amazed me the most, though, at the end of the first day was that the State Adjutant General, the TAG as he is known, got information and took it upon himself to have the State Family Readiness Group (FRG) call all the wives at home and work. And yet, the theater commander knew nothing official as to who is staying on longer. And we couldn’t possibly let the soldiers actually call their families and clue them in on what is going on officially straight from the soldier’s mouth. No, instead it is better for families to get calls from state organizations saying “sorry ‘bout your luck” and walking away when there is no way that the families can get in ready contact with their husbands. It’s better to set the seeds of doubt and fear as to what the husband is holding out on, what information is not getting passed, what things are being omitted. Open door, toss in grenade, walk away.

If that is family support, I think my marriage will do better without it, thank you very much.

Outside, it is still raining. The muddy puddles have become soupy lakes. Everything is a mess and contaminated by earthen slop.

The next morning, I saw SGT Krank out front of our hooches when I came out to get ready for work. “What’s the word from the planet crackpot?” he asked me. Not much, just a circus with all the extension nonsense.

“Yeah, those bastards from the FRG called my wife at work yesterday morning. I told them not to call her. Every time they get contact information for back home, I tell them not to call her. I don’t want her part of that, and she doesn’t want to be part of that. But they called her up at work anyway.”

“I think it was the state run organization that did that.”

“I don’t give a fuck who it was. I don’t care if it was the Governor or President himself. I don’t want anyone calling my wife about any of this shit. I want to tell her myself. Those fuckers called her at nine a.m. at work. She was so upset with getting that call that she broke down into tears and had to leave work. Then when I get off work and get on the computer with her, she tears into me. She’s going on and on about how I lied to her, how I am keeping secrets about the deployment from her, how I knew all about this and didn’t tell her, how she doesn’t believe a word I say anymore because I must have known this was coming and didn’t clue her in.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I mean, that really pissed me off. Here I am, away for a year and a half at this point, she’s barely keeping herself together, and this comes along. And I’m the one to blame. So I wrote those fuckers a nice long email about leaving her the fuck out of their calling list.”

“Really?”

“Hell, yeah! ‘Dear FRG, I don’t know how many times I have told you this but don’t call my wife about anything. Period.’ Then I went on and on about how they have no business doing that. Those fuckers can kiss my ass. I wrote that Susie chick, or whatever her name is and laid it on her. She has no business fucking up my life like that.”

“Damn, dude.”

“Then I stomp over to the TOC and went to see the Captain. I told him that I didn’t want the FRG calling my wife and I told him that time and time again. So he goes on and on about how they have to do their job, yadda yadda yadda, the General told them to do it, and I fucking lost it. I mean, how dare they, how fucking dare they, try and tell me what is and is not good for my fucking family? When I say lay the fuck off, they need to lay the fuck off. They have my ass, they can do what they want with me, but they better leave my family the fuck out of it.”

I just smirked. When he gets on a rant, it’s best to let him go. From my experience, it is more for his psychological benefit to vent, and then be done with it. People that are not used to his style, though, (like new lieutenants) are prone to getting roped into an argument that they will never win or end up feeling verbally assaulted.

He grabbed a Coke from my fridge. “Yeah, so the Captain is like ‘Whoa, SGT Krank, you need to settle down.’ And I’m like ‘Fuck that, sir. Nobody has any business dragging my family into this and getting my wife worked up, so worked up she leaves work for the day.’ And he’s all ‘you need to calm down’ and shit. ‘They’re just following instructions from the TAG.’ I don’t give a fuck if the word came from the Pope. Fuck that motherfucker, and fuck all those clowns back in the states.”

“Feel better?”

“Yeah.”

That afternoon, the Captain gives us another briefing at the guard mount for the shift going onto the gate. He tells of his meeting with the SCO, who met with the Brigade CO, who met with MNC-I commander. Nothing on paper. Nothing for sure. No idea if our mission will change because of the surge, or what. However, with all the hoopla that has been going on, Two Star Generals back home and Governors of States don’t really schedule news conferences unless they are sure of something. So, the money is on us staying, but we have not a shred of information or proof of that. Theoretically, we might not even be staying since there are no papers on it yet.

