TwoSpade’s Deck

Background

It all started with a LtCol wanting to train troops to use our product (CIDNE) in Kuwait.  This apparently started several months ago.  Three weeks ago, it was handed to me to coordinate with the military side to make it happen.  This part was not without complication and frustration.  After several emails and phone calls, it was clear they wanted to use the new server for training that would happen on May 19th (a date that changed twice).

Originally I wasn’t actually going on this trip.  The systems guy I went to Basrah with was going to go.  However now that the time table was moved up, he had a schedule conflict, and no one else was available.  This sucks for a few reasons, but the biggest one (for me at least) was the pay difference.  Kuwait is not considered a war zone, so hazard pay is out, and because I would be staying on military bases the whole time, I would also not be getting the “per diem” rate for staying in Kuwait otherwise.  Also, I could not charge any overtime while I was there despite pretty much working with their guys from the time I woke up until I went to sleep.

Because the travel required delivering Secret material across borders and would require constant supervision while en route, I was partnered up with our Site Coordinator, Elissa.  It would turn out this wouldn’t be as necessary as we thought, since the server was picked up almost immediately by the military as soon as we hit the ground in Kuwait.  Her motivations for going were more simple, as she had just not gotten to travel to any of the other bases since she’s been working here, even though she really wanted to.  She was really excited.

I have been on two trips, my motivation being getting a job done and checking Black Hawk ride off the list.  My excitement was…limited.

Time to Go

Just getting the flight setup a pain all around.  Scheduling a flight down there was confusing, as we applied for a flight on the 16th and instead got scheduled for one on the 22nd!  Elissa tried to setup a flight through another service and ended up with a flight for Sunday the 17th, which was really cutting it close to our deadline install date (a date which now that I’m back is comical).

I am currently scheduled for the night shift, so because this would all be happening during the day.  This of course added to the complication of coordinating travel and talking to the people we were meeting in Kuwait because everyone sent emails and made phone calls while I was in deep sleep.  I had to depend on people during the day passing information on to me or hoping that I would get the information I needed the next day from the email I sent the previous night.

The day of the trip I slept in and came in early in the morning.  That’s when the adventures really began.

First, the server wasn’t working 100%.  There was a strange error that it was getting that no one seemed to be able to solve, and we were just going to box it up without fixing it and just deal with it on the ground.  Second, the network guys on the Kuwait side had still not sent us IP addresses for the new server.  Having this information ahead of time would make things much smoother for the install because we could test all the components with the real settings already configured.  There wasn’t enough time to do anything about the error and we had to wait on the IP addresses from the network guys in Kuwait, so there was nothing to do but pack it up, and worry about it on the ground on the other side.

Quickly, I did my most important task of the day: setting my Facebook Status.  I shut down my laptop when my SIPR (Secret) machine dinged.  It was an email.  With our damn IP addresses.  That’s just great.  The server is already duct taped in the box!  I wrote down the IP information on an index card as fast as I could and we hopped in the car.  Just not enough time to get everything just right.

This is where the story gets a little funny.  Everyone jokes about how easy my flight schedules are and how I never have delays or removed from a flight for military priority.  Well of course, today would be the day that I get bumped and have to sign up for “Space Available.” I had to be there in two hours for the next flight.  Two hours eh?  That’s right, my luck with travel continues!  Although I got bumped from my flight, it gave me an extra two hours to fix my server and configure the IP’s.  Perfect!

We floor it back to the office carry the server BACK into the server room, hook it back and up, and get cracking.  When the pressure is on, the system team really seems to pull it together and get it all done, as we got all the IP addresses assigned and configured and resolved the error we were getting (which turned out to be a damn check box).  Relieved, I got back in the car with the server and went back to the airport to catch the flight.

The Trip

The flight was on a C-130 again.  Again, this is always a lesson in discomfort.  It was also too loud to talk, so  Elissa used her iPhone Notepad and handed it to me to communicate with me while we were in the air.  Eventually she fell asleep and I stole the phone for a while (my PSP was in my bag, unreachable) and did some Sudoku.  Thankfully it really helped make the time go by, and it seemed like we landed right around the time I finished my puzzle.

