NO REGRETS ~ An American Adventure in Afghanistan Read Online Free PDF

(CJTF-180) with complete visibility of all assets on the ground. I had to keep track of thousands of rifles, pistols, missiles, assault weapons, Hummers—any authorized combat equipment—and ensure that each one was on hand and functioning properly. Rob would transmit this data once a month or so to the commanding general via a military liaison or in-person. I knew where all my units were and had a listing of all authorized equipment on hand or on requisition that I updated consistently.
    If a unit did not have its complete complement of combat equipment, it was our job to liaise with the general staff (G4-Logistics) of the Task Force and with the Department of the Army 7 to expedite that equipment to the unit on the ground. The guys on the ground didn’t have time to wait on the Army bureaucracy. If they didn’t have the equipment, they couldn’t fight the war effectively. Rob and I were one of the cogs in the large bureaucratic wheel of the war machine.
    One of the most important pieces of our mission was ammunition accountability. The Army ran through ammunition in Afghanistan like a fat man drinks water in the desert. It’s a constant flow. My job was to ensure that ammunition was being properly controlled and that none of it was lost. A stinger missile lost on the battlefield is a huge deal. One stinger can bring down a Chinook full of up to forty Special Operations soldiers. No one wanted to be the guy who allowed that to happen. Rob and I were one of the checkpoints in the road to prevention of that kind of tragedy.
    Once I was firmly entrenched in the position, I did my best to ensure that we brought no unnecessary madness to the processes. I was always mindful of a maxim of Nathan Bedford Forrest: “Get there firstest with the mostest.” If I was slowing the combat guys down, the infantry, artillery, and Special Forces guys who were out there fighting in the hinterlands couldn’t fulfill that maxim. That might contribute to mission failure or worse. My ineptness or incompetence might contribute to the unnecessary death of a soldier or marine. That wasn’t something that I wanted on my conscience. I took that attitude with me to every position in which I served in Afghanistan.
    In most contracts we worked 12/7s meaning twelve hours a day, seven days a week. It took time to get used to these long days. Unlike most of KBR, I sat behind a desk with a computer. I spent a lot of time screwing around on the Internet. When a customer came in, I helped them. If there were no customers or documents to process, I cranked the tunes and read a book or surfed the Net for news or whatever. There was no Facebook to while away the hours in 2003, though I did spend a lot of time on Kentucky Wildcat websites arguing over the qualities, or lack thereof, as regards Tubby Smith and “Ball Line D.”
    After Rob gave me the rundown of the office and filled me in on the Army team, he introduced me to people around the office. Rob was the first guy on the ground for our piece of the contract. He was a retired Army chief warrant officer. The guy was more knowledgeable and more professional than any warrant with whom I had worked in the Army. He was a pretty humble fellow with a quick wit and ready smile, but skinny as hell. Afghanistan didn’t help in that area at all. If you liked eating greasy fried chicken every day of the week, the Bagram dining facilities are wonderful places. If you were accustomed to good food and variety, you were probably not going to be eating at every meal. I think Rob skipped a lot of meals.
    Rob was easy going, didn’t stress over bullshit, and kept the KBR bureaucratic turds off of my back. More importantly, he maintained excellent relationships with the Army guys with whom we had to work. Because of Rob, we always enjoyed outstanding rapport with our military counterparts. He even got on with guys that he hated.
    I wasn’t like that. I let it out. If I didn’t like you or thought you incompetent,