What should also be obvious, but isn't effectively put into practice, is the desperate need for unified coordination of all elements with some stake in the game, not just military commanders and civilian chiefs running independent operations according to their very capable, but un-coordinated judgment. Such ops almost always have some detrimental overlap to the best interests of other efforts.
How to tell you that I do agree.
The funniest in the story is that I am one of those relief workers and my personal life looks just like yours: mud and dirty places in forgotten war zones with less than few weeks at home with my family... THhs just to point out that relief workers and militay have most of the time the same ####ty family life at the end. Therefore boundaries are even thiner than we think.

What you are pointing out is exactly what I would like to see/to be. The main problem is that there is a feeling of being absorbed by the humanitarian community from the military and a feeling of being absorbed by the military by the humanitarian community. Which I believe both true and an opportunity for both.

The real question is who stays in command. And the main blocage does not come from the military but from the humanitarian community. It is "stupid" because humanitarian agencies are having political goals and agenda and are bound to political civilian leaders. But the romantic understanding of humanitarism being independant is still strong while the practical implementation of humanitarism is 200% political. And that is why I stand on a moral approach of war.

I also believe that the fact that humanitarism is based on moral values is somehow scary for soldiers or military bodies. But war is a deep desagreement settled through violence between respectable gents. Or should be. starting from there, humanitarism is just making there to remind the boundaries of respectability (humanity?) and patch the disagreement of that way of settling issues.

I think an important question is whether we have anything at all precisely resembling a "war zone" between OIF and OEF. In both Iraq, where I spent thirteen months over 2008-2009, and Afghanistan, where I am settling in for a spell, there are no battle lines - only geographic and societal blobs that are less bad and more bad from our various perspectives.
Well, looking at history shows that the frontline and clearly define war zone is a myth. I never worked in a place where you have A war zone and A nonwar zone. The only example to tell I am wrong that comes streight to my mind is the WWI. But wars are no more conducted that way.
In somehow, we are all rediscovering the weel and it is mostly because the capacity of relief societies to enter in the very heart of the war has increased. What happend in Swat Valley show also that we are trying to go reverse. But unfortunatly, it is impossible to empty a whole country from its population. And should not be done. That is why, according to me, soldiers have to benefit from the increase of humanitarian laws and concerns. But most look at it as more limits.

Good luck in Afghanistan.