A Night to Kill

Once we landed, the first part of our mission was to get our visa, as we had to leave Ali Al Salem Air Base to get to where we were installing the server: Camp Buehring.  Unfortunately, this is a 12 hour process.  They apparently have to take our passport, drive it all the way to Kuwait City, get it stamped, and drive it back.  So, we would have to stay the night there in transient housing.  That is, a tent with bunk beds:

Our second mission was to find the military contacts we had so they could take the server off of our hands and coordinate with us when to pick us up the next day after we got our visas.  This ended up being really easy, because they found us at the counter where we went to get our visas.  This is most likely because Elissa was easy to pick out, as females are in short supply on most military bases.  Not being a military guy myself, I didn’t really understand who these guys were, and it was later explained to me that having a Sergeant Major escorting you around and helping you lift a server into his truck is kind of a big deal.  Thankfully, he was a really cool guy when ended up helping us out several times throughout the trip.

They took the server, had dinner with us at the chow hall, gave us a number to call when we were ready to get picked up, and headed back to base with the server, so the heavy lifting part was pretty much over.  Now it was just a waiting game for our passports.  I decided to spend the time exploring the base a little.  Amusingly, there were some things to see around the base:

The Easy Part

Early the next morning Elissa and I met up and got our passports back and called to get picked up by the Sergeant Major DeBauge and Sergeant McCoy again.  I ate some more unhealthy food for breakfast (I’m going to be on a treadmill for hours this week making up for this little trip) and they got there right around the time we were done.

They gave us a mini-tour of the surrounding area and we tried to go to a couple shops, but we didn’t get to see any camels along the road up close and we got up too early to hit the Kuwaiti shops (which Elissa was particularly excited about).  The ride there was like driving through Nebraska and/or Kansas except, instead of fields on both sides, it was just sand, as you can see:

Once we got there, they took us to where we were staying.  Again, not really knowing who I had with me, we walked into a tent full of MP’s who I would be staying with.  All of them looked very surprised and a little worried.  First of all, there was a female in the tent with them, so the Sergeant Major said “I don’t think you are supposed to be here.”  Oops.  Also, they were all just killing time until they got a flight out to Baghdad, so they were not really put together.

They gave me a cot, and answered all of the Sergeant Major’s questions at attention.  They soon sorted out that the girl in there was the only MP in their squad that was a female and she was in a tent by herself next door.  This was a concern because of the attempted sexual assaults and kidnappings that have been reported on several different bases, so they kept her close.  He forgave them for the situation, but said to come to him next time so he can resolve it properly.  Around that time I grasped that I was probably dealing with someone with more authority than I realized.

Tonight of course, Elissa would be staying with the female MP.  I felt bad that the guys I would be staying with that night kind of got busted because I happened to be sharing a tent with them and was being escorted by a high ranking guy, so before we went to install the server, I tried to make piece by asking “You guys seen the new Star Trek movie yet?”  None of them had, so I tossed them my thumb drive and said “Take it!” and pulled out my portable hard drive “and these too.”  (Piracy FTW!)  They were really excited and told me they would hook me up too and copied some movies for me to my hard drive after I left.  Of course, their gratitude would continue after I got back in a hilarious manner.

But first, I had to install the server on the rack and get things moving.  They took us to a pretty nice building and I met one of the guys I exchanged several emails with about where I was installing the server and what I needed.  He showed me where to put the server, and Elissa and I put the server in there, despite the rack being pretty old and actually not being the right size for our server.  It stuck out the back, and we had to take down some of his power strips in order to fit it in there, plus we had to bend some of the metal of the front posts just to screw in the railing system.  But it got in there dammit.

Now all we have to do is plug it in -”oh yeah you guys still aren’t authorized to be on the network, you’ll need to talk to 581st.”  The guy he hooked me up with at the 581st was the one who gave me the IP addresses about 5 minutes before I left.  The end of his email said “You are not approved for the network yet.”  I thought they just needed to ask me a question or verify some paperwork or something.  Oh how wrong I was.