But don’t count on it.

In the meantime, he tells us, be patient with him and tell our families to be patient. He has gotten something like fifty billion emails from angry wives, all starting some variation that he is the scum of the Earth personally responsible for keeping their loved ones in Iraq. As though he was doing this with some sort of grudge or vendetta.

The Captain did get a call from the TAG back home, though, that evening. This marked the first time that he called our command while we were in theater, and the second time period that he made contact with our unit in a year and a half. I suppose that there are greater things that occupy the minds of National Guard generals than one of their units, detached to another squadron from a different state, who itself is detached to a brigade from a third state. Especially when that unit is deployed to combat. Not that we are the only ones from our state that is deployed currently, since, well, actually we are. There was one Air Guard medical unit mobilized after we were, but they had served their four month tour and been long since demobilized.

One of the officers hanging around the TOC mentioned rumor has it that our State Adjutant General had called the home state of the squadron that we are attached to and bitched him out on the phone. Why hadn’t the Squadron Commander of this other state pushed out the information on the extension? Why were his dear troops from his Great State being left in the dark? You know, the ones that he neglected himself?

Because there is no information to push out and everyone in Iraq has no idea what FOX News is talking about, that’s why. Nice try. The blame-storming continues.

In times like these, there is one thing that soldiers can do to re-spark interest in an otherwise lousy situation: get a pool going. LT Pokei walked up to my desk and said that we should get a deployment pool going. I put out a tin on the desk and put out a pad of paper. Whipping out a dollar, he put one in the tin. “I want to be first. I choose July 31st.” “Very good, sir,” I told him, scribbling his name on the pad. LT Dammut came over and looked at what was going on. “I’ll get in on that too,” he said. “Wait!” yelled LT Pokei. “I’m not done yet. I also want July 28th, August 1st and August 5th,” he announced putting a dollar in with each date.

“Now,” asked LT Dammut. “Is it the closest day without going over, or just the closest day period?” And with that began the discussion of the rules. Once that was done with, I threw in for July 18.

The phone rang and I picked it up. At the other end was RQ, who was in Kuwait on his way home. RQ is an Individual Ready Reserve soldier, an IRR, who was called back to Active Duty to round out our troop strength. His orders were expiring now, so he was headed back to the States to demobilize. Other IRR soldiers had flown out the week before and were already back in the States, or even released from Active Duty. Right now, he was in Kuwait waiting for the next available flight out of theater.

“Hey, RQ, what’s up?”

“Hey, what do you know about this extension that’s all over the news? Here, they are saying that we are going to be sent back to our units. You know what’s happening with the IRR in this?”

“No idea,” I tell him. I then give him a quick rundown of the news and the no official word. Theater says ‘I don’t know.’ FOX News says ‘you stay.’ “Hey, if you can, get on the next flight, any flight and get the hell out of here. The closer you get to home, the less likely they would be to send you back, I would think.”

“Yeah, they just pulled all of us off a plane here. I was already on board and some female MP came on and asked for all the soldiers in our Brigade to get off. I was thinking about just staying, but all the others were getting off, I figured someone would dime me out.”

“Well, what are they telling you?”

“They don’t know, so they have us in the holding area. Dude, we were on the plane, cleared Customs and everything. I could’ve punched that chick right in her face.”

“I hear ya, bro. We don’t have any info on the IRR here, though. So hang loose, call us every so often to see what’s up and let us know what you hear there. And if you can bail, do it.”

“Okay.”

“Man, I’m sorry. I wish I could give you more, but I don’t have anything.” I hung up the phone.

LT Pokei came over then and told me that one of the overnight staff, SGT Worth, was going to go back out to the ECP since the night shift was short staffed. So, tonight, when Worth comes in, I am to tell him that tonight is his last night in the TOC and he is to call the Officer In Charge for the night shift, LT Oben, for details. Easy enough. For the most part, I hated dealing with Worth in any form, but this was a quick and simple message. Should be painless.

