REALITY CHECK

I have had more than a few comments on how this particular deployment resembles more a vacation or a documentary one might see on the Travel Channel. Ok. You got me with that one. I won’t spend one minute denying that we in the C26 Detachment have it pretty good here. Primarily any deployment where the locals aren’t shooting at you or detonating car bombs in your immediate vicinity, then one cannot complain. In fact, as much as I hate to admit it, the US Navy has put a tremendous effort in taking care of us. They have really done an outstanding job. Our job is easy…but not everybody has it as good as we do.

I cannot begin to describe the poverty I have seen here. It is a overwhelming, crushing type of poverty that robs people of the will to live. Lack of water, lack of basic infrastructure, lack of food, medicine…the list goes on and on. We live in a completely different world. In fact, we might as well be on another planet all together. There is untold violence here, such as the ethnic cleansing in Sudan, and diseases and parasites we in the West have never seen before. It is not a pretty picture. Outside the major cities there are no malls, drive through restruants, a general lack of paved roads, electricity, sewage service.

Yet, despite all the hardship the people here (particularly the Djiboutians) are friendly and maintain an upbeat attitude. It’s like that in many of the countries I have been too-they just keep working against overwhelming obstacles to get the same thing we want back in the U.S.-having a family, and the pursuit of happiness. It is a truly humbling thing to view the world through this perspective.

You folks out there in Blog land actually reading this should know of the efforts of the other personnel on here at CJTF-HOA. These folks are here doing the real work. This is truly a combined effort here, with military personnel as diverse as combat engineers, civil affairs teams, The Sea Bee’s (the US Navy’s combat engineers…although, don’t tell them they are in the Navy. They consider themselves to be their own entity, and let me tell you…they are some of the hardest working people I have ever met) Combat Camera (and Air Force media unit) Military Vets, Doctors and the Chaplin Corp. We also have some US Army Infantry units from Guam and some Marine Infantry working with the Task Force. (These folks not only provide us with force protection and security, but they also train with the forces of the nations we are working with here in Africa). All of these soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen are actually out in the ‘bush’ as we call it-working hand in hand with local populations. It is tough, hard work that is rarely if ever mentioned in the mass media. While these folks are not chasing down terrorists, what they are doing is a vital relevant mission.

Most of these service people spend very limited time here in Camp Lemonier. The vast majority of their time is spent outside the wire, enduring the same harsh conditions as the locals (no hotel rooms for them…most of them live in tents or locally aqquired housing) eating MRE’s if they are lucky. They have little or no access to the luxuries we take for granted here at Camp Lemonier. But, despite the conditions, I rarely if ever hear them complain.

The missions are almost too numerous to mention. Some of the major ones include drilling wells, building schools and infrastructure projects, medical missions and vet missions call MEDCAPS or VETCAPS (performing simple medical procedures on people and animals that you and I take for granted but are almost unheard of here in Africa). It is hard, thankless work. But, to a man (or woman) they all LOVE the mission they are doing. Many of these people tell me it is quite rewarding to be hands on involved in helping the people from the host nations attain a better life. It is an amazing display of the American Spirit….and it is an important tool in the fight against extremism. You should all be very proud of what the military is doing here. Watching these young service people at work here really does put a dent in the media portrayal of the youth of America as wholly lost and stuck on watching MTV all the time.

It is my intent to document more of this, and get some more of the gritty stuff so you all can see a little better picture of reality here on the ground in Africa instead of documenting all the different hotel overnights of we C26 Guys.