I am now three weeks an active duty sailor and have completed phase 2 of NATO pre deployment training in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The training covered the roles and organizational structure for the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, as well as methods to advise the Afghans on how to sustain their new government, military and police forces.<\/p>\n
The org charts are absurd, NATO has their own language of acronyms, the Afghans are painfully slow to progress, security dangers are as prevalent as ever, if not more so due to troop reductions over the past few years… it was hard not to be a little discouraged by the training. The SMEs were all either very recently redeployed or brought out of theater for the training and still have to return to finish their tours, so the insights provided were also a little jaded. Plus, death by powerpoint for 10 hours a day for 10 days straight made the training that much worse.<\/p>\n
But, in retrospect – even only a few hours removed – I am very thankful to have gone through the training as the learning curve when I get into theater will be far less steep and I will be met with\u00a0some familiar faces.<\/p>\n
Next stop, South Carolina to be issued gear and shoot guns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am now three weeks an active duty sailor and have completed phase 2 of NATO pre deployment training in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The training covered the roles and organizational structure for the Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, as well as methods to advise the Afghans on how to sustain their new government, military and police… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9IVlY-m","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/31\/niact\/","url_meta":{"origin":22,"position":0},"title":"NIACT","date":"August 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Navy Individual Augmentee Combat Training NIACT was HOT. Kevlar, plate carrier, elbow\/knee pads, gloves over a uniform and boots in 100 degree heat with 90% humidity ends up feeling like dawning 50 extra pounds of wet clothes. I learned a lot of army type things I was always curious about,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AFG"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chrisdonlon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/IMG_2358-e1471045663694-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":60,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/09\/17\/mod\/","url_meta":{"origin":22,"position":1},"title":"MOD","date":"September 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I got to shoot photos of an opening ceremony to kick off Rule of Law and Legal Issues training for Afghans. The photo shoot itself wasn\u2019t exciting; I generally hate taking pictures of people at a podium speaking to a group, or the grip-and-grin posed shots. But this event\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AFG"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2018\/03\/06\/new-blog-category-triathlon\/","url_meta":{"origin":22,"position":2},"title":"New blog category: Triathlon","date":"March 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"As I described on the about me page, I started this blog at the beginning of my deployment to Afghanistan in 2016. But, by the time I reached the second half of my time there, I was too busy to stop and write about my experience. Now that I have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Triathlon"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/09\/15\/cianos\/","url_meta":{"origin":22,"position":3},"title":"Cianos","date":"September 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"It's a pizza place with an Italian name, staffed by Indians and Afghans, and the TV on the wall\u00a0is always tuned to a Polish version of MTV. I've never actually seen a Pol in the restaurant, maybe its the only channel they can get? It's confusing to me but a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AFG"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":65,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/03\/peh\/","url_meta":{"origin":22,"position":4},"title":"PEH","date":"October 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Pohantoon-e-Hawayee (PEH) is the officer candidate school for the Afghan Air Force. It is a one-year program and upon graduation the candidates are commissioned as officers and then go on to specialty schools such as pilot training or maintenance engineering school. The school is on the Afghan Air Force base,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AFG"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/chrisdonlon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/image-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/11\/fkf\/","url_meta":{"origin":22,"position":5},"title":"FKF","date":"November 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Fat Kid Fridays. Fridays are really the only day we look forward to eating at the DFAC. Because Friday is the Afghan weekend and most Afghans do not work, it's a \"low-ops\" day for most of us\u00a0on RS HQ. This just means, unless something is going on, we don't have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AFG"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}