The job

Me and my buddy in the helo, with our eyepro

I've been here over a month now, and I haven't said too much about the actual job, mostly because I've been trying to figure it out. The short answer is that I am Deputy Chief of Plans & Programs for the Joint Engineer (JENG) of US Forces - Afghanistan. The commander of USFOR-A is General Petraeus and he has a robust staff that covers planning, logistics, operations, human resources, engineering, legal, etc in support of the US Forces serving in combat here.

For those of you who know me in my civilian work environment, I am an 'influencer', meaning that I have little authority, but a lot of influence on those who have authority. Not so, here. Military operations are unbelievably complex and require significant planning and staffing and are usually lead by the logisticians or the planners, rather than the engineers, so I am pretty low on the totem pole here. The big guys figure out what they want to do, and the engineers tell them how to do it.

But anyway, the first few weeks I spent trying to figure out how I fit into this great big organization, and how to obtain the info I needed, and I was very confused by it all, so I re-read the Staff Officer Handbook and realized that my main responsibility is to be an 'information integrator.' Once I had this epiphany, I realized my job was to meet the people with the info and figure out how to gather it all up in a fast, regular and reliable manner.

Hence, the Battlefield Road Show has begun. The only way I can figure this out, do this right, and make a difference is to meet the people that I serve. So my staff and I will be doing Battlefield Circulation for the next couple of months. I travelled locally last week, and this week had a few days out east. I travel by air which is reasonably safe, convenient and fun and I meet engineers all over the place... from all branches: Army, Navy, Airforce, civilian.

Looking down from helicopter

Beautiful mountains in background