The Brick Wall

Our contact at the 581st wasn’t available, so we ate lunch to kill some time.  I was eating 3 meals a day while I was out there, which is odd since I’ve really only been “eating” 2 meals a day and kind of snacking/drinking 4 others a day for my whole diet/workout thing.  My metabolism probably still hates me right now as I’m writing this.

We finally got to meet with the 581st network guy and he delivered us the bad news: he isn’t the authority that can give us network access.  The conversation ended up leading us to find out that despite all the reassurances I got in my emails about it “not being a big deal” to get IP’s and approval for the network, it was a huge deal.  There is some great big authority in Kuwait, either called the RNOSC or ARCENT, or both, or I don’t know because the whole damn thing is confusing, but they insisted they had to have a meeting about it on the 21st.  Wait…what?  I’m supposed to have this server installed by the 18th, and you want to have a meeting 3 days AFTER our deadline?  Suddenly our two military guys started pulling some rank and talking about how this whole project got started but it was concluded that their hands were tied and we’d have to deal with these new people.

By deal with these new people, I mean continue to get stonewalled.  It was like no one on the network side knew that we were coming, even though this project was set in motion 5 months before I was even a part of it.  “How did you guys get this far without talking to us about the paperwork involved?”  How the hell were we supposed to know you even existed?

Obviously, there was a breakdown in communication between this 581st and the actual authority that let them do their job, which again, is just hilarious.  Pretty much we had to send the same paperwork we already sent to the local network guys (the ones actually in Camp Buehring) to these God-like network authorities who had to give it their blessing.  My boss, being who he is best, included the document from General Petraeus saying that our product is one of the ten programs necessary to do the job we’re doing out here (in simple terms: A BIG DEAL).  Surprisingly, this actually prompted a smarmy response basically saying “That’s great that you are obviously well established, but we have a more important job of making sure you system isn’t redundant.”  WTF!?

We gave them as much paperwork as we could and made all the phone calls we could for the day, and finally just had to say “Okay, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”  We ate dinner (what a concept!) and then they dropped us off at our tents.

How to Kill a Guy Trying to Rob You at the ATM

You probably think I’m joking about my subtitle there, but as I explained, the MP’s were suddenly big fans of mine for hooking them up with movies.  In return, they decided they wanted to teach me how to defend myself from someone holding a gun up to my head, stomach, side, and back.  Also a couple of tips for what to do about someone with a knife.  It was a little nerve racking at first actually, since they took one of their actual side arms, took out the clip and checked the chamber and gave it to me and said “Hold this up to my head.”  All in all, it was pretty interesting and informative, however who knows how my nerves would actually hold up with a mugger holding a gun to my head.  Will I remember all the steps they taught me?

The other part that was funny was them trying to show me how some of it worked on each other.  The reason is, they know all the counter moves and the proper way to stand and protect themselves from their own moves, so they kept telling their partners to “stop doing it properly,” so that they could show me.  Of course, they all talked about what they would do in situations that were a little more advanced, and argued about the proper way to handle those things, which included interesting topics like “Ranger Knife Fighting,” and “Blocking a Knife with your hand.”  Nice.

A while later, the guy sitting next to me, a big fella from Kentucky who the guys several times quipped with about being a “country boy,” showed me pictures of his family and just chatted with me.  He also gave me some expensive sunglasses, explaining that they were sponsored by Oakley and they sent them new pairs to stress test all the time, so he didn’t need them anymore.  Awesome.

Once I finally tried to get some sleep, I realized it was going to be rough.  I didn’t bring a sleeping bag with me, as I figured I’d just rough it and use a borrowed blanket from one of our friends at the base.  My big friend poked me later and said “you’ll freeze to death tonight if you don’t take this.”  He gave me his sleeping bag, as he already had his cot setup otherwise.  Him being a big guy, I actually fit in it.  I slept great considering the cot.  Elissa of course, told me the next morning, she didn’t have such luck and was freezing.