I heard the door open and looked up to see Nick coming in. Nick had done some runs with me on convoys as gunner when my normal gunner was taken off the road due to injuries. Or rather, due to the medications that he was on while recuperating from the injuries.

“Hey, Nick! How’s everything going?”

Things are well, and he’s here to see if he has mail. He doesn’t, so we chat for a second.

“Hey, check this out. You know that new interpreter that we hired, Joseph? Well, he’s Turkish like her, and he’s young. So, we are out at the gate the other day, and Kat is there. Now, she hasn’t met this guy yet. You know how she is all about everything that is Turkish? We tell her that we have a new Turkish interpreter, and she’s all like ‘that’s great’ thinking that it’s going to be some older guy. Then, he comes up, and we say hi to him. He’s this young guy, in shape, you know, pretty good looking. She does this double take and her eyes just bug out. Then, she looked around really quick, like you know when you are seeing if someone caught something you did?” Nick pantomimed her with mouth open and hand half covering it, then looking furtively around. “I caught it, but played it off like I didn’t see anything. So, when you see her, ask her about Joseph. Check out her reaction.”

I smirked and some others laughed. “Has her boyfriend seen this guy? His time’s going to be shortened now.”

“Oh, he’s seen Joseph. Yeah, he’s not happy about it.”

“Competition has arrived. Let the games begin. He’s sunk.”

We chatted a few minutes about odds and ends before Nick left. The Captain also came through and announced that he was going home. “If anyone calls from back home, tell them I’m at the North Gate or something and take a message. See if I can get back to them tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, sir.”

Things settled down as the night wore on and people went back to their bunks. SGT Yuse came lumbering in at his normal time to drop off his gear before going over to the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation phone center to pull his nightly few hours running the desk. “Hey, SGT Yuse,” I told him, “you are going to be moved out to the North Gate starting tomorrow night. You need to call out there and talk to LT Oben and coordinate everything and figure out the details.”

“What?” he boomed in his characteristic voice sounding like a drunken Jughead in a quantum physics class.

“You are being transferred to the ECP. Call the North Gate. Talk to LT Oben. Find out what you need to know for tomorrow.”

He stood there silently, absorbing the information. I stared back, waiting for the next round. I couldn’t tell exactly if he was having a hard time understanding what I told him, or pondering a way out of it, or contemplating a rant of some sort over this great injustice of putting him to work in a place other than the MWR phone center.

“So they want me to call there?” he asked. Okay, it was door number one. “Yes, call out there and talk to them,” I told him.

“So when do I start tomorrow?”

“How should I know? That’s why you have to call and find out. I’ve given you all the information I have.”

He paused. I still sensed a rant pending. “Why are they moving me out there?” I just looked at him. Seriously, I hate dealing with him.

“You know I have a profile for my back, don’t you?” he continued after a moment.

“Look, I’m not the one sending you out there. I’m the messenger.” I picked up the phone and held it at him. “Call Oben. Talk to him. He can fill you in.”

“What’s the number out there?”

I rattled off the extension for him, and turned away back to the book that I was reading. There was not going to be spoon-feeding of information I didn’t have to him tonight. I had enough unanswered questions on my plate to deal with a person who could not seemingly make a phone call to get the information that he needed and make things all nicey nice. Especially to another sergeant who in theory should be able to think for himself and take initiative.

Later that night, well after midnight, the phone rings and I answer it. It is a female captain from our Great State back home on the other end. She asks for Captain Equah and needs to talk to him about a teleconference. I tell her that he is unavailable. She asks me if he is at dinner, and if so, when he is expected back. I tell her that it is one in the morning and that Captain Equah has gone home for the evening. She is stunned. “Home?” she asks. “Yes,” I tell her. “ It is the middle of the night here. We are eight hours ahead of New Jersey.” She pauses as she digests this information. It seems that she is confused about the concept of time zones. After a moment she asks for Captain Equah’s email. She also asks if Captain Equah will attend the audio call in tomorrow morning Stateside time. I let her know that I have no idea if captain Equah is part of the teleconference. She tells me that she is going to e-mail him call in numbers and asks if I will pass along that information to him. I tell her that I will. She hangs up.

