F*ck. This. Place.

[tequila]

A rant (http://www.exile.ru/2007-May-04/####_this_place_.html)by "Joe Sailor", an ETT in Afghanistan. How does this sailor's experience compare with others, I wonder?



... My cynicism of all things Afghan did not arrive spontaneously after any one incident or story that I heard. Cynicism among ETT's in Afghanistan is an incurable epidemic. It takes a few months for the intolerance to seep in, but sure as a morning wood, it does. At first, you begin to resent yourself for starting to sound like the ETT's you first met when you arrived in country; the ETT's you hated for their inability to understand the local customs and their non-effort to learn the popular language.

But once you've been burned, swindled or even robbed a few times, the reality sinks in and you switch very quickly and very naturally back to survival mode, which is where I am right now. I'm still the combat medic presiding over my ETT team, but I've resigned my collateral duty as mentor to the ANA. Thankfully our senior officers have had their heads just far enough up their own asses to not really take notice. Voicing my exasperations and prejudices is all I can do to keep from hanging myself.


Note this author's previous article is about he managed to find a whore in Kabul (http://www.exile.ru/2007-April-20/an_afghanistan_whore-r_story.html), so YMMV.

[Maximus]

I definitely wouldn't say "Joe Sailor's" opinions are the norm. I have a close friend (Marine) that just returned from serving a year on an ETT. He said it was the best experience of his life. In fact, I volunteered to relieve him after 7 months because the Corps was doing 7 month ETTs to Afghanistan. About 4 months into the deployment, he asked to stay for a year because he believed in the mission, the ANA he was working with, and felt he was making a difference.

I think part of the problem with "Joe Sailor's" remarks stem from his other post that says he joined the Navy to drop anchor in Thailand. Such a shame that we can't drop a guy like this in Kabul or Kandahar and have him realize the importance of the mission. Last I checked Al Qaeda's training camps weren't in Bangkok.

[RTK]

And we have questions about why the Army banned blogs? How useful is this type of stuff to the insurgency?

[Stan]

His rant having been in Afghanistan for the first time seems typical. It is indeed inhospitable. But, who promised trips to Australia ?

I dislike most how he admits to being in charge one second, and willing to have two other Sailors or Soldiers killed in the name of 'a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do'.

Damn glad there were no such NCOs around in my day.

Send the SOB home and publish his name with the whore's for mom and pop to read.


We pulled up to the entrance, which was just off a quiet street, not too far from the city's center. A watchman of some sort approached the vehicle, but Nadir knew him so he opened the gate for us and closed it after we'd entered. Initially we had planned to keep a two-man team in the vehicle at all times to ensure that no one planted an IED under one of the seats, but that idea fell by the wayside when we heard the gate slam home behind us. Our collective spider sense had not been aroused. In reality, we had created the ideal opportunity for a Taliban fighter to take us all out, just so we could get a little poontang. But a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

[Steve Blair]

And we have questions about why the Army banned blogs? How useful is this type of stuff to the insurgency?

Or press (of any nation) looking for bad stories? This guy reminds me of the "I can't deploy/go TDY, I just joined for the college money" crowd.

[Sargent]

I definitely wouldn't say "Joe Sailor's" opinions are the norm. I have a close friend (Marine) that just returned from serving a year on an ETT. He said it was the best experience of his life. In fact, I volunteered to relieve him after 7 months because the Corps was doing 7 month ETTs to Afghanistan. About 4 months into the deployment, he asked to stay for a year because he believed in the mission, the ANA he was working with, and felt he was making a difference.

Obviously it's not exactly the same thing, but my husband's experience in Iraq has been nothing like Joe Sailor's either. He's gone out of his way to do as much for the jundi as he can (without causing friction with the Iraqi officers, of course), has built a really close, solid relationship with the CO, and has generally "enjoyed" the work (I put that in quotes because it has been very difficult and very dangerous -- but in terms of professional gratification, it's been rewarding.) I know that the rest of the Marines/Sailors on the team have grown quite close to the Iraqis with whom they work -- there was a situation in which a compound the Iraqis were occupying was blown up, and the guys were very shaken at the losses suffered -- because they cared about them.

Joe Sailor needs a smack upside the head.

[goesh]

U.S. Department of Labor
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Standard Occupational Classification
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31-1012 Nursing Aides, Orderlies, and Attendants

Provide basic patient care under direction of nursing staff. Perform duties, such as feed, bathe, dress, groom, or move patients, or change linens. Exclude "Home Health Aides" (31-1011) and "Psychiatric Aides" (31-1013).

...and changing bedpans, they forgot to mention that - civilian life is calling loudly for him

[nichols]

Send the SOB home and publish his name with the whore's for mom and pop to read.

Stan, getting mellow in your old age?:D

[Stan]

Stan, getting mellow in your old age?:D

Ahh, I sense a tad bit of humor from the Marine Corps :wry:

Hey, he's your problem...

...boat people :D

[Abu Buckwheat]

At first, you begin to resent yourself for starting to sound like the ETT's you first met when you arrived in country; the ETT's you hated for their inability to understand the local customs and their non-effort to learn the popular language. But once you've been burned, swindled or even robbed a few times, the reality sinks in and you switch very quickly and very naturally back to survival mode, which is where I am right now. I'm still the combat medic presiding over my ETT team, but I've resigned my collateral duty as mentor to the ANA.

As a Senior Chief I am ashamed that a "combat medic" suddenly finds himself all in a snit that he has to go to a foreign country in time of war to find that there are... (horrors!) foreign people there. If I was there and this was peacetime I would pull his sorry ass for an excuse of a Corpsman and send him on MTT with the USS Mercy on a West Africa medical tour so he can see TENS OF THOUSANDS of suffering snotty, malarial, mercilessly unhappy people who only wait for that once in a lifetime visit by competent docs.

