This week I had to train on covering the night watch in the CJOC (Combined Joint Operations Center). It’s kind of like in the movies; picture\u00a0a big stadium style room, tiered work stations with several computer screens at each, large screens at the front and around the room with projected satellite or drone feeds… you know,\u00a0super secret squirrel shit. Now take that picture that the latest spy movie has designed in your head and downgrade all the technology and add in the thick layer of Afghan dirt and decrepitude; 8-10 year old computers, bundles of exposed and tangled cables, video feed that comes from a blimp that is tethered to a building on base rather than a drone or satellite, worn linoleum tiers and harsh yet dim overhead fluorescent lights.<\/p>\n
My job in this windowless cell of worker bees who are the first to know of and report anything that is happening in Afghanistan, is to report any occurrence in the middle of the night significantly worthy enough, up my chain of command so they aren’t blindsided by media queries in the morning. That’s the big picture of the job, but really, it’s to allow our night shift guy one night a week off, and during that one night, collect all media reports that come out during that shift, create a document of clips and full articles with an executive summary of trending articles of the day.<\/p>\n
This week I worked with our night shift guy, Rad, two nights in a row as training for when I have to cover for him by myself on Sunday. The work itself wasn’t that difficult, especially when there isn’t much to report. The hardest part was switching back and forth from a normal 8am-8pm shift to a midnight to 10 am shift. I hope the two nights were enough for me to handle it on my own, I really hope nothing happens operationally on my night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week I had to train on covering the night watch in the CJOC (Combined Joint Operations Center). It’s kind of like in the movies; picture\u00a0a big stadium style room, tiered work stations with several computer screens at each, large screens at the front and around the room with projected satellite or drone feeds… you… <\/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\/s9IVlY-cjoc","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/09\/12\/idf\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":0},"title":"IDF","date":"September 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night was my first solo CJOC watch. I went to bed early and then set my alarm for 2230 so I could get up and go to the gym to wake myself up before beginning the watch around midnight. The shift was going really well; I was ahead of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AFG"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/11\/11\/fkf\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":1},"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":[]},{"id":65,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/03\/peh\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":2},"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":29,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/08\/31\/niact\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":3},"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":87,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/28\/shelter-in-place\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":4},"title":"Shelter In Place","date":"October 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"It's 2200 (10 pm) and I just now got back to my room. This isn't an exceptionally late night, I've worked until 10 pm several times since I've been here. The difference being that on those nights, I was working. Tonight, I had very little going on; I browsed facebook,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "AFG"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":172,"url":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/27\/sdit-2018\/","url_meta":{"origin":47,"position":5},"title":"San Diego International Triathlon 2018 race report","date":"June 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"After my last sprint race, I pulled a calf muscle as described in previous posts. I stopped running for about 4 weeks to let it heal but then as I eased back into it, I stepped on some uneven terrain and re-injured the day before spending nearly 25 hours in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Triathlon"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/chrisdonlon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/img_0370-1024x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47"}],"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=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/48"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chrisdonlon.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}