At my job

So, what is your job?

Another good question that warrants a good answer. First off, I am an Airman filling a Soldier's billet. Basically, about five years ago the Army asked the Air Force, "Hey Air Force, we are really hurting out there for folks to fill important jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan - would you mind sending some of your folks our way to help us out." Reluctantly, the Air Force said, "Sure." So, although I am still wearing the Air Force uniform, I am performing a job that would have otherwise been filled by an Army engineer (or so they say). Regardless, I'm here and proud to be so.

As an Airman filling an Army tasking, I do basically whatever the Army wants me to (within reason) and this job is well-suited to my work experience. See, the biggest push in Afghanistan right now is to field a force of local nationals as soldiers and policemen in the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) so that the rest of the country feels secure under their own governmental agencies. In order to do that, we have mentor teams all over the country. PMT's (Police Mentor Teams) help train and equip the ANP (Afghan National Police) and other police entities. The ETT's (Embedded Training Teams) do the same for the ANA (Afghan National Army). PMT's and ETT's are all throughout the country (you can imagine) and their mission is basically the same - to get the ANSF to efficiently operate autonomously without having to hide under an umbrella of corruption or greed. It's a BIG job!

The country is broken up into several regions - the details of which I will leave out - and each region is made up of many provinces (akin to a "state", though it is governed more like a "county"). Under the ANP (the side of ANSF I deal with the most), each province has districts and provincial headquarters. All of these facilities need to either be repaired, built, or modified. Additionally, the PMT's who are doing the actual training and equipping need places to live and work as well. This is where I come in.

My job is to make sure the PMT's and ANP forces in my region have adequate facilities for living and working. I do that through the help of several other US servicemembers who monitor individual projects near their areas of operation as well as by making personal visits to job sites or potential sites. This does require me to go "outside the wire" more frequently than the typical "Air Force" job, but it is also more rewarding than any other job out here I can imagine.

Like every job it has its highs and lows, but as an engineer, I can say unequivocally that the highs have so far outnumbered the lows by a long shot! Even in this short time I've been here, I've cleared over a quarter-million dollars worth of construction invoices and seen a project go from a brand new idea to work order to approval to funding to results! And I've only been here for a month!

Anyway, that's my job. I could ramble on about the various aspects about it that get my goat or a specific site that's really exciting to work on, but I'll save that stuff for when I get back.

God Bless!