A while later, a Colonel, the chief of staff for the TAG, calls. He also asks if Captain Equah is available. I’d tell him no. He tells me that he has to speak to Captain Equah right now, it’s very important don’t I know, and asks me where the Captain is at. Now, I can’t very well tell the full bird Colonel that the Captain is sleeping and would rather not hear from idiots in the middle of the night because it is a more convenient time back home. However, I could play for time, so I exercised the bluff the Skipper wanted.

I tell the Colonel the Captain is at the North Gate right now and will be unavailable for some time. The Colonel asks how soon the Captain will be back, or when he is expected. My bluff is not working very well. I tell the Colonel that it will be at least 30 minutes for the Captain to return if I reach him by radio. The Colonel that tells me to get a hold of the captain by radio and get him back. It is very important that the TAG speak to the Captain. The General will call in 30 minutes. If for some reason that he does not call or the Captain misses him, then there is a phone number that captain can call the TAG at. I take down the number and tell the Colonel that I would get him as quickly as I can. The Colonel thanks me and hangs up.

I pick up the portable radio and I call the captain. After a few moments he answers, groggy. I let him know that New Jersey called and they need him back in the TOC for a callback in 30 minutes. He acknowledges and I put up the radio.

About twenty minutes later, the captain comes in the office. I briefed him on the phone calls that came in, about the email that he should expect, the teleconference scheduled tomorrow morning New Jersey time, and the call pending from the general. On a pad of paper was scratched the number to call, so I gave that to the skipper also. He went back to his office.

Some time goes by. No call from the General back home. Some more time goes by. Still no call. The Captain tries calling the number that the Colonel left. It goes to an answering machine that is full. No one there. No operator option. Nothing. He tries again. Same result. The Captain asks me if there was any other number left, but sorry, sir, that was the only one given.

Being resourceful, he emails and calls other officers in our parent unit back in the States looking for a contact number for the TAG. No one is answering their phones and no replies come to his emails. He stays in his office for a while, stewing, slowly increasing the volume to the classical music that he played when feeling under stress.

Finally, he gave up. “If anyone calls for me tonight, tell them I’ll call them back in the morning,” he says as he leaves. Sure thing, Skipper.

John, who had finally drifted in for his overnight shift, was standing next to the coffee pot eyeing up the Girl Scout cookies. “Shit,” he said. After a moment, he snatched up a handful of cookies. “Four more months. Might as well get fat.” He stuffed them in his mouth and wandered over to his desk.

The next day, things were a little more settled. We were finally coming to grips with our lot, and spending our time doing remote damage control with our families back home. We still had no information to give them; in fact, we were relying on news from stateside to update on us what was going on. It was clear to us now that the Generals and Governors at home had the inside line on the straight dope. Here, we still had nothing. No orders. No official information. The only thing that we couldn’t trust from home was that the state FRG was still swearing that we had our orders in hand. Not so. But with the flurry of blame-storming going on, it didn’t surprise me that someone might be covering their tracks. Then again, given the gross incompetence and lack of information, one more communication breakdown was not surprising either.

We still had to focus on the here and now, though. A report came in that there was a car that exploded in somebody else’s gate. No further details, but stay alert and stay alive out there. Of course.

Kat came into the TOC to check her mail. LT Pokei was passing through the area, and called out to her. “Kat! How are you? Hey, did you meet that new interpreter that we hired? He’s Turkish, you know.” She gave a very throaty giggle, and sauntered away down the hall to the mail room. We all laughed knowingly. I think that she had noticed the new interpreter. Noticed plenty.