Well, I'm not a corpsman and I don't play one on TV but I have been to every nasty part of the Middle East and Africa and if you don't go to the heart of darkness thinking "Wow thats weird but ... OK I'll roll with it." then it will suck every time.

As a sailor however, once my pointy hat with star is on I would kindly remind him that these very same people people, without any guidance and understanding of Americans save what they saw on illicit Bollywood video night in Jalalabad allowed a very intelligent and competent group of well educated mass murderers to study, practice and train on that very soil with the intent to kill idiots like him at every opportunity. Those people understood them and treated them like brothers ... sexfests, stolen cookies, lefthand wipe and all. They were al equal in the eyes of Allah.

I was at the Pentagon on 9/11 so I have a special "I-Hate-You" for AQ that would make me suffer through any hardship I'd need to to not have to see my servicemembers burn to death or my fellow citizens jump 100 floors or 250 firemen crushed to death by 200 stories of steel. I'd live in any 3rd world hell to ensure that ... oh, in fact I have! I love it and offered another job I'd do it again in Iraq, the 'Gan, Somalia, ... anywhere. I'm an Arabist so I love this stuff, you... you're under orders to order #1-love this stuff.

Love your locals because if and WHEN the Talib and AQ come they will be finished with their smokes and sexfests and looking for their day of martyrdom or your head on a video. In fact your death and parading your gear off of your dead body would make a great trophy to show back on the village DVD in Khost or on Youtube!

For me, I'd laugh at my trainees silliness and guide them... with a few cigarettes or condoms or whatever they need within their cultural limits... I have had my gear stolen... a new issue TC-2001 helmet with $1500 of dual command headsets ... by an American right from my desk in the Republican palace... I've seen our own idiot solders say "Sorry we shot at you but you're not in uniform." Stupidity happens in every culture. Maybe they look at you and say... 'man those American guys sure are sexually frustrated. At least this keeps us away from heroin and a "I-want-your-women" knife fight in the local village' and those IEDs.'

'So, uh, What do you think Senior Chief?' Well Captain, this sailor needs to be assigned to a squad of ANAs as squad leader and a Pashtu/Dari dictionary of tactical commands... alone. Either that or to the fleet for immediate redeployment to Iraq (and to a COB, not a FOB) where maybe he can stuff his whining about Afghanistan and practice his skills. Please Poseidon, Neptune and Davy Jones, I beseech you... Make it happen! :mad:

[nichols]

Ahh, I sense a tad bit of humor from the Marine Corps :wry:

Hey, he's your problem...

...boat people :D

No way......he didn't go Marine Regs so he ain't a Devil Doc.

He's better suited to be handing out asprin to retirees like us in CONUS.

[Stan]

No way......he didn't go Marine Regs so he ain't a Devil Doc.

He's better suited to be handing out asprin to retirees like us in CONUS.

They do that in CONUS :confused:

On second thought, I agree with the Senior Chief...Put him on a boat to WAWA land !

[nichols]

As a Senior Chief

Senior Chief, I don't think that sorry excuse will ever become a positive Strategic Petty Officer.

On the other hand, this is a shining public example of the negative effects of a Strategic Corporal/Petty Officer.

Junior NCOs are more strategic then we like to admit.

I can't imagine a junior Officer publicly putting out this type of anti-American propaganda.

[Steve Blair]

Give him a stick and send him to go clear a field. Tell him to keep working until he hears a loud boom.:D

[Abu Buckwheat]

So true ... "ThePartisan" is probably loading this story to an Al-Fursan or As-Sahab associated website even as we speak! (to ASIO's delight I hope ...)

[nichols]

They do that in CONUS :confused:

No, but thanks for exposing my dream as a fraud.:D


On second thought, I agree with the Senior Chief...Put him on a boat to WAWA land !

I dunno, me thinks he could do a lot of damage to WAWA land.

I say stick him on a Carrier doing a 12month around the globe tour. No libo, not even Cinderella. When not doing his medical duties he should be bussing in the Chief's Mess. The lad needs close adult supervision, the rest of his life he can look at the Cruise book and dream of how it could/should have been.

[Abu Buckwheat]

CivLant or CivPac thats where he needs to go. The GWOT is an inconvienence to him. God save us.

[Sargent]

Seriously, you all need to open up and tell us how you really feel about this guy. [Insert appropriate emoticon denoting sarcasm here.]

[Tom Odom]

Seriously, you all need to open up and tell us how you really feel about this guy. [Insert appropriate emoticon denoting sarcasm here.]

Who's being sarcastic? :wry:

[Old Eagle]

I have a more fundamental question about the composition of this ETT and the apparent lack of senior leadership (not just rank). Am I being foolish?

[Sargent]

Who's being sarcastic? :wry:

I was being sarcastic, because y'all certainly weren't holding anything back!

I'm just not the emoticon sort, hence the text version of whatever smiley face would have fit and denoted sarcasm.

[Tom Odom]

Eagle,

Not foolish at all. I have long contended that a lack of leadership in small groups is more immediately corrosive than in larger groups because it is harder to get away from. Someone needed to pin this guy's ears back and they did not do it.

Tom

[Old Eagle]

I love all our sister Services like, well, sisters. I have recently heard reliable rumors:confused: that there is at least one 100% USN ETT serving with an ANA inf bn. That strikes me as a little strange, if true. There may be more of a culture clash here than we thought.