Day 9 at NTC

[aadler]

 

I woke my team at 5:00 AM, and we packed our truck, readied our equipment, had breakfast and then grabbed a quick shave. We were ready to SP (start patrol) at 7:00 AM, the time we had been given; that had been later revised, so we didn’t leave until 7:30 AM.

I had expected it to be a hot, grueling, miserable day. It was quite a bit less than that. Hot, yes, but not devastatingly so, and there was a cooler breeze that substantially mitigated the heat. All five teams in my detachment were present, and we took turns doing a village scenario.

The village was excellent, large enough that other soldiers were doing lanes for their specialties in different sections, and there were more and better role players than I had ever seen anywhere else. My team was the third to make the lane … and it went without a hitch, smoother than a dream. When it was done, the OC who had been monitoring us suggested only a couple of things for fine-tuning, no criticisms.

What astounded me was how natural it felt. I’m a first-time team chief, never even been an ATL before now, and (at least within my specialty, other soldier skills still being a work in progress) I seemed to know exactly what I was doing and automatically do it right. For six years I’ve been getting by on sheer willingness to give whatever I had, but for the first time — the first time I was given a chance to try — it appears that I may be able to function as a full and effective member of my unit.

Back at the barracks tent, I sat down and wrote three scripts for various crowd-control scenarios I’d been given, and showed them to one of the translators, a man bunking just over from me. (Making his acquaintance was a huge piece of luck; he’s assigned to the lieutenant colonel running this FOB, he just won’t have any official duties for another few days, and expressed eagerness to help us while he could.) I showed him the scripts and requested his cultural judgment as well as his translating ability. He looked them over, and we wound up changing part of a sentence in the first script; the rest met with his approval as they were.

Okay: I’m good.

In the late afternoon, the interpreter — Samuel — took us over to meet the other interpreters: drink chai, visit and talk and develop amiable relations. The meet-and-greet lasted longer than anticipated, and toward the end a captain attached to us buttonholed Samuel for a project of his own. I’d been told to expect crowd control scenarios tomorrow, and that we’d have to be prepared to respond immediately, so I began to worry about whether Samuel would be able to prepare our recordings in time.

(One of the interpreters I met today, I discovered to be Catholic. So was a prominent interpreter with whom I worked at Guantanamo. We’re just all over the place.)

My NCOIC told me that he and our officers will be moving down the road in a few days, at which time I’ll be on my own, heading my team under the orders of people not from my unit, just as in an actual deployment. He further told me that the OCs had said my team was the best to go through the lanes (better than those headed by people I’ve been looking to as mentors), and that he’s going to write a set of citations for me, based on my activities here — assuming that I continue to deliver — that will powerfully affect my next performance review, and thus my prospects for promotion.

I knew I had been doing well, and was exhilarated by the knowledge. I didn’t know I’d been doing that well. Could it be that my long, torturous efforts at learning how to deal with people, period, has given me an extra facility for dealing with peoples of “respect” cultures?

Either way, I’m feeling really good now.

I sent my crew to evening chow, went to eat once they’d returned. I re-ordered my to-do list, wrote a script for warning of a mined area being (or to be) cleared by EOD personnel, but still dangerous for the moment; we’re being warned of a number of possible scenarios. I checked with Samuel, and he was just about to start on the scripts I’d given him. I worked up a desktop HTML page that described and would automatically access the sound files for various scripts.

It had been a busy day and I got a late start, but I took a try at further draft on “Queen’s Gambit”. By the time Samuel was done with the recordings I had requested, I had managed just under 600 words.

It’s 11:15 PM, and I’m going to bed.