"Fixing" the Army

It's been a fun month or so here in Kandahar since my last post. July is the hottest month of the summer and the heat effects everything. The overall climate here is similar to Las Vegas or Phoenix, but with one major difference - Electricity. Stable, reliable electricity.

The trend in America (and also the NATO countries) since the Wall came down has been to downsize the militaries - cut the nonessential functions and create the "leaner, meaner" military that can deploy anywhere on a moments notice. This we have done, but in the process have created something we didn't anticipate - a bonanza for contractors and suppliers.

Armies used to be huge - they were designed to be entirely self sufficient in hostile territory. There were entire units dedicated to such seemingly non-military and mundane things as Power Generation, Laundry and Bath Services, and Pipleline Installation and Operations. Yet, when operating in the field, these units became indispensible to support the soldiers. But huge Armies are hard to move and very expensive to maintain in peacetime. Once the Wall came down, we decided that we didn't need these "luxuries" and, in keeping with the corporate strategy du jour, downsized them and outsourced them. However, in using this corporate model, we have become dependent on the contractors to literally keep us running. Let's look at electricity as an example.

In America, we take electricity almost completely for granted. It is almost always there, and when its not, there's normally a good reason. It is also stable - we know that when we plug something into a wall socket that the current will be 110 volts - not 175 or 39 or 500. Here, it is neither omnipresent nor is it stable. The most stable power source here is generators (yes, I'm ranting on generators again, sorry - big part of my life here). Yet generators are mere machines, and like most machines, need maintenance.

Generators are probably the most critical item in the Coalition's effort here in Afghanistan. Grid power is, at best, unreliable in most parts of the country, if it is available at all. Here, in Kandahar City, grid power is on for maybe 18 hours out of every 48. When it is on, it is very "dirty", with spikes and drops - both of which are damaging to anything depending on it. Voltage regulators and surge supressors are essential, as are Uninterrupted Power Supplies to keep things going through the spikes and drops, and outright outages. So much of our effort depends on technology that is electrically driven that I do not believe I am reaching too far with my first sentance of the paragraph. Simply put, without generators, we fail.

Unfortunately, in our quest to downsize and streamline, we have lost much of the inherent capacity we once had to maintain our generators. Every unit used to have Generator Mechanics on its manning roster - no more. The tactical generators have been simplified, "soldier-proofed", and the maintenance has been shifted to a much higher echelon, with the result that the Generator Mechanic positions were consolidated, downsized, streamlined, and, for the most part, eliminated. Most of the time, however, we are not using tactical generators though - we are using commercial grade generators just like the ones you see at construction sites or next to critical facilities. This is where the lack of mechanics hits hard - we expect that since we can outsource the generators, we can outsource the maintenance too.

I'm sure this made perfect sense to guys like Rumsfeld. No need to carry these "non-essential" functions when they could be outsourced. This was how we made the Army "leaner". And it wasn't just Generator Mechanics, but Cooks, and Electricians and Plumbers and a myriad of other specialties that don't make much sense in a garrison army in the US, but make a huge difference in the field.

In the US, if something like a generator fails, one simply opens the telephone book, looks under "generator" and starts calling until a satisfactory deal can be arranged. The odds are generally better than even that the work will be completed competently and things will be back to normal very quickly. In my house recently the main spring on my garage door failed. Within 48 hours my wife was able to contact a reliable contractor who replaced the spring, checked the rest of the operating mechanism and offered a warranty on the work for a reasonable price.

Here, the first challenge is that there is no telephone book. You might try an internet search, as some firms have found the web, but if your generator is out, you may not have power, so that is not a guaranteed method. The solution here is to have a "fixer". A fixer is a guy who knows everyone, or at least convinces you that he knows everyone. You tell him the problem, he contacts someone (most likely a relative) who has some knowledge ("some" being very relative) of the problem who will come fix it for you. There is no certifications, no guarantees that the guy who shows up has ever even seen your particular type of generator - his experience may be on repairing bus engines, but they are both diesel and that is close enough... for them. Oh, and the fixer gets a cut off the top - probably from both sides.

The "mechanic" who shows up (or the electrician or any other "professional") may or may not have tools, most likely will not have basic parts like filters or fluids. You must supply these or pay an extra arm and/or leg to have them get them. They, more often than not, know where to get them while you do not. They always say that they are going to "the bazaar" to get things - I wish I could go see this bazaar - we've had them get everything from folding chairs to 200 amp main circuit breakers to wireless routers to the aforementioned generator filters. I figure it must make Costco look like a poor imitation. In reality, it's just a matter of knowing who to talk to and negotiating a price. The mechanic will generally tear into whatever the problem is, creating a pile of nuts and bolts and miscellaneous pieces until the unit is completely non-functional. Then he will announce that he does not have a requried part, tool, or capability and must go back to the shop. Once he returns, most likely the next day, he will masterfully put everything back together again and announce that it is now fixed. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not, but that will just mean another service call for him, for now he has established a relationship both with you and your fixer.