Back in the States that night for us, afternoon for our families, a press conference was convened for the benefit of the press and family members. The Governor of our state showed up, the TAG called in by speakerphone. There were plenty of attendant officers and other hangers-on. They flew in by military helicopter, bounded out, gave the required words of sadness and comfort then opened up the floor for questions.

It was all done except for the fire sale by the time I got back to my hooch and was able to get the details from my wife via IM. The Governor said that it was unacceptable that our commanding officers didn’t know or didn’t tell us. The TAG, who couldn’t be bothered with actually showing up, said over the speakerphone “I won’t apologize for not having the guys know.” Which I thinks speaks volumes more about the disdain that we and our families have been treated with than I could ever write.

On the way in to the TOC on the afternoon of the 14th, I ran into some of the officers sitting on the porch of the TOC. LT Pokei and LT Dammut were sitting smoking cigars, wearing Stetson hats, and discussing the speech given by the General at the press conference. The two lieutenants were specifically talking about how the General refused to take responsibility for someone else’s fuck up, and how right he was for that. It was obviously a mutual stroke party. I debated offering up something mild, since it was plainly apparent that these two would not be convinced otherwise that the General had done the wrong thing. And I certainly wasn’t going to get roped into an argument with LT Dammut since he already detested me and there was no changing his mind once the little Napoleon had decided something and began his pontification.

Well, discretion has never been my strength. Batter up. “Don’t you think that he should have offered up something about the lack of information that got to us? About our wives getting it first? After all, it was his office that was calling the families without any notification of us what was happening.”

“But, that’s not his responsibility,” he said with his usual snide condescension. “The theater was supposed to inform us of what is happening here. His job, once he got information from General Blum, his responsibility was to get that out to the families. He shouldn’t have to take responsibility for what is going on or not going on here, that’s not his job. It’s stupid to think that he should be faulted for some fuck up by someone else.”

“But shouldn’t the soldiers get to inform their families?”

“Look, when a four star calls you up and gives you some information, you put it out. It’s his job to put it out. He was right to direct the FRG to put out the information. That’s what he had to do.”

We were going to have to agree to disagree. Plenty of times someone higher than me fucked up, and I was left holding the bag to say to my guys at least “I’m sorry it went down like this.” Or, when I did or didn’t do something based on the information available at the time, offered up “you know, maybe that wasn’t the brightest move on my part even given the lack of information.” But, maybe that is my personality and leadership style.

And the officers wonder why there is a disconnect with them and the enlisted.

Pokei, the acting XO, comes over once I have gotten settled and asks me some questions. “Is there any reason that you can’t work at the gate?”

“Hell, no” I come back with. “I’m good to go.” I go into an explanation of why the XO, who was on leave, wanted to keep me locked up in the TOC for his own diabolical purposes.

“Well, Oben is short at the gate, and requested you, if you are cleared to go out there.”

“Perfect! When do I start?”

“Tomorrow would be your last day here. Give him a call at the gate in an hour or so, once they get there and done changeover, and set things up with him.”

The timing was perfect. If I knew that arguments with officers would get me thrown out of the TOC, I would have done that sooner. And with great vigor. I know that it had nothing to do with it, but I like to pretend to stroke my self image. While the TOC is witness to some truly bizarre things sometimes that are just amusing in their absurdity, it becomes soul sucking after a short time.

The following afternoon, the Captain came out from his office and walked up to the large white board that dominates the entrance to the TOC. He wrote on that that as of sixteen hundred hours, we are officially notified. The he put underneath that 125 days from a date.

“Make sure that no one writes any bullshit on this board or messes with this. And tell everyone that they have their official notification as of sixteen hundred, so they need to call home as soon as possible and tell their wives and families that they are official now.”

“Roger that, sir.”

The Captain stood there for a moment looking at the white board. He looked harried from the past couple of days of fiasco. “Sir? Do we have an idea when the paper orders will come in?”

He looked at me with a steeled glance. “No, we probably won’t get that for a couple of days. But we are officially notified now.”

“Roger that, sir. I’ll pass it along.”