No Office No Equipment

            So I have come to Afghanistan as a JAG, and whenever I would tell people this often times they would respond by saying: "What do JAG’s do over there?"  My answer was always, "yes we deploy, and we do a lot of the same things that we do in America over there too, plus there are additional very interesting jobs to be done as well.  Such as helping with the Afghanistan court and legal systems, and working on detainee operations.  But yes there are several of us over here and all of us are working on a variety of things."

            My job while I am over here is to continue what I have been doing for the last year at Fort Leonard Wood, defense work.  I defend Army soldiers who are accused of violating the law, UCMJ, orders etc.  My job itself hasn’t really changed, just the environment in which I am doing it.  Or I should say will be doing it.  One of the tasks myself and my co-worker have been given is to open a new office.  A lot of the focus for a long time had been in Iraq and with operations there beginning to shut down it has given trial defense services more manpower to focus on covering the soldiers in Afghanistan.  Kabul has several camps and FOBs in the area and there has not been a TDS office in the region.  So that is what my partner and I were sent here to do.  He has been in Iraq for almost a year doing defense work and decided to extend his tour in order to help establish this office.  The problem is, there is nothing.

            Well I guess I shouldn’t say nothing we do have a building and it has been wired, however the building is four walls and a roof, there are no offices inside, and there is no equipment at all, no phones, no computers, no paper, kind of a difficult situation to run a law office in.  So the second day in Kabul and I scratch my head again and think, "Ok what now?"  How do you establish an office when the only other person you know in the region is working with you and trying to figure out the same thing.  To be honest this post may be one that continues and evolves into other posts, because honestly we are figuring it out one day at a time.  But, here is what we have figured out so far; we have a building, we are going to be sharing with the IG (inspector general) and now it is in the queue to have walls constructed, ours will be insulated to try and reduce the amount of noise you can hear in order for use to keep client confidentiality; and we learned we need to get a UIC (don’t really know what that stands for) that will allow us to get equipment.  Ok, so we are getting there, but it is difficult, we established accounts on the computer system by borrowing a computer in the commands office, but not all the stuff on our accounts works right so now we have to figure that out, and more importantly we have to figure out how to get some computers and a printer and phones, it is hard to have an office that is supposed to service an entire region when no one can reach you.  So that is where we stand with the office in limbo and working one day at a time trying to figure out what to do next.  Did I mention yet that my time here has been interesting so far? 

All I can say is one step at a time, once we get computers and phones I guess we will figure out where to get office supplies.  I am kind of an office supply nut so I did bring several different types and colors of pens so assuming we can find some things to write on we should be good to go.  Until the office is up any running my co-worker and I have been finding different places to work out of, the first day we worked in the coffee shop on base, but it was noisy.  The next day I discovered the library, this is a building with several books and magazines, it is kind of an exchange system, if you are done with your books you bring them there and you can take others.  Anyway, it is quiet and has three couches and a coffee table in it so we are able to kind of spread out and utilize the space and the better internet connection (better for over here).  This is an area that has been difficult for me, I am a worker, when I start work I work and I work hard.  From the beginning I was told that I would have a smaller case load here then I did at Fort Leonard Wood, but that there would be stuff to keep me busy, and I’m sure there will be once we are able to work, I mean really work.  Hopefully this will happen soon, they told us that is should be something like two to three weeks to get the offices built, so we just really have to push hard to get equipment, not sure where that is going to come from but we will figure. 

I just keep telling myself, how many people, at this point in the operation, can say that they started an office from the ground up?  I mean most people now just come over and take over the office from a unit that was previously here or fill a spot of someone who just left who was doing the exact same job, but as a Captain myself and the senior defense counsel are making an office from the four walls of the building, literally.  Kind of a cool experience even if it does mean a slow start or case work.