The result is that both the US Army and our Afghan allies are now dependent on these maintenance services. We do not have the personnel with the expertise to train the Afghans, and they do not have dedicated Generator Mechanics on their manning documents (because they copied ours) so they fall into the same cycle/trap. The end result is that lots of money ends up changing hands to ensure that the generators (and the plumbing, wiring, HVAC, etc) keep working - with less than optimum results. I have to wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to add a Generator Mechanic, an Electrician, and a Plumber to every units manning document - but that would go against the leaner Army. Oh well.

It’s Hot – And It’s Barely Summer!

We topped out at 118 in the sun today (a mere 110 in the shade). It’s going to be a long hot summer the way things are going.

One of the things we have managed to accomplish here is get the Afghan Officers addicted to Air Conditioning.  They are adding them right and left – and not central air-type A/C – they add individual room units that cumulatively draw a huge amount of power.  Unfortunately, most of them have no concept of where the power comes from – they know that the generator does something (for when it is off, there is no power) but they cannot seem to grasp that the generator has limits to what it can produce.

I find it interesting that the climate here is very similar to Phoenix, Arizona – perhaps just a shade warmer, but pretty much the same. In Phoenix, the most common type of air conditioning is the “Swamp Cooler” – basically a fan that draws the dry air through damp filters, then blowing the now cooler, moister air into the house or office.  Here, they act like they’ve never heard of such a thing.  The air here is certainly dry enough (thank the maker – if it were any more humid it would be unbearable) and we have plenty of nonpotable water…. Hmmm, maybe a fortune to be made – or not.

The demand for air conditioning leads, in turn, to a demand for larger generators, which, in turn, leads to rewiring entire complexes to handle the increased circuit loads. This cycle is magnified many times over, for basically everything, large and small.  Today, the senior US mentor here was asked, in the form of a demand, to provide carpets (rugs) for the floor, curtains for the windows, and doilies (I’m not kidding) for the tables.  Our response was to tell them to fill out the Afghan Army/Police requisition forms and send them through their own channels. Oh, no, that cannot be done, for they will not fill the order, we are told. So why should we be expected to do what their own government will not?  I was asked to provide a hot plate for boiling water for chai – I told them that I would donate 5 dollars if everyone else would as well and someone could go to the bazaar and buy one, since I would use it too.  Oh no – we should provide it for them, for we have more money than they do.  Riiiight.

We asked the Afghan Officers last week what is going to happen when the Americans and Europeans leave this country. “We die” was the answer given.  Hard to build a country when even the senior Police and Army Officers have that attitude.

It Just Goes to Show You… It’s Always Something!

It’s getting to be summer here in Kandahar – getting to be is defined as over 100 degrees most days but not yet over 115 yet.  The temperatures put increased strain on everything, but mostly on the electrical infrastructure, what there is of it.

A note on my limited expertise here – my first real job was as a mechanic’s assistant for a small construction company. As such, i learned a great deal about small and mid-sized diesel engines, generators, and air compressors.  Who knew that 30 years later, that experience would come back to help/haunt me.

On the police side, we’ve been wrestling with two overheating generators since before I went on a much-needed leave in June.  They were starting to overheat then, when the temps were just in the 90’s during the day.  By the time I got back in late June, they were going down every afternoon for 4-6 hours. Finally, we figured out that the radiators had become clogged with a mixture of oil and dust – oil droplets from a leaking crankshaft seal on one and from spilled oil beneath the other had combined with the omnipresent dust to almost completely clog the radiators.  This, combined with the fact that the generators are sitting in direct sunlight let to them overheating anytime the temperature went over 100 degrees – which was every afternoon.  We had to totally disassemble the cooling systems and remove the radiator assemblies and send them downtown to clean them (no pressure washers available here).

Within two days of fixing that, the main circuit breaker tripped and wouldn’t reset. Investigation showed that it was a 160 amp breaker. We knew from the readouts on the generator that they were pulling more than 160 amps from time to time – and this proved it for sure.  So we requested that it be replaced with a 200 amp breaker.  From what we can tell, the electrician installed it backwards. It lasted one day then destroyed itself in a spectacular fashion, almost taking the rest of the circuit box with it.  When we went to replace it, the new electrician refused to put another of the same brand in – saying “That is cheap Chinese shit”. We sprung for a Siemens breaker (7 times as much) that easily weighed twice as much as the Chinese one.  As we were installing it, we noticed that it was counterintuitive – we are used to installing switches with “on” at the top and “off” at the bottom – but in this case, the breaker had to be mounted the other way – in tiny letters molded into the housing it had “load” on one side and “line” on the other.  Load being the use side and line being the supply side.  We turned it around and so far so good.

The very next day, we started to have serious problems on the US-side of the base.  We have been “blessed” with two bona-fide US certified contractor electricians.  So far, almost everything they have touched has been degraded. First, these experts told the commander that we really didn’t need the roof over the generators as the generators don’t need shade.  In the words of Bill Cosby’s Noah… Riiiiight!  The very next day we overheated a generator – FOR THE FIRST TIME!  Since then, it’s been a series of power outages as they attempt to “fix'” things that were working fine. Today they managed to short out the main switch box – twice, both times resulting in fires, melted cables, and no power during the heat of the day. They, of course, blame it all on the shoddy work done by the Afghans, but we had no problems of this type until they started playing with things.

At the going rate, it’s going to be a long hot summer.