Those MP’s are supposed to get stationed at Liberty, so I’m hoping to run into them again, but it is a big base, so it might not happen.  Cool guys though.

Still a No

The next morning, we met for breakfast, my MP buddies of course were already up and gone, and actually spotted me on the way back from the shooting range and shouted “My man!” from across the way.  I guess I made an impression.

The next few hours we basically just waited.  We waited in Sgt McCoy’s office, stopped by Starbucks, we waited at their MWR facility to kill some time, killed the battery of my PSP…

Finally after lunch, and patience started to really wear thin, we started making phone calls to check the status.

The status was they still wanted to have a damn meeting on the 21st.

Things started to get ugly.  Suddenly General officers were being brought up to fight battles to make things happen and apparently the stakes were raised to that level on both sides.  This was getting way out of my hands now.  Two Generals were going to call each other and argue over turning on a port of a switch for a server I just installed.  How the hell did it come to this?

It was concluded there was no way it was going to be resolved today, and probably not even this week.  Now the trainer and Sergeant Major looked to us and said “So are you going to wait here?”  I told them I would call my boss, and thankfully I got the answer I wanted to hear: “Nope, come home.  I’m not going to have you sit around and wait for them to get their shit together.”

We had them drive us back to Ali Al Salem and now had to do the same process over again, because of course Kuwait requires an exit visa too.  I killed time with my PSP, and we signed up a for a Space Available flight in the morning.  Without a hitch, or delays, I once again got the flight I wanted and made it home.  Also, for a change of pace and also for much more comfort, it ended up being a C-17 with actual passenger seats.  Without the server to worry about anymore since we left it in Kuwait, hoping they would come to their damn senses and turn the port on, the trip home was easy.

I stopped by work and explained to them more than what I could on the phone.  They understood, which was a relief to me, as I felt like I had been put in charge of something and somehow didn’t come through, but it is obvious that someone on the military side didn’t do their part, and now we were going to have to deal with that.

Rest

They didn’t need me for anything else, and pretty much wanted me back on nights, so I decided to just go back to my room and pass out.  Of course, this is what I found when I got back:

They were doing maintenance on all of the AC units on my row.  I had to wait a couple hours before they brought it back.  It was not pleasant to be sweating in my room just sitting there, but once they gave it back, I slept like a baby.

Aftermath

Followup emails were lists of demands that included so many acronyms for paperwork they wanted filled out and so many explanations that I really didn’t know what to do.  All of this was sent to me, and they were asking for meetings during the day, so obviously I got a little stressed out.

This problem is currently still on going, and unfortunately isn’t simple either.  They are asking for several things that may even require us retrieving the server, so “we” may have to go back and get it.  We also have a manning problem out here, because our Site Lead had to take emergency leave and we had no one to replace him, and we are pretty much functioning under new leadership.  This may turn out fine, but not having the original folks that worked on setting this up will probably make things harder.  Elissa loved the trip, so she volunteered to go back, which might work, since if they can ship the server and she can just go back and retrieve the hard drives (the only part that is technically “Secret”), we can avoid having to send me down there…

Unfortunately, this problem has also taken a back seat, as this week we have had a crisis and a software upgrade.  The crisis involved part of our database being deleted accidentally, and having to coordinate a restore of backups on all of our servers in theater.  To put things in perspective, our product is basically a webpage that interacts with the database.  No database, no product.  Thankfully, it worked and we are back online.  Software upgrades always have complications, however this last one didn’t have any problems during the upgrade, only code issues after that had to be resolved.

So, again I apologize for how long it took to update you all on my trip, but needless to say, between my trip to Kuwait and the issues we’ve had to take care of here, I’ve been pretty busy.  Let’s all hope there isn’t a Part II to this story and they just turn the damn port on though…

P.S. Current Pirated TV Show Obsession: Dexter

(Should I be disturbed or complimented that someone said I look like the main character?)

This entry was posted on Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 6:04 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.